Movies Spotlight – 2016 Movies – May 2016

So what have I seen so far in 2016? The answer is not much, really. Most of my movie-watching time has been spent on the endless catching up on the classics of the past (and revisiting my favorites). There is seemingly an infinite amount of films from the past I am curious to see. Also, my desire to go to the movies has waned a bit. Watching most things at home is just as pleasurable, basically because it is easy. (Here is a link to all my reviews for reference).

But what have I seen – well… twelve films. That is it. Let me just go through them quickly: Loved Captain America: Civil War. We do not get too many massive blockbusters that have characters and story arcs that resonate emotionally while also keeping the promise of fun and entertainment. The airport fight scene is wonderfully joyous. Suddenly, I am just as interested in the new Spider-Man and Black Panther films as I am Thor 3 and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Marvel, once again, hit homeruns with their casting for these new characters. Deadpool is a riot. Ryan Reynolds does the best work of his career. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is disappointing (big surprise). Zack Snyder has so much visual talent; he just struggles with story and character. He really needs to bring on people to help him craft and structure his future DC films. I am, however, interested to see what Ben Affleck does with his solo Batman film.

The Jungle Book was far better than I would have ever imagined it could be. I even enjoyed its use of 3D. Disney’s other early release, Zootopia was also surprisingly good. I thought it was there “B” animiated project for 2016, with Moana being their “A”; but, Zootopia is funny, sweet and has a good message for children. It is a very good family film.

My favorite indie film so far this year is The Witch, Robert Eggers’s period horror film. It is a beautifully made and acted film that is scary and hits all the right aesthetic beats. I doubt there will be a better horror film this year. Anya Taylor-Joy is a star in the making. I also really enjoyed Hush on Netflix. It is a great horror/thriller from Mike Flanagan (who also made Oculus). 10 Cloverfield Lane was a fun thriller highlighted by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Making something work when in most takes place in one room is very tough. Midnight Special, from Jeff Nichols, is also a thematically interesting sci-fi drama. Very strong performances from his cast.

All the Way, which just debuted on HBO, is a good period drama about LBJ’s first year as President of the United States following President Kennedy’s assassination. Wonderful performances from Anthony Mackie and Bryan Cranston. Hail, Caesar! the new quirky comedy from the Coen Brothers is good, but probably one of their weaker efforts. It reminds me of A Serious Man (which I liked a lot more). And finally, Ricky Gervais’s new comedy on Netflix Special Correspondents is probably his worst project to date. Even his biggest fans can skip it.

There three films I missed in theaters earlier this year that I am very much looking forward to seeing at home. First, Sing Street, the new musical from John Carney about a young boy who forms a band to impress a girl in 1980s Ireland. I loved Once and also enjoyed Begin Again (more the second time I saw it). Second, Everybody Wants Some, the seemingly thematic follow-up to Dazed and Confused from Richard Linklater. The film looks like a fun, cool hangout which a bunch a guys playing college baseball. And third, Green Room, the new horror/thriller from Jeremy Saulnier (who also made the intense Blue Ruin). Saulnier, along with Mike Flanagan, Adam Wingard and Ti West, has really rejuvenated the American indie horror film.

Now, what am I most excited to see for the rest of 2016? Let me start with the blockbusters. Rogue One, the new Star Wars one-off from Gareth Edwards (who also made Monsters and Godzilla), looks fantastic. I really enjoyed The Force Awakens, but it is still somewhat bogged down in being an origin story for its new characters and paying so much fan service (I think Episode VIII is going to be much stronger). Rogue One may fall into the same trappings, having to introduce us to a bunch of new characters and hopefully it will not fall back on characters we do know (like Darth Vader, Han Solo and so on) too much (or at all), but it looks like a great action thriller. Ben Mendelsohn as the villain is going to be incredible; he very well might be our best character actor right now. I love the Harry Potter films; they are among my very favorite adventure genre films. That said, I was out on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for most of its preproduction. I just was not into the casting choices and I feel like it is generally a mistake to go back in time (because, ultimately we know what happens in the end, which reduces the stakes – I mean, how bad can the events of this new series be if we have never heard about them once during Harry Potter?). But the latest trailer has me all the way back in. It looks good. Doctor Strange has a phenomenal cast, but the teaser trailer did not grab me at all. In fact, the Inception-like elements of it felt like a big letdown, lazy. I hope it turns out well in the end. I imagine D23 will give us a new, and hopefully better, trailer. Suicide Squad has had a few great trailers and Margot Robbie looks brilliant as Harley Quinn. Will DC and Warner Bros. get this one right? Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are both back for Jason Bourne the Bourne sequel that no one knew they wanted until they saw the teaser. I hope Alicia Vikander has more to do they talk at monitors though.

