2019: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

As we close out 2019, I take this brief moment to look at four categories that fall outside the Best & Worst of the Year. I hope you find them of some interest.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: Overcomer

It's another year where a Christian film surprises me by being good. I've had many but many issues with the cinematic output of the Kendrick Brothers both in terms of film and theological outreach. They also have a very poor record on actually tackling social issues through Christianity, and their record on race leaves much to be desired. By no means should anyone think that I think or believe Alex and/or Stephen Kendrick are racists. They are just dumb and clumsy, living within their very hermetically sealed bubble of a WASP worldview.

Having said that, Overcomer, for them, is another step forward both story wise and in the actual art of the motion picture. I've heard a good case about how Overcomer falls into a 'white savior' narrative, and I can see how someone could reach that conclusion. However, the film also has positive African American portrayals and centers around a black family. Moreover, Overcomer, if ever so gently, shows a more complex view of marital struggles. It may not be perfect, but I give credit for making strides in a positive direction. I no longer cringe when I see a Kendrick Brothers Production.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Tolkien

I would have thought the biopic of J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of one of the greatest fantasy sagas in literature, would be more interested in the man himself than in endless shout-outs to his epic The Lord of the Rings. Sadly, Tolkien squandered a great opportunity to explore the man by drowning him in a film where we kept getting winks about his books but almost nothing about the man behind the hobbits. Despite the best efforts of Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins as Tolkien and Edith, the love of his life, Tolkien was a dead affair, slugging and respectable in a very dull manner.

Worse, Tolkien had almost no interest in touching or even giving cursory recognition to Tolkien's fervent and devout Catholic faith. His religious outlook shaped everything about the man both professionally and privately, but Tolkien seemed to want to run away from it or at best pretend it was a trifle versus a central part of Tolkien. We didn't need sermons in an Overcomer-like manner, but it would have helped the viewer get a better, stronger sense of Tolkien the man, which a biopic should at least try to do.

MOST OVERRATED: Blinded By the Light

There are quite a few films that would qualify for "Most Overrated": The Peanut Butter Falcon, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Hustlers. Especially Far from Home, but it's almost a given most Marvel Cinematic Universe films get praise that would make one think each one were a turning point in cinematic history. However, I don't think there was a bigger disconnect between what I heard about a film and what I actually saw in the film than Blinded by the Light.

It's not as if I didn't get what they were aiming for: an "inspirational" story of a young son of Pakistani immigrants who finds inspiration and liberation in the music of Bruce Springsteen. I know many fellow reviewers adored Blinded by the Light (the phrase "feel-good" almost being invented for it) and are puzzled as to why it essentially bombed. My answer is quite simple: it's not very good. I found the main character essentially a jerk: dismissive of anyone's views other than his own, arrogant, a bit smug, almost unbearable. It's a credit to actor Viviek Kalra that I found Javed remotely tolerable. More than once, I wanted to smack Javed upside the head! As much as Blinded by the Light wanted me to think well of Javed, I kept siding with everyone else. That Javed is based on a real person only alarms me more.

MOST UNDERRATED: Ma

As with most if not all of my Most Underrated selections, I make no case for the artistic or cinematic brilliance of Ma. It's a bit tawdry in its tale of revenge delayed, but even its detractors thought Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer elevated the material. She embraced its looniness and went all-in on the cray-cray. Moreover, I suppose it's a positive step to have an African American woman in the lead role of a bonkers horror thriller like Ma.

Sure, the premise was insane. Sure, the younger cast gave almost universally bad performances, cast more for their perfect bodies than ability to create characters. However, Ma never cheated its audience that this was anything other than a somewhat trashy good time, and I can't fault a film for being true to itself. I unapologetically enjoyed Ma to where I wouldn't mind a sequel (she escapes the raging inferno!).  Truth be told, I thought Ma was a better "feel-good film" than the overtly cutesy Blinded by the Light.

I hope that this year of 2020, we have good films and that the bad ones die a quick and merciful death.

2018: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

Now that we've moved from the Best and Worst of 2018 (So Far), it is time to look at some other categories that I think merit special note.

These other categories allow me to expand my views which would not fit into a Best Of/Worst Of List. Enjoy!

BIGGEST SURPRISE

I Can Only Imagine

I've been critical of 'Christian cinema' as many faith-based films and filmmakers tend to either 'preach to the choir' or be more focused on the message than on the delivery. In the former, that's fine: if you don't want your film to be for general audiences but a specifically Christian audience only, more power to you.  If you are in the latter, you cannot and should not sacrifice craftsmanship for sermons.

I'm looking at YOU, Alex Kendrick...

However, I Can Only Imagine, like last year's The Case for Christ, took a positive step in Christian/faith-based filmmaking. It focused on Bart Millard's story while not watering down Millard's Christianity. His faith is important in his story, I imagine even the central part of his life. However, I Can Only Imagine does what good Christian films should do: tell the story efficiently but not beat the viewer with messaging.

The film did not preach about salvation. Rather, we found in Millard someone we could relate to, someone who was 'just like us'. It reminded us what is true: Christians are just like other people. They are not 'free from sin', they are fully functional people who have moments of anger, regret, even genuine kindness.

Middle America is right to complain that Christians are almost always portrayed on television and film as vile people. I Can Only Imagine reminds us that, to coin a phrase, 'Christians Are People Too''.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Solo: A Star Wars Story

There were many disappointments this year, but I think this newest film in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe is at the top of the list.

Ever since Disney got their hands on that galaxy far, far away, it has been hellbent on milking its property for every cent it can get. Sometimes they managed things well (Rogue One). Sometimes it's been bad (The Last Jedi). Their next decision was to have prequels of all our characters, and the first one was on our roguish Captain Han Solo.

Solo: A Star Wars Story's failure has all but killed future 'origin' stories for other characters. It wasn't necessarily a financial failure (though it will never really make up the money spent on it) but a thoroughly artistic failure. The original directors, Christopher Miller and Philip Lord, were fired almost near the end due to Disney's displeasure at Solo being more comedic than what they envisioned. Ron Howard, as workman-like a director as can be found, was brought in to finish a more 'standard' Star Wars film.

