Foster on Film » Page 23

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

Jan 062016

Murderer Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is taken by a secret organization of Templars to their lab run by Rikkin (Jeremy Irons). There, Rikkin’s daughter Sofia will use scientific hocus pocus to regress Lynch to his past life as the Assassin Aguilar (still Michael Fassbender). Sofia hopes to find the Apple of Eden, a MacGuffin that removes all freewill, and thereby end all violence and the everlasting war between the Templars and the Assassins, and Aguilar was the last known person to have it.

Assassin’s Creed was never going to be a great movie. Ignoring that it is based on a video game and video game movies tend not to do well, its basic structure dooms it: the film is split. All of the action is in the past with Aguilar, but we don’t know him. We’re told that the Apple is bad because it takes away freewill and that’s about it. Not shown, just told. So there’s a whole lot of fight scenes between people I didn’t know and didn’t care about for a thing that only matters because I was told it matters. In the present, Lynch doesn’t do anything. He’s angsty and talks a good deal to Sofia, but since the action is in the past, he’s just there between regressions. There’s no way to make that work.

Now, within the limits set by that structure, it could have been much worse. The action is well shot. The story, while far from gripping, at least makes sense. And Fassbender, who elevates everything he touches, makes it all respectable. I don’t know much about Lynch, but I care, a little, because Fassbender makes me care.

It could also have been better. Sofia’s personality is a whirling fog of confusion. Cotillard gazes and poses (ah, so much gazing) and there seems little connection between her expression and whatever emotion I’m guessing Sofia should feel. I’ve been unimpressed by her in other films, so I cannot tell if this was her failing or if the director kept telling her she was to feel one thing when the script was going another way.

The whole sci-fi angle was a mistake as well. They should have kept the regression as magic instead of DNA technobabble since that would have stopped me from asking questions that there are no answers to. But the biggest problem is how gloomy it is. If you are making a movie about super assassins fighting for an enchanted ball then maybe you shouldn’t pretend you are adapting a Russian novel. How to do you make this material pretentious? By its nature it should be fun, but Assassin’s Creed doesn’t want to be fun. It wants to be important, and it was never, ever, going to manage that.

Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Jan 032016

Alice’s (Mia Wasikowska) fortunes are taking a nasty turn right when she spots a mirror that leads her back to Underland. Once there she finds that the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is dying due to grief over his long dead family. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) encourages Alice to travel back in time to save his family, but to do so will make an enemy out of Time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen), who happens to be dating the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter).

“Cynical money-grubbing exercise” is a phrase I’ve heard used for Alice Through The Looking Glass, and one that seems to have doomed the film at the box office, but only because it is completely accurate. Alice In Wonderland (2010) was a huge hit, far beyond expectations, which meant there was more money to be had. Now much of the film business has a touch of cynical money-grubbing about it, but normally the powers-that-be have the good graces to attempt to hide it, that or do their money-grubbing at levels other than the script. But with Alice 2, nothing is done because someone had a good idea (that they could then be money-grubbing about) or they wanted to express a deep theme (perhaps cynically). Even Alien v Predator had more integrity.

Through the Looking Glass isn’t an unpleasant film. I’ve enjoyed films less that I rate better. It is a pretty film and some of the art design is spectacular. And there’s certainly some talent in front of the cameras, even if it is mostly wasted. There are many objective qualities dealing with filmmaking for which Alice 2 ranks quite highly. And it is far less boring then dozens of other films put out this year. If it was a stand-alone film I might give it an extra reel and say to turn it on if it happens to pop up on free TV. Not a ringing endorsement, I know, but better than saying to avoid it.

But it isn’t a stand-alone film. It is a sequel. And a sequel has one job: Don’t mess up the original. And in that Alice 2 fails. Not on the level of Alien 3’s failure, but enough. It makes the world so much smaller. It makes things that were of great importance trivial. It weaken characters. It forces a kind of logic on surreal situations and lessens the world Disney had constructed.

Alice 2 is more prequel than sequel. The time travel “plot” allows for origin stories for both the Red & White Queens as well as the Hatter. But these are origin stories that not only are unnecessary, they rip at the fabric of the movie. Explanations should not be attempted for nonsense, and nonsense is at the heart of both Lewis Carroll’s work and Tim Burton’s. There is no emotional heart to the picture, only information we were better off without. When not in the past, we get family reunions no one has asked for. In the “real world” we get to revisit things that were firmly settled in the previous film and should have been left that way.

The marketing was all about Johnny Depp and so was the film (remember, cynical money-grubbing) which makes it doubly unfortunate that he is terrible. Depp is an idiosyncratic actor and there is often only a short distance between his brilliance and his embarrassing failure. This time he jumped over to the embarrassing side. Most of the rest of the characters, the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Tweedledee/Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor) the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), and Absolem (Alan Rickman) have no purpose in the film but are there because this is a sequel and that’s how cash-based sequels work.

If I’m sounding too negative, I will admit that Alice Through The Looking Glass would make a fine screen saver.

Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The 7 of 87 Race Issue. Why the Pups Can’t Be Defended.

Dec 312015

December 31, 2015

So, I just wrote an obnoxiously long FB post, in response to someone who supports the Pups. And as it occurs to me she might not want to answer, and it was obnoxiously long, I figured I’d post it here. And yes, it is on a topic I cover in greater depth in Welcome to the Doomsphere: Sad Puppies, Hugos, and Politics. The topic at this point was, according to the other person in the discussion, that Brad was a nice, reasonable guy when it started, and he only went off the rails later when he got a lot of flak. But that at first, he was trying to do a good thing. I disagreed:

I don’t feel much sympathy for Brad–he picked a fight. I agree he changed over time. He ended up with that stuff about SJWs taking him away to gulags in the night, which was a far flight from where he started. But you speak as if he started nicely, and that anger changed him. He picked a fight in his very first post (before he’d gotten any grief). He was not just talking about getting good stories awards. He started–very first post–attacking those he didn’t like.

