I'm a bit late in the game to be throwing in an opinion about Sherlock. However, I can say that its fandom is alive and cancerous on my college campus to the point where they and the Whovians have become nearly insufferable.
Strangely, in Vegas, us nerds had learned how to pass unseen among the normies. Out here the nerds have taken over and frankly, I don't much like it. Mostly because, now allowed to run rampant, all I ever hear about is bow ties.
Anywho, back to the BBCs other hit show, the modernization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. John Watson.
For the most part the show succeeds quite well, and you don't need me to salivate all over the show like the rest of the internet (damn you Tumblr-girls). The show's cast is fantastic, certainly a step up from the god-awful Guy Ritchie films. I liked Snatch as much as the next man, but seriously, something went very wrong in the making of those films: everything.
Benedict Cumberbatch, despite looking like some kind of mutant badger, wears the dear-stalker well, and his interaction with Martin Freeman's Watson is the highlight of the show, coupled with his dealings with various characters.
The show has several recurring characters from the original stories, ranging from Lestrade to Irene Adler and Moriarty. Each of these characters is finely portrayed, and the show thrives when it is drawing from the source material as much as possible.
This leads me to my biggest gripe with the show, which has also become one of my bigger gripes with Doctor Who since Steven Moffat took over. I'm a clever guy, and fairly proud of my abilities as a writer, part of which is knowing where my strengths lie. Moffat can dish out some damn fun dialogue, but the man is nowhere near the genius that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was, and Sherlock suffers the same fate as any piece of fiction starring a genius character who is being written by people who are not geniuses.
Moffat sets up elaborate and clever plotlines that only serve to entangle themselves, and the resolution never strikes me as satisfactory. This happens most visually in Doctor Who (each bloody series finale) but it is still readily apparent that he's trying to build on what occurred in the original stories, and embellish them, practically screaming, "Look how clever I am!"
(Also, Benedict Cumberbatch totally can't play violin and it drove me out of my mind).
This is the first in a series of 2012 film reviews.
So, in a word, Looper was kickass. Now in keeping with being a 'bitter film cynic" according to one of my newer friends (a title I intend to live up to), I did have some particular complaints about the film. I'll get to those in a bit.
The first point that was brought to my attention was the way the film glosses over time travel. Mayhap I'm getting soft in my old age, but this didn't bother me. The writer/director Rian Johnson himself stated,
"Even though it's a time-travel movie, the pleasure of it doesn't come from the mass of time travel. It's not a film like Primer, for instance, where the big part of the enjoyment is kind of working out all the intricacies of it. For Looper, I very much wanted it to be a more character-based movie that is more about how these characters dealt with the situation time travel has brought about. So the biggest challenge was figuring out how to not spend the whole movie explaining the rules and figure out how to put it out there in a way that made sense on some intuitive level for the audience; then get past it and deal with the real meat of the story."
That said, I can deal with the deficiency. What I can't deal with is the fact that the film sacrifices a lot of the possible character interactions. We have Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Old-Joe (Bruce Willis) and after the diner scene, they don't interact with one another for the rest of the film. There's a vague notion but all the potential is dropped midway, like a train run out of steam.
Spoiler Warning: Let me put it this way, Joe describes seeing the future laid out in front of him in the final moments of the film. What do they always say though, "Show, don't tell." Looper had, as I said, so much more potential to delve into the alternative versions of each character.
And that's not the only thing that chafed my britches. The biggest thing that bothered me again was a failure to utilize the established potential. In this case, the TKs. Telekinesis really had no impact on this film. It was there, it was shiny, and it offered up a pretty cool visual of blowing up Garret Dillahunt. But if you really think about it, none of the character arcs, none of the emotional beats would have been altered had the telekinesis been completely struck from the plot.
I'll focus on the ending primarily. It was big, flashy, and offered the chance for Cid to change his mind about atomizing Old-Joe. However, if we cut it out, and kept with Cid running into the corn and escaping, Old-Joe preparing to shoot Sara, and Joe realizing the closed loop it would create, nothing changes.
We are lead to assume that Cid uses his telekinesis to become the Rainmaker and begin closing down the loops, but seeing as we're only told about this, and not shown, any person with an imagination (and a hellion of a ten year old with a temper anywhere in the vicinity of their life) can probably figure out just as plausible an explanation for Cid's transformation into the Rainmaker.
Hold onto that hairline kiddo.
