Author Archives: Bob Evans

Ranking the MCU: Top Tier

Now we come to what I feel are the best films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These last ten years have produced a number of entertaining movies and as I have said before even the lowest ranked MCU entries are still fun exciting movies but it is these four, presented in no particular order, that I think represent the pinnacle of what the studio has achieved.

Captain America: The Winter Solider: Winter Solideris a terrific throwback to the political thrillers of the 70s. Filled with twists and betrayals that echoed across the face of the planet, this movie up ended what was established and expected as constants in the MCU. A particularly bold movie considering it was released shortly after the debut the television seriesMarvel’s: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.Not satisfied with all that the filmmakers, screenwriter and directors, also infused Winter Soliderwith a powerful theme about the dangers of trading freedom for security.

Captain America: Civil War: Civil Wargave us the big massive cross over battle which is a staple of a long running line comics. Torn by governmental actions our heroes find themselves suddenly battling each other in the sort of big, splashy, and thrilling manner fans had waited years to see. Before the airport fight in Civil warthe closest fan came to this experience was the fight between Zod and his henchpersons against Superman in Superman II. As with Winter Solider, again the story underneath was representing a powerful theme, the duties of friendship, loyalty, and the terrible corrosive power of secrets. I adore that the third act in this movie was not about a city or a world or a galaxy in danger but about the disintegration of a friendship.

Black Panther: Introduced in Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther’s first solo outing stunned the world. A compelling combination of Afro-Futurism, comic book science-fiction, familial drama, and an indictment of colonialism, Black Panther, proved that a story that was about something, something very sensitive, could not only entertain but also reach millions with ideas that they might never have been exposed to without this film. Breaking box office records and preconceptions this movie is truly one of the finest examples of the power of genre cinema.

Thor: Ragnarok: Including the MCU’s most off-beat comedy as part of the top tier may but an unexpected move but comedies have a long tradition of truth telling. It was the function of the court jester to say what no one else was allowed and in many ways that is the part played by Thor: Ragnarok. Like its brother Black Panther, is a film about something, just with Ragnarok, the timeless themes of family, ones who are born into and the ones we choose, along with the corrosive nature of hidden crimes, is buried under a plethora of gags, farcical characters, and amazing action.

The running commonality among my selection for the best of the MCU movies is the presence of a strong theme. The best stories not only entertain but also illuminate some essential element of the human condition. Some may have notice an absence on this list, Avengers: Infinity War. Infinity War is the fist part of a two part story, when the conclusion arrives in 2019 I’ll slot the singular story in my ranking.

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Ranking the MCU: Part 3

With the Mid-Grade films behind us we move into the Honorable Mentions, those movies of the MCU that are a cut above the rest but do not quite reach the heights that the Top Tier films achieve. I find it curious that each film in this category is initial outing of its particular franchise. Though considering how often sequel fail to match their originals perhaps that is not so much of a surprise.

Iron Man: The first of the MCU movies, the project that was derided in Hollywood, still ranks as one of the better outing. Iron Mancreated the basic template of the MCU movies, establishing that mix of action, character, and comedy that continues to this day as the ultimate crowd pleaser.

Doctor Strange: Expanding the MCU into the supernatural, Doctor Strange, is an inventive cinematic trip. While following the character arc from Iron Man, an arrogant man learns the meaning of his life, Strangelights of the screen with dazzling performances and a third act where a cities to rebuilt instead of destroyed in a massive battle.

Captain America: The First Avenger: Steven Rogers, like Superman, is a very difficult character to write and perform. Unlike many other superhero characters, Steve is in no need to learn how to be good; he is inherently a good man. Too often such characters come off from anywhere Lawful Boring to sanctimonious. The script inThe First Avengercombined with the considerable talents of Chris Evans instead gives us a true hero, someone worthy of not only admiration but emulation as well.

Guardians of the Galaxy: When Marvel Studios first announce their plans for a Guardiansfilm I was among those who thought that had finally bitten off more than they can chew. Characters that were for the most part unknown to the wider public, including a gun-crazy intelligent raccoon, sounded like a film destined to fail. Instead with flair, style, and heavy doses of comedy, Guardians presented us with a new style of hero for the MCU and gave us the most screen-time for upcoming big bad Thanos. After it’s release we are all Groot.