The end result is more an endless series of 'fan-service' than a truly original origin story. LOOK! Here's Han and Lando gambling over the Millennium Falcon! LOOK! Here's that famous Kessel Run you've heard all about FINALLY on-screen! LOOK! Here's how Han and Chewbacca finally met for the first time!

I've talked to other, bigger Star Wars fans who say it threw in too much into it. I think there was panic, a greater focus on film-via-committee than in making something Star Wars fans and general audiences would actually embrace. Disney gave people what they thought people wanted.  They ended up pleasing almost no one.

What can one say about a film where Alden Ehrenreich's not-good/not-bad version of Han Solo was one of the least criticized aspects?

In what can be seen as sweet revenge, our duo of Miller & Lord went on to produce Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a film both critics and Spidey fans love. Imagine if they'd been allowed to do their version of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

A Star Is Born 4.0

Some of my regular readers and correspondents think I started out hating A Star Is Born, or as I call it, A Star Is Born 4.0 given it's the fourth version of the story. That's not true. I didn't go in or even leave the theater hating A Star Is Born with the burning fury I have now. That level of despising that I have against it now grew, and it grew because my brethren lost their collective minds over this bit of fluff.

My fellow critics have every right to see something as they wish to. However, once they started referring to A Star Is Born 4.0 as 'transcendent', declaring it not just one of the best films of the year but of all time, some turning point in cinematic or human history, then I began to grow more and more passionately against it.

I have nothing against Lady Gaga, who I think can become a fine actress. However, she is essentially playing herself, and I'm agog at Gaga's elevation to being thought of as the new Vivien Leigh or Katharine Hepburn or even Barbra Streisand. Streisand at least had Broadway acting experience by the time she reprised her role in Funny Girl.

Same goes for cowriter/director Bradley Cooper. I don't understand why his lush is held up as something that would bring envy to Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton (both no strangers to boozing). The critical worship and adoration for A Star Is Born 4.0 astonishes me. Even the praise it has received I could live with, if the film were actually that good.

It's the third-best version of a story told four times.

Perhaps it is because I've seen all four versions and know the story well, but why so many in the theater were sobbing their eyes out when Jackson Maine hangs himself is a total mystery. Even my mother got in on the act, telling me how tragic this version was because he dies at the end. "Mom, the guy dies in EVERY version", I replied, which surprised her.

It's one thing if you don't know A Star Is Born isn't original, as I think many sobbing did. It's another when film reviewers/critics, who should be more versed in cinema, behave as though A Star Is Born 4.0 is original. Truth be told, I think just about everything involving A Star Is Born 4.0 is...Shallow.

MOST UNDERRATED FILM (TIE)

Venom

Acrimony

For the first time in these annual lists of Odds and Bitter Ends, I find two films that I think have been unfairly bashed and trashed. The odd thing is that on one of those films, I myself did the trashing and bashing.

I make no argument that either Venom or Acrimony are 'good' films. In fact, I gave Venom a negative review and do not regret it. It is almost a spoof of comic book-based films.

How does one take Venom seriously when you have Tom Hardy jumping into a lobster tank and acting like he's trying out for Son of Bobby Boucher?

However, I know the audience I went with loved Venom. They seemed to revel in the sheer stupidity of it all, taking our anti-hero into its heart no matter how ridiculous everything was. As the year has ended and I look back in some anger, I feel a softening towards Venom.

I feel almost able to embrace the absolutely terrible script, bad acting even from Michelle Williams, the cliched story, lousy special effects and just total awfulness of it all. It's almost as if I too can enjoy Venom so long as I let it wash over me, as if I can gain pleasure watching Venom if I watched it more for camp enjoyment than as an actual film.

Perhaps here you could ask why I couldn't do that with A Star Is Born 4.0. The answer is simple: my fellow critics don't behave as if Venom is greater than The Dark Knight versus their idea that A Star Is Born 4.0 is greater than Citizen Kane.

While I've softened on Venom, I have not shifted on my view of Acrimony. Yes, it's a bad film, but I found it a 'so-bad-it's-good' film, so delightfully and wildly bonkers that one can't help but marvel at its insanity.

Taraji P. Henson has never received the respect and work her talent merits. Even in her greatest film role, Hidden Figures, she was shamefully overlooked for Best Actress over the 'cutesy' Emma Stone in La La Land. I don't want to say she is 'reduced' to "Angry Black Woman" roles, but there's something about Acrimony that leaves me unapologetically in love with Henson's totally committed performance for this totally whacked-out character.

I'm convinced that Henson's Cray-Cray Dance in Acrimony will be studied by film students for centuries to come as a sign of an actress giving her all to such awful material. It's just so wildly wrong it's almost right. One both marvels and laughs at just how Tyler Perry can keep being simultaneously trashy and moralistic.

Acrimony is not a good film by any stretch, but I found it highly enjoyable, a delightful romp if ever there was one.

I also would rather watch Acrimony than A Star Is Born 4.0. I'd sooner take the former's lunacy over the latter's pomposity.

Now as we enter The Year of Our Lord 2019, I continue to hope for good films and for the bad ones (and the A Star Is Born-overrated types) to be at a minimum.

2017: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

As I look back on 2017, I find it is time to search for my Odds and Ends, separate categories that I think merit a brief look. Unlike my Ten Best/Worst Films of 2017 So Far List, I don't think this requires updating.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

The Case for Christ

Perhaps people may think that because I am a Christian (flawed, doubting and struggling as that may be), I would give Christian films a pass.  Oh contraire, mes amis.  I am an 'art before theology' reviewer, not one to let a bad film get a positive review even if I agree with it.  For far too long, evangelically-bent filmmakers have made bringing the Cross over more important than crafting something worthy of praise.  We can forgive early Christian films like Second Glance or End of the Harvest or any other Christiano Brothers films for their low quality and generally poor acting (save for David White, who is almost required to be in any film with a Christian-related theme and who can actually act).