A good place to look is Ken Burnside’s long post Hugo essay over on Mad Genius Club, because he is a Pup to the hilt (Pup nominee for related work), supporting a ton of things I don’t. But he points out that everything was doomed to trouble and fights from moment one, by Brad, that half of that very first Puppy post was about stories, and half was “Let’s turn this into a culture-war front.” Brad picked a fight where there wasn’t one, and then got upset that the fight he started was a fight. He started Sad Puppies 3 with an insult and a statement that it was as important to hurt others as get the stories he liked nominated (which was also Larry’s line–his was to “explode the heads of the literati”). Brad didn’t start with an innocent post, he start, knowingly as he later admitted, a fight.

It was also in that very first post that he started with his “affirmative action” line. He said later, in a defense against the Sad Puppies just being a bunch of people complaining that their favorites didn’t win (which is true of pretty much everyone) that the affirmative action bit is the heart of the Pups. And here is the point every Pup has to answer: That’s the heart, to stop people getting nominated just due to who they are, due to their gender and race. And the question is: which people? I went back, for 8 years prior to the 2 main Pup years; in that time 87 people have been nominated for a literary Hugo (some mutliple times–Resnick does well). 87 people. Of those, only 7 are not White.

So first, us SJWs are terrible at affirmative action only getting 7 in. Wow, those are terrible numbers. Now this whole race thing was brought up by Brad and the Puppies (I had no idea the racial makeup before–even though as an SJW, I was responsible for it somehow).

So, Brad looked at 7, mostly Asian people in a group of 87, and came to the conclusion that those 7 just didn’t belong and could only have gotten there by affirmative action. There is no way that Brad, or the Pups, can come out of that looking good. Either he is mindboggling stupid (perhaps he heard someone on the Internet who said they vote by race and he was so very dim that he took that to mean something), or he’s a special type of unpleasantly stupid, or he’s coniving. There is no, “Gosh, he’s a good guy” option with that. 7 of 87.

And that’s the thing, if you are going to defend the Pups, you have to find some way around that 7 of 87 issue. (And no, he didn’t mean it isn’t a way around because he repeated that he did mean it, and was backed up by many Pups. And no, he didn’t intend to discriminate against other races isn’t a way around either–because he did discriminate.) So, if you are saying the Pups are really OK, and that Brad was nice before the kickback begun, there has to be an out for that 7 of 87, and I sure can’t see one.

The gender side of things doesn’t help either (the numbers are way off there as well), but looking at the 7 or 87–that must be too many for the Pups to be other than the bad guys is all this–will do nicely. Before this, race never came up in my look at the Hugos. Nor did it for most people I know. But Brad and the Pups are obsessed with it somehow keeping them down. So, how do you defend the 7 of 87? Without a defense of that, there is no defense of the Pups.

Thoughts

The Problem With Good

Dec 262015

December 26, 2015

This has been a year of subpar to horrible things. Not in any enormous, epic, or catastrophic way, but in a more sleazy and pathetic sense. My thoughts are mainly on art, but it’s seeped into other things here and there. Our politics has been embarrassing. Watch one Republican debate and you want to hide away your citizenship. Of course Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, has not been displaying the best of humankind either. Poland and Hungry are making it clear that they can trump our slimiest worldview. Yes, that was a pun. Then there is our cultural reaction to Syrian refuges; it’s been immoral and wretched. The cowardice on display, there, and across the nation in so many ways, has been top notch. But I mean to talk about art.

Literature is harder to judge. There’s so much and a real understanding of what this year has brought won’t be available for decades. But in my little corner of the world, there’s been the Puppies, who not only wrote and promoted some dreadful stories, but then fought to reward them, grinding up the SF literary world for the year. It’s been a lowly place to be.

My area is film, and film has been sad. There has not been a single great film this year—not one I’ve seen anyway, and I’ve seen a good many. Maybe one hidden away, far from science fiction, fantasy, and horror, but I’m not holding my breath. No great advancements. No breathtaking ideas. Nothing deep and meaningful.

What about fun? How about fun films? Even those have been shadows of their former selves. After years of anticipation we got the new Star Wars picture, and it was…OK. Basically a remake, with all the same beats we’ve seen before. It wasn’t horrible, but it was far from great. And Marvel slipped as well. Ant-Man and The Avengers 2 were both fine, but will not be remembered, and worse, they displayed the cracks in the MCU and those are only going to grow. Cinema this year has been all emptiness. Artistically vacant via corporate mega-blockbuster-construction. You could wipe out the year in film and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

Television? It too has been a wasteland. But OK, television has usually been a wasteland. But it is certainly back in wasteland form. A good example for me has been Doctor Who. For a few years, it was kinda brilliant. Emotional. Fun. Meaningful now and again. But Not this year. And not last year. It’s been pretty sludgy. Sure, it’s had a few moments, but none that couldn’t be lost without concern.

And then there was tonight. And tonight messed everything up.

You see, all that garbage, and all that mediocrity—it’s been my friend. TV not worth turning on? Great. Movies easy to forget? Excellent. The Puppies? People don’t get that about me and the Sad/Rabid Puppies. I love those guy. They’ve been marvelous. They mutilated the little corner of an art form I value, and I can’t thank them enough.

As for politics and human nature, I’ve seen so much that’s abhorrent and it’s been a real dream for me. All those things, not worth seeing. All those things, better not seen.

