Attack the Block (2011)

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fourhalfstar

Are we all pretty much done talking about Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens at this point? If so, please forgive me for the following preamble. One of the most exciting aspects of the film for me was the introduction of relative newcomers Daisy Ridley as the oddly-controversial Rey & John Boyega as the absurdly affable Finn. They both do an excellent job of holding down the protagonist end of the film in a remarkably deft tag team effort for two actors who aren’t too used to headlining multi-million dollar tentpole epics. More astute sci-fi fans might not have been as surprised as myself by Boyega’s part in that effort, though, given that he already had put in a rewarding lead performance in a deliriously fun action film a few years prior to The Force Awakens. Attack the Block finds John Boyega in a much quieter, more stoic leading role than he’s asked to play with Finn (who is often employed as comic relief), but even as a babyfaced teenager he was prepared to prove himself to be leading man material.

As stoic & as straight-faced as Boyega plays its protagonist, Moses, Attack the Block is anything but a grim horror picture. An urban sci-fi horror comedy about an alien invasion that targets the unlikely ground zero of a housing project in London, Attack the Block is a wildly fun creature feature with an exceptional knack for practical effects monster design & sleek music video aesthetic. Its ragtag group of barely-out-of-diapers youngsters that fend off the otherworldly invaders are an amusing gang of pothead ruffians (the kind that would inspire Liz Lemon to involuntarily shout “youths!”), mostly harmless in their overly-macho, self-aggrandizing indulgence in vulgarity & hip-hop swagger. Their accents border on being incomprehensible for an American outsider such as myself, but that foreign aspect can also be insanely charming, recalling the early 2000s raps of Dizzee Rascal & The Streets. Even more incomprehensible are the alien beasts that attack these kids. Kinda bearish, kinda canine in nature, these creatures are too dark to get a good look at, unless they’re baring their glow-in-the-dark fangs. The audience isn’t alone in not knowing what to make of the aliens. They’re described most accurately described in the film as “big alien gorilla wolf motherfuckers” & “Maybe there was a party at the zoo and a monkey fucked a fish?”. The difficult-to-pin-down creature design of the aliens pairs nicely with the highly specific cultural context of their victims & the film’s overall silly horror comedy tone to make for a remarkably memorable & unique picture.

Attack the Block turns a small cast & a limited budget into something truly special, a trick that can only be pulled off by fans of the genre it works in. Indeed, the film even goes as far as to shout out properties like Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and Pokemon by name, not to mention the close involvement of Nick Frost & the producers of the cult favorite Shaun of the Dead. The budget might be somewhat limited, but the film pulls a remarkably unique visual language from such simple visual sources as fireworks, smoke, swords, and motor scooters. What’s more important, though, is that it nails the monster attacks aspect of its appeal, which are plentiful  without being overly gore-heavy (despite a stray decapitation or throat-tearing here or there). And the film gets major bonus points for achieving most of this mayhem with practical effects, a minimal amount of CGI seamlessly mixed in for bare bones support.

There are plenty of reasons for sci-fi & horror fans to give Attack the Block a solid chance. It’s a perfectly crafted little midnight monster movie, one with a charming cast of young’ns, a wicked sense of humor, and some top shelf creature feature mayhem. The film doesn’t need John Boyega’s teenage presence to be worthy of a retroactive recommendation & reappraisal, but that doesn’t hurt either. In just two films, Boyega has carved out a nice little name for himself in genre-cinema. If you enjoyed his turn as Finn in The Force Awakens, you should definitely check out his earlier work in Attack the Block. The truth is, though, that you should check out Attack the Block even if you hated The Force Awakens. It’s an undeniable crowdpleaser, a commendable entry in the horror comedy genre that will endure long after the novelty of seeing a babyfaced Boyega in action wears off.

-Brandon Ledet

Iris (2015)

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fourstar

I wish I could say I knew the career of documentarian Albert Maysles a lot better than I do. His formative work, Grey Gardens, ranks among one of my favorite films in any genre, but I can’t say I’ve seen anything else from the prolific director, who went on to produce quality work for four more decades after Grey Gardens‘ release. His penultimate film, Iris, is a strange time to connect again with Maysles, not only because so much time passed since Grey Gardens, but also because the two works had a surprising amount of thematic overlap. Just as Grey Gardens documented the eccentric personality of Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale, who made the art of dressing herself & being fabulous into a finely-tuned craft, Iris profiles the oddly similar, but much older Iris Apfel. Iris & Edie had wildly different social standings & levels of success & recognition, but their individual ways of turning self-presentation into an artform are remarkably in tune with one another.

Iris open with its subject getting dressed in front of a mirror & describing the process of creating an outfit as being akin to a musician improvising in jazz. Even if Maysles hadn’t been involved in this project it’d be near impossible not to think of Edie describing how she chooses “the best costume for the day” as soon as that opening scene. Both women have an eye for repurposing items of clothing for an unconventional effect. Iris just has the advantage of an ungodly financial backing that allows her to go as big & as bold as she likes. Wearing 3x her weight in oversized jewelry that clacks loudly every time she moves her frail little arms, Iris has an exceptional knack for layering accessories until they take on the effect of 3D sculpture. She has taken on many roles as a well-to-do professional: interior designer, textile historian, fashionista, etc. Most importantly, though, she’s a curator. She has an eye for transforming sillier, machine-made pieces by pairing them with the handmade craft of top shelf designer-wear. Her style overall is this flashy glam-punk middle ground where trash meets high art & by the time she adds her signature, cartoonishly large glasses to her ensembles, it’s an aesthetic unmistakably her own.