What is harder to accept is that with more resources at the disposal of a new generation of Christian filmmakers, they still can make pretty lousy movies.  I look at the Kendrick Brothers oeuvre and shudder at how lousy some of their films are: Facing the Giants and Courageous were not only poorly acted and badly-written, but up to a point almost racist.  It wasn't until War Room, where these WASP filmmakers realized that African-Americans are fellow believers (and David Kendrick took himself out of the central role) that they managed to stumble into a good film.

I think Christian films are improving, and The Case for Christ has to be a high watermark for this Renaissance.  Lee Strobel's journey from antagonistic atheist/agnostic to a spiritual awakening was a portrait of a good man who found he was not as good as he thought he was.  It touched on real-life issues of abandonment and disappointment to reach his embrace of faith.  The Case for Christ did two things right: first, it looked as issues we all face.  Too many Christian films present a world without sin from believers: no cursing, no drinking, no sex.  That's not the world of the church I go to.

Second, it hired professionals to do their job.  The Case for Christ had actual actors, those who have training in giving performances, rather than believers who recite lines.  I don't think the actors are believers, and I don't expect them to be.  If they do their job, they will convince me they are the characters they are portraying.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Spider-Man: Homecoming

My late friend Fidel Gomez, Jr. was dead-set against Spider-Man: Homecoming (no puns intended).  I know that we had planned to see it when it reached the second-run theaters, especially over his very loud objections. However, the film was so successful that by the time it did, he had already died.  As such, I went to see it in the first-run theaters in its final weeks a week after the funeral.  There was simply no reason to wait anymore.

One could make a case that such terrible circumstances would color my view of Homecoming, but no, I found this reboot to be a little too self-aware.  Homecoming was determined to get 'representation' in all the high school characters, but sometimes there can be too much of a good thing: I don't know what the overall racial/ethnic makeup of Queens is, but is Peter Parker the only white guy there? I felt they were trying to check off as many boxes as they could, and soon it was getting comical.  Flash is now a Latino?  As a Hispanic, I don't care, but this Flash was rather weak as a bully.

Too jokey for my tastes, too much fan-servicing, with only Tom Holland's turn as Spidey worth anything, I felt so let down by how smug Homecoming was.  If I want a John Hughes movie, I'll see a John Hughes movie, thank you very much.

MOST OVERRATED

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

There are always candidates for the most overrated.  For a while, Spider-Man: Homecoming was it.  Then there was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  I thought that Blade Runner 2049 and mother! had a strong case for most overrated.  However, I think the one that has to be the winner here is The Last Jedi.

I don't think any Star Wars film has divided fans as The Last Jedi.  I am not one to know the nuances of Star Wars lore, and frankly I don't care who shot first (Han did, by the way).  I found The Last Jedi better than Star Wars: The Remix (aka The Force Awakens), but this is nowhere near the level of The Empire Strikes Back.

The wild hyperventilating that The Last Jedi has caused my fellow reviewers, to the point that they rank it among the best Star Wars films of all time, is what makes it the Most Overrated Film of 2017.  The fans don't agree with their view, with some even calling that it not be considered Canon.  I really do not care about things like that, but calling The Last Jedi the equal of or even superior to Empire Strikes Back is just beyond what I can stand.

That, and what they did to Admiral Ackbar...

MOST UNDERRATED

Geostorm

Oh yes, Geostorm is a lousy movie.  I am not defending Geostorm or saying that it is worth anyone's time apart from its eventual late-night repeated showings on FX or TNT.

However, part of me cannot bring myself to hate it as much as others did.  I don't think it's a crime against cinema or something to draw one's ire.  It's actually just a dumb, witless movie that one can derive camp pleasure out of.  How can one hate a film where we're asked to think of Gerard Butler as a scientific genius?

Geostorm is so delightfully daft with its odd plot points (one brother has a strong Scottish brogue while the other doesn't), leaps of illogic (at the Democratic National Convention, not only does the Vice President follow the President in speaking, but when the convention is getting vaporized by a machine in outer space, not one Secret Service agent bothers to save him...he pretty much has to fend for himself), and crazy inconsistencies (in the opening scene, a security guard recognizes Butler's character, but three years later, the men and women aboard the satellite he essentially created don't know who he is...with one thinking he was dead).

I simply cannot hate a film that has a bit about how someone with highly important situation will meet someone at a specific time and place, all but telling us said character is not going to make it.   I simply cannot hate a film that plays like a misguided Spaceballs.

Truly, I saw films I thought worse than Geostorm, films that my brethren loved (Blade Runner 2049, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and some whose popularity escapes me (Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Last Jedi).  I think the last two are better than Spaceballs: The Unintended Sequel, but I would rather see this bit of fluff to the pseudo-pretensions of the first two.

2015: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

Recently, I've embarked on a project that I hope will be completed in two years.  I am going over every post I have written since March 1, 2009.  Right now, I'm in 2010, so I have some time to go.

It started out as just to verify that everything I'd written had an archived link, but it expanded to check if links still worked, correct spelling mistakes, and make changes I felt were necessary (category reorganization, noting years).  I found I was much too fond of capitalizing and ellipses, a sign of a maturing writing.

As I looked over my various posts, I was surprised that I did not write a brief note on 2015's hits and misses.  Not a Best or Worst of 2015, but a small section that covered areas I think should be.

I now rectify that.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I know many people were thrilled to see a new Star Wars film, one that told what happened after Return of the Jedi.  I was entertained by it, I won't lie.  My issue with The Force Awakens is that it was essentially a retread of the original trilogy.  It was a case of 'you've seen the first three, you've seen this one'.  I know people cheer that we have a female lead, all well and good.  I have no strong feelings about that one way or another.  I just found The Force Awakens to be warmed-over Star Wars, which people might like but I wanted something more than a repeat.

