Monthly Archives: December 2018

Movie Review: Spider-Man Into The Spider Verse

 

I end 2018 with yet another movie review. Now that the work at the day-job has slowed back to a more normal pacing I am finally able to catch up on a lot of the movies from the Christmas season including this gem Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse.

Though a Marvel logo appears along with other production logos before the opening scene of the film this movie is not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film rights to Spiderman and a number of the associated characters are still held by Sony Studios and, after their last two Spiderman  movies were poorly received by critics and disappointing at the box office, they entered into a joint custody arrangement with Marvel Studios allowing the wall crawler to enter into the MCU they retained the right for other Spiderman properties of which this is one.

Animated in a bold kinetic style that draws inspiration from the Ben-Day dots of classic comic-books of the 50s and 60s, Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse  follows the life of Miles Morales as he becomes entangled not only with Peter Parker, that universe’s Spider-Man, as Parker attempts to defeat the machinations of The Kingpin whose obsessions threaten the fabric of reality but also with a squad of spider-persons drawn from alternate realities where the fateful spider bit imbued various people with strange and wondrous abilities. Together they learn about each other and face an array of classic Spiderman though many have been given an unexpected twist befitting the narrative’s  multi-verse nature. I particularly like the twist given to Doc Ock. Early in the film there are a number of hat-tips to earlier Sony version of the franchise including a laugh out loud reference to something according the Peter Parker we ‘do not talk about.’ At its core the story is about Miles coming into his own on a larger thematic level it is about the heroism in all us and anyone could be under that mask.

I have heard some people are uneasy with the animation style, the film does utilize a number of flashing and contrasting colors, they animators in a deep homage to the color printing processes of by gone decades even print some tone ‘off-registration’ which I am sure confused at least a few people at both the 2D and 3D screenings but over all the effect works quite well.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse  is a film with story, plot, hart, and soul that provides an exciting and thoughtful excursion on variations on what it means to be a hero. It is one not to be missed.

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Returning to Failure

A few years ago I spent some time trying my hand of game design. The first attempts were utter failures but frankly that is to be expected. Just as your first writing or any artistic endeavors are likely to fail as you learn what it is you do not know but need to understand so it is with game design.

Now I feel like returning to that process and trying my hand again. For the last couple of weeks my mind has been buzzing with a space themed worker placement game concept. A worker placement or action drafting game is one where the key mechanic is placing a token that represents a worker on an action spot that produces an effect or resource for the player. There are limited spots and the spots generally have a limited capacity so that players block action to others when they occupy those positions. Last year my nephew introduced me to Viticulture, a game whose theme is wine production and it quickly became one of my favorites, (Particularly when you bring in the expansion which I think improves the play tremendously.) My friends and me will play a couple of games of Viticulture  every weekend and when someone asked if there were space themed worker placement games my researched indicated that there were very few utilizing that theme, prompting this surge in creativity.

Working under the title of Space Force!  I have begun making design notes for this came and who know in a month or two I may have something to test out.

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Movie Review: Aquaman

Christmas morning my sweetie-wife and I ventured to local AMC multiplex and caught the first showing of Aquaman  the next release in the DC cinematic universe. Over all I, like many but not all, have been disappointed by the feature Warner Brothers have released in their effectors to catch up with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Essentially most of the prior films have two principal failing, firstly they do not take the time to tell a good story first and set up the deep mythology second and secondly they often deeply violate the nature of the characters, particularly in the case of Superman. The decision to rush into Justice League  without establishing films in advance such as Marvel did with Avengers  hampered the audiences anticipation, if you are asking ‘who is that?’ then you are very interested in seeing that character as part of a team up film, and it saddled Justice League  with character introductions that ate up valuable screen time.

So with all that said how did Aquaman  do?

It was okay.

Not as terrible as Man of Steel  or the even worse Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice  but not as tight and fun as WB’s breakout hit of the DCEU Wonder Woman. Aquamanserves as the origin story of the title character, Arthur Curry, who father was a human and mother was from an ancient race the Atlantians and their Queen. Now after the events of Justice League  Arthur finds himself drawn into the political machinations of Atlantis as his half-brother, King Orm, seeks to unites the fractured undersea nations in order to launch a war with the human race. Assisted by Princess Mera and a royal adviser Vulko, Arthur embarks on quest for an ancient device that will allow him to claim the throne, mastery of the seas, and prevent that coming war. During his quest Curry is forced to grapple with the consequence of his decisions and his own emotional scars.

