Category Archives: Movies

Fixing Zemo’s Retcon

 

 

Recently in the Disney+ MCU show The Falcon and The Winter Solider the villain from Captain America: Civil War, Helmut Zemo, returned as a reoccurring character.

Civil War presented Zemo as secret police/security officer from the fictional nation of Sokovia that had been devastated by the event of Avengers: Age of Ultron and seeking revenge upon the Avengers for the death of his wife and family.

TFaTWS returned Zemo closer to his comic book version letting the audience know that he was wealthy, an aristocrat and held the title of Baron.

Many people have felt that this directly contradicts the earlier presentation of Zemo breaking the MCU’s continuity.

This is an easy fix to make both Zemo’s seamlessly into one coherent character.

Zemo as a young man met and fell hopelessly in love with a woman a low social standing. His tradition  bound aristocratic family refused to accept a person of ‘low birth’ into their arms and Zemo walked away from his wealth, his privileges, and his family to be with his love. Starting a family of his own and building his own life and losing all that in the Avengers’ war on Ultron. Grief and revenge drove him to the event of Civil War and after cooling his heels in prison and basking the publicly fractured Avengers he reunited with his family and the Bucky brought him into the current crisis.

You may now use this as your ‘head canon.’

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Godzilla vs Kong

 

Using our HBOMax account we watched the latest installment of the monster-verse franchise Godzilla vs Kong which follows the films Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Kong: Skull Island. I thoroughly enjoyed Kong: Skull Island but Godzilla: King of The Monsters didn’t work for me, too overstuffed with different monsters it lacked a clean plot and simply rushed from monster to monster without enough connecting plot tissue to create any real stakes.

I’m happy to say that Godzilla vs Kong is a much better and much more enjoyable film. The movies had just enough human centric story to give the audience something to emotionally lean into without forgetting that we’re there to watch two massive kaijuengage in epic battles.

The film follows two intersecting plotlines. First Godzilla, formerly seen as a protector of the earth from other titans (kaiju) has without cause and mysteriously begun attacking human cities and installations. Second, a shadowy technological company Apex is attempting to penetrate into the monster-verse’s ‘hollow earth’ to obtain a new energy source and believes that Kong is the key to finding the path into the planet’s interior. The problem is that as natural enemies and possessing a sixth sense for each other’s presence Kong’s movement attracts Godzilla prompting battle. Each plotline has its associated humans trying to achieve their missions while unraveling the mysteries that they discover until everything converges for a massive battle in neon accented Hong Kong.

There are secrets revealed, not so hidden villains exposed and in general a massive amount of damage inflicted but overall, this was a fun movie of kaiju duking it out. It is what it says on the tin, ‘Godzilla vs Kong.”

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Me and Movies Theaters When I was Young

 

For some inexplicable reason lately, I have been thinking about the movies theaters I frequented when I was a tween and a teenager.

Until about age of 10 I lived in rural North Carolina and my only solid memories of going to the movies were drive-in theaters with big bags of homemade popcorn and gloriously colorful Hammer horror.

After my father passed away, we move to Ft. Pierce Florida and soon started going to the theaters there.

The Sunrise Theater was just over two miles from my home on 32nd St and I walked the distance to see their presentations. The Sunrise was a single screen theater and the place I went to the most for my movie fix. I remember a number of fun Saturdays watching films like Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Race with the Devil, and The Towering Inferno in that darkened air-condition space.

Ft Pierce did have a multi-screen theater I seem the remember the name being the Village Twin, but I could be wrong about the name. It was just over three and half miles from my home and I also walked and sometimes biked to that theater for movies. It was there that I saw Jaws, Superman: The Movie, and Alien. I still have quite vivid memories of speeding home from Superman pumping the peddles hard with Willams’ iconic score playing in my head.

The final place to see movies in Ft. Pierce was our drive-in theater but as we had no family car, my mother did not drive, I only saw one film there. A Movie I was so desperate to see that I went on my bicycle to a drive-in, Romero’s Dawn of the Dead.

Movies have always been and always will be a major element of my life.

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Ghost Stories and Mysteries: Minefields of Exposition

 

All stories require exposition. From romances set in the modern day to period pieces, fantasies, and science-fiction all tales require a level of explanation about the characters and how their lives and histories intersect with the larger world around them, but ghost stories and mysteries raise the bar for the writer in both the amount of exposition required and the skill to deploy it in a satisfying manner.