MOST UNFAIRLY TRASHED FILM

War Room

My sense is that War Room got some of its bad reviews because it was a Christian-film.  I think some others just thought it was a bad film, and I'm not going to argue with them on that.  However, given how the Kendrick Brothers have consistently bombed in their efforts to make a good Christian film, the fact they stumbled onto one should be celebrated.  War Room is a departure for them in that it centers around African-Americans when in the past, they would relegate them to almost being nonexistent.  That is bad enough, but when they set their films in Georgia, that just sounds downright bizarre.  For what it was, War Room was above what I've seen before.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Spectre

In Goldmember, we get a shocking twist in that Dr. Evil and Austin Powers are brothers.  Spectre didn't go that far, but it teetered on the edge of parody when it is revealed that Blofeld, James Bond's arch-nemesis, was practically a brother to Bond, who conveniently doesn't remember this.  That should be nonsense, but too many critics went along with it, along with trying to tie in the previous Daniel Craig Era Bond films to Spectre with clumsy results, scene-chewing from Christoph Waltz as the comical villain, and one of the worst Bond Themes ever made.  The fact that Writing's on the Wall, written in twenty minutes and done in one take, went on to win Best Original Song just adds a sad note to a film that played like a 007 spoof.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

Ant-Man

I constantly marvel at how good the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are.  They've had a few bumps but on the whole this long-lasting series continues to surprise me.  I didn't think Guardians of the Galaxy would be good, but it turned out to be among my favorite MCU films.  Same goes for Ant-Man, a movie smart enough to laugh at itself without making itself a joke.  Both concepts, a bit out of the more traditional comic book-based film, does a great job in making things both realistic and fantastic.

2016: Some Odds And Bitter Ends

Having dispensed with both the Best and Worst of 2016 So Far, I now tackled a few other bits that I need to get off my chest.

This list consists of Four Categories which don't fit within a Best Of/Worst Of List.  However, I'd like to offer a few thoughts on them anyway.

DISHONORABLE MENTION

The Boss

Despite the many times I hear about the comedic genius of Melissa McCarthy, I keep finding evidence against this assertion.  Exhibit One is The Boss, a film that she co-wrote with her husband, Ben Falcone (who also directed the film). It's such an ugly film, with a lot of elements that make for lazy writing: our lead character isn't evil, just in need of a hug. 

I think she does well when she's given other people's material and other directors.  Writing herself and leaving it up to her husband to guide her lets her slip into bad tendencies, which gives us films where we see violence on children and straight men simulating oral sex as sources of comedy.

OK, the bra sequence was funny, but the rest, not good.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

Ghostbusters

Exhibit Two in our Melissa McCarthy may not be a comedic genius, and proof that my earlier assertion that she is better with other people writing and directing for her may be wrong. 2016 had a large number of remakes, almost all of them of certified classics, and Ghostbusters was another entry into this sad category.

For the longest time, Deadpool was in my Most Overrated Film, but Ghostbusters took the prize because too many of my fellow critics were willing to give a bad movie a pass merely because it 'advanced women in film'.  I have consistently maintained that Ghostbusters would not have been funny if the leads were all men.  It's just not funny overall.  However, too many critics pushed a film that strained to be funny because they had a separate agenda: they wanted a female-driven film to succeed.  No one should promote a film, particularly a bad film, because they want positive steps for women, or minorities, no matter how noble the intention.

Despite excessive praise for a film that was bad, the public at large rejected Ghostbusters, and the hoped-for franchise (another bane of my cinematic experience) has died a cruel death.  It could have been funny, it could have been good.  If, however, the motive to remake Ghostbusters was to promote equality, it only made things worse and gave ammunition to those who insist women can't open films. 

Just as it was a bad decision by Hillary Clinton to run a campaign built in part on 'It's Her Turn', it is a bad decision to tackle on a film like Ghostbusters if its more important to focus on gender equality than on actual comedy. 

MOST UNFAIRLY TRASHED FILM

Gods of Egypt

I'm not going to say Gods of Egypt is a great film.  It isn't, but I don't get the vitriol it unleashed (in the same way I don't get the lavish praise Ghostbusters got).  I know many of my fellow critics hated it, and they have a right to.  However, I think a critic should judge a film not by some ideal of 'art' but by what it was trying to accomplish.  Gods of Egypt was pretty much junk food, but it knew it wasn't a Werner Herzog exploration into the dark recesses of the human soul. 

It's about gods of Egypt, a silly, frothy fantasy about warring deities.  I think that part of their hatred for Gods of Egypt was because the actors playing Egyptians were European (a Scotsman and a Dane as the two main deities, with Australian Geoffrey Rush as their father).  In the same way they praised Ghostbusters for being a step forward for women (the #ImWithHer of 2016 films), they detested the lack of multicultural casting of Gods of Egypt.  Now, I can agree that we do need more open casting to give minority and women performers a greater chance to work; however, let's remember...these are mythological creatures. 

These gods don't exist.  I don't think anyone, when it came down to it, really cared whether Set spoke with a Scottish brogue or not. There was some positive to all the brouhaha on the lack of diversity in casting: Chadwick Boseman, a really fantastic actor who is also African-American, was cast as one of the gods (Thoth).  It also opened up a serious conversation about diversity in film, something Hollywood still struggles a year off from #OscarsSoWhite.

Still, when I saw Gods of Egypt, I didn't care whether the gods were played by actual Egyptians or not.  I understood they were mythological characters.  Moreover, I was entertained by it all, as silly as it all was.  Maybe because of how silly it all was.  It was a romp, nothing more, nothing less.

The issue of diversity in casting is an important one, and one I have written and spoken about.  I fully support opening up roles for all women and minorities that don't call for specific races or genders (Meryl Streep, for example, could never play Indira Gandhi, and to use an old line from Designing Women, Dustin Hoffman could never play Martin Luther King, Jr.). 

However, while Gods of Egypt can be rightly trashed for a lot of reasons, to go after it because the mythological creatures weren't actually played by Egyptians is a bit much. 

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

X-Men: Apocalypse

It's the Curse of the Threequel striking again.  X-Men: The Last Stand was a horror, so much so that they were essentially forced to reboot the franchise with a younger cast, starting with X-Men: First Class.

Side note: X-Men: First Class is one of the few films where I reversed my original decision, going from C- to B-.

