Summer 2014 Round Up Pt 2

Well, we talked about the movies that were really good, now let's talk about the movies that sucked hard.

5. Transformers: Age of Extinction


Okay, I'll admit, I didn't actually see this one. Did it really warrant watching it though? It's still Michael Bay in the directing chair, it's still the same dumb writing, and it's still way longer than it has to be. Seriously, there's no reason for these movies to be pushing Lord of the Rings time.

4. Maleficent



This one really hurt because I was really intrigued to see what Disney would do with a story revolving around its most well -known villain. Turns out, the movie didn't really know what it wanted to with her story either. It certainly didn't give a rat's ass about staying truthful to the source material. Seriously, her most iconic scene is when she turned into a dragon, and she doesn't even turn into a dragon in this movie.

Actually.... Yeah, fuck it, I'm gonna do a later blog post about how to fix Maleficent. Moving on.

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles



Okay, I'll admit again, I didn't see this one either. But let's put it this way: Michael Bay decides to put his own spin on a popular franchise and he gives the responsibility to the director of such hits as Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of the Titans. Sounds like a blockbuster to me.

2. The Amazing Spider-Man 2



Fuck Spider-Man. He's too busy cracking jokes to stop the asshole that's running over cop cars and innocent civilians. He also won't give a blood sample to his dying friend because it might not work. Well hey, at least you could say you tried, dumbass. And of course, the sole purpose of this movie was to set up the Sinister Six, who apparently aren't building their own weapons, they have already been built, all OSCORP has to do is hand them out like Secret Santa gifts. What's that?Setting up backstory and motivations? Ain't nobody go time fo dat! We just have time for the cutesy romantic subplot.

1. A Million Ways to Die in the West



Seth Macfarlane used to be a good writer. The first few seasons of Family Guy are actually hilarious. I even enjoyed Ted immensely. The last few seasons and this movie have proven that there is one thing Seth Macfarlane reigns supreme at, and that's sucking his own dick. Here is the thought process on this movie "Hey I want to make a movie where I'm the underdog who gets into a fight with Neil Patrick Harris over a woman, then I get to kill Liam Neeson, and I get to make out with Charlize Theron" yeah, this is just Seth Macfarlane's salute to his own ego. A salute to the laziest comedy writer who is still somehow successful. A writer who has written the same formula for a show at least three times and yet his shows still keep getting greenlit. And a director who made the brilliant decision of spoiling all the 'best' jokes in the trailer. Who in their right mind would think spoiling a Christopher Lloyd cameo would be a good idea? Don't get me wrong, I think Seth Macfarlane is a talented guy who can write some very clever stuff. However, it's much easier for him to fall back on his usual formula, and it's even easier for him to get wrapped up in himself.

Summer 2014 Round up Pt 1

So here we are, the end of summer. School is starting, the days are about to get shorter, and life is about to get all the more stressing. But before we get to that, let's talk about, what else, the summer movie season. When it comes to the movies that come out during the summer, it's usually a hit or a miss, and most of the time, it's easy to spot which ones will be which. For example, I don't think any of us really expected to be blown away by Ninja Turtles, but we all had high hopes for X-Men Days of Future Past. Well, for those of you who aren't able to decide, here are my picks for what rocked and what sucked in the summer of 2014.

Let's start with the best movies of Summer 2014:


5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier



Okay, so this one came out in April, so technically not the summer. But it was still a good movie and I didn't get a chance to review it, so I'm putting it at the bottom. I'll admit, I don't really care much for Captain America. I only saw this movie because I wanted to be up to date for the next Avengers. Surprisingly though, for a movie that was directed by the knuckleheads behind the majority of the episodes of Community, I was really surprised by how much I liked The Winter Soldier. I' m a sucker for political spy thrillers, which is essentially what this was, just throw in a guy that has a giant metal frisbee for a weapon. The strongest part was how the turned Hydra from a Nazi organization to an underground, illuminati-esque society. Plus, it introduced me to what is probably the greatest Marvel villain in history, Batroc the Leaper!

 Try NOT saying that in the most over the top french accent ever. It can't be done.

4. Godzilla



I had some really high hopes for this movie. I can never say no to watching any of the older Japanese movies, and I think we all found the Matthew Broderick movie from 1997 to be the most offensive thing to Japanese culture since "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips". Go ahead, look it up on Youtube. It's pretty bad.
I know a number of people had some issues with Godzilla, and I can't say that I didn't either, but the things that director Gareth Edwards got right, he got really right, and I'm looking forward to anything else that he might be doing in the future.