I’ve heard a few Grey Gardens detractors disparage the film for taking advantage of its subjects in an exploitative, poverty porn sort of way. Iris has the exact opposite dynamic. Well to do long before she got her due as a curator & a stylist, Iris Apfel was many years a senior citizen by the time she started exhibiting her work in galleries & museums (including The Met in NYC, no less). She fully embraces the term “geriatric starlet”, but her mind is far from faded in her old age. She may contradict herself from time to time, like explaining that she would never criticize someone’s outfit in once scene & complaining that wearing all black isn’t “style” but rather “a uniform” in another, but for the most part she’s sharp as a whip. Just like Iris’ fashion sense, her life advice is a mix of antiquated truisms about “little black dresses” & everything coming back in style eventually and much more unconventional, iconoclastic attitudes that can be best boiled down to the quote “Whatever.” Like with Grey Gardens, Iris’ interactions with Maysles as a documentarian & a cameraman are just as much a part of the story as her rubbing elbows with Kanye West & Tavi Gevinson or Little Edie feeding her raccoons. This is far from the tragic fall from grace feeling you might pick up from Grey Gardens (although I’d argue that both films are largely celebratory in nature). It’s a miracle, for instance, that Iris & her goofball husband Carl are still alive & active at the tend of the film’s shoot. Iris is a celebration of a very peculiar life, which was the aspect I most enjoy about Grey Gardens as well. Now it’s time for me to do my homework & find out what Maysles was up to in the other forty or so films he directed.

-Brandon Ledet

Point Break (2015) Wasn’t All That Bad . . . As Long As You’ve Never Seen Point Break (1991)

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Okay, it’s shameful confession time. I saw the Point Break remake, released just a few weeks before this past Christmas, before I saw Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 original. It was always a given that I’d see the original Point Break eventually, but twas a task I had been putting off despite the enthusiastic recommendations of friends (& Nick Frost’s bumbling cop in Hot Fuzz) who rank it among their favorite films of all time. A free movie ticket & a convenient showtime, then, lead me to the curious position of having seen the little-loved remake of Point Break weeks before I saw the original (also on the big screen, thanks to Indywood). The shameful part is that I actually enjoyed the remake. As a dumb action movie packed with bad writing, overwrought performances, and over-the-top stunts, it’s  nothing particularly special, but it’s also nothing especially awful either. It’s pretty okay & might’ve even flown under the radar as a half decent genre pic . . . if it hadn’t purported itself to be a remake of Point Break (1991) in the first place. Point Break (1991) & Point Break (2015) are so far apart in terms of style, intent, content, plot, and central philosophy that there’s no reason the 2015 version should’ve bothered calling itself Point Break in the first place. With a couple minor tweaks & a title change it might’ve even been able to sidestep accusations of being a ripoff. The two films are worlds away from one another.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break is a laugh-a-minute action vehicle for Keanu Reeves & Patrick Swayze (not to mention wildcard Gary Busey in unhinged Under Siege mode). The script is overloaded with jokes & the mood is surprisingly light considering that its two most tense action set pieces – a police raid & a bank robbery – are some of the most brutally severe I’ve ever seen. The Point Break remake, on the other hand, is easily recognizable as the post-Dark Knight kind of re-imagining that believes a grim, self-serious mood is what the people want in their over-the-top action cinema. It’s a thoroughly dour affair, especially for a film about bank robbing surfers. Just about the only thing that transferred from the original to the remake were the surfing & the homoeroticism (between an undercover FBI agent & the lead criminal).

What the remake does instead of retracing Bigelow’s steps is focusing on & amplifying particular details of the original & turning those isolated aspects into a feature film. The criminals in the original Point Break are really into surfing, but occasionally dabble in a parachute jump or some beachside football. That’s not X-treme™ enough for the remake, which makes a point to include every Red Bull-fueled sport you can think of: snowboarding, base jumping, kayaking, whatever. The bigger difference is in the two film’s philosophy, however. The surfer bros in the original may occasionally muse about “the spiritual side of the sea” or how surfing is “a state of mind”, but at heart they’re just thrill seekers & thieves for whom bank robbing is both an adrenaline spike and a source of income. The remake, on the other hand, posits its “extreme poly-athletes” (ugh) as “eco warriors” (double ugh) who steal from “the system” in order to “give back” to a “dying” planet in some 21st Century version of Robin Hood justice. Their thrill seekers as well, but their main concern is achieving nirvana through cutthroat vigilantism . . . and X-treme sports.

Both Point Break films are, admittedly, quite silly. The difference is that you laugh with the original & laugh at the remake. Kathryn Bigelow’s film is loaded with enough snarky one-liners to give any Joss Whedon script a run for its money and, surprisingly enough, they all land. The 2015 version is funny in a different way. Lines like “A tree falls in the forest & no one puts it on YouTube. Did it ever really happen?” & “So, you live off the grid?” “No, we live on it. Just on our own terms,” are downright hilarious, just perhaps not intentionally so. The action sequences in the 1991 Point Break achieve a kind of shocking gravity bucks the film’s humor in an interesting way. The 2015 Point Break‘s action sequences often play directly into the film’s (unintentional) humor. For instance, my first laugh was when a dude bro fell of a cliff while dirt-biking in a bid to earn sponsorships & YouTube hits. I know that’s pretty harsh of me, bro, but the film never truly earns the right to be taken seriously, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

All things told, the 2015 Point Break is a lot more akin to an X-treme sports version of The Edukators than it is to Kathryn Bigelow’s film. If it hadn’t been pitched as a remake it might have never been greenlit or it might’ve been underfunded, but it also would’ve stood a better chance as a critical success. Watching a bunch of bank-robbing anarchists try to achieve nirvana by skateboarding off a yacht to shitty EDM is pretty damn amusing, but it’s nothing in comparison to what any ten minute stretch of the original achieves. If you have any chance of enjoying Point Break (2015) as is, it’d be in seeing it before you check out its far superior source material. Either that, or pretending it has a different title & functioned as a blatant ripoff. As a standalone product, it’s an occasionally fun trifle of mindless action cinema. As a point of comparison, the outlook is much less flattering.