And I’ve appreciated that.

Because Eugie can’t see them. She’s missing them all. I’ve watched the movies, the TV shows, heard new music, and known how Eugie would have reacted. How she’d have rolled her eyes at Death Star 3. How she’d have shook her head at the great fight to hold up buildings and said we should stay home and skip Bond. How she’d have turned away from the new Doctor and checked Facebook, which is only Facebook, so not a big deal. How she’d have tossed the crap Puppy books across the room. How she’d have said those stories, those movies, and the world, needs an editor, and she’d have been right.

I’ve gotten by seeing things I knew she wouldn’t have liked, would have been happier not to see. The garbage in art, in politics, in the souls of men, has been a gift to me.

And then someone had to do something right.

I watched the Christmas ep of Doctor Who tonight. And it was funny. And it was clever. And it was well paced. And it was meaningful. And it was fun. And I knew she’d have loved it. She’s have giggled and nodded. She’d have commented on how they understood happily ever after.

And it is terrible. I hate it. I hate that finally there is something that she would unequivocally loved, and she will never have the chance. She would have smiled, which is the point to their being good things in the universe, and now she will never smile which makes it pointless. It makes me curse that the world didn’t burn, that it insists on still turning.

The meaning of the show works so well when you are living the happily ever after. Not so afterwards. When she was dying, that would have been the time. It would have reverberated then. Not, I suppose, that we needed it. She shone so brightly then. We both understood how the universe works. But still, it would have been nice.

Now, that meaning is past tense. Goodness is pain. I have faith that mediocrity will take hold quite quickly, and walk arm in arm with stupidity and ugliness. I look forward to it, and I’m sure if I were to look even now I’d find it. But it will take some time till I can do that. The wounds never heal, but they usually are not ripped wider. So I await equilibrium, and the return of the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual penumbra. I don’t think I’ll have to wait long. That’s not good for most of you, but it is for me. Good has always been subjective anway.

Thoughts

FosteronFilm’s 8 Best SF Films of 2015

Dec 232015

December 23, 2015

Following up on my 7 worst post, it’s time for the best 8 SF films of 2015. And again, I’m doing less than 10 because the year isn’t quite over yet. I’ll fill in those last 2 slots if anything deserving pops up. Here’s the best 2015 had to offer, starting with:

#8 Terminator Genisys

In the future, just after John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to save his mother, Doctor Who infectsfuture humanity with Skynet. Reese appears in a past that has changed from the first two Terminator movies. Sarah Connor has a protector Terminator and is already a kick-ass fighter. They have to take out a few cyborgs and stop the creation of skynet.

That this showed up on my Top list for the year does not say good things about the SF films of 2015. Well, it was better than the previous Terminator film. If you were of the opinion they should have stopped after two, this movie isn’t going to change that. Emilia Clarke is a fine replacement as Sarah Connor, though Jai Courtney fails as the rebooted Kyle Reese. Things blow up, terminators get crushed and I didn’t care. It’s fun in a way that Terminator 4 was not, but also forgettable. I enjoyed it while watching, but can’t think of any reason to see it again.

#7 Jurassic World

They’ve rebuilt Jurassic Park and to keep attendance high, they’ve genetically designed a super dinosaur. A generically evil military guy is drooling over the raptors as a new weapon, because, wow, is he stupid. Some kids get lost, the big dino escapes, the nasty corporate lady must become good, and Chris Pratt, the raptor whisperer, saves a few folks.

My list continues with another film that wasn’t all that great. Jurassic World is stupid on an epic scale. Not a single decision made by a character makes sense. Everyone is an idiot. Luckily the film isn’t based on sense. In a movie like Ex Machina, that needs to be smart, being stupid, which it is, is fatal. For Jurassic World, it weakens the film, but it still gets by as dino porn. It has big monsters and they eat people. Then people run around, and then there’s some more people-eating. As a reboot/retread, I’ve seen worse.

#6 Mad Max: Fury Road

Furiosa leads an escape of the sex-slaves of an insane warlord in an apocalyptic, sandy future. Her escape is simply a very long car chase one way, and then back again. End of film. Oh, and there’s a guy named Max there for no reason.

I enjoyed the vehicular combat in The Road Warrior and Thunderdome, so I was going to enjoy this. I didn’t really need those chases extended till they became the entire movie. There is no plot here. None. There’s some dialog, but Max is not a big talker. Fury Road functions purely on punk outfits, people acting insane, and quick moving cars. The world is nonsensical (how is the water hoarded, and is that really a good way to distribute it?), so best to enjoy it for the look and leave your brain off. Tom Hardy does nothing with Max, but Charlize Theron is excellent, as is usually the case with her.

#5 Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Luke Skywalker finds a droid with an important message inside. After a slaughter that upsets him, he boards the Millennium Falcon with a team that includes a rogue, an elderly mentor, and a Wookie. Luke gains insight from a small, wise creature and begins his journey to become a Jedi Knight. They are hunted by a masked, evil Sith Lord with a strange personal connection to the team and a fascist army of stormtroopers. Somehow, they must destroy the Death Star before it blows up the planets of the Republic.

Now, change “Luke” to “Rey,” change the masculine pronouns to feminine, and rename the Death Star.

Star Wars 7 is a construction more than a film, made up of pieces from the other six films (mainly the original three). It’s all homage and repeats. It’s well done, though lacking in WOW moments. The actors do better than under Lucas’s care, and so do the characters. It supplies exactly what the audience asked for. I don’t believe art involves supplying just what an audience asks for. That’s the job of hucksters and conmen. This is the finest movie you are likely to see that demonstrates the emptiness of the blockbuster business. It’s fun, hollow, corporate fun. It would have never created a legend, but it can live off of one.