Over all the core concepts of the story hold together and had real promise but in execution they felt a bit flat and invoked a bit of a plot coupon adventure. (That’s a story where the characters have to get items A, B, & C, and once that is done they can turn them in for a resolution.) The film has all the hallmarks of being the combination of various scripts with the elements not always melding together well. Where Wonder Woman  told a story if Diana’s lose of innocence and that is the thematic core of the film, Aquaman has thematic core and as such feels bloated and overstuffed. The direct is fine, the action fast paced and interesting, the actors all do anywhere from competent to good jobs and things progress in a logical fashion so the film is not bad or even flawed but for me it lacks emotional weight. It has a strong plot, characters need to achieve this to avoid a disastrous outcome and in that respect it can be compared to most movies of the Bond franchise but it is light on story. Arthur make no difficult choices, he as a person is not tested by the situation nor does he discover a truth about himself or life that prompts character growth, aside from titles and powers, he departs the story the same person that entered it.

This movie is certainly a ‘your mileage may vary’ piece, as we reached the climatic ending of the movie there were cheers in the audience but not a lot of them. I do not regret going out to see the film but nor can I heartily recommend it to anyone.

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A Whole Lot of Bonus Material

Christmas has come and gone and today I will return to the spice mines known as the day-job but feeling happy and reinvigorated.

For the gift-giving holiday my sweetie-wife and I really only exchange gifts with each other keeping the holiday a small personal affair. We do not have a large elaborate dinner, we do not overly decorate, there’s a lighted wreath that she’s fond of and that’s about it not even a tree, and beyond watching Rare Exports  a Finnish horror comedy about Santa Claus, we don’t even have a holiday tradition.

Our gifts mostly come from wish lists we curate on Amazon so the wrapping manages to avoid disappointed surprise. In addition to some nice new clothes, my sweetie-wife gifted me with a number of new film on Blu-ray for my library: Hail Caesar, Get Out, Kong: Skull Island, andAnnihilation.I love all these movies and the discs come with a lot of bonus material that I have already been digging my way through. Last night I watched all the production videos for the surreal and compelling SF film Annihilation.

In addition to the gifts and a lovely steak dinner, see non-traditional, we went out for an early showing of Aquaman,  short review, fun but flawed, not as good asWonder Woman  but better than the rest of the DC movies excepting the Christopher Nolan Batman  franchise.

All in all it was a pleasant day spent with someone I love and I hope yours was the same.

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Movie Review: Mortal Engines

Sunday my sweetie wife and I went out and caught a screening for Mortal Engines, a post-apocalyptic released by Peter Jackson and his Wingnut production company with a script adapted by Lord of The Rings scribes, Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens, and Jackson himself, from a series of novel by Philip Reeve.

Now, you might think with an illustrious production history and talent such as these Mortal Engines, even if based upon the patently ridiculous concept of mobile predatory cities, would be exciting and deeply engaging, but you would me wrong. I sat through the films running time of 128 minutes deeply bored. I was prepared to accept the mobile cities concept, after all it was central to the premise as given by the trailers, but the movie failed to generate any emotional engagement.

The characters are all fairly flat and even Hugo Weaving, who made his scenes in the abysmal remake of The Wolfman entertaining, was unable to bring his character to any semblance of life. Everyone’s motivation is of the simplest type and when the story does try to deploy a shocking reveal to shake up the narrative, one that comes so close to the end it can have little bearing on the plot, it is a ‘twist’ that can only remind you of a better film that fused science-fiction and fantasy. (I shall not give away the twist in a spoiler, lest you find the film fresh and engaging but you’ll know what I am talking about when you see it.)

Okay, so Mortal Engines has stock characters and an over the top concept but perhaps the actual mechanism of the plot will be engaging but that is not the case either. The film is constructed from a series of chases, but chases that unlike say Mad Max: Fury Road do not have any emotional and thematic weight. The character escape one spot of peril only to land in other bit of trouble that is unrelated to the either their choices, their natures, or the driving conflict of the plot. Amplifying the boredom and bad narrative construct if that all too often the character are quickly rescued from their peril by turns of sudden good fortune. It is not that we see these characters are skilled, deeply intelligent, or out of the box creative, but simply that over and over again they are lucky. In the end the resolution of the crisis comes not from the nature of their choices, hell the characters are never faced with anything amounting to a difficult or morally troubling choice, but rather from the luck of having the right McGuffin to stick in the right slot at the right time.

Even with all of these faults the film might have still been worth it if it had been fun, if the producers, writers, and actors had infused it with a sense of joy. I am reminded of Flash Gordon from 1980. A deeply silly movie, stock, flat characters, a nonsense plot, but the movie was fun and 38 years later it is still quoted and is part of the public’s memory because it was fun.Mortal Engines has none of that.

In my opinion there is nothing recommend this movie.

