I agree with so much of how this film has been widely assessed. The Force Awakens felt like a big fat apology for the Prequels. In returning us to the familiar ground of our beloved stories, JJ may have repeated a little more of A New Hope than we needed. But he delivered some amazing, fun and well performed new characters for us to enjoy and look forward to following through greater, farther reaching (we hope) adventures.
My issue was with the treatment of the original characters. I completely understand that if you can bring Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford back to star in this movie, you just have to do that. Who didn't want to see Han and Chewie aboard the Millennium Falcon one more time? I'm pretty sure only Hitler would vote no to that. However, and I know I'm going out on a limb here, but I have to say Hitler may have a point on this one. (I'm not sure how I just ended up agreeing with imaginary Star Wars critic, Amos Hitler, in the course of this post. Strange things happen when you sit down to write!)
My point is this: we left our heroes thirty something years ago after they had defeated Vader and the Empire and were celebrating balance in the force and love and peace and Ewoks. Ideally, the next story would start up again some 100 years in the future and there would be rich and wonderful memories of all the good our heroes continued to do and the happiness and prosperity that they enjoyed after all of their strife. But to include them in the next story sort of means they weren't really that successful. If we need new heroes this soon, then the victories of our youth were very short lived.
Just look at what this looks like! Luke Skywalker, the great, powerful Jedi is hiding??!! He is riddled with guilt because his attempt to teach a new group of Jedis has led to a resurgence in the dark side of the force??!! And then he gave up?! And he's not 800 years old like Yoda, so he gave up FAST!!! Han and Leia couldn't make it??? What? What are you saying JJ? "I love you", "I know" is NOT the greatest recipe for love ever?? I just...I don't...I can't... And Han! That scoundrel, that nonconformist! What's he up to? Is he a spy for the good guys? Is he a black ops kind of guy? Is he kicking ass and taking names? No? What's that you say? Oh, he's a smuggler hiding from unsavory characters to whom he owes money? So he pretty much failed at marriage and parenting and life?
Why did this have to happen to my favorite characters of all time???
I will give you this. Its more real, I suppose. When does the responsible, powerful woman end up with the loser guy who happens to have animal magnetism? I guess I just didn't want to finally face after all of these years that Han was just a loser! And that Luke was just an under-trained hot head who got lucky. I wouldn't have minded a little more fantasy, is all I'm saying. I think in time, I will come to respect this less fairy tale approach, but right now the wounds are still fresh.
As for its nominations? Episode 7 was nominated for its
Sound Design and Editing which I specifically think did not measure up
to the previous Star Wars films. For editing, Mary Jo Markey and Maryann
Brandon! They always nail the action sequences AND the small emotional
moments that you can barely see on an actors' face. I love them! Visual
Effects? Sure! That seems worthy! John Williams is up for score. He
already won for Star Wars before and so may themes remain the same? I'm
betting Ennio Morricone will beat him this time out.
But, its all good. Star Wars is back and I'm hopeful that some of the other movies they have planned will reveal a bit more good news about our old characters and what they may have accomplished in the intervening years. And if not, at least I have Rey and Finn and Poe to pin all my unrealistic hopes on!
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The Hateful Eight
What a treat this movie was! I saw the 70mm Roadshow version complete with entr'acte and intermission. The Hateful Eight calls back to the ensemble storytelling of The Reservoir Dogs, but with all the grand scope of Django Unchained. I thought Oscar could have shared a little more love with this film. It clocked in at three hours but I wanted to stay and watch it all day.
The acting was great across the board, the dialog was delicious, the music was wonderful and the sound design really stood out for me! And seeing all those lovely snowy vistas projected on actual film was heavenly for a film geek!