-Brandon Ledet

 

Phoenix (2015)

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threehalfstar

I’ve been putting off watching Phoenix, despite it appearing on many Best of 2015 lists, due to the grim nature of its pedigree as a Holocaust survivor’s tale. Its recent appearance on Netflix’s streaming service made watching the film too convenient to avoid, though, so I finally bit the bullet. It turns out my apprehension was far from unfounded. Phoenix is a rather grim slowburner about an Auschwitz survivor trying to piece her life back together in a post-war Germany. It’s a frustrating film & not a fun watch by any means, but it is most certainly worth the emotional effort. By telling a very specific, limited-scope story about a handful of people trying to recreate a way of life that’s been lost forever, Phoenix captures an aspect of war’s toll that a lot of films often overlook. Instead of portraying the heroes & villains who fight it out on the battlefield, it’s much more concerned with the men & women who are left to sift through the rubble, both literal & metaphorical.

Despite loved ones’ insistence that she move to Palestine to help establish a Jewish state, a Holocaust survivor moves back to Germany to find her husband. Left horrifically scarred by concentration camp atrocities (and initially wearing a bandage that recalls the women of Goodnight Mommy & Eyes Without a Face), she undergoes plastic surgery that normalizes, but forever alters her appearance. She looks similar, but not quite identical, to her pre-war self, just as the state of her homeland has been forever transformed. With her entire family dead or missing, she tries to re-establish her relationship with a husband who treats her like a total stranger due to her change in appearance. Instead of telling him outright who she is, she allows him to slowly get the picture, perhaps in a bid to prove to herself that her pre-war self still exists in some way, that her identity didn’t perish forever in Auschwitz. The problem is that her husband has also been forever altered by the war & the romance she’s trying to recapture is no different from the bombed-out buildings & ripped to shreds Germany that serve as haunting reminders of their past.

Again, Phoenix is far from light entertainment. My own Best of 2015 list doesn’t include anything too comparable to the film in terms of emotional severity (except maybe The Diary of a Teenage Girl or Felt), but that’s more an indication of my personal inclination for over-the-top absurdity than it is of Phoenix’s quality. This is a really tight, surprisingly understated drama with one of the most satisfying final scenes in recent memory. Its use of the song “Speak Low”, which includes the haunting lyrics “Love is a spark lost in the dark too soon,” is especially commendable, as it’s incorporated several times throughout the film with great tonal & narrative consequence. If you’re looking for a solid, grim drama with an emotionally tender gut punch at its conclusion, this film is highly recommendable. It’s not the kind of experience I put myself through often, but I’m glad I put in the effort here.

-Brandon Ledet

 

We Are Still Here (2015)

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ghost

three star

Are there any ways left for the haunted house genre to surprise us? I’m actually certain that there are, but We Are Still Here has no interest in looking for them. This is a no frills ghost story that relies entirely on genre to get its point across. Every haunted house cliche you can think of makes an appearance in its brief 84 minute running time. Strange noises spook new homeowners. Photographs move seemingly on their own. An old town of creepy local yokels conspire against haunted newcomers. A skeptical husband doubts his legitimately-spooked wife’s concerns. A seance backfires. A monster appears in the backseat of a moving car. Innocent house guests are possessed by demons. Creepy children get involved. The film even has the nerve to show a baseball slowly rolling down basement stairs. It’s all here.

I won’t bother you too much with the film’s plot, which, outside a couple minor twists & flourishes, plays out exactly how you would expect. All you really need to know is that a grieving family moves to a new town in the late 70s in order to instigate a fresh start after the loss of their son in a car crash. When it becomes apparent that the house is haunted by a powerful spirit (possibly their son’s) they invite his hippie roommate & his family to stay with them for moral support & spiritual cleansing. Ghostly hijinks & genre tropes ensue, driving the film to a concluding bout of blood-soaked mayhem involving the ghosts, the town folk, and the hippie house guests. No one is safe from We Are Still Here‘s spooky parade of violent cliches.

For all of its seen-it-before cheesiness, We Are Still Here is at least smart enough to deliver the goods in the monster department. The ghosts that haunt the basement (and eventually the town at large) are creepily-designed humanoids of smouldering ash. Their “skin” pops & bubbles, singeing everything it touches. I can’t recommend We Are Still Here as anything more than a routine genre exercise, but if you’re looking for some straight-forward ghostly action, you can do much worse than the brief, concise, burn-victim creature feature that’s delivered here. There’s certainly a market for this kind of back-to-the-basics horror cinema that’s emerged in recent productions like Insidious & The Conjuring, so I’m sure that this film will find its proper audience with ease. It’s a relatively harmless genre entry in that way – once you get past the flashes of horrific gore.

-Brandon Ledet

Cloverfield (2008)

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twohalfstar

News broke late last week that sometime after J.J. Abrams had wrapped filming on Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, his production company Bad Robot had “secretly” filmed a “blood-relative” followup to his 2008 production Cloverfield. I personally had a mixed reaction to the revelation that a second Cloverfield film is headed our way. I absolutely hated the original Cloverfield film when it was released in 2008. Loathed it. A sequel (or a “blood relative” semi-sequel) would not likely be something I’d be interested in, then, except that the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane is so thoroughly badass that it made me reconsider my stance on the original entirely. So, for the third time in eight years I decided to give Cloverfield a chance to grow on me. I’m bummed to report that although my hatred for the film has calmed down a great deal, it’s still not my thing.

Found footage horror films are a dime a dozen (almost literally; their attractively low production costs are a large part of why they’re so plentiful). Cloverfield is a step above the rest in terms of what it accomplishes with the limited scope of the found footage horror as a genre. On the monster end of the equation, the movie nails everything it aims for. Its lumbering, Godzilla-sized creature is a sight to behold (whenever you can get a good glimpse of it) and the broad strokes of its threat on New York City is complimented nicely by an evil army of tiny insectoid (baby?) versions of the larger creature. The movie is smart not to over-detail exactly why or how the monster arrived. Is it from the ocean floor? Is it from another planet? These questions are asked, but never answered. Instead, Cloverfield focuses on detailing the mayhem: rockets launched, buildings demolished, oil tankers tipped & set aflame. It’s honestly not at all hard to see why so many people have latched onto Cloverfield as a breath of fresh air in the creature feature genre.