That won't happen with Apocalypse, a jumbled effort that retreads past X-Men films and is a copy of so many other comic book adaptations.  It brings nothing new or original to the table, and worse, squanders Oscar Isaac in mountains of makeup as the title character to where he might just as well done a voice-over and let someone else stand in for him.

Tired, run-down, with the veterans sleepwalking through their roles (and diminishing a group of up-and-comers who if the film had focused on would have given us a better film), I truly cannot see how future X-Men films could be worse.  I even can imagine a world with no more X-Men films.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

The Jungle Book

I as a rule dislike remakes.  I'm not opposed to them, merely dislike the idea that one can repeat the same thing and expect it to be better than the original.  When I learned that Disney was going to make a live-action version of its animated The Jungle Book, I thought they are sinking to the lowest level of lack of creativity. 

To a point I still worry: we are going to have live-action remakes of Beauty & The Beast, Mulan and The Little Mermaid, adding to those already made of Cinderella, Pete's Dragon and the semi-remake Maleficent (a take on Sleeping Beauty).

I'm still waiting for a remake of One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, but I sense I'll have to wait on that one.  Yet I digress.

The Jungle Book, far from being a retread, was something beautiful and original, expanding on Mowgli's story while keeping some of the trappings of the original (Bill Murray singing The Bare Necessities?  I'm SO there!).  Enchanting, beautiful, thrilling, and perfect for families, The Jungle Book is a rare example of a remake done right.

In a year that gave us remakes of such films as Ghostbusters and Ben-Hur, it was nice to see that someone knew better than to slavishly copy or try and outdo the original.  Instead, The Jungle Book was its own creation, acknowledging what came before without stomping on the original.

2014: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

As is my want I think it is time to look at some of the good and bad of the past year.  I now look back at 2014, a bit late admittedly.  However, I think it is time to look over the good, the bad, and the frightening.

DISHONORABLE MENTION

Of all the films released this year, Meet the Mormons is not the worst one I've seen.  Truth be told, I'd rather see this than something like The Theory of Everything (or as I call it, Eddie Redmayne's naked plea to get an Oscar).    While it is not the worst film of 2014, Meet the Mormons however, is the most deceptive.  Allegedly a documentary about how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) are ordinary, average, everyday people like you or me, Meet the Mormons really is a propaganda film. It is a recruitment video about just how awesome the LDS Church really is. 

Of particular infamy is how Meet the Mormons goes out of its way to highlight the racial diversity of the members it presents.  Only one of the featured speakers is white, and he's a bona fide war hero!  All the others are African-American or biracial or of other ethnic origin.  Even the song performed by American Idol runner-up David Archuleta highlight the LDS' diversity, while papering over the sketchy history the Church has with regards to its relation to black people, let alone black members who a mere thirty years ago could not achieve full priesthood status.  Meet the Mormons is a fraud: we are presented a black Bishop but said Bishop is not asked about how until 1978 black men could reach only a certain level within Church hierarchy. 

Expect Meet the Mormons to be handed out after a screening of Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration as Sisters or Elders walk you around the grounds of Temple Square in Salt Lake City...since Meet the Mormons was produced by the LDS Church.  You can't expect a church-funded film to be objective, but the fact it pretends to be makes it all the more obscene. 




Most Unfairly Trashed Film

God's Not Dead is one of those Christian-based films that presents its own worldview.  Now, while I consider myself a Christian, I also am an 'art before theology' reviewer.  A Christian film does not get a pass from me just because I share the same faith as the filmmakers.  I have been particularly vociferous about the Kendrick Brothers' inability to make a good film, and have marveled at the films of Rich Cristiano, looking with a mixture of disdain and disbelief at their collective incompetence.

Having said that, I found God's Not Dead to be reasonably well-acted, well-directed, and with a worldview that makes it successful for what it's trying to do.  By no means perfect, it has some major flaws (some off performances, an incessant call-out to The Newsboys, whom I don't really care for).  However, it is far above something more ham-fisted like Courageous or Facing the Giants, which appear to have been made by people genuinely unfamiliar with moving pictures. 

Most Unfairly Praised Film

There are times when you grow to hate something to an almost pathological level.  Such is the case with The Theory of Everything, as shameless an Oscar-bait as I've seen this or any year.  I have never been so almost enraged by something as I have been with Eddie Redmayne and his insistence that this Oscar nomination was just a lucky chance rather than what it was: a cold and calculated master-plan.  This is what I have said about Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything: it is a technically well-crafted performance, but Redmayne was simply too hung up on getting the mechanics right to invest his Stephen Hawking with any real sense of humanity.  This 'aw-shucks' routine is cutting no ice with me.  He saw the script and was shrewd enough to know this was his ticket to an Oscar.

A lot of people have been taken in by the Redmayniacs, but not I.  I will give no ground in calling out Redmayne for breathing no life into Hawking, but being nothing more than a strong impersonation.  It was an act, not even a real performance.  The Theory of Everything was soulless and empty, a hollow biopic of a deep mind.  Why so many insist on telling me I must love Redmayne and Theory of Everything is beyond me, for now I am watching to see this kid and Michael Keaton duel to the death for the Oscar Redmayne so nakedly covets.  All the other races are pretty much called, but Best Actor remains stubbornly too close to call. 

Biggest Surprise

When I read about Guardians of the Galaxy, I was laughing at what I considered total stupidity.  Chris Pratt?  A talking raccoon?  A talking TREE?!  I was not one of those who predicted Marvel would have its first flop because the material wasn't as well-known as say Captain America or The Avengers.  I just wondered how everything would work out to not make this look ridiculous.

As it turns out, I was the one who looked ridiculous, as Guardians of the Galaxy turned out to be really fun, witty, and not afraid to not take itself seriously...like the Guardians themselves. I was surprised how well I accepted Rocket Raccoon as a serious character and not a comedy bit.  I have not shifted my view that Chris Pratt is basically an idiot, more Channing Tatum than Gene Hackman.  However, while the idea that Pratt will ever play Shakespeare (or understand it should he be in a Shakespearean film) are low, at least he did make Guardians of the Galaxy fun.