It was such a delightful mix of those sweeping mountain views and then a small world play that takes place inside of Minnie's Haberdashery. I kept adapting it for the stage as I watched it, I couldn't help it! I'm a theatre geek, too! There was such a wonderful rhythm to the dialog. The characters each had a cadence. They called back to their own lines, but they called back to each others', too. The repetitions felt musical, in a way. It's not as if the lines were written in iambic pentameter, but now that I've thought about it, mixing Shakespeare with Quentin Tarantino I think is the best idea that maybe anyone has ever had.
If I had to pick something that I didn't love about the film it was the tone of some flashbacks that set up the location of Minnie's. Although that felt like its own kind of allusion to musical theatre, so maybe there's reasoning behind it.
It was a much more contained effort at storytelling than I have seen from Tarantino in a while and I really appreciated it! So much so that now I feel inspired to go add a few songs to my Shakespearean stage adaptation of The Hateful Eight!
The acting was great across the board, the dialog was delicious, the music was wonderful and the sound design really stood out for me! And seeing all those lovely snowy vistas projected on actual film was heavenly for a film geek!
It was such a delightful mix of those sweeping mountain views and then a small world play that takes place inside of Minnie's Haberdashery. I kept adapting it for the stage as I watched it, I couldn't help it! I'm a theatre geek, too! There was such a wonderful rhythm to the dialog. The characters each had a cadence. They called back to their own lines, but they called back to each others', too. The repetitions felt musical, in a way. It's not as if the lines were written in iambic pentameter, but now that I've thought about it, mixing Shakespeare with Quentin Tarantino I think is the best idea that maybe anyone has ever had.
If I had to pick something that I didn't love about the film it was the tone of some flashbacks that set up the location of Minnie's. Although that felt like its own kind of allusion to musical theatre, so maybe there's reasoning behind it.
It was a much more contained effort at storytelling than I have seen from Tarantino in a while and I really appreciated it! So much so that now I feel inspired to go add a few songs to my Shakespearean stage adaptation of The Hateful Eight!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
The Revenant
The Revenant was beautiful and desperate and brutal and bleak. Conflict boiled down to its barest (bearest) elements. Man against man, man against nature, man against himself. Die or continue, breathe or don't.
I love extremes, so I really appreciated much of what this film had to offer. What stands out? Lovely wide angle shots that take in the whole scene and these wonderful long running shots that drift around, following the action, letting it wander off and then picking it up again. You have a constant sense of environment, of the inevitability of what will happen and of how small each of us sometimes is within our own dramas.
There are breaks from the brutality in the form of very moving and enchanting fantasy vignettes. These provide a little backstory for our main character, but also illustrate how he thinks and why he is strong and how he keeps choosing to breathe.
We've all heard the acting was amazing! I'll tell you what: I cannot look away from Tom Hardy when he is on the screen! I can't stop loving this actor and it just grows with time and exposure. I used to think that he is magical because he tells you everything with his face but when I watched The Revenant I realized he tells you just enough to keep you engaged but the reason you want to keep watching him is that he is also holding something back. You always feel like there is a little bit more and so you wait attentively. Brilliant.
And Lenoardo DiCaprio? Well he has about a hundred different ways to grimace, that's for sure! I have no complaints about the Olympic performance he put in and I think I would be pretty sad for him if he went through all of that and didn't win. But in some ways, his performance was more about watching him be tortured than it was about watching a trained actor turn in a nuanced performance.
My only complaint was length. The trials and near death experiences were so numerous, I started to get numb. I had my fill of death-defying ordeals but Innaritu kept saying, "and one more thing..."
This was odd: in my screening people cheered during the bear attack. I'm not sure what to make of that. Do you suppose they knew the bear that played that role? Did they just identify with that character? If so, I bet they were really unhappy to sit through the rest of the film and not see that character return. Perhaps the director's cut will include extra bear scenes. For their sake, I hope so.
I love extremes, so I really appreciated much of what this film had to offer. What stands out? Lovely wide angle shots that take in the whole scene and these wonderful long running shots that drift around, following the action, letting it wander off and then picking it up again. You have a constant sense of environment, of the inevitability of what will happen and of how small each of us sometimes is within our own dramas.