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Passing The Character Baton

Sometimes you may have a story that starts with one person as the protagonists and you will want to hand off the baton and make another character the lead for the rest of the story. This is a tricky maneuver and I want to examine two films, one that pulled it off to great success, Psycho (1960), and the other failed at this Godzilla (2014.)  Naturally spoilers for both movies follow in this posting.

The critical element in this hand-off is the motivation of the succeeding protagonist. Their motivation and the their ultimate goal must be derived from and dependent upon the actions of the establishing protagonist.

Psycho introduced Marion Crane as our protagonist. The film begins like a noir, with a character of questionable morals sliding into a life of crime that spins out of control when Marion steals a large sum of money from employer and heads out on the lamb. When she meets Norman Bates and ends up murdered in her motel room the genre shifts under our feet and we find ourselves in a horror film. The main character baton is passed to Marion’s sister Lila as she tried to discover what happened to her sister, eventually drawing her to the motel and its deadly mystery. Without Marion’s impulsive theft and flight leading to her murder Lila has no motivation that can drive a plot. With the audience aware of what happened to Marion, but not why or by who, there remains in addition to great danger, cryptic puzzles for Lila to overcome in her quest to understand her sister fate.

Godzilla (2014) introduces Joe Brody as the protagonist. An engineer at a Japanese nuclear power plant, Joe’s wife is killed by a mysterious forces that destroys the facility and leaves Joe with guilt over his responsibility for his wife’s demise. Fifteen years later Joe’s son Ford comes to get his father out of jail for trespassing into the quarantined power plant. Joe and Ford are therefore present when the Kaiju mature and escape. Joe is killed in the disaster and Ford spends the rest of the film trying to get home to his own family while repeatedly crossing paths with the massive monsters. Ford’s motivation, get home, has nothing to do with Joe’s actions or his own deep troubles. If Ford had been in japan on any assignment his motivation to get back to his wife and son would remain unchanged. The hand off from Joe to Ford fails and as such the film lack an emotional through line that it should have possessed. This could have been fixed in the writing processed. If Ford had felt guilty about never believing his father’s theories before his death and became obsessed with taking vengeance on the monsters, violating orders, ignoring his responsibilities to his own wife and child in order to chase the Kaiju across the pacific then the story would have had more weight and emotional impact.

To me it is clear that you can do this sort of hand off but the authors and creators must think hard about the motivations that drive both protagonists and fusing them so that one cannot exist without the other.

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Podcast Review: You Must Remember This

A couple of weeks ago I gave NPR’s 1A podcast a spin as they were discussing film and the demise of Filmstruck a specialized streaming service. One of the show’s guests, Karina Longworth, caught my attention and I followed her back to her own podcast You Must Remember This, dedicated to the hidden and/or forgotten history of Hollywood’s first century.

I adore this podcast!

Karina has been producing weekly episode for a few years producing a treasure trove for me to discover. She will often create a theme for an entire season, such as Bela and Boris following the lives and careers of the two horror icon, or Charles Manson’s Hollywood, tracing out the byzantine connections between Manson, his ‘family’, and the film and recording stars that he crossed paths with.

Each episode is thoroughly researched and presented in a clear easily followed manner. Karina’s delivery is more polished, more conversational, and more intimate than most podcaster’s creating the impression of a knowledgeable friend sharing their deep understanding of Hollywood over drinks.

There is no doubt that Karina, and I use her first name because the podcast is so well crafted at creating intimacy, approaches the subject from a feminist perspective, pulling back the curtain on Hollywood’s and by extension, society’s distorted and dismissive attitudes towards women in general and the pedestal with chains that is the ‘sex symbol.’

The most frustrating aspect to her podcast has nothing to do with Karina or her material. It is that she will often mention or discuss a film that interests me and I too quickly discover that I have no way to watch it. (I’m looking at you in-color noir Desert Fury.)

I desperately wish I could get her opinion on my film inspired SF noir novel, no doubt she’d have illuminating and a fascinating take.

If you have a love classic Hollywood and history then you should not miss the podcast. You Must Remember This is available on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and many other podcast venues.

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The Unspoken Reason Why We Have Trump

There are lots of reasons why the country now suffers the administration of a Donald Trump Presidency. The GOP has spent decades feeding their base shit while convincing them it was Chocolate naively unaware that laid them open to someone skilled in predatory bullshit stealing the party away from the grey beards. The Russians, as early as the primaries, interfered, either because they believed they possessed leverage over the candidate or that his levels of incompetence presented sufficient danger to our nation. And a population aging and leery of a demographic change that frightened them, ignored the danger sign plainly evident in his candidacy, voted for a person lacking in morals, intelligence, or any sense of duty beyond his own personal enrichment.