Biggest Disappointment

I barely, barely tolerated The Amazing Spider-Man.  However, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was too much even for a most forgiving man like me.  It wasn't a movie...it was a two-hour trailer for The Sinister Six.  It was everything wrong with filmmaking by commission: confused, lazy, idiotic. 

Whatever you say about Sam Raimi, it took him three films to utter destroy the franchise.  Marc Webb did it in two.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was so convoluted and jumbled that the film simply could not hold the weight of whatever story it tried to hold.  It makes me shudder to imagine what The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will look like.  It might not even have Andrew Garfield in the role of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.  I simply will not rush to see The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (should there be one).  Too much goodwill has been lost already. 

I think 2014 was better overall than 2013.  At least I didn't have anything close to the horror double-bill that was After Earth/The Big Wedding.

Then again, 2015 has one big-budget science-fiction epic that could sink not just the former wunderkind Wachowskis' fabled reputation, but couldn't have come at a worse time for a certain Oscar nominee, locked in a fierce fight who may find he's just Norbited himself out of the Oscar he thought he had in the bag...

 

 

THE OSCAR IS MINE BY DIVINE RIGHT!

 

2013: Some Odds and Bitter Ends

I'm taking a few moments to comment on a few things that I think need to be addressed.  It's nothing big, but I thought I'd address them nonetheless.

Most Unfairly Trashed Film

I've seen Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on a few Worst of 2013 Lists.  I, however, don't understand all the hate.  Is it a great film?  Dear me, no.  Is it goofy fun?  Well, not really.  However, for what it was (mindless entertainment), Hansel & Gretel worked.  I did think it might have been a bit too bloody for my tastes, but I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the sequel.  I really don't understand the hatred Hansel & Gretel received by my fellow critics. 

Silly, goofy, but embracing its own oddball premise, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters if anything showed that if Jeremy Renner wasn't strictly in on the joke, he at least could give this insane idea a sense of the serious. 

Most Unfairly Praised Film

I did, contrary to popular opinion, thought highly of Star Trek Into Darkness.  I thought highly of Into Darkness when it was called Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Minus the lens flares (which I think are not that big a deal), my fellow critics appear to think J.J. Abrams is some sort of genius, but not having been impressed with either Lost or Super 8, I don't hold the view that Abrams is the new Spielberg.  Anyway, wasn't M. Night Shyamalan suppose to be 'the new Spielberg'?  I imagine that if anyone else had pulled Abrams' stunt of remaking Wrath of Khan and called it 'original', they would have been ridden out of town.  However, because it was J.J. Abrams, he gets a pass for this mockery of Star Trek lore. 

For the life of me I cannot understand how Into Darkness is seen by my colleagues as this grand epic rather than the shameless rip-off it was.  Trekkers at least had the decency to be outraged by this pillaging of the past to where they voted it the Worst Star Trek film of All Time.  I am fully aware that in many ways, Into Darkness is not really the worst of the franchise (really, The Final Frontier is really, really bad).  However, unlike most Whovians, who know little to nothing of Doctor Who pre-Rose but insist all the Eccleston/Tennant/Smith stories tie in seamlessly with what came from 1963-1989, Trekkers KNOW THEIR history and thus were not fooled by Into Darkness.  They had the good sense to reject its faux origin and call it what it was: shameful and serving only those who think Chris Pine originated the role of Captain Kirk.  Those who either are impressed with pretty colors and hot actors (Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, or Zoe Saldana) or know there is something called Star Trek but which doesn't really involve anything pre-Star Trek 2009 think highly of Into Darkness.  I'm no Trekker, but here I am the first to say they are smarter than their rivals the Whovians. 

Biggest Surprise

I did not think I would like a romance between a human and a zombie.  In fact, I thought the whole concept idiotic, even grotesque.  However, Warm Bodies was a bright film that embraced its bizarre premise and threw in something not often found in zombie movies: wit and heart.

Nicholas Hoult had a mixed year: Warm Bodies was a hit while Jack the Giant Slayer bombed.  The latter never knew what it was: a light take on the fairy tale, or a dark and gritty take.  This schizophrenic nature doomed Jack the Giant Slayer to some Worst of 2013 lists, but Warm Bodies showed Hoult could carry off the idea that a zombie could find true love.  Warm Bodies had wonderful moments of comedy (such as zombie R.'s hesitation to wear make-up...he was still a man, after all) and genuine romance.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this somewhat supernatural version of Romeo & Juliet, and frankly, it was better than the actual Romeo & Juliet adaptation released the same year. 

Biggest Disappointment

Let's get some things clear.  Henry Cavill is a breathtakingly beautiful man (and I come at this from a straight perspective).  He also is stiff as a board (or in his case, bored) and has the emotional range of a toothpick.  Man of Steel was a remarkably dry, dull affair, going overboard in the total lack of humor.  It's another victim of the Christopher Nolanfication of comic book films where even Superman has to be morose, dour, depressed and doubtful.

Let's go over some of the horrors in Man of Steel.  The 'S' no longer stands for Superman.  It stands for 'hope', Kal-El tells us.  Lay on the heavy symbolism there, Zack Snyder.  We spend what appears infinity on Krypton.  General Zod (Michael Shannon) picks the most bizarre time for a coup.  Krypton is about to go kablooey and he decides THIS is the perfect moment to seize power, when everything's going to blow up?  Lois Lane (Amy Adams) KNOWS Clark Kent's secret identity!  After being this Bruce Banner-type figure (all that was missing was 'the sad walking away music from The Incredible Hulk), Kent somehow gets hired sans degree to be a reporter on The Daily Planet?  Superman KILLS (no General Zod for the sequel)!  No Jimmy Olsen! 

And that's not even going into the mass destruction of Metropolis that must have killed thousands if not millions of people, or the particularly repulsive 9/11 echoes Man of Steel revels in.  However, there is worse to come.