Marvel’s: The Avengers: This film proved that the team-up movie was not only viable but a box office goldmine. Bringing back fan favorite Loki as its principle villain, The Avengers, gave a larger role for S.H.I.E.L.D., robbed us of a fan favorite in Phil Coulson, and mixed larger than life characters and egos in a manner that both entertained and supported their individual natures. The success and events of this movie would echo throughout the MCU up to and including Infinity War.

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Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Part 2

The Mid-Grade MCU movies are solid films without major flaws that tell their stories competently with flair and style that we come to expect from this franchise. Not surprisingly this is the largest number of MCU movies in a single category.

 

Ant-Man: This film is charming with a deft, light tone that makes this one of the more fun movies. I very nearly moved it into the ‘Honorable Mention’ category full the child’s bedroom fight alone.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2: It would have been nearly impossible to be as fresh as Guardians of the Galaxy, and hampered with a required that no major changes can occur due to its placement in the overall multi-film plot Vol 2still manages to tell a compelling story and explore deeper into established characters, putting one on the path to if not heroism at least fighting against the coming big bad.

Iron Man 2: A good solid follow-up to Iron Man, IM2doesn’t suffer from the ‘grab the girl’ clichĂ© as Iron Man 3did, it deepens our understanding of Tony conflicted nature with his father Howard Stark, and broadens the MCU itself.

Spider-Man: Homecoming:SMHis a joy because it brings Peter Parker back home to the MCU instead of suffering intolerable studio dreck produced over at Sony. The decisions top return Peter to a high school student and to skip over one of the most well-known of all origin stories elevates this film. The plotting is a little flabby with one extraneous action set-piece and Peter’s actions are a little too consequences free otherwise this would have floated up into the ‘Honorable Mention’ slots.

Thor& Thor: The Dark World:  Both of these films do a fine job of presenting the mythological/cosmic settings of the MCU. The casting is well done and of course Loki instantly became a fan favorite. Thematically both films are a little flat without greater impact than the characters’ lives themselves. Perfectly watchable with enjoyable performances nothing in these movies either elevates or sinks them. They are very nearly the Platonic Ideal of  Mid-grade in the MCU.

 

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Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Part 1

Now that phase 4 of the MCU has hit theaters with Avengers: Infinity Warit’s time for me to give my personal rankings on the individual films. Instead of a numbered list I am going to break them down into categories. From bottom to top the categories are:

 

Bargain Basement

Mid-Grade

Honorable Mention

And

Top Tier.

 

Bargain Basement:

Let me kick off by saying that Marvel’s Bargain basement movies are still far superior to nearly all of the competition. These films have solid structures, competence, and for the most part achieve their goals. Their failings are usually a tendency to fall into formula over form.

The Incredible Hulk: This film while it hit all the required beats suffered from a bland and uninteresting protagonist, stake that were neither personal enough nor important enough to create engagement, and it failed to add any significance to the MCU project. Where a common critique leveled at the MCU movies is that their villains are not interesting enough, on average, with The Incredible Hulk, I found Blonsky, a man dealing with aging frame and willing to go to extremes to save his physical abilities, a much more compelling character than Bruce Banner.

Iron Man 3: I am an outlier in that I prefer Iron Man 2 toIron Man 3. (And I do hope that they eventually ditch the number scheme.) IM3in many respects to a fairly bog standard superhero story, including a third act that revolves around the villain snatching the love interest and force the hero to save her. While the climatic fight is a wonder of action directing, the story feels flat and fairly lifeless. Plot holes make repeated viewings less enjoyable that other movies in the MCU but what saves the movie are terrific performances from the stellar cast.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: This film is hampered by following to closely the formula set forth in Marvel’s The Avengers. The third act once again sees the Avengers battling in hand to hand against forgettable, punch-able mooks, while stopping the main bad guy from his world ending plot. In addition to that bit of repetition, Age of Ultronalso repeats the beat of the villains getting inside the team to disrupt it, as well as a dim move on the villains part in capturing the ‘girl’ of the team, giving away his location. Really Ultron kidnapping Black Widow was a very clichĂ©d move and pulls this entry down from Mid-Grad to Bargain Basement.