3. The Fault in Our Stars



Yes, I am man enough to admit that I teared up when I watched this movie, and my girlfriend had to comfort me a little. So what?! I was a huge fan of John Green's book, and the whole time that I was waiting for this movie, the one thing I kept thinking was "Please don't fuck this up. Please don't fuck this up". Thankfully, the film makers did anything but and made a very good adaptation that actually stayed truthful to the story and didn't feel the need to split it into multiple movies. Yeah, it can be done.

2. The Guardians of the Galaxy



I've already gone over this movie enough so I don't really have much else to say about it, except that I;m debating if it should take the number 1 spot instead of what is sitting there in its stead.
P.S I am Groot

1. X-Men: Days of Future Past



Yeah you knew this was coming. I hate to sound like a broken record, but this truly is the best X-Men movie to date, it may be the best Marvel movie to date as well. It was great seeing all of our favorites, especially Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Hugh Jackman is still perfect as Wolverine, and can anybody honestly say that they aren't open to seeing more of Peter Dinklage? More Peter Dinklage and the most minimal amount of Halle Berry? Sounds like my kind of movie But beyond that, it was nice to see a summer movie where the motivation behind the writing was an actual story with actual characters with actual motivations that we could actually identify with, even the villain to the extent. I'm not talking about the sentinels of course, those were fucking scary. I'm talking about Peter Dinklage's character because Peter Dinklage is the fucking man. But the real scene stealer was Quicksilver, who I am glad to hear will be appearing in the next movie with a bigger role.

Robin Williams

I've always been a fond believer in the power of words, particularly the power of positive or jovial words. In fact, one of my favorite quotes, and quite frankly, the quote that sums it all up is this quote from comedian and world class gent, Craig Ferguson:

Laughter has always been a great way to help people get through rough times, whether it's grief, stress, or depression, I've found that laughter truly is one of the strongest medicines. I know that because laughter has helped me get through those very things in my life. It is for that reason that I am truly grief stricken at the passing of Mr. Robin Williams. Flashback to a few years ago. My parents were separating and, if you have been, or you know someone who has been through that situation, you know that it isn't easy on anyone, especially the kids. It was one of those periods of time where I put on a smile in front of everybody else but was always sulking whenever I was alone. The only thing that got me through that period of time was, you guessed it, laughter. And there were three people that I always turned to the most to brighten my day:

1. Craig Ferguson

2. Monty Python

3. Robin Williams

Robin Williams was one of those people, from his jokes, to his movements, to the way he spoke, to his facial expressions, there was always something that could make people laugh. Whenever I think about Robin Williams, the first thing that comes to mind is the picture at the top, the one with the outrageous smile that was probably emitting ludicrous laughter. He just had this power to make you smile no matter what was going on that day. We all remember as kids when we laughed ourselves silly listening to him voice the genie in Aladdin, and as adults we laugh ourselves silly at his stand up routine.

And it is for that reason that I find it all the more tragic that his death was a suicide. I'm seriously hoping that it turns out to be something else because I am rattling my brain trying to get my head around the fact that such a hilarious man, who had such a talent for helping people not only find enjoyment in their lives, but find it at times where it seemed impossible, was having just as hard of a time finding enjoyment in his own life. I almost wish I could have told him how his stand up brightened my day and brightened the day of so many other people. He gave the gift of laughter to so many people, and in the end, it turned out he hardly ever received that gift himself.

Rest in Peace, Robin Williams. May the gift of laughter that you gave to so many of us continue to be given to so many more.

The Difference Between "So Bad It's Good" and "Just Bad"

In recent years, there seems to have been an increasing popularity in movies that are so bad, they're good. The most popular, and probably the most popularof these movies is The Room.

For those of you who don't know, The Room, is known as being the Citizen Kane of terrible movies. It tries so hard to evoke emotion from its audience but only ever evokes endless giggles. What is intended to be a cold, thought-provoking drama is instead getting more laughs than a Wayans brothers movie, not like that's saying much, though. Same goes for another, slightly more mainstream film called Showgirls, which was intended to be a look into the lives of strippers in Vegas, and was meant to be a serious drama, despite having dialogue tidbits like "Man, everyone got AIDS and shit". These, amongst other cult favorite movies are put into a category of movies that are so bad, that they are actually enjoyable.

Compare that, to some more mainstream movies that have just been reviled by audiences. Movies like Transformers 2, Batman and Robin, or even Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. What is the difference between these two categories? How is it that a movie with a ham sandwich budget can have more fans than a multimillion dollar movie, that also made millions in theaters?