So, two big complaints? Failure to live up to potential, and ensure that plot points were necessary as opposed to simply flashy.
That said, pretty much everything else kicked ass. I mean, really I was on the edge of my seat for a better portion of the film. I won't espouse everything here, but I'll ramble through some of my favorite aspects. Joseph Gordon-Levitt really impressed me here. For the first twenty to thirty minutes of the film I was simply blown away by his ability to capture a majority of Bruce Willis' mannerisms.
And let's face it ... these two don't look anything alike.
When asked about the experience, Bruce Willis had this to say,
"I was sitting across from Joe across a table. I was supposed to act and get all my lines right, but I just found myself looking at him and thinking how weird it was. It was an honour. It’s really a strange thing to see someone that looks like a young version of yourself. He’s a great actor, I love his work and I just love what he did in this film, ‘Looper.’ He picked up some of my cadence of speaking, which was odd, and yet, really cool at the same time."
Reading about the makeup Joseph Gordon-Levitt had to wear was another triumph of the film. Despite the oddity of it, I don't know if I'd have noticed had I never seen him in a film before. Hard for me to say. I pay attention to these things, but until I sat down and looked, I had no idea how intense the makeup really was.
I will also say that the ultimate fate of the character of Seth was possibly one of the more mentally disturbing things I've ever seen in a film. Kudos!
Another year down, another apocalypse survived. Congrats everybody!
It's been a hellova year for me. I lost someone very close to me, transferred to an out-of-state college, and learned how miserable a primarily top-ramen diet can be.
At the same time, as the old song goes,
Now I have moved and I've kept on moving,
Proved the points that I needed proving,
Lost the friends that I needed losing,
Found others on the way ...
It's been a real journey for me, in ways that I've tried to keep out of this blog, which I've had for nearly a year now. I'm not much for New Years Resolutions, but I think it might be high time to kick this puppy up to 11.
In the next week, I'm thinking about film. I had a lot of time to kill over Christmas break and a lot of movies and shows to catch up on in the midst of my ravenous social life (not sarcasm, I have an awesome circle of friends).
Look forward to a string of retro reviews on some of 2012's releases.
It's strange that the genres I fell in love with are turning against me. If you allow me to digress for a paragraph or two ... or three, ah who knows. I tend to ramble.
There is a strange three-way schism in pop culture. We are drowning in Apocalypses, Monsters, and Superheroes. Normally, these three things are at the top of my list, but in a day and age where what seems like more than 90% of pop culture has to be remakes, re-imaginings, and sequels, I just want to yell, "ENOUGH ALREADY!"
I've noticed a steady downhill trend in my movie going, nerdy-excitement experience since about 2009. Media has turned to shit. I know this because I can go back and see why I was excited for these films. They were fairly novel concepts!
I loved all these movies, and partially cause I didn't see exactly where they were going. This year, I barely left my house to bother, and when I did, I was frustrated. I wrote long reviews denouncing Prometheus and Dark Knight Rises' quality. I did, admittedly enjoy Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers a lot.
I'm just damned frustrated and you people all need to know it. I mean aren't you guys tired of tired tropes that media and pop culture is beating our creativity, integrity, and sense of quality to death with?
But thankfully the revealed clips indicate that Tony Stark's trilogy will hopefully culminate in an emotionally satisfying and cathartic installment. That is what I'm hoping. The trailer for Iron Man 2 just looks shiny, and that movie was a big steaming pile of poo--shiny poo, but poo nonetheless.
So what do we see?
Well, Tony admits to not being able to sleep, referencing the events in New York during The Avengers, leading to the impression of a more emotionally vulnerable Tony Stark. Through the trailer we see Stark systematically stripped of his home and his Iron Man suits. It seems similar to the concepts behind The Dark Knight Rises, taking everything away and having the character come back ... or die. Either or.
If not for the scheduling of Avengers 2 (and the seemingly never-ending series that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is becoming, but I'll get to that), I'd be half expecting them to kill him off, especially after Downey's comment that he would like to "leave it all on the field."
Also worth comment is Stark's new suit, which reverses the red and gold motif, and takes inspiration from the Extremis storyline. We also see if moving on its own, which is a frightful concept. Stephen King would have a field day with a possessed, autonomous, evil Iron Man suit.