Tomorrow – Mid-Grade

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The Ship has Already Hit the Iceberg

We are one third of the way through this election year and it appears to me that the Republicans are taking on water fast.

While Trump’s approval numbers remain the very low 40s, a value that is dismal but not yet disastrous, closer inspection reveals that the level is only that high because of very high levels of partisan support. Move beyond the GOP member and Trump’s number crash. Republican politicians, including the man third in line for the presidency, are retiring in large number and the donor class has already written of the House as a lost cause. The Senate map is tilted unfavorably against the Democratic Party and while gaining a majority there is quite unlikely, places such as The Cook Report and Five Thirty Eight do not dismiss the possibility out of hand. As spring finally rolls into town major GOP players are sounding like what earlier would have come out of only Democratic lips. Rubio, a weathervane of a pol always looking to see where the populace is heading, has described the recent tax cuts as something that did not help the workers of America and Trump’s own former HHS secretary admits that repealing the Individual Mandate will raise people premiums.

In this midst of such political calamity when we look at the GOP what do we see?

The House ‘Freedom’ Caucus mutters of plans to yet fully repeal the ACA.

In Illinois an actual Nazi runs for congress as a member of the GOP. (Remember when Illinois Nazi was a punch line?)

In California the GOP Senate candidate is an anti-Semite calling on the USA to be ‘free of Jews.’

The Vice President refers to a sheriff who defied our court system as a champion of the rule of law.

Two trillion dollars or more have been heaped upon the nation’s debt.

And of course we have an Administration that has taken no action to counter Russia’s meddling in our elections. (There are some sanctions on Russia, but none are for the attempts to sway our elections.)

This rot in the GOP is more than simply Trump. Trump is an artifact of the rot not a cause. Some time ago the Republicans surrendered reason, principal, and morality in their quest for power, playing to the basest motivations of the electorate.

They are destroying themselves the only question in my mind is much damage will they wreck before the end?

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Review: Scarface (1983)

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, when Night Train Murdersderailed I switched to 1983’s remake of Scarface, starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeifer. I remember watching this film when it first arrived on home video but it did not leave a lasting impression. Sometime a film doesn’t work because the film itself is flawed and sometime I am not in the right frame of mind to receive it. The first time I watched The Godfatherit sailed right on past without much impact and perhaps that would be the case with Scarface.

Nope.

This film is a mess. At nearly three hours it is epic is length but not so epic in its scope. The story follows young Tony Montana from his arrival in Miami from Cuba as part of a massive influx of Cuban refugees to his ascension as a drug kingdom and his downfall. Certainly there is a lot there to explore, perhaps more than could be justly covered in a single film. In addition to his climb and fall in the illicit drug trade the story also covers his relationship with his mother and his sister, the latter played my Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in a terrible frizzed out perm, his best friend Manny, and that strange inexplicable love affair/marriage to his boss’s woman, Elvira.

The movie has a strange penetration into pop culture, particularly the line ‘Say hello to my little friend,’ but without any meaningful theme. Released in 1983 it so perfectly capture the style of movie making from that period it could be easily mistaken for a parody of early 80’s movies. The color pallet tends towards garish pastels, the score is electronic with a heavy use of synthesizers, and while the use of songs does not quite reach made for MTV video levels they very much feature prominently in the soundscape. (Though it should be noted that the director’s heavy finger on the camera’s zoom button is more an artifact of the 70’s.)