#4 Ant-Man

Super scientist and ex-Ant-Man, Hank Pym, recruits cat burglar Scott Lang to become the new Ant-Man in order to stop yet another scientist/industrialist from selling shrinking tech to terrorists. And Hank’s daughter, Hope van Dyne, she…she…um…well, she’s there too.

The action is a lot of fun, and they manage to make shrinking and ant-friendship into powers you can take seriously. The same can’t be said for everyone’s plans. Pym’s initial trick to pick up Lang is just silly. The evil guy’s plot to sell shrinking suits (instead of the really useful shrinking gun) to terrorists is stupid, but the ringer is the ridiculous and completely unnecessary plan by our heroes. Pym could have driven by and tossed a shrink bomb out of his car window—done. Stupid plans are part of the MCU, but this film dwells on them. In other films, the eye-rolling plans are hidden with action or by our hero not knowing what’s going on, but Ant-Man is all about the plan.

Then there is the whole problem with The Wasp. If you don’t think you can sell a female-led superhero film, then don’t make it so obvious this should have been one.

(Full review)

#3 The Martian

Assumed dead, an astronaut is left behind on Mars when his crewmates make an emergency launch. He attempts to survive as NASA works on a way to rescue him.

As this is a slow, survival film that could be about a guy on a lost island, it should be dull. Why isn’t it? Sharp dialog. Multifaceted Characters. Real emotion, The Martian is way better than it has any right to be. In a year of films where I just didn’t care, I cared. Story-wise, it isn’t much. But then it is never about story, but how you tell it. They told it well.

#2 Avengers: Age of Ultron

Tony Stark’s need to find a way to defend the Earth leads to the creation of Ultron, an artificial intelligence more attuned to destroying the planet. The entire Avengers team, along with a few newcomers and SHIELD agents are needed to stop this threat.

Joss Whedon works his ensemble magic again, crafting an extravaganza that’s really a character piece. Each line counts and each character has his moment.

Sure, this second Avengers outing doesn’t rival the first, but then that’s a high bar. The action is a bit much (quite a bit—I’d have exchanged fifteen minutes of crowd saving and building breaking for a couple more group discussions) and a few of the characters are slipping into their clichés (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, I’m looking at you). No problem. There’s lots of heart, lots of wit, and fabulous new characters to take up the slack. Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Vision are exactly what the franchise needed, and I’d be content with an entirely new Avengers team as long as several of these new characters are a part of it.

#1 Nothing

Even grading on a curve, nothing this year deserves to be called “The Best.” My top film of the year is 3rd on my ratings of the twelve MCU movies. My 4th is 12th on that same MCU list. My 5th ranks 4th among Star Wars films, and 7th in terms of the most interesting of that series. All of the films on my best list are part of a series except The Martian, and none of them are the top of their series. That’s pathetic. Only The Martian isn’t at least slightly embarrassing. There’s been rough years before, but I can’t think of any significantly below this one. Perhaps what is worse than the failures is the lack of imagination. Sequel after sequel and nothing new or fresh or interesting in even one of them. What wasn’t just more of the same due to being part of a series was more of the same due to copying what had been done in unrelated films. Movies below my top 10, like Vice, Infini, and Pixels (those last two on my worst list) are part of that second group. Gee, I wonder if the filmmakers of Vice, a film about a luxury resort where you can play out your fantasies with robots until a robot becomes self-motivated, ever saw Westworld? At least Jupiter Ascending failed relatively on its own—though it did fail. Ex Machina wasn’t part of a series and didn’t steal directly from another film, which sadly is a big deal this year. Too bad it went over well-tread AI tropes, and functioned by having incredibly stupid characters doing incredibly stupid things (key cards? No weapons? Girls being so mysterious?). Not a good year. So, unless I uncover some hidden SF gem, this year goes without a #1.

Lists, Thoughts

FosteronFilm’s 7 Worst SF Films of 2015

Dec 222015

December 22, 2015

It’s that time of year again to choose the best, and the worst of the year. I’m starting with the worst. Why 7? Because the year isn’t over yet, and there are a few films I haven’t seen yet (though I doubt The Hunger Games 4 will make either my top or bottom list if the past episodes are anything to go by). I’m using “science fiction” in a very broad sense. If the film pretends to be SF, it is. I’d planned to make a “genre” list as I have in the past, but there’s a good number of fantasy films I haven’t seen yet, and the ones I have didn’t make either my top or bottom list. Fantasy is very middle of the road this year. So, counting down the worst of the worst, starting with #7:

#7 Self/less

A stereotypically nasty businessman is given a chance to extend his life by transferring his consciousness to a lab grown body. When he discovers the body wasn’t grown, but has a past which includes a wife and child, he becomes guilty, and the secret company decides he needs to die.

This action film, that could have been rewritten without the science fiction elements, plays like a first draft spec script. Guns get fired. Cars crash. It’s not horrible. It is simply completely forgettable. Nothing about this film will be remembered in a year. It isn’t worth the effort to avoid. Ben Kingsley, who’s demonstrated he’ll be in anything if paid is again there for the paycheck, while Ryan Reynalds demonstrates, again, that he ought to be good in genre films, but somehow isn’t.

#6 Tomorrowland

A teen genius, a robot girl, and a cynical ex-inventor travel to a parallel universe to save ours.

A corporate created kids’ film that should have been a family film, Tomorrowland has some interesting ideas but they were wasted. The main character is irrelevant. The movie could have been about the robot and older man, but then it should have been rewritten before even getting to that point. This is a movie that needed magic and adventure and it came up empty. Miscasting of Clooney didn’t help matters.