Disney has some great animated films upcoming too (and their remake of Pete’s Dragon, which is totally random. I grew up with that film on a VHS my mom made recording Marry Poppins and Pete’s Dragon off the TV, but I never thought anyone saw it as essential or a major Disney project. Disney is also remaking Mary Poppins incidentally). Their Walt Disney Animation Studio release is Hawaii-set Moana, from Ron Clements and John Musker (who also directed/wrote The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules). The voice cast features Hawaii’s own Auli’I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson. Their Pixar release is Finding Dory, which is both awesome and disappointing. Awesome because everyone like Finding Nemo and the same creative team is making this sequel. Disappointing because I think we all want Pixar to focus on original projects like last year’s fantastic Inside Out (although, their “B” film The Good Dinosaur was poor by Pixar standards).

Hollywood has a few very good looking films as well this Fall/Winter. Passengers sounds amazing on paper. A sci-fi film from Morten Tyldum (who also made Headhunters and The Imitation Game) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt (who will hopefully have the best chemistry of all, as they are maybe our two most likable stars right now). It is about a man who prematurely wakes up from cryogenic sleep, years too early, during space travel. Instead of facing his life alone, he decides to wake up another passenger. I like everything about this film. I hope it is great. Robert Zemekis is back with a new film, which is generally a good thing, a very good thing. Allied stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard and is about spies during WWII (I am 100% in). The Girl on the Train looks like a potentially superb thriller (even if Tate Taylor is doing his best David Fincher impression). This also has a great cast, highlighted by Emily Blunt and Rebecca Ferguson. Out right now is Shane Black’s The Nice Guys. I am a big fan of Black’s films (as a writer: Lethal Weapon and The Last Boyscout; as writer/director: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3 and now The Nice Guys). He really just makes the same film over and over, but I am not tired of it yet. His LA detective stories, his plots that are really about something else, his great dialog, and his very funny humor.

The best films from 2016, however, seem to be the prestige indies coming this Fall/Winter. The Light Between Oceans, the new drama from Derek Cianfrance starring Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz, feels like the way-too-early frontrunner for best film of 2016. The trailer showcases the heartbreaking drama and incredible performances of the film. Ang Lee’s new drama, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, very much looks to take its place as a definitive narrative on the Iraq/Afghanistan War and the soldiers who come home from the horror faced over there. Sundance favorite The Birth of a Nation (I assume very specifically titled as a comment on the D.W. Griffith film) should make a big awards season impact. Nate Parker, who writes, directs and stars in the film, seems to have emerged as 2016’s brightest new talent. J.A. Bayona’s family film A Monster Calls also promises to be aesthetically and thematically just right (like a better version of Steven Spielberg’s summer release The BFG), feeling akin to Pan’s Labyrinth.

There are also a number of films that do not yet have trailer that sound potentially great. James Ponsoldt (director of Smashed, The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour) has a new sci-fi drama due out starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks. Martin Scorsese has long been working on a period drama called Silence about priests in Japan. It stars Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson and Adam Driver. Terry George (director of Hotel Rwanda) is finally making a new film, the drama The Promise with Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac. Denis Villeneuve (director of Incendies, Prisoners and Sicario) has a new drama called Story of Your Life with Amy Adams. Damien Chazelle (director of Whiplash) returns with a musical called La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and J.K. Simmons. Jeff Nichols (releasing another film this year) just won a ton of acclaim at Cannes for his new romance drama Loving. And, Kenneth Lonergan’s new drama Manchester by the Sea was also a darling of Sundance, many naming Casey Affleck’s performance as an awards season must.