Ghost stories often turn on a mystery, why there this ghost, what events created it and what is needed for the restless dead to finally rest. In that way a ghost story is an often, but not always, a mystery where the dead actively participate. Mysteries are built upon the fact that there is hidden knowledge that will be revealed and its revelation with illuminate both plot and character in a satisfying way.

For both types of stories, the exposition usually arrives late, near the end, when the final pieces are slotted into place and the truth is finally uncovered. This is the moment of greatest danger for the writer.

It’s very tempting and trap to have one character deliver the exposition in a massive info dump laying out all the particulars of the plot and how the various elements interlock creating the narrative. If managed skillfully and with dramatic tension still alive, look to Knives Out for a fine example of this performed masterfully both in the writing and by the actors, the reveal can be exciting and dramatic. Done badly and it’s a boring scene with usually one actor forced to attempt to salvage the story by eating the scenery.

This week I watched The Nesting, a title which makes no sense whatsoever, a horror movie and Gloria Grahame’s final film performance, about an agoraphobic woman and her experiences in a haunted house. The core story and set up are perfectly serviceable but when it comes time to deliver the expositions we are treated to John Carradine, sadly far past his prime, attempting to deliver a clunky info dump as his character dies. The film was hardly working before and this badling worked exposition killed what little life remained.

If you are writing a ghost story or mystery, take particular care around the final exposition, remember that a scene, including expository ones, require tension derived from a character trying to achieve something and facing obstacles in that pursuit.

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League

 

Last week I finished watching the HBO Max premier offering Zack Snyder’s Justice League. A reworking of the feature film release from 2017 of Justice League.

A very brief summation of the history of two Justice Leaguemovies. Zack Snyder helmed the DC Comic feature film adaptations for Warner Brothers he was in postproduction of Justice League when a familial tragedy pulled him away from work and off the production. WB hired Joss Whedon, yes, the now scandal ridden writer/director, to complete the feature. The fan and critical reaction to Snyder’s darker vision of these characters prompted the studio to use the opportunity to have Whedon do reshoots, and rewrites transform JL into a more colorful and lighter-toned movie. Which did not garner the fan or critical reaction the studios had hoped. Sunder’s dedicated fanbase began a campaign to ‘release the Snyder cut’ version of the film but a completed film did not exist. Once HBO Max became the studio’s premier streaming services, they greenlit Snyder to reshoot and rewrite Justice League to the tune of 75 million dollars producing the edition now streaming. Whedon’s Jl clocked in at about two hours and Snyder’s is a hair over 4 in length. Making it a very different beast from the theatrical release.

Is it better?

Yes, but it’s still not a very good movie. This version is tonally consistent, the color pallet matches the tone throughout and while there are moments of levity it is not quippy. Much more time is given the characters, Flash and Cyborg, that were represented mainly as mere supports in the theatrical cut the subtraction of the Ukrainian family who existed in Whedon’s version solely to be rescued strengthens the overall film but aside from Cyborg and Flash the film is long on plot and comic references and short on actual character dependent story.

Far too much of the film’s lengthy run is devoted to the ‘building of the team’ without any real feeling for who most of these characters are and what motivates them. They are iconic to the point of being statuary and without inner lives. They are also terribly inconsistent. Much of one act is devoted to the resurrection of Superman because the rest believe that they simply cannot win without him. When it goes badly resulting in a writer-driven fight between the league and Superman and Superman departs for locals unknown the League carries on as though they never required his immense power.

The effects are mostly good and fights mostly entertaining, but the overall sensation is one that fails to stir the blood, speed the heart, or engage in any real empathy for the characters. While this version is better it’s not really worth the 4 hours it requires.

 

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Weekend Noir: In A Lonely Place

 

This past weekend was a noir watching time for me and a friend. We often watch movies after the end of board and card games and following last weekend movie The Big Combo I wanted to watch The Big Heat on Friday night. That put me in a mood for more Gloria Grahame and on Saturday I rented In A Lonely Place a noir I have heard about but had never actually seen.

The story centers on Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) a Hollywood screenwriter with an explosive temper that often spills over into violence. We are introduced to Dixon when a pause at a traffic light turns heated and he climbs out of his car in the middle of the street to start fighting. After a hatcheck girl that Dixon brought to his home to assist him with a screenplay is found murdered Dixon is brought in by the police for questioning. Dixon tells the police that a neighbor in his open-air apartment complex can vouch for his story and they bring in Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame.) She confirms his account of the evening and following this introduction Dixon and Laurel begin a romantic affair. However, the police are not convinced of Dixon’s innocence, he already has a long record of fights and attacks that only amplify their suspicions. With the police pressuring Dixon and other warning Laurel of his violent outbursts fear creeps into their relationship along with the possibility that Dixon actually did murder the young woman.