What sinks the film for me is the human end of the equation. The characters are understandably panicked by the sight of a grand scale monster tearing the city down around them, but their shrill, frantic reactions are relentless & honestly, annoying. As an audience member it’s far more entertaining to focus on what the gigantic (alien?) beast is up to instead of hearing someone shriek “Rob’s got Beth on the phone! Rob’s got Beth on the phone! Rob’s got Beth on the phone!”, especially since Rob & Beth are so vaguely defined that they’re barely more than total strangers. It’s an exciting feeling to be chased down to a creature you barely comprehend, but when you’re only interacting with the damned thing through brief flashes & the creatures you do spend time with are just as barely-comprehendible New York City nobodies, the whole ordeal can be very frustrating. Despite the presence of future-greats Lizzie Caplan & T.J. Miller, the human toll in Cloverfield feels greatly deserved, a debt well paid. I wanted (most of) these characters to die at the monster’s hands(? tentacles?). I doubt that was the desired effect.

Still, I find myself excited for 10 Cloverfield Lane. Maybe it’s the narrative remove from the found footage format that’s working for me in that ad? Cloverfield aims for a kind of authenticity that I’m not sure it achieves. It bends over backwards to make sure there’s a reason why the cameraman (Miller) would be filming in the first place (a going away party for Rob! Rob! Roooooooob!). It goes way overboard on that end, though, with the cameradude explicitly saying “This is going to be important. People are going to want to see this.” There are also some eyeroll-worthy instances of coincidence (like the Statue of Liberty’s head rolling to a stop at these exact characters’ feet) & terrible self-survival choices (even for the horror genre) that compromise the film’s attempts to feel like a document of a “real” supernatural event. Really, though, what doesn’t work for me in Cloverfield is its human casualty stockpile. It’s especially sad that they’re so blandly represented & so unable to generate sympathy even though the monster mayhem doesn’t start until 20 minutes into the runtime & the characters in question never leave our sight. They’re always around, waiting to baffle & annoy. 10 Cloverfield Lane promises almost the exact opposite experience: three characters trapped in a small space through a cinematic lens instead of a faux documentary one. I expect that set-up (and what promises to be one intense John Goodman performance) will be a much more satisfying experience. I believe this despite optimistically giving the first Cloverfield a shot three separate times, with my opinion only being raised from white hot anger to mild displeasure. That’s still progress, I guess.

-Brandon Ledet

 

 

 

 

Thrashin’ (1986)

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threehalfstar

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I currently work in a kitchen at a bourgie movie theater with a bunch of kids many years my junior who don’t regularly watch movies. What do they do with their all of their time, you ask? They enjoy active, athletic, adventurous, outdoor activities (the horror!). More specifically, they skateboard. Much like with other niche interests like jazz, superhero comics, or people who are super into bikes, skateboarding is a somewhat isolated culture with its own terminology, history, and built-in attitude that can be downright intimidating for folks who aren’t  already in the know. Listening to my coworkers go on about riding fakie or Baker 3 is like listening to comics nerds go back & forth about the faithfulness of movie adaptations or jazz enthusiasts drool over time signatures or whatever. I generally have no idea what’s going on & best can contribute to the conversation as an ill-informed buffoon.

1986’s Thrashin’ is a shrewd, timely cash-in on skateboarding’s inherent cool at the height of one of the sport’s biggest spikes in popularity. It plays a bit like what might have happened if I had tried to write a skateboarding film, buffoonish in its attempts to speak the lingo & capture the sport in a marketable movie about a war-torn romance. Telling the story of two rival skate gangs warring over the territory where they go thrashin’ (which the movie helpfully explains is an aggressive style of skating) the film is laughably unconvincing in its depictions of denim vest-sporting skateboarders dancing on their boards in mosh pits, wearing pads & helmets, and shouting things like “Wild!”, “Acid rock!”, and “Gnarly!” in encouragement to tricks they find impressive. In addition to the “gnarly” skateboarding antics, the film also tackles a Romeo & Juliet love story that most skate-happy teens would probably balk at. A way to get a good idea of how divided the film is in trying to please everyone is to focus on the film’s soundtrack, which has skate-friendly contributions form people like punk heavies DEVO, Circle Jerks, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers (who briefly perform for the camera), but also features long stretches of generic, gentle guitar-solo & keyboards 80s pop. It might’ve been fun for the 80s skateboarders to see (or at least make fun of) their insular culture’s journey to the big screen, but for the most part the film is concerned with courting an entirely different kind of audience.

You don’t have to be in-the-know to enjoy what Thrashin’ has to offer as an over-the-top camp fest. Even a skateboarding buffoon such as myself should find humor in the film’s hopelessly corny dialogue, which includes the The Wild One nod, “What do you trash?” “What do you got?”. The half-cooked romance plot can also be highly amusing, especially in a tender, candlelit lovemaking scene that focuses way more on the male lead’s body that it does on his partner (despite early scenes of macho bikini babe ogling). My favorite aspect of the film its Classic 80s Plot of leading up to The Big Competition (The L.A. Massacre) at the climax. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there is a Warriors-inspired sequence involving “jousting” on skateboards as a means of settling inter-gang disputes. All this and early performances from Josh “Thanos” Brolin & Sherilyn “Audrey Horne” Fenn. Yes, there is plenty to admire here in terms of so-bad-it’s-good silliness & cultural time capsule charm.

I don’t think Thrasin’ has brought me any closer to my coworker’s far-removed world of gnarly! grinds & acid rock! kickflips. Like I said, the film comes mostly from an uninformed outsider’s perspective, giving off the vibe they’d probably get if one of their dads strapped on a helmet & some elbow pads and tackled a vert ramp. Instead, I see Thrashin‘ as a kind of middle ground between their interests (thrashin’) & mine (terrible movies). If nothing else, there’s got to be some value in that.