Much like last year, the blockbuster season/summer releases feel a little disappointing and all the best stuff will come out in the Fall/Winter – even the best blockbusters still to come do not come out until November (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and December (Rogue One).

Godzilla (2014) – Review

Review: Godzilla is visually striking and features a few very compelling moments, but overall is quite disappointing, pulled down by a fairly terrible script. The film is about engineer Joe Brody and his family. Joe works at a nuclear power plant in Japan that melts down due to a presumed natural disaster, killing Joe’s wife. Fifteen years later, Joe is still searching for answers, believing that the plant meltdown is being covered up and that something else entirely is responsible. Meanwhile, Joe’s son Ford has moved on from the tragedy and has his own family in San Francisco. Ford must come to Japan, however, after his father is arrested trespassing on the site of the old plant. Joe convinces Ford to come with him one last time to search the site for answers. Once there, they discover something profoundly terrifying. This is a film about a giant monster after all.

Godzilla is very polarizing for me (the film, not the character). On one hand, I found it to be mesmerizing aesthetically, often thrilling me with its fantastic visual spectacles and the best score of 2014 so far. But on the other hand, the characters and script are just plain awful. Sadly, despite very impressive visuals, this is just not a good film.

Director Gareth Edwards seems poised to deliver a classic monster movie, delaying Godzilla for most of the film’s first two acts, seemingly instead to focus on building strong characters.  The problem is that his characters are paper thin and their emotional exchanges are laughably clichéd and contrived. The scenes involving the human characters are mostly unwatchable, especially when they attempt to convey some sort of emotional exchange. Edwards never takes the time to give his characters any real character attributes or character-centric moments to involve the audience on a deeper emotional level; they are all hollow shells that just blankly say poorly written lines of dialog. The audience could care less about any of these human characters. They are essentially pointless; and yet, they take up most of the screen time. Thus, Edwards structuring the film to delay Godzilla’s appearance for a large chunk ends up hurting the film overall as the first half plays very slowly (due to the lousy characters).

It is as if Edwards devoted all his time and effort into making sure the visuals and the action involving Godzilla worked, forgetting that for the film to exist outside of being just pure spectacle he also needs strong characters at its core that the audience can care about and invest in, which in turn allows the drama and action the play bigger. Clearly, the human characters were an afterthought, only included at the last minute with little effort taken because someone told him he could not have a film without human characters (pure speculation).

But even with all that said, Edwards gets the visuals completely right. Once Godzilla gets involved and the action ramps up, the film actually becomes fairly interesting, as the viewer is thrilled by the pure ambiance created by the smoky, overcast, dark, foreboding cinematography and the brilliant thunderous and sort of spooky score. The atmosphere created is wonderful. And then Edwards introduces the monster and is able to pull off the epic imagery with panache.

After being bewildered by just how bad the characters are in the film, I found myself entranced by the film, enchanted by the striking images and atmosphere Edwards employs in the second half. The characters themselves are still pointless, utterly, but the visuals take over carrying the film.

At the end, one might even call the film satisfying – but that is completely dependent on one’s expectations for what the film should be or aspire to be. For those looking for something that is pure spectacle featuring a massive monster engaging in grand terror and destruction then this film will probably work quite well, as essentially that is all it does well. For those, however, looking for a complete narrative film with strong characters, Godzilla will be a letdown. Again, even with its tremendous visuals, it is just not a good movie. But, and this is its saving grace, it does entertain once it gets going.

On a side note, Edwards seems to be highly influenced by Steven Spielberg. There are a number of moments that feel like they are carbon copies of similar moments across Spielberg’s films. Particularly, Edwards utilizes “The Spielberg Face”, especially when it comes to using children to employ the dramatic device; though, I will say that Edwards uses it much less effectively. Even worse, Godzilla ultimately feels like a remake of Jurassic Park, mirroring many scenes and thematic and stylistic elements (but with far weaker characters). Everything somewhat shamefully copies everything else in filmmaking generally, but I kept thinking that the two paralleled each other very closely throughout, as if I were watching a updated version with slightly better visual effects.