The next Man of Steel movie, Superman Vs. Batman or something like that, will not only be the next Superman movie, but will also throw in Batman (Ben Affleck, and yes, I find it a dubious choice) AND Wonder Woman.  How we'll get THREE superheroes into one film without making it a.) very long and b.) short-changing the characters remains to be seen.  It's obvious DC wants to start a massive franchise to culminate in a Justice League movie.  However, they apparently haven't learned important lessons from their rivals at Marvel.

Before there was The Avengers, there were two Iron-Man movies, two Incredible Hulk films, one Thor and Captain America film, and the characters of Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agent Coulson and Nick Fury all making some form of appearance(s) in some or all of these films.  They also tie the various stories in some way or other.  Unlike what DC appears to be planning, they weren't just thrown in together with the hope (or the 'S') that it would all work perfectly. 

I can't say that Batman Vs. Superman will be a disaster, but somehow I don't fancy its chances. 

Besides that, I still think Superman: The Movie will be the ones people will watch in the future, not Man of Steel, which disappointment me tremendously.

You fill the suit well,
but you're no Superman...

2012: Some Odds And Bitter Ends

With this year ending I decided not to talk about the best and worst of 2012.  That will come at another time.

Instead, I'm focusing on other matters that attracted my attention this year, little curiosities that might not have gotten the attention they deserved.  Therefore, let us begin with my own 2012 Film Tidbits List.

BIGGEST SURPRISE

The Vow

I consider myself an honest man, in particular with film.  If I don't like a film I'll say so, even if all my fellow critics basically masturbate metaphorically to one.  Similarly, if I enjoy a film while my colleagues don't, I'm not swayed.

The Vow is a film that, despite all its flaws (the Nicholas Sparks-type plot, the typically blank performance of my bete noir of film, Channing Tatum), I found that at the end, I tolerated it to where I could get through it.  By no means a great film, The Vow at least knew what it was (a horridly vapid and overly cute chick-flick) and didn't pretend to be anything else. 

Also, while Channing Tatum simply cannot act, in The Vow he did try, harder than I've ever seen him try before.  I give him an A for Effort if nothing else, although Tatum is extremely limited to him looking pretty and blank, expressing no emotion but for confusion.  Yet he keeps trying...

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

The Amazing Spider-Man

At least they didn't call it a 'reimagining'. 

It also wasn't officially a remake (although one could argue that it was), but instead, The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot, meaning we are starting our story of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man all over again without considering what had come before, a mere ten years ago.

It wasn't just a disappointment in that I felt I was watching a movie I've seen before.  It wasn't just a disappointment in that we got a simply awful segway to the inevitable sequel.  The Amazing Spider-Man was a disappointment because it was surprisingly boring.

I did think that Andrew Garfield was a better Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire, but ultimately I found Maguire to be a better Spider-Man than Garfield.   Even if Garfield's more sarcastic, snarky take on Spidey was closer to the source material than Maguire's more gee-whiz enthusiasm, I didn't particularly care whenever our webbed hero appeared.  My brother Gabe was so the movie with me whispered that he was so bored he started making up a story in his head while watching to keep himself entertained.

The Amazing Spider-Man kind of threw the villain at us, and bless Rhys Ifans but he didn't have much to work with.  For all its length, The Amazing Spider-Man had very little to say except set up another movie.  Even that was bungled: when once we had a regular kid from Queens who was raised by his aunt and uncle after his parents' death, we got this epic where Peter Parker is 'a chosen one', with his father hiding some great secret that would pass onto his son. 

Finally, the antagonist was ridiculous.  Brother Gabe had one of the best lines on a movie all year.  As The Lizard rampaged over the Brooklyn Bridge, he whispered in my ear, "It's Godzilla's Mini-Me", which had me burst out laughing. 

The Amazing Spider-Man was not.

MOST OVERRATED FILM

Skyfall

I'm at a loss to understand why everyone has declared Skyfall the Greatest Bond Film of All Time. Everything about it, in the minds of my fellow critics, is The Best: The Best Bond in Daniel Craig, the Best Villain in Javier Bardem's Silva, the Best Bond Theme Song with Adele's Skyfall, and so on and so on.  That's not the film I saw.  You know what I saw?

I saw The Dark Knight: Bond Version.

I semi-jokingly refer to Skyfall as The Dark Bond Rises because for all intents and purposes, Skyfall was a remake of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, in particular The Dark Knight with bits of Batman Begins thrown in for good measure.  Beat for beat Skyfall might as well have been called The Dark Bond Rises given how nakedly it copied from The Dark Knight.

James Bond/007 is the orphan child of wealthy parents raised in his estate, Skyfall, by the Bond family manservant. 

Bruce Wayne/Batman is the orphan child of wealthy parents raised in his estate, Wayne Manor, by the Wayne family manservant.

Sound familiar?

At one point in Skyfall, the villain Silva dresses as a policeman to assassinate a major government official: Judi Dench's M.

At one point in The Dark Knight, the villain The Joker dresses as a policeman to assassinate a major government official: Nestor Carbonell's Gotham City Mayor.

Sound familiar?

At the end of Skyfall, the new Head of MI6, Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) hands James Bond an envelope with his new assignment.

At the end of Batman Begins, the new Captain Gordon (Gary Oldman) hands Batman a pair of playing cards with the Joker on them as his 'new assignment'. 

Sound familiar?

I imagine the critics love Skyfall precisely because it copies so unabashedly from The Dark Knight, but for me, I was unimpressed.  I wasn't a fan of The Dark Knight to begin with, and I detest the dark, morose take on 007 Craig has raised to an artform.  Skyfall certainly is one of the most beautiful -looking Bond film made, but it's not one that A.) I think of as a "Bond" film (no real girls, no sense of fun), and B.) I would want to watch again.  Please, I'd sooner watch A View to a Kill than Skyfall, and I KNOW A View to a Kill is terrible, but at least it's enjoyably bad, not depressingly so. 

MOST UNFAIRLY TRASHED FILM



John Carter

I am the first to admit John Carter is not a great film.  Never was a hoped-for franchise so ineptly handled.  So many things went wrong without needing there to be. 