-Brandon Ledet

Agents of S.W.A.M.P.F.L.I.X.: Captain America – The First Avenger (2011)

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Superhero Watching: Alternating Marvel Perspectives, Fresh and Longterm, Ignoring X-Men, or S.W.A.M.P.F.L.I.X., is a feature in which Boomer (who reads superhero comics & is well versed in the MCU) & Brandon (who reads alternative comics & has thus far seen less than 25% of the MCU’s output) revisit the films that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the perspective of someone who knows what they’re talking about & someone who doesn’t have the slightest clue.

Boomer: For me, the key difference between DC and Marvel as companies is that Marvel has always been better at creating characters that are down-­to-­earth and grounded, while DC’s characters are traditionally larger than life and iconic in their titanic stature. Spider-­Man and the X­-Men are relatable characters; Superman and Wonder Woman are inspirational ones. This isn’t absolutely true across the board, and when discussing characters that have existed for nearly a century under the pen of dozens (if not hundreds) of different writers over the decades, there are bound to be many counter-arguments to this admittedly reductive distinction. However, dissecting the different companies’ primary characteristics and output, that difference is the major division between the two. In this sense, Captain America, with his concrete­-if­-antiquated moral code, larger-­than­-life prestige, and well defined ethical concepts, is the Marvel character most like a DC hero, and this, combined with the built-­in fandom that comes from such an outspokenly and inherently patriotic character, has made Cap an enduringly captivating dramatis persona. Despite being only one of many, many jingoistic characters introduced in the build up to (and following) WWII, Captain America continues to be a fan favorite, and it’s no surprise that Marvel has gone to his well many times in their creation of non­-graphic media.

Following his introduction in March 1941 (nine months before the US officially became involved in the war), Cap made his way to the silver screen in under three years, with a film serial being filmed in six weeks in October and November 1943 that started screening in February of the following year. This serial bore little resemblance to the comics character, which film historians attribute to the likelihood that the original script was written to feature Fawcett Comics character Mr. Scarlet; as a result, there is no super soldier serum, no shield, and no mention of Nazis, and Cap’s secret identity is not Steve Rogers but civilian District Attorney Grant Gardner. This would be Marvel’s only theatrical release until 1986’s Howard the Duck. Two made-­for­-TV films, Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon, were released in 1979 and starred Reb Brown; these featured a contemporary former­-marine­-turned­-artist who acquiesces to undergo testing of a “super-­steroid” following an accident and then fighting crime using the costume that he envisioned for the character he created as a visual artist. A Captain America feature, inspired by the financial success of Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989, was filmed and intended for theatrical release in 1990, but the completed film was such a disaster that it was quietly dumped into the VHS market with little fanfare.

After three attempts at a film adaptation, mostly unsuccessful, a new vehicle for Captain America was envisioned. Screenwriters Leslie Bohem (Daylight, Dante’s Peak) and Larry Wilson (The Addams Family) were initially approached in 1997, but the project was put on hold due to a legal dispute between Joe Simon (co-­creator of Captain America alongside Jack Kirby) and Marvel regarding rights and royalties. This suit was settled in 2003, and the film was batted around for a couple of years, with Avi Arad optimistically announcing in 2006 that he hoped to see the film released in 2008. These plans were again put on hold due to the 2007-­2008 WGA Strike, and plans were finalized in late 2008 following the release of Iron Man, with a planned release date in May 2011 (eventually pushed back to July) under the working title The First Avenger: Captain America (with the two parts of the title being swapped later in production). Joe Johnston, well known for his effects work on Raiders of the Lost Ark and his direction of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Rocketeer, was tapped to helm the picture, and Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the screenwriting duo behind the Chronicles of Narnia films, wrote the script.

The film follows scrawny Brooklyn artist Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) who, desperate to participate in the fight against the Axis, becomes a test subject in an experiment to create super soldiers, an experiment based on the studies of German expatriate Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) also participates in the experiment under the supervision of Colonel Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and British liaison Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). The experiment is a success, but an on­site attack means that the project cannot be recreated. Meanwhile in Europe, the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and his super-science organization, Hydra, have broken away from Nazi oversight in order to pursue his own interests, assisted by Dr. Arnim Zola (Toby Jones). Rogers is immediately enlisted as a figurehead for the war effort, but when he goes behind enemy lines to rescue his childhood friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), he becomes a real hero. I already have an idea as to how Brandon feels about this film, but, without further ado, here’s his opinion:

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fivestar

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Brandon: I’m in that weird little pocket of movie nerds who hold Disney’s cheesier live-action flops like Tomorrowland & John Carter of Mars in much higher regard than they probably deserve. That’s probably a large part of why I got such a huge kick out of 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger. At heart, this is director Joe Johnston remaking his commercial flop for Disney, The Rocketeer, into a much more successful film. I know Marvel Studios gets a lot of flack for valuing a “house style” over individual director’s visions, but I think they got the formula right here.They seemingly matched an already-appropriate director to the style they wanted, something mildly attempted by bringing in Shakespearean vet Kenneth Branagh for Thor, but brought to its full collaborative potential with Johnston’s Captain America. I really like The Rocketeer, but it’s a deeply flawed movie. Captain America recreates The Rocketeer‘s Nazi-punching retro-future with no discernible flaws or blemishes. It achieves the exact aesthetic it aims for with few to no missteps. It’s essentially a perfect superhero movie, easily ranking up there with Batman Returns & The Dark Knight as the best I’ve ever seen. And although it’s more closely associated with being a Marvel property than existing under the larger Disney umbrella, I do believe it snugly fits with the old-fashioned earnestness of the flops mentioned above.