#5 Jupiter Ascending

A maid learns she’s the genetic duplicate of the dead matriarch of a powerful galactic family (sure…) that owns the Earth. Their wealth is build on harvesting humans for a youth tonic and every member has a scheme for using the maid. But she has a protector in the form of a wingless, man-wolf, soldier, hoverboard pro (OK…). Do man-wolfs usually have wings? Seems so.

How far the The Wachowskis have fallen: Channing Tatum in wolf ears on a hover board; Mila Kunis spending two hours playing damsel in distress and being more worried about her outfit than the fate of the world; Eddit Redmayne overacting such that any proper society would repossess his Academy Award. Don’t worry about the story; they didn’t. It’s very pretty. The pretty doesn’t make up for the poor acting, nonsensical plot, or annoying characters, but its enough to put it a few notches away from worst of the year.

#4 Infini

A rescue team teleports to a deep space outpost to stop a deadly cargo aimed at Earth and to rescue the lone survivor. They just have to avoid dying from the cold and from whatever pathogen drove the last rescue team insane.

Remember Event Horizon? Remember how it was pretty good, but copied too much from Alien? If not, watch Event Horizon. Or better, watch Alien. Infini is what you get if you set out to make a copy of a copy, and run out of script and money halfway through. It looks good, and the acting is passable, but all we end up with is crazy people who like to talk and walk down mysterious corridors. It had potential, and I still had hope—though fading hope—an hour in, and then they just give up. Suspense, mystery, and action fades away, replaced by crazy people chatting. I doubt if you could save this, but cutting twenty minutes would be a step in the right direction.

#3 Insurgent

In an post-apocalyptic dystopian city, citizens are split into five rigid sects. A divergent girl (doesn’t fit into a single group) and her combat-trainer boyfriend are on the run after the first film. The evil, nasty, bad, naughty smart people want to capture her for a secret weapon.

Insurgent, the sequel to the cliché-ridden, anti-intellectual, but well-structured young adult film, Divergent, drops the “well-structured” part, and gives us dreams and tantrums. Lots of dreams. If you like your films filled with events that turn out neither to be real nor matter, this is the film for you. There’s ten minutes of story, pointless grousing, and dreams. If you’ve seen the first film, and want to see the upcoming third one, have someone spend a few minutes explaining the very little you need to know from this one. Then go watch something else.

#2 Fantastic Four

A soft spoken young genius with no charisma is brought onto a dimension jumping project. He, Doctor Doom, his abused buddy, and the son of the project leader experiment with… Wait. Isn’t Sue Storm one of the fantastic four? But she isn’t part of the 4 that try out the experiment? Huh. OK. So, the experiment goes wrong and gives them super powers, which they don’t do much with.

On the bright side, the pre-release word on this film was so bad that I was not disappointed. It’s as bad as you’ve heard, but no worse. The characters have no chemistry, no interesting dialog, and I wouldn’t have cared if that experiment had killed them all. The superhero part of the film doesn’t start for an hour and doesn’t go anywhere. And to strip away an possible enjoyment, the movie is tinted an ugly green. The best thing I can say about this film is that the actors would be good…in something else.

#1 Pixels

Aliens attack using weapons that look and act like old arcade games. Adam Sandler, playing the same guy he always does, must save the day with his old time video game skills, because that isn’t stupid in any way.

Could a good movie have made from this premise? No, but a better one. If they’d let the not-very-funny moments come from the weak story, it could have been watchable. Instead it’s filled with horrible jokes that could have been extracted from ten other Adam Sandler films. Sandler spits out his low level quips, and they are never funny and usually unpleasant. When Kevin James is the sophisticated one in your film, you’re in trouble. Peter Dinklage deserves better, although you’d never know from his performance.

Lists, Thoughts

So–I Wrote a Book

Dec 182015

December 18, 2015

Hey, remember that whole Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies/Hugo thing? Well, I wrote a book about. Why? Because a battle about books needs a book. Blogs are fine. Everyone likes blogs. But a blog isn’t a book. And since all the real writers were writing their short stories and novels, I stepped in.

So, Puppies, Hugos, and doom–lots of doom.

Thoughts

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Nov 232015

Star Wars 7 is a construction more than a film, made up of pieces from the other six films (mainly the original three and primarily A New Hope). It’s all homages and repeats. It’s well done, with every aspect meticulously crafted. We may have seen it all before, but the new paint looks good. The actors do better than under Lucas’s care, and so do the characters. It supplies exactly what the audience asked for. I don’t believe art involves supplying just what an audience asks for. That’s the job of hucksters and conmen. This is the finest movie you are likely to see that demonstrates the emptiness of the blockbuster business. It’s a bullseye on a low target. It’s hollow corporate fun. It would have never created a legend, but it can live off of one.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

Depressing Thought for the Day

Oct 122015

October 12, 2015

Last night I was updating my web site (Amazon changed how they do links—not that anyone takes them, but it took out all my pictures—will take forever to fix) and ended up reading my reviews of Jane Austin films. I compare all the Emmas and all the Pride and Prejudices. I loved watching those. Well, I loved watching some of those. A few versions of Pride and Prejudice are fine to skip, but the best are wonderful.

I remember curling up on the couch with Eugie for the Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth version of P&P. Five hours or so—we sipped wine and it was kind of perfect. Austin is quite clever and there’s a good deal of romance, but even more romance watching it.

As I mention in my reviews, these are not films/series for a single guy to watch alone. These are date movies. Close to the perfect date movies. And it occurred to me I’ll never watch these again. There would be no joy to them. They would also be painful, but I can handle the pain far better than the lack of joy.