The Intention

Remember what I said about what The Room and Showgirls were trying to be? They were trying to be commentaries on different areas of life, such as romantic relationships and the lives of vegas strippers. It's knowing that is what they set out to do, and seeing what they 'saw' about these things that makes them so hilarious. One more recent movie is the always enjoyable Birdemic, which is intended to be a horror and romantic movie, that also serves as a cautionary tale of what will happen to the planet due to global warming. And apparently, the future of our planet holds fire-breathing birds that sound like WW2 planes dive-bombing. Yeah, that's threatening. And really, that's part of the hilarity of these movies. It's that they are trying to say something deep but they are getting lost in all of the other fluff that they just had to include, such as over the top dance numbers, playing football in tuxedos, and multiple sex scenes that are really just the first one, copy and pasted over and over again at later parts of the movie. The other thing about intention is that it's hard to take a movie seriously when it's trying to make a statement about its subject matter even though it's being told by someone who clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. They haven't done their research, they don't have enough experience, or they are conveying it through hilariously bad dialogue.

Budget to Effort Ratio

The funny thing about the movies I listed under "Just bad" is that when you think about it, despite having huge budgets thrown at them, some good actors, among other things, they should, by all accounts have turned out better than they did. So what the hell happened? With big budget movies, sometimes there is a degree of laziness involved in the production. Take the dialogue in Phantom Menace for example. It isn't extraordinarily bad, it's just not good either. It's just bland. And considering that the actors in the movie, some of them oscar nominees and winners, are all giving the same performance that's more wooden than Treebeard, the blame has to be placed on the screenwriting and the director, who must have been telling them to be clunky and emotionless. How about Transformers? Sure, there was some variety in the dialogue, but the humor in all three movies either falls flat or insults the audience's intelligence. The writing in all of the Transformers movies ranges from trying too hard to just not trying at all. Hell, I think Optimus Prime's narration essentially says the same thing throughout all three movies. The fights are the same, the story is always the same, all of the robots look the same, everything looks the same throughout the whole franchise.
Compare that to The Room. For those of you who have read Greg Sestero's book, The Disaster Artist, you know that the filming of the movie was a living nightmare. But at the end of the day, the one thing that Sestero notes about everybody in the production is that they took it seriously. Yeah, most of them knew that the movie was gonna blow, but they were willing to see it through to the end. Tommy Wiseau himself was extremely passionate about the project from start to finish, the only problem is that he didn't know what the hell he was doing. 

And I suppose that there is an element of sympathy involved in some of these more indie productions including The Room and Birdemic. You know that the person making the movie is spending every penny that they have to make their dream of being in the movies a reality. Hell, Manos: The Hands of Fate was directed by a farmer using his barn as most of the sets. On a subconscious level, you are almost looking for something about the movie that's worth while so that you can come back for multiple viewings. At least in that regard, the movie won't be a complete waste of everybody's time. With the bigger budget bombs, you know that everybody got paid handsomly and for the most part, the movie made a ton of money at the box office, so if you don't bother watching it, what's the harm?

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, that being Showgirls, which paid a ton of money ($2 million from what I have read) for its screenplay, was directed by a guy with some credibility and even starred some well known actors, and it ended up bombing at the box office and ruining everybody, as well as the NC-17 rating. Though I guess that last part isn't so bad.

Dialogue 

Okay, technically I already addressed this, but here's a final thought: the most enjoyable aspect of horrible movies is the laughable dialogue. As a sucker for good dialogue and someone who quotes movies endlessly, I can't help but throw some good lines from The Room into everyday conversation, especially with someone else who has seen the movie. You'll just be carrying on a conversation and you just randomly say "Anyway, how's your sex life?" Next thing you know, both you and your friend are speaking in weird french accents and speaking in run on sentences. It's great fun! Unfortunately you'll both sound drunk and deranged.

The Trouble With: Video Games and Movies

Video games and movies have never made good bedfellows. Think about it. Any time you see a game based on a movie, you only buy it because you like the movie, and then the game itself ends up sucking balls and then you realize it was just a slapped together attempt at grabbing even more of your cash.

 Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between. This one is from over a decade ago.

The relationship doesn't work well in vise versa, either. Any time a studio tries to take a video game and adapt it to the big screen, it usually ends up sucking hard.