From the outside looking in, I wasn’t exactly sure why I had been seeing so much Captain America merch around lately. Captain America t-shirts & jackets are seemingly becoming just as ubiquitous as Hulk Hands were in the early 2000s, except without the iconic quirkiness of the product design to explain the merch sales. I totally get the appeal now. Chris Evans’ Cap is perfectly charming in his 1940s “just a kid from Brooklyn” moxie, especially once he explains that he’s desparate to enlist as a soldier in World War II not to kill Nazis, exactly, but because he can’t stand bullies. So far in the MCU, our heroes have been an ivy league academic of a scientist, a billionaire playboy arms dealer, and a Norse god. Against these titans, Captain America/Steve Rogers stands as the little guy . . . literally. Through a surprisingly smooth bit of CGI magic Chris Evans is shrunken down into a scrawny little baby of a protagonist with a long list of health problems that prevents him from enlisting in the Army. As opposed to the Hulk’s experiment-gone-wrong origins, Captain stands as an experiment-gone-right. A kindly scientist (Stanley Tucci) sees as much potential in Steve Rogers’ moxie as the audience does, and with a little help from Tony Stark’s eccentric bajillionaire daddy (who looks nothing at all like a young John Slattery, by the way) transforms the Captain into the muscled-up beefcake superhero Evans embodies so well. Captain America is a 100% earnest, sarcasmless virgin who physically cannot get drunk. He’s essentially the antithesis of Tony Stark & it’s a welcome change of pace for the franchise at large.

Captain America is a too-good-to-be-true ideal of an American super-soldier, something straight out of a propaganda reel. My favorite part of this film is the way it accentuates that idea instead of downplaying it. Both sides of the war are greatly exaggerated as a Defender of the Free World, Captain’s weapon is a shield made of unobtanium, uh, vibranium & instead of fighting run-of-the-mill Nazis, he faces a futuristic force of futuristic super-Nazis equipped with laser cannons & lead by the even-worse-than-Hitler monster villain Red Skull (whose CGI design is even more impressive than scrawny Rogers’). More importantly, before Captain finds a particular use for himself in the Army, he’s employed as a public face for the war’s propaganda machine, marking the first time I can recall where a Marvel character (if not any superhero at large) exists in a world where he stars in comic books & movies. That’s such a cool idea. An even cooler idea is what happens when he actually starts fighting in the war & the movie devolves into an actual winning-the-war-effort montage instead of faking one. It’s one hell of a callback to the earlier propaganda montage, not to mention a fascinating bit of meta narrative play, and it works like gangbusters.

A lesser film would’ve tried to turn Captain America’s inherent cheese into something darker, grittier, but Joe Johnston’s The First Avenger embraces the cheese wholesale. Far removed from the post-Dark Knight doom & gloom casting its shadow over most blockbusters in recent years, Captain America first introduces its hero in costume selling war bonds at a USO show & first using a shield by wielding a trash can lid in a back alley brawl. This line of irreverent, but wholesome humor is balanced expertly with some surprisingly severe touches, especially in the introduction of Hydra as a worse-than-Nazis force to be reckoned with & in its higher-than-usual wartime bodycount (which includes a kill that might stand as the best propeller death since The Titanic). I said in our Thor review that I wasn’t sure exactly when the MCU became the cutting edge of superhero cinema, since the first few films felt oddly old-fashioned. It’s curious that a film set in the 1940s stands as the first glimpse of the franchise’s transition into becoming the modern standard. It’s a thoroughly fun watch, but stands as the MCU’s most brutally violent film at the time of its release, striking a more or less perfect balance. I’ve heard that 2014’s Captain America: Winter Soldier is an even better example of the superhero film as a genre, but it’s difficult for me to imagine it getting much better than what’s accomplished here.

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fourhalfstar

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Boomer: I wasn’t terribly impressed with Captain America (I hate the subtitle) the first time I saw it. I remember that the frail bodied Steve Rogers looked really silly on the big screen, which put me in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. This wasn’t my only complaint either; I didn’t care for the way that the film seemed to go out of its way, from very early in the runtime, to focus its attention on Hydra as a proxy for the Nazi forces rather than on Hitler’s forces proper. I also hated the way that Cap’s war experiences were condensed into a single montage, which I felt undermined the character’s relevance as a long­-term soldier. Looking back, though, I can’t believe I was such a stick in the mud about it.

This is a delightful movie and represents a continued positive change in the MCU’s direction with regards to protagonist characterization. Steve Rogers is the polar opposite of Tony Stark from the ground up and represents the better angels of our nature. He’s the kind of self-sacrificing role model you or I hope we would have the temerity to be should we be given great power (while Tony is a genius bro who uses his great intellect to build toys for himself and cover his sex and substance abuse issues while only working toward the greater good when he has no real choice). Evans is also the perfect choice to play Cap. There are plenty of men wandering around Hollywood with the physical presence needed to fill out the Cap suit, but Evans brings a humility and humanity to the role that could easily have been lost if casting was only looking for the perfect human specimen (which isn’t to say Evans isn’t, because damn). This could be difficult to pull off, as there really isn’t that much of a character arc for Cap this go­-round; he experiences a lot of changes that don’t affect his characterization up to the loss of Bucky, which is a flaw in the film’s design but also allows room for the character to grow over the course of the films to come.

Sebastian Stan doesn’t seem to be given a lot to work with here, but as obsessive Stan fans on Tumblr who have vivisected all of his scenes with long essays in effort to delineate character moments have shown us, he does some great work with his background role. The casting of Tommy Lee Jones as yet another irascible veteran badass is a little on-­the-­nose, but he’s a lot of fun to watch in his gruffness and begrudging respect, even if it is all a little rote. Dominic Cooper in particular deserves praise for differentiating the elder Stark from his son, embodying many of the same qualities while also demonstrating grief and self-­doubt, effectively portraying a greater depth of character in Howard’s supporting role than we’ve seen in two featured appearances from Tony. On the other hand, Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull was far too over­-the­-top, calling to mind Raul Julia’s portrayal of M. Bison in the terrible Street Fighter adaptation. Toby Jones’s Zola was likewise poorly executed, as his simpering and faux­-sycophancy was obnoxious; every time the villainous duo was onscreen, the film devolved into a bit of a cartoon. Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the introduction of Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter, a.k.a. the Best! MCU! Character!, even if there are moments in this introductory chapter that undermine her badassery (i.e., her apparent jealousy).