There are breaks from the brutality in the form of very moving and enchanting fantasy vignettes. These provide a little backstory for our main character, but also illustrate how he thinks and why he is strong and how he keeps choosing to breathe.
We've all heard the acting was amazing! I'll tell you what: I cannot look away from Tom Hardy when he is on the screen! I can't stop loving this actor and it just grows with time and exposure. I used to think that he is magical because he tells you everything with his face but when I watched The Revenant I realized he tells you just enough to keep you engaged but the reason you want to keep watching him is that he is also holding something back. You always feel like there is a little bit more and so you wait attentively. Brilliant.
And Lenoardo DiCaprio? Well he has about a hundred different ways to grimace, that's for sure! I have no complaints about the Olympic performance he put in and I think I would be pretty sad for him if he went through all of that and didn't win. But in some ways, his performance was more about watching him be tortured than it was about watching a trained actor turn in a nuanced performance.
My only complaint was length. The trials and near death experiences were so numerous, I started to get numb. I had my fill of death-defying ordeals but Innaritu kept saying, "and one more thing..."
This was odd: in my screening people cheered during the bear attack. I'm not sure what to make of that. Do you suppose they knew the bear that played that role? Did they just identify with that character? If so, I bet they were really unhappy to sit through the rest of the film and not see that character return. Perhaps the director's cut will include extra bear scenes. For their sake, I hope so.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Happy Oscar Nomination Day!
Welcome film buffs and fans of me! It's time for Oscar Gluttony once again!
I decided that it would be a good idea to watch every film nominated for an Academy Award. In every category. Each year I eagerly await the nominees so I can ingest them all in a full blown film feeding frenzy! Do I believe the Oscars are always the best films ever made? No, not really. But do they provide me with a list which feeds my obsessive, compulsive need to complete things? Yes!!!! They absolutely do!!!
The Nominations for this year's Academy Awards were announced this morning and you can view the complete list here. It is a smaller pool of films this year, with the same titles nominated in multiple categories. Consequently, I have only 29 films and 15 short films to watch to get caught up! Super easy, right?
The biggest surprise to me was all of the love for Mad Max:Fury Road. I'm thrilled for a blatantly feminist (and therefore controversial) action movie to get recognized. I guess I just never imagined the Academy would consider something like that. And it got 10 nominations!
The Hateful Eight did not receive as much love as I thought it deserved. Sorry, Tarantino, I think George Miller took your spot. However, I was sure they would snub Adam McKay and I was wrong! He got nominated for The Big Short.
I'm most excited to see The Revenant and least excited about watching Eddie Redmayne again. But I look forward to chasing down these titles and telling you all about them!
The Oscars air on February 28th, so let's get our eyeballs on some movies!
I decided that it would be a good idea to watch every film nominated for an Academy Award. In every category. Each year I eagerly await the nominees so I can ingest them all in a full blown film feeding frenzy! Do I believe the Oscars are always the best films ever made? No, not really. But do they provide me with a list which feeds my obsessive, compulsive need to complete things? Yes!!!! They absolutely do!!!
The Nominations for this year's Academy Awards were announced this morning and you can view the complete list here. It is a smaller pool of films this year, with the same titles nominated in multiple categories. Consequently, I have only 29 films and 15 short films to watch to get caught up! Super easy, right?
The biggest surprise to me was all of the love for Mad Max:Fury Road. I'm thrilled for a blatantly feminist (and therefore controversial) action movie to get recognized. I guess I just never imagined the Academy would consider something like that. And it got 10 nominations!
The Hateful Eight did not receive as much love as I thought it deserved. Sorry, Tarantino, I think George Miller took your spot. However, I was sure they would snub Adam McKay and I was wrong! He got nominated for The Big Short.
I'm most excited to see The Revenant and least excited about watching Eddie Redmayne again. But I look forward to chasing down these titles and telling you all about them!
The Oscars air on February 28th, so let's get our eyeballs on some movies!
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