Again, exceptions, but this was still over ten years ago. Since then, our video game movies have mostly just been
(Ben Kingsley is revealed as the villain halfway through? Jumpback!)
(Do people actually see these movies? They keep making them)
(You forgot about this one, didn't you?)
In recent years, the number of movie video games seems to have dwindled to almost none, but the number of video game movies, or at least attempt at making movies, has skyrocketed. In recent years, Hollywood has 'confirmed' several movie projects that have all gone nowhere. The most famous of them being

Splinter Cell starring Tom Hardy
Assassins Creed starring Michael Fassbender
Bioshock directed by Gore Verbinski
Halo produced (maybe directed) by Peter Jackson
Uncharted starring Mark Wahlberg

All of these projects were anounced at least two years ago and nothing has happened with them since.

So the question has to be asked: Should video games and movie be intertwined? Rather let's break it down into two questions

1. Should video games be made based off of movies?
The answer to that is yes and no. No, they should not be directly made off of the movie that has been released. Yes, they can make video games that tie-in to the movies.

Take all of the Star Wars related games for example. Of all of the Star Wars games that have been made, very few of them were straight up adaptations of the movies. Their more successful games have all been spin-offs or other stories told within the universe.



This one is a fan favorite not only as a game but as a story, and it takes place hundreds of years before any of the movies take place.

This puts you in the shoes of a soldier fighting the major battles of the series, and you get to choose if you want to play the level as a rebel or a stormtrooper.

 

Both kickass games. Criminally underrated.

Star Wars isn't the only franchise to do this. The Alien and Predator franchises have done similar games that are not necessarily based on any movie, but still tie in and are sometimes canon to the films. You can still make games that have a movie property tied to them, but they don't have to be the exact movie itself. The Alien and Star Wars franchises, being that they are science fiction, have a rich lore and expanded universe that fans want to see, they don't want to live through the events of the movie all over again, they can do that just by watching the movie over and over. It's the opportunity to explore the universe outside of what we saw in the movies that draws us to games like Knights of the Old Republic or Alien: Isolation. And more importantly, it gives fans the opportunity to branch out and create their own stories because lord knows every Star Wars fan ever has fantasized about being a Jedi or a bounty hunter.

Should movies be made from video games?

My answer is a definite hell no. For starters, video games have always had a history of making shitty movies. Thanks in no small part to hack german director Uwe Boll, but we'll get to him another time. Video games don't translate well into movies. In the older days it was because the story was too simple or because the studio wanted to add their own touches to it and we end up with shit like this
(No, you didn't read that wrong, they really got Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper)

Nowadays, it's because the games that they want to make into movies already have a cinematic feeling to them. The movie made itself, and then it gave the audience control of what happens in the story. Not only that but the games also added in an element of choice to the controllable character. The majority of the popularity behind games like Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed and Bioshock is giving the characters control over parts of the game. Do we go with route A or route B? Do we spare this person or kill them? A lot of times these options have a huge impact on how the rest of the story goes, and can change the ending in a big way. How would a studio adapt something like that into a movie? What if they adapted the more sympathetic progression of the Bioshock story and the happier ending even though some fans liked the alternate, more darker ending better?

Bioshock is one of those games that has been stuck in movie development purgatory for years. Whatever director that they get, they keep telling them to make the movie PG-13. If you have played even a minute of the Bioshock games you'd know that it simply isn't possible. Apart from being a survival horror and an FPS, the game also deals with some pretty heavy themes that would almost certainly be overlooked in a movie adaptation. It has an element of social commentary about how good people can be driven to do insane things through coercion, desperation and greed. And the things some of the inhabitants of Rapture and Columbia do is pretty fucked up. Columbia still believes in racism and has images of Lincoln as Satan. It would be one of those situations where critics wouldn't get behind the harsh nature and audiences would be thrown for a loop at what they saw. The only people who would get behind it are the fans.

How about a game like Mass Effect or Skyrim? With those games, everything is determined by the player. It almost feels like the player is the one writing the game.

In these regards, the games themselves are far superior to any movie hollywood could fart out because whatever route the story of the movie would take would just be one of a dozen ways things could go, and every fan watching it would think "That's not how I would have done it".

Bottom Line: Movies don't necessarily need video games, and video games need movies even less.

Was Guardians of the Galaxy Necessary?

Okay, this is a weird question to ask, seeing as how I just wrote a review singing the movie's praises, but there is still a point that needs to be talked about. Yesterday, before I got to see the movie I asked one of my friends who had seen it what they thought about it. His words were "it was good, but felt unnecessary". To a degree, I can agree with that. While Guardians is a part of the Marvel universe, the events of the movie didn't really seem to have much weight on what has happened or what will happen. For the most part anyways.