Johnston’s experience with period drama and action do the film a great service. Markus and McFeely wouldn’t have been the first team I would have thought of to pen a Captain America flick, but their work on the Narnia adaptations means they, like Johnston with The Rocketeer, have also plied their trade at WWII­-era escapist fantasy period work as well. The pacing is a little strange, as the film invests a great deal of the first act in establishing Steve’s motivations and ideals, compresses all of Cap’s great and valorous wartime battles into three set pieces and one brief montage, and has an epilogue longer than one would expect in a standard action movie. The unusual plot structure helps the audience feel somewhat time-­lost, however, which adds to the film in equal measure to the extent that it detracts from it. The film also manages to set up future installments without that distracting from the cohesiveness of this film as well. Overall, this is the first truly great film of the MCU, and cemented, at least for me, the long term viability of this franchise.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Lagniappe

Boomer: Continuity-­wise, Cap will, of course, go on to participate in the Avengers films, the first sequel The Winter Soldier, and the upcoming Phase Three flagship feature Civil War. Best MCU Character Peggy Carter has now appeared in more individual Marvel productions than any other character, with her appearance here and cameos in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-­Man, and, of course, her leading role in Agent Carter (catch the premiere of Season 2 on January 19!). Dominic Cooper’s Howard Stark reappears on that series in a supporting role as well, but the film’s most far-­reaching addition to the MCU canon (other than Cap himself) is the first appearance of Hydra, which will have implications that reverberate way down the line. In non­-continuity news, I always forget that future Doctor Who companion Jenna Coleman and future Game of Thrones competitor Natalie Dormer are both in this film in small, inconsequential roles, so it’s a nice re-­surprise to see them here.

Brandon: My biggest gripe about the MCU as a whole has been its individual films’ shoutouts to outside properties often having no immediate consequence. There’s a little bit of that wankery going around here, mostly in a last minute Nick Fury cameo (as always) & in a post-credits stinger that promotes the then-upcoming Avengers crossover movie in a hilariously awful “You Wouldn’t Steal a DVD” editing style. For the most part, though, other Marvel properties are incorporated into the fold for more purposeful effect here. Daddy Stark is given an integral role in the creation of Captain America instead of merely making an appearance. Even more importantly, the MCU’s MacGuffin-at-large, the Infinity Stones, aren’t especially interesting in the abstract, but I don find it highly amusing that Hitler would be desperately seeking an Infinity Stone in this version of history. They even create a little bit of retroactive connective tissue here by making it perfectly logical that Tony Stark would be in possession of Cap’s shield in a throwaway gag in the previously-released Iron Man 2. Even if Nick Fury’s presence is again mostly inconsequential (as has been in the case in every MCU film besides Iron Man 2), they’re still working in the right direction here.

Combined S.W.A.M.P.F.L.I.X. Rating for Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

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fourhalfstar

-Agents of S.W.A.M.P.F.L.I.X.

Sisters (2015)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

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threehalfstar

One great thing about films that strictly adhere to their genre is that they can afford to be hopelessly dumb & generic while still leaving an audience satisfied. It’s true of dumb action flicks. Its certainly true of cheap horror. And it’s largely true of silly comedies. Formulas exist for a reason. A genre-faithful film doesn’t need to be particularly inventive to deliver the goods. Past Amy Poehler/Tina Fey collaboration Baby Mama failed to deliver anything particularly memorable (except maybe the gag where Poehler’s feral mother-to-be refused to drink water because it’s gross), but Sisters is arguably just as dumb & just as generic, yet it works like gangbusters. The difference? Sisters is actually pretty damn funny.

I guess the trick for making a generic comedy vehicle work is mostly in the casting. Sisters casts Poehler & Fey somewhat against type (or at least switched from their roles in Baby Mama), with Poehler filling the role an A-type do-gooder who organizes charity initiatives for the homeless & owns a dog named Polenta. Fey is basically an echo of Jennifer Aniston’s whirlwind of an overgrown brat on 30 Rock, right down to the kooky hats. This bleeding heart vs hot mess Odd Couple dichotomy is brought to a boiling point when the women discover that their parents have sold their childhood home (or, as Fey puts it, “They fucking sold our fucking childhood fucking home”). After sorting through humongous piles of 80s memorabilia in their shared teen-years bedroom the pair decide to throw one last rager in order to recapture their youth (or in Fey-speak: to once again find themselves “balls deep in joy”) while they still have the opportunity. The party quickly gets out of control (duh) and brings to a head years of unresolved personal & familial issues (double duh).

Backing up Fey & Poehler’s effectiveness in their reversed-role casting is an untold wealth of comedic talent among the party-goers. The film is more or less a roll call of SNL performers & 30 Rock vets:  Maya Rudolph, Bobby Moynihan, Rachel Dratch, Kate McKinnon, Chris Parnell, John Lutz, and so on. And then there’s Leguizamo’s Michael Peña-esque sleazeball streak he began in American Ultra & of course, pro wrestler John Cena doing the same for the off-brand ribald comedy streak he began in Trainwreck. With so much talent in the room, it’s difficult to pinpoint a clear MVP for guest performer (Fey & Poehler are obviously the best overall), but let’s go ahead & call it a two-way tie between Cena & Moynihan. Cena’s tatted-up drug dealer, Pazuzu, is a hilarious detour from his typical persona, but the best part is that he’s even funnier than what’s promised in the film’s trailer. Pazuzu’s monologue about what drugs he has for sale ranks up there with Jason Statham’s self-aggrandizing rant in Spy as one of the funniest scenes of 2015. Seriously. Moynihan, on the other hand, is excellent in his ability to be the least funny guy in the room, especially once high-grade psychedelics enter the picture, convincing him that he is “Pablo Dickaso”.

Part of what allows this cast of comedic greats to shine is Fey & Poehler’s titular sisters egging their guests on to make sure that they’re having a teen party, not an adult one. Everyone makes a spectacular ass of themselves & everyone works through some deep-seated emotional issues in the process. Sisters is strong enough in its casting & in its emotional core to work without being flash in any particular way. When the film hits overly familiar story beats or employs absurdly generic comedy music cues, it’s all too easy to shrug its problems off as being a part of a well-established formula. What a matters is that Sisters uses its formula to deliver a solid line of maniacal humor. Hell, I’ll even admit that the film’s tidy rom-com ending choked me up a bit, despite doing nothing particularly worthy of a single-tear reaction. Genre formals are that powerful. They work.