Scarfacebecame a flashpoint for controversy before its release when the MPAA rating board threatened to give the film an ‘X’ rating for its depiction of graphic violence even after three rounds of edits to attempt to earn an ‘R’. The director, Brian De Palma, famously fought the rating, restored the film to his original vision and then won an appeal with the MPAA at large to secure the desired ‘R’ rating. Today the film’s graphic violence is scarcely noteworthy and in my opinion so over the top as to remove all reality from it. Particularly the scene where, as a number of men fire fully automatic weapons at Tony, one of the associates approaches stealthy from behindTony with a shot gun. First off, during a hail of gunfire there is no need for anything even remotely like stealth and second Hollywood never seems to think about rounds down range. Apparently bullets intended for Tony are incapable of injuring anything but Tony.

With so many better organized crime movies to watch, such as The Godfatheror Good Fellas, there is no need waste any time with the remake of Scarface. (Thought it still has better structure than Night Train Murders.)

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Why is That Scene There

I have a Shudder subscription by way of my Amazon Account and through it I experiment with horror films I would be unlikely to rent individually. This weekend one of my video experimentation was an Italian exploitation film with the English title Night Train Murders. The film had been compared to The Last House on the Left, but set on a train as two young women travel from Germany to Italy but face a night of assaults, murder, and depravity.

Night Train Murders, like most films of its genre, is short scarcely more than an hour and a half in length and yet at the 35-minute mark I found myself bored and stopping the playback. Why?

Than a third of the way through the story nothing of consequence had yet happened.

The young ladies had made their train, smoked when they shouldn’t have, flirted with the wrong boys and then due to a border issue I didn’t quite understand (my attention by this point had wandered) had not switched trains to a nearly empty one. The two thugs who were to be the cause of so much horror and grief had mugged a street Santa Claus, evaded capture, jumped aboard the train, and one had experienced a cliched sexual encounter with a bad woman. (We know she’s bad because she has sexually graphic photographs of herself.)

Mind that paragraph of plot is essential to setting up the following events but it should have never have taken more than a third of the movie’s limited running time. The problem is that most of the scenes leading up to this point, while establishing the players and their positions, did nothing in terms of conflict, nor did they do more then sketch out the most basic aspects of anyone’s character. Because they lacked conflict and character the scenes themselves were boring ultimately killing any tension in the story until I stopped the movie and switched to 1983’s Scarface.

This is a critical element of the craft of storytelling; every scene needs to do more than a single function. The author, either of a screenplay or a novel, has to advance plots, display character, dramatize conflict, and establish critical elements for future use. Given any story’s limited resources, time and or pages, the best scenes serve multiple masters simultaneously. There may be time when your hand is forced and scene is only about a single aspect but those need to be the exception and not the rule.

When creating a story an essential question in your mind needs to be ‘Why is this scene here?’

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Movie Review: Avengers: Infinity War (Spoiler Free)

10 years. We have been building towards this climax, this resolution, for a decade. Infinity Stones, teased in a handful of the previous 18 movies now movies take the principal McGuffin position and the villain hinted at in Marvel’s The Avengers, Thanos, mounts the stage in all his regal glory. Nearly every principal hero of the cinematic universe mans the field, a field that stretches from the boroughs of New York to the furthest end of the galaxy, in a bid to thwart Thanos’ mad objective. A couple of major heroes miss this fight and their absence is dealt with in a flash of dialogue that is all too easy to miss, but in general the mightiest team ever has been assembled, and they will be tested.

Infinity Warstarts shortly after where Thor: Ragnarokconcluded. The film blasts into the action and the terrible stakes at risk. There is very little fat or heavy exposition in the script; people who are not familiar with the MCU will undoubtedly be ‘at sea’ trying to understand the various threads that weave this tapestry. However, those who have been following the experiment since Iron Manin 2008 will be rewarded with a rich, intense, and highly emotional rollercoaster. Where other films in the MCU may have seemed a little light in the coasts to the heroes, Infinity Wardoes not flinch from the central concept that war always brings a hard, heavy, and terrible cost. There are moments of humor, many which are born of the alchemy created by clashing characters from the desperate domains of this vast canvas. There are appearances from nearly aspect of the MCU, except the television franchises, included one that very nearly elicited a cheer from me. (A quick check of IMDB indicates the original actor did not return but that was no evident in the performance.) There was also a major actor introduced a new character in the MCU and this character’s stature plays out as perhaps the subtle joke performed in an MCU movie. There is of course and obligatory Stan Lee cameo, but the directors correctly dispensed with this obligation quickly so that the beloved tradition would not break the movie’s spell at more important and a dramatic moment. (Yes, I am looking at you X-Men: Apocalypse.)