This is nothing new, just something else gone.

Thoughts

All Modern Doctor Who Episodes Ranked (Top 3rd)

Oct 082015

October 8, 2015

doctors

The top 3rd feels like two groups. About half would fit comfortably with the last section, while the best of the best here really soar. Maybe I should have split this into 5 or 6 posts.

Ten dominates the list, though if Nine had been in more episodes it would be a close call. Eleven shows up less, Twelve less still, and Thirteen is entirely missing.

Lowest 3rd
Middle 3rd

#49 The Runaway Bride (S3-E0)

whorunaway Ten, Donna
Donna is always a bit shrill, but here she is truly unpleasant. Her mother is… wow… Doctor Who hates mothers. Donna gets better over time; her mother does not. The story isn’t great and the FX spider is worse. It’s fast-paced, which helps, and funny, which helps more. But it is Ten that makes it all work. He switches from emotional & dramatic to funny to an action hero three times in the same scene and it always works.
Doctor: Very Good. Companion: Annoying. Villain: Weak. Plot: Middling.

#48 Vincent and the Doctor (S5-E10)

whovincent Eleven, Amy
A good episode, but it gets far more credit than it deserves. It is not a deep exploration of depression, though it would like to be. There is way too much lightness and silliness for an episode that takes itself so seriously. Plus the music over Van Gogh’s visit to the library belongs in a different type of show–one that I don’t watch.
Eleven definitely isn’t the one for this. Ten would have pulled it off better. Amy, is of course, fantastic, and Vincent is well drawn.
Doctor: Wrong for the ep. Companion: Excellent. Villain: Weak. Plot: OK.

#47 The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (S4-E4/E5)

whosontaran Ten, Donna, Martha
The return of the classic villain, the Sontarans—another SF warrior & honor race that is horrible at war. A solid episode, but while the previous one, Planet of the Ood, felt like it was a two-parter, this one felt like a single-part ep when seen from a distance. Not enough happens. The genius kid was unnecessary, as was Donna remembering her previous episodes.
Funny that Martha didn’t come into her own until after she was done with the TARDIS.
Doctor: Shrill. Companions: Good. Villains: Good. Plot: Good.

#46 Partners in Crime (S4-E1)

whopartners Ten, Donna
This is a lightweight ep. A good re-introduction to Donna. She is 50% less annoying than as a bride, which still leaves a good deal. Some humor and a desire for adventure counter the annoyance. It leans a bit too far on the juvenile, however, the first meeting between The Doctor and Donna in this ep makes me give a pass to everything else.
Doctor: Excellent. Companion: Good. Villain: OK. Plot: Weak.

#45 Hell Bent (S9-E12)

Hellbent Twelve, Clara
Twelve goes crazy in an attempt to save Clara. I rather like that he flipped out. I wasn’t so fond of Gallifrey. The great civilization of the Time Lords has never been smaller. They could, and should, have done this ep without the Time Lord politics. It made them tiny and unimportant (well, not the first time that’s happened). Clara, however, got a good sendoff.
Doctor: Very Good. Companion: Very Good. Villain: Vague. Plot: Very Good.

#44 The Doctor’s Daughter (S4-E6)

whodoctorsdaughter Ten, Donna, Martha
It gets a couple of points for its meta nature (David Tennant married the actress who played his daughter, who is in real life the daughter of Peter Davison, the 5th Doctor). The fish people are not the greatest creation, but more than made up for by Jenny as well as for the point about what it is to be a soldier. Budget limitations show up. This was an odd ep to bring back Martha as she’s stuck in a side plot that could have been cut.
Doctor: Good. Companions: Good. Villains: OK. Plot: Good.

#43 Gridlock (S3-E3)

whogridlock Ten, Martha
A surreal episode that works amazingly well for its unreal premise. The people of New New York get on a freeway and just stay on it, forever, moving only yards each day in the dense traffic. It’s also a “save the companion” episode. The many secondary characters are well-drawn and we get the return of a few old ones, giving Whoviens something to dwell on.
Doctor: Excellent. Companion: fair to good. Villain: None. Plot: Good, if slight.

#42 Wild Blue Yonder (60th-Anniversary Special 2)

Wild Blue Yonder Fourteen, Donna
It’s amazing what you can do with so little. This is one of the most frightening Who stories, and yet there’s very little story. We don’t know what’s the creatures are or why any of this is happening, but we sure know something is very wrong. Tennant and Tate have tons of chemistry. This episode just pulled me in and didn’t let go. Normally specials go big. This one went small, and it worked.
Doctor: Excellent. Companion: Excellent. Villain: Scary. Plot: Slight.

#41 School Reunion (S2-E3)

dwschool Ten, Rose, Mickey, Sarah Jane, K9
This one is all about bringing back Sarah Jane Smith, and to a lesser extent (much, much lesser), K9. The story isn’t much, but the character interaction is first-rate. Acted as a pilot for the young kid’s show, The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Doctor: Excellent. Companions: Excellent. Villains: OK. Plot: OK.

#40 The End of the World (S1-E2)

whoendofworld Nine, Rose
After a first episode that said this show was not going to be like the past, the second episode of modern Who said the opposite. It felt like a kid’s show, a pretty good kid’s show, but a kid’s show. And Rose, who came off as strong and resourceful in the first seems weak, bitchy, and useless here. What’s her problem with aliens? She is the portal character, so who is her attitude supposed to appeal to? However, she does learn, and The Doctor is engaging, the tree woman is a nice addition, there’s a nice mix of humor and tension, there’s plenty of character development, and The Doctor and Rose’s relationship grows.
Doctor: Very Good. Companion: Disappointing. Villain: Comical. Plot: Fair.