-Brandon Ledet

Instinct Vs. Ability in Rey’s Use of the Force in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

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When I first reviewed Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, it had just opened for wide release. This was a magical time, just less than a month ago, when I couldn’t imagine what anyone could possibly have to complain about in J.J. Abrams’ fan-pleasing entry to one of pop culture’s most beloved franchises. After viewing the film three times in the theater (possibly the first time I’ve done that for a movie since 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), my enthusiasm hasn’t wavered a bit. I’m proud that it ended up ranking on our Top Films of 2015 list & personally would place it behind only Empire Strikes Back as one of the best in the franchise. Boy, was I wrong about the complaints, though. From what I can tell, the world (or at least the world online) has forgotten how to have fun at the movies & has devolved mostly into whiny nitpicking & self-assigned superiority. Despite the critical response to The Force Awakens remaining largely positive, the volume & variety of complaints surrounding the film have become absolutely overwhelming. There are many common quibbles I disagree with (it too closely resembles A New Hope, its central villain is too “emo” to be threatening, etc.), but for the sake of brevity I’d like to address just one complaint against the film that I find dubious: the idea that its protagonist, Rey, gets “too good, too fast” in her use of the Force.

The last thing the world needs right now is another lengthy think piece about The Force Awakens so I’ll try to keep it brief here. It’d be possible to address the complaints against Rey’s Force abilities from the POV that a slowburner about a young space wizard spending hours of screen time learning to play laser swords might not be the most exciting plot for an action-packed space opera. It’s also possible that there’s a hint of sexism afoot in these complaints about Rey, since no one seemed super-miffed about how quickly Luke could block laser blasts blindfolded in A New Hope. I’d like to offer a much simpler explanation for Rey’s sudden talent with the ancient art of the Force besides streamlining the plot, however: her talent was a lot more gradual than most people realize. The scene most people seem to gripe with concerning Rey’s abilities is an interrogation room battle with Kylo Ren when she seemingly discovers her Force abilities, then immediately dominates her professionally-trained opponent in a mental tug of war. It’s my contention that Rey had already been “using the Force” long before she entered that interrogation room; she just didn’t have a name for something she had been doing by instinct.

For concrete evidence for Rey using the Force before the interrogation scene, just look to all of her instances of “luck” & “coincidence”. Rey is introduced as having a unique talent for scavenging for minuscule parts in gigantic ships, but is it a purely human talent that drives these needle-in-the-haystack searches? Perhaps not. Even more convincing is the scene where Rey first flies the Millennium Falcon. She is familiar with the individual parts of ships from her daily scavenging & can talk shop with the best of  them (most notably Han Solo), but knowing & doing are two separate endeavors. When Rey takes the controls of the Millennium Falcon (a ship she derides as some nameless junker) she flies it recklessly in a panic, repeating “I can do this, I can do this” to herself & barely getting by on rudimentary skills & “luck”. When she devises a plan on how to utilize Finn’s gun (which is locked in a downward position) by executing a flawless maneuver that positions the ship upside down, a switch seemingly flips in her head. She looks confident, determined, and the wild nature of piloting smooths out. Finn asks her, “How did you do that?” and she responds, “I don’t know. I’ve flown before, but . . .” in an exasperated tone. This is a line of questioning is repeated later in the film when she escapes Kylo Ren’s interrogation by using the Force (supposedly for the first time) and when asked to explain how, she responds, “I can’t explain it & you wouldn’t believe me.”

I believe there is a pattern there. Rey is instinctually using the Force in the Millennium Falcon scene without knowing what she’s doing exactly. It’s a pattern repeated when she first uses a laser blaster. She misses her first shot, looking frazzled, then throws on her determined Force Face (a great body language detail from actor Daisy Ridley) & never misses again, offing a storm trooper every time she pulls the trigger. It’s also echoed in the scene where she accidentally releases the alien beasts Han Solo is smuggling. She mistakenly opens the wrong blast doors on her first try, but when she has to save Finn from the wicked things’ tentacles she calmly executes the correct blast door at the exact correct time, joking “That was lucky.” I disagree with Rey (even though she was speaking in jest). It wasn’t lucky; it was the Force. I could kind of pinpoint a few more of Rey’s instant “talents” & lucky “coincidences” that could possibly be attributed to the Force (happening to run into Finn in the first place, innate understanding of obscure languages, the ability to fight off multiple men at once, moving a gigantic metal grate with her bare hands, etc.), but you’d have to squint at those examples the right way to make them work. I’m at the very least confident that the Falcon flight, the laser blaster, and the blast doors are concrete examples of Rey using the Force by instinct.

I don’t think that Rey’s Force abilities being introduced gradually instead of suddenly makes or breaks The Force Awakens as a good or a bad movie. There’s so much going on in the film that makes it a worthwhile slice of sci-fi fantasy entertainment otherwise. If nothing else, watching animatronic cutie patootie BB-8 roll & bleep its way through danger is alone worth the price of admission. I do, however, firmly believe that Rey’s gradual use of the Force through instinct was an intentional choice made by director J.J. Abrams & screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. Long before Rey Jedi mind tricks her way out of the interrogation room & even before she receives visions by touching the Skywalker family lightsaber, her unknowing use of the Force is referenced by none other than Supreme Leader Snoke himself. Snoke asks Kylo Ren, “There has been an Awakening. Can you feel it?” (For the record, Ren can.) If a fictional, spooky projection of an evil wizard can sense that Rey is using the Force sight unseen, why can’t the film’s detractors, who have the benefit of watching her every step? Sometimes it’s fun to complain, I guess, whether or not the film or the character deserves the scrutiny.

-Brandon Ledet