There are two reasons why I think this movie needed to exist. For starters, even at their strongest, most of these Marvel movies serve the purpose of setting up for the movies to come after it. Some do a better job than others, but if you had gone into The Avengers without seeing the first Thor or Captain America movies, anybody who had could fill you in on the importance of both movies in about thirty seconds. The same can be said of Guardians of the Galaxy. There are two things that needed to be set up in this movie so that when they show up in the future, people aren't scratching their heads.

Warning: Some spoilers to follow

The first, and most obvious thing about the movie to be set up is the character of Thanos. You know? The purple guy that showed up and smiled at the end of The Avengers? Yeah, he appears in this movie, and we get to hear him talk to! While his character is still left in a lot of mystery, he still gets a little bit of backstory. Without spoiling too much (in a section marked 'spoilers' of all things) all you need to know is that he's an asshole, and he has hired the film's villain Ronan to recover an orb thing. What's in the orb? Nothing other than an infinity stone. What the hell is that? It's basically another tesseract. A source of great power but also a tool of destruction, and Thanos is looking for five of them. Seeing as how Thanos is going to be showing up later down the line to fight the Avengers, it is pretty important to get all of this information out there. And to a non comic book reader like me, who had no idea who Thanos was prior to seeing The Avengers, I'm actually kinda glad to be getting all of the important information now.

So, is it necessary? Well, if you already know this crap, then I would say not exactly, though the movie is still worth the watch. If you are like me, who is a fan of the movies, knows nothing about the comic books, but is still looking to get immersed in the lore, then I would say yes, that way you aren't totally lost when Thanos shows up to battle the Avengers, whenever that is going to be.

Guardians of the Galaxy

I have always maintained a pretty consistent opinion about all of the Avengers-related movies. That being that they aren't the best movies in the world (they are no Citizen Kane), but they are certainly the most entertaining flicks in recent years. While other comic book movies are trying to piggyback off of the Nolan school of being heavy and not much room for humor, and often falling flat, Marvel has gotten the idea that you can have a movie with dramatic tension and emotional connections while also making room for humor, fun, romance and all of the other things you'd expect in a summer action flick. In the past, the hero that hit that point hardest was Iron Man, matching some solid writing with Robert Downey Jr.'s wit and charisma. If there was another Avengers tie in that got just as good if not better than the Iron Man movies, it would be Guardians of the Galaxy.

This really is one of the most entertaining movies that I have seen in recent years. The writing has a perfect balance between dramatic moments that almost hit tear-jerking to hilarious scenes involving the hilarious Rocket Raccoon. Not to sound like a broken record, but Rocket Raccoon really is the best part of the movie. And, going back to my point about mixing drama with humor, Rocket provides the funniest moments while also having some heavy moments of his own, breaking down in drunken tears when recounting his past. The rest of the cast is excellent. Chris Prat is very relatable and likeable as Star Lord, Zoe Saldana is kickass as always. Even Vin Diesel was having fun reading three simple words for his performance. 

There are two weak areas that should be addressed. Number one being Dave Batista as Drax. He tries his best, but he still needs a little work on the whole line-delivery thing. To his credit though, after learning that he had gotten the part, he immediately signed up for more acting lessons and also became teary-eyed at getting the chance to be in a Marvel movie. So, give the guy credit for taking it seriously and proving he was the right pick.

The other weak spot is the villain, Ronan the Accusor. I'm not gonna say that he was a weak badguy or that he was poorly portrayed. Actually, as a Star Wars fan, I thought he was pretty cool. In fact, just judging by character alone, he was probably one of the stronger bad guys. However, I felt as though he was a little misplaced. I know I've praised these movies for playing with tone, but whenever he was on screen, things felt really dark. Like I kept expecting the emperor's them from Return of the Jedi to play whenever he was on screen. Compared to the rest of the avengers tie-ins where there was still a fun element to the villains, Ronan just felt a little too serious for this movie in particular. Don't get me wrong, he was still a cool character and I would love to see that actor play more sci-fi villains (maybe even a Star Wars baddy? Anyone?), I just felt that the tone took an unnecessary deep dark dive when he was on screen. I know this particular criticism sounds weird and oddly contradictory, but having humorous scenes with the main characters come right before or after these dark toned, dimly lit parts where things like genocide, enslavement and mass murder are being discussed was a little off putting.

But even with all of those weaknesses, Guardians of the Galaxy is still one of the best comic-book movies to come out in recent years, as well as the most entertaining movie to come out in 2014. And even if you aren't a comic book fan, but you still like science fiction, I just have one question for you:

Have you ever wondered what a movie would be like if they combined Star Wars, Star Trek AND Firefly?

Well, here's your chance to find out!