You had a lead that had not proven himself a box-office draw being pushed as THE Next Big Thing when most of us were asking, "Taylor WHO?"

You had a director who had never made a live-action film before being given this massive production when even a more experienced hand might have found it daunting.

You had a screenplay that appeared to take a long time to get going and that had inexcusable moments of unintended hilarity (how could experienced people not see that the line, "Helium will fall" would not sound silly even if they meant a CITY called Helium rather than the gas).  Add to that both screenplay and director imagined John Carter as the first part of a TRILOGY, thus giving us a very long trailer rather than a movie AND expecting us to be so enthused with the final product we'd demand more when that wasn't guaranteed. 

You had an entire studio convinced that the public would swarm towards a project that whose source material was almost unknown to all but a small group of devoted readers.

You had an advertising campaign that did not tell you anything about the story and almost went out of its way to be opaque.  They never bothered to tell us WHO John Carter was or why we should care.  The pulling of Of Mars from the original film title John Carter of Mars didn't help, but perhaps if they had kept with Edgar Rice Burroughs' original title of A Princess of Mars would have given some idea of the story.

You also had a story that meandered and was not so much convoluted but unnecessarily complicated with the villain being able to take any shape he wanted and having obscure motives for his actions.

In short, John Carter WAS a disaster, but not in the way it's been portrayed.  If only a few things had been switched or altered...please, if A LOT had been switched or altered: different lead, different director, a greater focus on the story, a later release, we could have had the movie Disney wanted.

Still, despite all these issues I didn't hate John Carter.  As good pulpy fun, a film that doesn't ask much from us, I found it tolerable, even slightly enjoyable.  It's not in the 'so bad it's good' category because I don't think it's ALL bad.  Badly made, badly marketed no doubt, but once one clears away all the smoke and hoopla, John Carter is a film I think can be enjoyed if one doesn't ask that it be deep or introspective.  It serves as a good way to whittle away a few hours, nothing more.

MOST FORTUNATE PERSON OF 2012

He is my bete noir of film, someone whose success as an 'actor' I find both puzzling and a Sign of the End of Western Civilization.  Every time I see him darkening my screen I shudder at the concept that he is single-handedly destroying the idea of what an 'actor' actually is.

Yet I have to admit, Channing Tatum has had a singularly great year.

He starred in not one, not two, but THREE hit films this year.  You had the aforementioned The Vow (which appealed to girls who like sappy romances).  You had 21 Jump Street (which I grant you was funny and at least allowed Chan to spoof himself in the 'even I know everyone thinks I'm an idiot' way).  Finally, you had Magic Mike.  I simply couldn't bring myself to watch, but at least I can see that Channing Tatum, contrary to what I once thought, does have at least one discernible talent: Taking His Clothes Off.

For better or worse (I'd argue 'worse') Chan has become a box-office attraction, but he is still not an 'actor' in the accepted definition of the term (someone who can convincingly portray a person or being other than himself).  He is limited in his range to say the least.  I marvel at the thought of...

Channing Tatum IS Hamlet!

Channing Tatum IS Professor Higgins!

For all those who insist to me that Channing Tatum can act, I'd like you to imagine him in some defining roles.  Can you imagine him playing Abraham Lincoln as well as Daniel Day-Lewis, or a paralyzed man like John Hawkes portrayed in The Sessions, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake in The Dark Knight Rises, or John Nash better than Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind? 

Still, I can't deny the obvious: Channing Tatum has emerged from being a himbo, stone-faced speaker of lines to being a genuine box-office draw...who is still a himbo stone-faced speaker of lines.  Now that he is leaving acting for 2013 (or as I think of it, an early Christmas gift from Chan to the world), with one or two previously filmed movies to feed America's Tatum Fixation, we hope that it will be the end of his reign.  No, I don't count him out, but really, why do we need a Magic Mike 2?

LEAST FORTUNATE PERSON OF 2012

I never saw Friday Night Lights (either film or television series) but am told both were good.  Taylor Kitsch (blessed or cursed with the most curious last name of anyone working today) was on FNL, though I couldn't tell you what position on the football team he was.  It seemed only natural to take a guy from a little-seen television series and crown him the Next Big Movie Star.

Right?

Just as Channing Tatum was blessed to be in not one, not two, but three hits, Taylor Kitsch was cursed to be in not one, not two, but three FLOPS in one year.  You had the aforementioned John Carter (which for a host of reasons apart from Kitsch failed).  You had the big-budget spectacle Battleship (which for a host of reasons including Kitsch failed...it really just was awful even for the low standards of a big-budget spectacle based on a board game).  Finally, you had Savages.  I simply couldn't bring myself to watch, and judging from what I understand most of America felt the same.

It is curious that of all these, only the first two were geared towards shifting Kitsch into 'big-name movie star'.  Savages was intended to make a genuine actor out of him.  Whether it did or not I leave up to the people who saw it, but on the whole 2012 has been a disastrous year for Taylor Kitsch. 

Again, I would think that pushing someone, ANYONE, into 'instant stardom' is a bad decision, especially if he's coming off a television series that critics loved but few people saw or even heard of.  Taylor Kitsch may still prove to be a good actor, but he needs to not be pushed at us as A STAR or THE star of a film.  Rather, making him a supporting character would be better.

However, in the back of my mind I am reminded that Taylor Kitsch was thrown at us once as an action star.  People forget that before Kitsch's Annus Horribilis, he was Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  It was a disaster, though again he had such an insignificant role in it one can't judge whether he could have been any better if A.) Wolverine had been a better film, or B.) a film were centered around Gambit.  Kitsch was being set up to do just that in a hoped-for spin-off/sequel/series X-Men Origins: Gambit, but alas the horror that was Wolverine killed that dream. 

One of two: either Kitsch will bounce back and surprise us with a genuine performance, or he will be relegated to an also-ran of nice-looking people who tried for major stardom and failed.

Well, those are the little bits I wanted to hit on as we close out this 2012.  In the upcoming days we'll have the Ten Best and Worst Films as well as my own Awards for the Best in 2012 years. 

May 2013 present us with more good than bad...