Technical, aesthetic & acting achievements: Gareth Edwards has made two feature films, both of which focus on large monsters making landfall engaging in carnage and creating dread among human inhabiting the areas. His first film Monsters somewhat feels like it could be a sequel to this Godzilla film, as Godzilla introduces monsters to the human world, while Monsters is about humans living in a world also inhabited by monsters. They are similar in many ways, but what sets them apart is that Monsters feature reasonably good characters while Godzilla has terribly underwritten characters, and thus its seems as if Edwards has taken a step backwards as a filmmaker. But that said, I look forward to seeing what he does with Godzilla 2, as again his visuals were rather good.

The wonderful aesthetics are thanks to the collaborations with the great group Edwards worked with on the film. Composer Alexandre Desplat delivers a phenomenal score given the genre and style of the film (here is the full score; it is honestly far better than the film it is in). It has a great chilling power to it, often sounding as if it were written for a horror thriller or ghost story. It is spooky and very fun; and, I like the Japanese influences and accents as well. I will be surprised if it is not among my three favorite scores of the year when all is said and done (Desplat already gave us the fantastic The Grand Budapest Hotel score earlier this year as well, which I also loved). Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography perfectly sets the mood working in dark and gloomy tones. There is a scene in which paratroopers deploy through the clouds which is just visually astonishing and kind of beautiful. Owen Paterson’s production design does a good job grounding the film in reality, even though it often feels ridiculous (the sheer spectacle of watching Godzilla traipse through a city is kind of just as hilarious as it is mesmerizing). Designing sets that feel and look obliterated must have been fun. Overall, the film being as good as it is in moments (not overall) is thanks in large part to the work of these three.

It is hard to say that any of the actors are good in Godzilla as it is not really true, but it is not their fault. The script is one of the poorest of this year so far. They do their best. David Strathairn plays a typical military man type, while Juliette Binoche plays Joe’s wife who has the tough task of making the audience feel something (unsuccessfully) by dying in the first five to ten minutes of the film. Ken Watanabe plays a scientist who just wants to see Godzilla flourish, while Sally Hawkins plays another scientist who follows his lead completely (neither serves any purpose except maybe for some exposition). Bryan Cranston plays Joe, a crazy person who is vindicated while also wearing a horrifically terrible wig. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Ford, a military man who is fed up with his father being a crazy person. Ford finds Joe being obsessed by the tragedy that claimed the life of his wife (because that seems unreasonable), believing that it is being covered up, annoyingly tiresome, as he has moved on. Elizabeth Olsen plays Ford’s wife Elle, and like Ford she too has no personality or character whatsoever. These actors have all been very good in other things, but here with Godzilla they are basically being paid to kill screen time until Godzilla shows up (as presumably the budget could not pay for two hours of Godzilla smashing stuff) with little care given to actually creating fully realized characters of any kind.

Summary & score: Godzilla is everything one could hope for in terms of being a grand monster movie. There is just one hitch; it is not a very good film in every other regard. 6/10

At the Movies – May 2014 – Part 3: Most Anticipated Films

Must See of the Month:

Godzilla – Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi – May 16

Plot Summary: I think we all already know this, but to recap: Godzilla rolls into town, a big dinosaur-like monster, and terrorizes, breaks stuff, and causes mayhem, meanwhile humans do stuff to stop him. Key Filmmakers Involved: Director Gareth Edwards, composer Alexandre Desplat, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, and production designer Owen Paterson. Actors Involved: Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (getting to know each other before reuniting as siblings in Age of Ultron), Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, and David Strathairn. Andy Serkis plays Godzilla. Potential: For everyone who has seen Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla-like film Monsters, there is a pretty big level of excitement for what he will bring to the actual Godzilla. There are a lot of big Hollywood action/adventure films due in May, but Godzilla looks like it will be the best (although, it too is a remake/sequel, like almost all the other big films this summer). Everything I have seen looks fantastic. Did I care about there being a new Godzilla film initially? No. I still remember the 1998 film. But, this has an excellent group behind and in front of the camera, and now I am highly anticipating it. Trailer: Here.