#39 The Giggle (60th-Anniversary Special 3)

Fourteen, Fifteen, Donna
Well, that was unexpected. So much seemed just what I thought it would be, and then it would all get twisted. I expected Fifteen to appear, but not when how how he did. And I do like being surprised. I loved how visible the pain and weight was on Fourteen, and how energic and fresh Fifteen was. And who’d have thought I’d be happy seeing Mel. This works nicely as the end of the three special that brought life back to the show.
Doctors: Excellent. Companion: Excellent. Villain: Good. Plot: Good.

#38 Let’s Kill Hitler (S6-E8)

LetsKillHitler Eleven, Amy, Rory, River
A combination of a lot of fun and a lot of stupid. So, we have time travelers who just go around and torture people for “justice.” Hmmm. Shouldn’t another group of time travelers be The Doctor’s greatest concern? Ah well, why worry about the problems when you’ve got Rory punching Hitler, River’s numerous assassination attempts, River vs Nazis, and everything with Amy. This may not be the smartest Doctor Who episode, but it is one of the most fun.
Doctor: Good. Companions: Excellent. Villains: Hard to say. Plot: Best not think about it.

Lists, Thoughts

All Modern Doctor Who Episodes Ranked (Middle 3rd)

Oct 082015

October 8, 2015

doctors

Part 2 of ranking all the Doctor Who episodes (Top 3rd, Bottom 3), and the main thing to take away from the middle 3rd was how close together they all are. The bottom 3rd had far greater range with some terrible eps and some pretty good ones. These are all good, and I wouldn’t have a lot of trouble swapping them about in the rankings. Yes, 97 is not a winner the way 49 might be, but there is nothing here not worth watching once, or twice, or maybe more. I sound a bit grumpy with these, but only because I’d rather, in reviewing, focus on what should have been better than what is already excellent. The excellent has no need to improve.

The middle section is ruled by Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi.

#98 The Idiot’s Lantern (S2-E7)

whoIdiotsLantern Ten, Rose
A weak, middle of the season ep. There usually is one, and at time of first broadcast, this was the weakest the show had been. Ah, those were the days. In general, this feels like the earlier, more juvenile version of Doctor Who. There is some satisfaction in seeing the fascist get his comeuppance, and both the political and television-related themes are solid (always amusing to see a TV show attacking TV). But the real joy here is in Ten and Rose interacting. At this point, the two of them together are fun no matter what they are doing, which is handy as they aren’t getting much help this time.
Doctor: Good. Companion: Missing too long. Villain: Weak. Plot: Weak.

#97 Night Terrors (S6-E9)

nightterrors Eleven, Amy, Rory
Another non-arc horror story about an alien child that’s not getting enough love. It seems to be a re-write of Fear Her, and I can’t think of any reason why you’d want to revisit that episode. The Doctor isn’t bad, and Amy and Rory are entertaining. Too bad they didn’t have a better story.
Doctor: OK. Companions: Good. Villain: Weak. Plot: Seen it before.

#96 Nightmare in Silver (S7-E12)

whonightmare Eleven, Clara, Annoying children
Gaiman’s a good writer, but you wouldn’t know it from this, although if he was assigned the plot of children at an amusement park and the Doctor fighting himself, there isn’t much he could have done. Why would you write this and not kill the children? Clara doesn’t bring much, but she’s more amusing than the Doctor. The only time Clara worked with children was in The Snowmen, but they just kept trying, and failing.
Doctor: Weak. Companion: Weak. Villains: Weak. Plot: Middling.

#95 The Rings of Akhaten (S7-E7)

whorings Eleven, Clara
The main things this ep establishes is that Clara is going to remain weaker and less fun than her two earlier incarnations. Bad space scooter FX, and the music gets cloying. Not surprising when, once again, love saves the day.
Doctor: OK. Companion: OK. Villain: OK. Plot: OK.

#94 The Return of Doctor Mysterio (S10-E0)

WhoReturnofDoctorMysterio Twelve, Nardole
After a twelve-month drought following the spectacular The Husbands of River Song, this is one of the most disappointing moments in Who history. It isn’t a bad episode; it isn’t significant enough. It is emotionally empty. Since superheroes are all the rage, they added a costumed superhero to the Who universe, but they had no idea of what to do with one and nothing to say. There are some lackluster villains and a forgettable story. Twelve is in pretty good form but that’s not enough to make this memorable.
Doctor: OK. Companion: OK. Villain: Weak. Plot: Poor.

#93 Oxygen (S10-E5)

whooxygen Twelve, Bill, Nardole
One of the “a few people stuck on a spaceship about to die” eps that Doctor Who loves so much. This is weaker than a majority of the others but is strong for season 10 with an emphasis on theme. The look at capitalism is solid.
Doctor: Good. Companion: Good enough. Villain: Good. Plot: Good.

Christian Mythos, Lists, Thoughts

All Modern Doctor Who Episodes Ranked (Lowest 3rd)

Oct 082015

October 8, 2015

doctors

We are squarely in Doctor Who season again (yes, that’s an official season of the year), which has not only focused my interest but focused the interest of others who then foolishly ranked all of the episodes. The problem with their rankings was that they were wrong–wrong in that they were not my rankngs. Yes, sometimes it is that simple. So it seemed necessary for me to rank them. This I have done, from worst to best, in three posts (and I’ve updated this list now many times as new episodes came out). In general, I grouped multipart episodes together.