In A Lonely Place made for an excellent follow-up to The Big Heat providing a fine example of Gloria Grahame’s range as an actor. The film is also a good vehicle for Bogart to stretch his preforming wings and om scenes where Dixon’s sanity is called into question you can see hints of his upcoming classic portrayal of Queeg from The Caine Mutiny being planted. In A Lonely Place also represented the final collaboration between Grahame and her husband director Nicholas Ray before their separation and divorce. The scripts original ending was too dark for Ray and working with Bogart and Grahame they improvised the final scenes with its ambiguous ending.

I very much enjoyed watching this film and throughout its run time never felt absolutely certain of where the filmmakers were taking it. I do feel that this might have been an even better and more powerful film had our viewpoint character been restricted to Laurel with more of Dixon’s nature being recounted second-hand leaving us in the dark even more to what really transpired between Dixon and the hatcheck girl. Still, this is one worth seeking out and watching.

 

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The Godfather Coda: Completing the Saga

 

I own a Blu-ray of The Godfather and I have watched The Godfather: Part II several times but it wasn’t until last week that I finally sat down and over several installments, the same process I am employing for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, that I watched The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.

1972’s The Godfather is a classic of cinema, a triumph of filmmaking in the face of overwhelming adversity with lasting cultural impact as the film’s 50th anniversary approaches. The sequel deepened our understanding of the Corleone family, its history, and the ruthlessness required to sit atop a vast criminal empire as it corrupts the culture around it and the people inside it.

The Godfather Coda in comparison is a film that feels small. Cleverly staged mass assassinations of crime family bosses are far from new within this franchise and fail invoke much in the way of emotion or stakes. The plot involving Michael Corleone’s quest to absolve his murderous sins by going legitimate through corrupt deals with equally corrupt Roman Catholic officials seems perfunctory and with any real character weight. Familial conflicts, Michael’s son wanting a career in the arts, his illegitimate nephew affair with Michael’s daughter, and his strained relationship with his separated wife Kay, possess the requisite story beats but are executed in an unimaginative manner that any Lifetime movie would exceed. While lengthy in running time the film sprints to its conclusion cramming the death of a pope, the election of a new one and that pope’s assassination all into the story’s final act. Characters act in a manner more suited to movies that any reflection of reality perhaps best example by the assassins sent to kill Michael’s nephew who take the nephew’s current sexual partner hostage for no reason other than to present a ‘more dramatic’ scene when ruthless killers would have simply murdered her silently and then proceeded with their plan. This is mast worse by the fact that the character served no story purpose after that scene only heightening the contradiction of the scene.

Sofia Coppola has earned rave praise for her skills as a filmmaker in her own right. I have seen Lost in Translation it is unquestionable that she has learned much from her father and is a very talented director. As an actress she leaves much to be desired. She had no chemistry with her romantic lead and presented no interior life from her character Mary Corleone. Her character sits at the story’s emotional center exerting a gravity that bends the fates of everyone around her and this casting seriously damaged the film.

For me The Godfather Saga ends with Part II.

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The Big Combo: Fante’s and Mingo’s Liminal Relationship

 

Saturday night a friend and I watched the 1955 noir film The Big Combo. The film stars Cornel Wilde as Police Lieutenant Diamond who is obsessed with charging and jailing a local organized crime boss, Mr. Brown, played by Richard Conte while having unrequited love for Brown’s mistress Susan Lowell. Combo in the title is a shortening of Combination one of many names assigned to organized along with Commission, and such, when for whatever reasons the title ‘mafia’ is avoided.

The film’s limited budget gives it a decidedly B picture feel and the dialog from time to time to too on-point with characters delivering clumsy exposition, but the twisty narrative delivers nicely with the final reveals of the plot playing out well.

This is a movie where the supporting cast have the most memorable characters and performances. John Hoyt, perhaps best remembered as the Enterprise’s original doctor in Star trek’s first Pilot The Cage, has but a single scene as a retired Swedish Sea Captain but fills his few moments on screen with life and vitality.

However, the support characters that fascinate me the most in The Big Combo are a pair of hitmen, Fante and Mingo, playing to perfection by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman respectively. The pair are inseparable, traveling together, eating together, and sharing a tiny apartment. Fante is the judicious, calculating and older member of the duo while Mingo’s character is brash, juvenile and more likely to react without considering the consequences.