However there is another reason that I think does not get enough oxygen in a crisis fueled news cycle, lax enforcement and prosecution of white-collar crimes.

I think it is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that it is likely that for decades Trump, his circle of cronies, his family, and his businesses have engaged in all manner of financial crimes and misbehavior. Now, under the piercing glare of the national press, political opposition, and the unique investigations of a special counsel, these illegalities are coming to light. Unprepared for this probing Trump, his associates, and his shaky empires appears to the crumbling before us in real time. How could a man so deep in so many shady deals even think of presenting himself as a candidate for President? Should that threat of that very public spotlight have scared him off in a display of self-preservation?

It didn’t because he has never faced a serious legal threat over these sorts of misdeeds. The lack of earlier investigations and prosecutions, not only of Trump himself but other in his social class, has in my opinion clad him in an imaginary suit of armor. No one ever touched him before why should anyone touch him now? This delusion was undoubtedly compounded by his lack of even a rudimentary understanding of the limitations on the power of the Presidency, that the Justice Department would not function as a branch of his own rotten personal business.

If we, the government of the United States, had taken such crimes seriously, not just Trump’s but the entire sector’s, then we would have been saved from the embarrassment upon the world stage.

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Movie Review: The Favorite

Sunday my sweetie-wife and drove over to a local Art House multiplex and took in a screening of The Favorite. Set during the 17th century reign of Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman) of England and concerns the backstabbing and manipulation of two women as they scheme for the personal and romantic favors of the monarch. Sarah Chruchill (Rachel Weiss) is Anne’s lifelong confidant and partner; she often speaks for the Queen in matters of state and is pragmatic. The palace and the court are upset by the arrival Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a woman who had been born into means but due to her father’s disastrous decisions and addiction had now fallen to the status of a commoner and servant. Abigail cunning and ruthless manipulates her way into the Queen’s favor while being manipulated herself by Sarah’s political enemy Robert Haley (Nicholas Hoult.)

The Favoriteis a dark satirical comedy of manners presenting both the elites and the downtrodden as vain, manipulative, and immoral in their pursuit of power and status. As a historical film one should always remember that narrative film is there to entertain and not education so you need to approach the larger historical issues with a great deal of skepticism. However it is also true that manner of the film more absurdist elements, palace duck racing for instance, are historically accurate.

The performances in the film are flawless. The three leads are actors of real craft and power and even as Sarah and Abigail scheme and plot they never quite lose their essential humanity and Coleman’s Queen Anne evoke real sympathy as a prisoner of position and the tragedies that stalked her life.

The film falters at the end with a resolution that doesn’t quite land or resolve. In fact when the screen faded to black I waited for several moments not quite sure if there would be another scene to follow until the appearance of the title cards definitively ended the screening. Over all I enjoyed the film, but I can’t heartily recommend it due its failure to nail the dismount, but your mileage may vary.

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Book Review: Fear: Trump in the White House

I do not normally do book reviews on this blog, as an author myself I think it best to generally keep the hats of reviewer and creator on different heads but since this book is so far afield from what I write it is acceptable to give it a brief review.

Fear: Trump in the White Houseis Bob Woodward’s reporting on the first eighteen months of so of the Trump Administration. Woodward, who shot to international fame for his part in reporting and exposing Nixon’s criminal activities surrounding his 1972 reelection, utilizes his narrative style with deep but undisclosed sourcing.

The report touches on very lightly on the scandals that dominate our current news coverage. Whatever Woodward knows or has learned about those he has kept close to vest undoubtedly to protect the investigation and as material for more publications. So do not read this if you are looking for insight into the tangled terrible mess concerning Russian and their penetration into our election processes. Our only peeks into those affairs take place in the final chapters and those scenes focus on the chaos and deception that is endemic to Trump.

The central take away from the reporting is that Trump is obsessed with money but yet has an ignorant understanding of how modern economies actually function. His inability to see past trade imbalances even obscures potential upsides such as our trade deals with South Korea that help smooth the military agreements that cut out warning time of a North Korean launch from 15 minutes to a mere 7 seconds. Repeatedly in the narrative Trump has to be talked out of or even sabotaged by his own advisors to keep from throwing aside such a tremendous benefit in favor of his goal of destroying free trade agreements.

Of course the book recounts the nearly endless instances of his lies, to the public and to his own people. With an attention span better suited to a schoolchild Trump is constantly veering from topic to topic unable to remember what even he himself wanted from just a few days previously.

The book takes it title not from the fear felt by the populace but rather from Trump personal philosophy that it the best way to get what you want is to instill fear in others, that real power is fear.

The book paints a portrait of a man who is narcissistic, obsessed with images of strength, lacking in any conviction other than his own well-being and above all things, a liar.

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