Naturally, I didn’t go at this as a blank slate since that would make it meaningless. Rather, I have a few positions that greatly determine my rankings. Those are:

Writing is the most important.
I’m good with Doctor Who being a family show–not so much with it being a kids show. If things get too silly or are directed only at children, my ratings go down.
I don’t expect the science to be good, but I do grade down when things completely lose internal consistency or when an episode takes pains to point out something egregiously stupid.
The season arcs matter. A bad arc hurts more than a good arc helps.
Yes, I think some Doctors were better than others. This is mainly due to versatility of the actor and versatility of the role, plus charisma.
Yes, I like some companions better than others. Some never worked (the “Fam”). Some should have worked but never jelled (Martha). Some started poorly but improved (Mickey, Donna). Some started great and fell apart (Clara). Some were perfect (Rose, Amy, Captain Jack). Some were great in so many ways, though scripts or arcs let them down (River). I universally hate all mothers on the show (I think someone had mother-in-law issues).
I started watching Doctor Who in 1978 and picked up the earlier ones later. I’ve watched every existent episode, many of them multiple times. That makes me an old-time Doctor Who watcher. However, I do not have some of the qualities attributed to those earlier fans. I do not give a pass to horrible FX. I do not give points for the show merely referring to its past. And most importantly, I am not against romance and sexuality. (Original Who was famously asexual. People forget that the biggest outcry against the 1996 movie was not the half-human line, but rather that The Doctor kissed a woman.)

For the most part, the modern Doctor Who has been very good, though the bottom quarter is skippable and contains a few stinkers. So, let’s start with the one that smells the worst. Luckily, it gets better. (And yes, I might seem a bit harsh here, but it is the bottom 3rd.) This section is ruled by Twelve and Thirteen, who have between treen and four times the eps in it as Ten and Eleven combined (Nine is never in this section).

#147 Kill the Moon (S8-E7)

whokillthemoon Twelve, Clara
The most ill-prepared and dimwitted astronauts in history head to the moon to blow it up and Twelve, Clara, and one of her students (yes, a student) tag along. The moon is an egg for a giant alien and it is gaining mass (because that makes sense). None of the characters come out of this one looking good, but that doesn’t matter when the central point is this stupid. The only positive is that there is very little Clara and Danny faux-romance. Use this episode to argue over which character, The Doctor, Clara, the teenager, or the dim astronaut is the most annoying. If you watch Doctor Who and ask, “Oh, why can’t there be more pointless arguments?” this is your episode.
Doctor: Annoying. Companion: Annoying. Villain: Missing. Plot: Deeply stupid.

#146 Legend of the Sea Devils (Special)

Thirteen, Yaz, Dan
It’s hard to think of anything good to say: The Sea Devils look “better” than they did in their last appearance in the ‘80s and there’s an OK Stephen King joke. That’s it. The rest is junk. The fights are unlikely, the characters ridiculous, the tone is bleak for no reason, the relationship material is annoying, and the ending is a meaningless lightshow. And wow, Chibnall does not understand what the Earth’s magnetic field is.
Additionally, the editing is horrendous with the same shot being used multiple times (sometimes reversed), and establishing and transition shots missing. Apparently this was due to COVID lockdown, which is an explanation, but doesn’t make it better.
Doctor: Lame. Companions: Idiots. Villain: Weak. Plot: Pointlessly complex.

#145 In the Forest of the Night (S8-E10)

whoforest Twelve, Clara
So who thought it was a good idea to stick a group of school children with the Doctor and have Clara stuck in teacher mode? I suppose it was an attempt to pull in the kid audience, or maybe it was just stupid. The kid-filler was needed as the plot should only have filled about fifteen minutes. It isn’t a bad plot; there just isn’t much to it as there is no adversary or actual problem. So a brief story about intelligent foliage, a fair amount of wasted time, and plenty of bad character development. I didn’t think Danny could be any less interesting. The family ending is saccharine and comes out of nowhere and is just another piece of wrongness.
Doctor: Weak. Companion: Weaker. Villain: None. Plot: OK, but brief.

#144 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (S11-E10)

battleofran Thirteen, Ryan, Yaz, Graham
The problem with big eps that are supposed to prove a point is that sometimes they prove the opposite. This one plays down all the death and pain so as to claim that killing the big bad wasn’t and isn’t the best idea, but it clearly was and still is. And that big bad ends up being strangely wimpy.
Doctor: Weaker. Companions: Eh. Villain: Wimpy. Plot: Underwritten.

#143 Revolution of the Daleks (S12-E11)

Revolution Thirteen, Ryan, Yaz, Graham, Captian Jack
The return of Captain Jack is wasted, and he’s the only good thing in this episode. The poor plot and poor use of the daleks don’t sink the ep, nor does setting up events and then ignoring them (The Doctor has been in jail for years, and…?), but there’s no getting around the whining. This is the worst appearance by Thirteen, but I hardly noticed how bad she is due to Ryan, Graham, and Yaz sucking the life out of the show. Well, at least two of them are leaving; that’s something.
Doctor: Whiny. Companions: Whiner. Villains: Weak. Plot: Weak.

#142 Flux (S13-E1 to E6)

Doctor-Who-Flux-Swarm Thirteen, Yaz, Ben
Since two of the six parts of Flux can’t stand on their own, I’m counting it as a single episode, and as that, it doesn’t work. You have to stick the landing, and Flux falls on its face. Too much time is spend on things that don’t matter with the main plot being given far too little time. Characters are undeveloped, motivations are vague or missing, and nothing matters. Yaz finally seems like a character, but she still doesn’t do anything that counts. Major questions are left unanswered and unexplored whereas things of no consequence are explained in detail.
Doctor: OK. Companions: A bit better. Villain: Vague. Plot: Nonsense.

Lists, Thoughts

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