Also, excitingly, the villain, Mandarin, is being played by Ben Kingsley, and Guy Pearce will be geneticist Aldrich Killian, one of the creators of the Extremis technology. Marvel can, at the very least, never be faulted for their casting.
So, overall, I'm certainly far more excited for this film than I have been for most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Other than Avengers, everything since the Incredible Hulk has been sub-par for a variety of reasons.
The unfortunate part, is I can't imagine what kind of resolution the character will meet in this film that won't leave him open to further exploitation in future films. Granted, being a long-time fan of Whedon, I'm not worried about Avengers 2 in terms of quality. I just like it when a series knows when and where to call it quits and actually end.
But can I blame them? No. When you've got your hands on one of the most successful cash cows of cinema history I certainly wouldn't let it go either.
Oh, and the film will be released May 3, 2013.
PART 2
This leads me to my second point, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If I didn't make it clear, LET IT DIE. We're now in phase two of the entire shebang. We culminated the 6 part series with the 2012 film Avengers, and Nerds wept/jizzed/raged across the globe, and it knocked the box-office out of the park. That was the climax to phase one. Where, I beg you, will it end? Phase three? Four? Five? Marvel doesn't have a great running streak of letting their comics end, and I wonder if they will continue these films until the actors actually get too old to play them anymore ... and then maybe they'll just Ruffalo in new actors.
The Thunder God (Chris Hemsworth) returns next in line, and 'will have to save the nine realms from an enemy older than the universe ... which begs the question, "How was the Big Bang?" Actually, the actor cast is Christopher Eccleston, which really begs the question, is Thor battling a Time Lord?
Anywho, he will get to team up with his girlfriend, Padme (Natalie Portman) again, but what nerds really want to see (believe me, my school is crawling with them), is where Tom Hiddleston will next take Loki's character. He's stated he'd like to take him to rock bottom, and see where to go from there.
The film will be directed by Alan Taylor, who has worked on the television series Deadwood and Game of Thrones. Writers Christopher Yost and Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely will take over for the film, and since most of them don't have wikipedia pages, I don't think there's much I can even say about them.
The film will be released November 8, 2013
Captain America: the Winter Soldier
Cap (Chris Evans) will continue to struggle with living in the Modern world, and they will bring back his friend Bucky, who will now be a brainwashed Russian soldier. The plotline is near direct from the comics, which is cool, I like Bucky (moreso in the comics, but after the Covenant I'm a little overly harsh on Sebastian Stan).
Originally Rogers adjustment was to included in the Avengers, but it was deemed to fit better in the Captain America sequel. Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely return as screenwriters for the film, but Joe Johnston will be replaced as director by Joe and Anthony Russo, who are best known for ... their ... work in sitcoms...
... Strange choice.
The film is scheduled for release April 4, 2014.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Oh.....kay. This is about where they start losing me. I mean, I know I'm not an in depth comic book nerd but I thought I was well rounded (mostly read Batman comics), but I've never even heard of these dudes. In the concept art we see Drax the Destroyer, Groot, Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and Gamora. I don't know them, but they look fucking weird. I mean ... Rocket Racoon? According to my quick glean from the interwebs there is a talking dog?
The only grace this film has is the soft spot James Gunn earned in my heart for Slither, who has been signed on to direct.
The film is scheduled for release August 1, 2014
The Avengers 2
Okay, so this I am excited for, but it's Joss Whedon, so if you couldn't have predicted that already, you really didn't pay attention to my Avengers review. He has signed on to return as writer/director, and I couldn't be happier about the choice.
He has promised a smaller Avengers, saying "Normally, a sequel is supposed to be bigger than the first film, but I actually think it should be smaller. In saying that though, people might ask 'Is the volume of the film going to decrease?' but that's not the case." He adds, "Of course, new characters will be added but presently we're still trying to figure out how they'll encounter our wonderful cast (referring to the actors from the first film). They all have tremendous respect for each other and how you work the new characters into that synergy is something I'm still trying to figure out. I think instead of how big of a scale the movie/story is, the most important thing is, how much devotion you can put forth. Films have an ability to be large in scale but also be personal. It's a godsend that makes the issue of adding characters irrelevant. The real question is how deep we can dig down into the story."
... I'll just leave it at that.
The film is scheduled for release May 1, 2015
And lastly, the last announced film is ... Ant-Man? Seriously, who cares? I mean, the guy grows giant. Cool. I'm not sure if the character still has fans out there. If you are an offended Ant-Man fan, sneak into my house and write your complaints in blood upon my wall. Or leave a comment cause you're probably a lazy wanker.