Originally this film was title Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, with next year’s release Part 2.The structure of the pair of films appears to be same with only the titles changed. So what is started here in the massive blockbuster will be concluded in 2019. Like so many franchises of late be prepared for an ending that while completes the plot of this particular franchise entry leaves much more unresolved than resolved. I will say that the ending is a bold risky choice and I have tremendous respect for Marvel Studios in rolling those dice. (Though the early box office is showing that Infinity Warhas already broken box office records.)

In effect Infinity Waracts as the culmination for a decade long narrative experiment and the real risk the studio ran was that it may have come off as anti-climatic. With this much build up it would be very easy of fail, fall short, and leave the audience with a sensation of ‘really, it was all just that?’ That is not what happened. Playing their best villain fully to his cosmic best, Infinity Warfulfills the promise when we started this journey. It is grand, it is fantastic, it is emotional, and the MCU has changed. The status will never be quo again.

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Thinking about Villains’ Motivations

Prompted by a discussion on the NPR Podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, I have been thinking about the motivations of heroes and villains and the troubles that arise when these are not well considered.

One of the podcast’s panelists, and I am not sure if it was Glen Weldon or Stephen Thompson, commented along the lines that if a villain’s motivation became too relatable then the filmmakers, though I am sure the tracks with other narrative arts, run the risk of making the villain into the protagonist. I think a strong argument can be made that is precisely what happened to some degree with Walter White in Breaking Bad. He never transitioned to an antagonist but remained a protagonist who was evil. This idea of keeping the villain’s motivation at arms length was used as a reason for why so often the villain’s goal is one of massive destruction.

The problem with a massive destruction goal for your villain is that it reduces your hero to a negative goal and one that is inherently impersonal. If the monstrous big bad wants to end the world so it can start a new then anyone with the ability will oppose that villain if for no other reason than self-preservation. The hero’s goal is simply to prevent something from happening and that goal has no direct connection to the hero’s character. Another effect is that it is only the villain that really wants something. This has the effect of stripping your protagonist of individuality and reducing your story to plot and spectacle. If this is part of a franchise it will always start the dreaded ‘raising stakes’ inflation spiral; save a person, save a group of people, save a city, save a nation, save the world, save the galaxy, save the universe, following that chain leads into absurdity.

The path of avoid this trap is to give your hero and the villain positive goals that are mutually exclusive. Now, particularly in the super-hero genre, too often writers will take an easy shortcut to a positive goal, save the girlfriend. A weakness in the Sam Rami Spidermanmovies is that all of the third acts revolve around rescuing Mary Jane Watson. This is a lazy shortcut; usually the villain grabs the girlfriend as a method of putting pressure on the hero and it rarely raising the stakes in a meaningful method. (Yes, I am looking at you Iron Man 3.)

When crafting a plot and story make sure that your protagonists has something that they want to achieve and make that goal incompatible with the antagonist’s and not simply preventing something and you’ll have a stronger story.

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Scaring Myself

Among my writing friends I have a bit of a reputation for turning out dark short stories. This is not at all unearned. For my long form fiction the ending tend to be more upbeat with the protagonists generally achieving their goal and those goals not being dastardly. (Noirs are of course an exception to that general rule.) With my short form more unsavory characters and failed endings are far more common.

I mention this because lately a new story has been creeping around in my thoughts. This new untitled tale is part of that peculiar sub-genre of fantasy/horror where a character is an agent of grand dark powers hunting down those souls that have escaped hell and damnation. Usually these hunters are working towards an atonement, to clear their own ledger and earn redemption.

The idea that won’t go away is one so dark with a topical ending so dismal and cynical that I not only fear showing it to any editor I fear writing the piece itself.

I have never been afraid of writing a story. This is novel.

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