While the characters are never ‘coded’ as gay by any of the usual traits used by cinema of the period, no lisps, no perchance for extravagance, no perfumed cards or elaborately stylish outfits, the pair’s relationship can clearly and be easily interpreted as a close, bonded pair or lovers. This is even more evident when Fante’s leaves Mingo utterly shattered emotionally so much so that all traces of criminal loyalty vanish. Never is there an overt action that would support the interpretation of the characters as gay but neither are there any of the easily dropped clues such as ogling women or discussing girlfriends and dolls that would have countered such a conclusion. Fante and Mingo live in the liminal space between what is suspected and what is confirmed, shadowy, hidden, a perfect film noir relationship.

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Incomplete Observations on Vampyres (1974)

 

Among the curated horror movies currently available on SHUDDER is the mid-70s ‘erotic’ (read, naked women) horror flick Vampyres.

Hailing from the UK, Vampyres centers on a pair of lesbian vampires living in a dilapidated country manor, the same used for the exterior shots of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and many Hammer productions, where, with carnal seduction, they lure unsuspecting victims.

One weeknight after I have finished my writing for the evening, I usually like to relax by watching videos before bed and I have watched at least the first act of Vampyres and witnessed perhaps the worst serious sex scene committed to celluloid. I literally laughed out loud when the couple began ‘making out’ because it looked so clumsy, so fumbling that I was immediately remined of the comedic version of the scene in Syfy’s series Resident Alien, and yet this was supposed to be titillating rather than laughable.

What is crystal clear is that the film has no characters. Oh, actors come in, deliver lines, and fumble at each other nude bodies, they do not portray any sort of actual person. “Ted” in the first act picks up one of the vampires, Fran, while she pretends to be hitchhiking. We are supposed to believe that she seduces him but without any convincing dialog it’s just two people who decide to go to her house and screw. Ted has no motivation beyond his supposed attraction to Fran. He wasn’t coming from anywhere, or going to any place on his drive, he exists only to have scenes with a vampire. Scene after scene is devoid of any motivation on the character’s part. People do things to achieve goal that serve their needs the exterior reflecting the interior here they just get wine glasses, drink, and screw without anything beyond the walls of the set existing.

I can see why I have never heard of this movie.

 

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A Harebrained Film: Night of the Lepus

 

A dozen years after the release of her cinematically legendary showers sequence and eight years before she would appear with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in John Carpenter’s

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atmospheric horror film The Fog, Janet Leigh, along with DeForest Kelley three years after Star Trek grounded, starred in a most unusual SF horror movie 1972’s Night of the Lepus.

Adapted from the satirical SF novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon, NOTL’s central conceit is the Arizona countryside suffering nocturnal assaults from mutated giant rabbits.

The film attempts and fails to build credibility for its premise by opening with a faux newscaster intoning seriously about rabbits upsetting the delicate ecological balance in Australia after their introduction to that continent. From there the story moves to Arizona where rancher Hillman is dealing with a rabbit infestation of his own. Rather than deploy harsh poisons to deal with the pests his friend Clark (DeForest Kelley) at the university puts him in contact with a husband/wife team of scientists Roy and Gerry Bennett (Gerry Bennett played by Janet Leigh.) The pair decide that using hormones to make ‘boy rabbits act more like girl rabbits’ is the solution to Hillman’s troubles and begin experimentation on rabbits captured from the ranch. The filmmakers use the Bennett’s young daughter both as clumsy exposition, ‘Mommy what is a control group?’ and the method by which a rabbit already mutated by the artificial is released into the wild to infect the ranch’s rouge population. And yes, the film tries to force the idea that hormonally changing one rabbit somehow infects other without the use of a bacteria or virus. Despite the EPA having been established two years earlier the scientific pair also have no hesitation in developing and deploying an unknown effect into the ecology without significant testing as their timeline from concept to eradication was mere weeks.

The greatest hurdle the filmmakers failed to clear isn’t the lack of character arcs or scientific illiteracy but rather no amount of slow-motion photography on miniature sets and even with fake blood smeared on their snouts, rabbits cannot look credibly frightening. Rabbits as a violent lethal threat belongs solely to the domain of British farce and not in the dying giant animal genre.

I found Night of the Lepus streaming for free on a Roku channel, but they interrupted the movie every ten minutes for a block of five commercials. even minus those interruptions except for comedic entertainment I could not recommend this strange unique movie.

 

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