The film will be helmed by Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright, so at least their will a quality team at work in the development. I just don't know how much I will care.
The film is scheduled for release November 6, 2015
So! There you have it, my knowledge and expectations. Let's see how much changes and whether or not I'm forced to eat my words. Cause I totally know there will be one asshole out there who will remember everything I said today in late 2015 when Edgar Wright blows my mind (haha, not likely).
The biggest question this begs is "Why?" I don't understand why this film was made. I could say it's for the money, but at this point, I don't think Raimi or Campbell are particularly short on it, and the Evil Dead series wasn't exactly a cash-cow to begin with. It was a cult classic of a beloved loud-mouthed braggart, a boomstick, chainsaw, and his chin.
Just can't separate this man from this franchise.
Granted these elements weren't really in the first film at all, but it was what developed and what stayed with the fans, so much so that they created Evil Dead: The Musical.
Which was totally groovy live.
And I feel, based on the trailer, the musical is a much more rightful successor to the franchise than this .... thing.
Based on the trailer, certain elements are there. College kids, cabin in the woods, Deadites, Necronomicon, chainsaw, possessed hand, washed away bridge ... but none of the spirit. It just looks gory, and not in the enjoyable 80s low budget kind of way. I guess it's just a personal thing, but this trailer does little more than send my stomach into a series of gymnastic flipflops.
Here's my stance, I'm not thrilled by an Evil Dead remake in the slightest. My advice to you is conveniently already in the trailer though.
The Kingdom Hearts guys just jizzed in their pants.
So right now the nerd kingdom is being polarized by the newest of juicy geekdom trivia. There are two very vocal groups, one who has their heads firmly embedded in their ass, and the other who is pissed that said space is already occupied because we are itching to ram a foot up that particular orifice.
This momentous event that has Fanboys losing their freakin' minds is that Star Wars creator George Lucas, the guy who accidentally the whole Original Trilogy and, with God-like fanfare delivered the most anticipatory case of ED and anal leakage in all of cinema history.
But fear not! For the minds behind the biggest franchise monopoly in Hollywood, Marvel's Cinematic Universe, Walt Disney Company, has come to sweep the beleaguered Lucasfilm from its erstwhile creator, who has locked it away in a tower with a avalanche of books, movies, video games, comics, and merchandise. So just what this franchise needs is more bloating, right?
Cause here is the thing, after spending $4.05 billion in cash and stock, we've been promised another home run from a dead horse. Hell, even Bioware, the guys who handed us the glory of RPG entertainment, Knights of the Old Republic, fell down on the job on The Old Republic. That one fell out of public eye in between blinks, and not a heart skipped a beat anywhere.
So, in 2015, we can expect the next cinema installment to the Star Wars Saga ... which I had rested comfortably knowing was dead and entombed under the weight of the infamous "Nooooooooo!" heard round the world, and it can go one of two ways, cause no matter how much I ramble on here in my widdle corner of the interwebs, something tells me my readers are not comprised of the Disney Development Team and that they are driven by a sensation of quality as opposed to this mythological substance always in short supply (especially to Disney execs) money.
So I digress. It can go one of two ways. Tron: Legacy, which I thought rocked. It fell into the category with Star Trek '09. I recognized that it was not the original, and it was not trying to be. It took loved aspects and made them accessible to modern popcorn guzzling crowds. Cool.
The second option I call Iron Man 2 (lookup Ryan Wieber's review to see why). Now Marvel had a damn good thing going, and despite my love of Whedon and the Avengers, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk were the best films of the series. Then Disney came rolling in with its damn mouse, and the next thing we know, the left field house of cards got hit like the east coast by Sandy. (Too soon?)
Either way, I know for a simple and sad, possibly existential fact, that no one gives two flying shits about quality. It's about money, and brand recognition is the surest and easiest way to put fat asses in theater seats. (just wait till the torrenting/starving college kids actually grow up). So guess what, new Star Wars movies on the way.
All I know is that I miss the Disney that brought us Adventures in Babysitting, with the main line, "Don't fuck with the babysitter!"
Benedict Cumberbatch, despite looking like some kind of mutant badger, wears the dear-stalker well, and his interaction with Martin Freeman's Watson is the highlight of the show, coupled with his dealings with various characters.
