Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 102 - The Flash

On  this episode, Barry and I sprint as fast as we can away from the DC superhero movie The Flash. This rip-roaring, profanity-laced episode contains boisterous discussions about the disaster area that is DC Films, Ezra Miller's multitude of failures, and the awfulness of George Clooney. 

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 102 - The Flash

Thanks for listening!

©2023

The Flash: A Review - Running on Empty

****THIS REVIEW IS MOSTLY SPOILER FREE BUT DOES CONTAIN A CLEARLY MARKED SECTION WITH SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A mess of a movie that is a major letdown. If you really want to see it wait a few months until it’s streaming on Max.

In the weeks and months leading up to the release of the DC film The Flash there was a relentless stream of industry people vociferously declaring it to be a superhero movie masterpiece.

James Gunn, filmmaker and new co-CEO of DC Films, said prior to release that The Flash was “one of the best superhero movies (he’s) ever seen.”

Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav said that The Flash was flat out “the greatest superhero movie” ever.

It wasn’t just Warner Brother lackeys either, as none other than the Lord and Saviour of Scientology and Hollywood, Tom Cruise, allegedly called the film’s director Andy Muschietti after an early screening and raved about how much he loved it.

Even horror writer Stephen King got in on the action declaring of The Flash on Twitter, “This one is special. It’s heartfelt, funny, and eye-popping. I loved it.”

I went to see The Flash on its opening Friday and I can report that James Gunn, David Zaslav, Tom Cruise and Stephen King are all either shameless liars or mental defectives with severe cinematic taste dysmorphia.

The reality is that The Flash is, much to my deep, deep chagrin, at its very best, a sub-mediocrity, and at its worst, terrible.

Let me start off by saying that I really like the Flash as a comic-book character, and I think he’s very deserving of a major motion picture. Let me also say that I actually liked Ezra Miller in the supporting role of Flash in the previous Snyder-verse films…and on top of that I actually liked the Snyder-verse films (the director’s cuts anyway) considerably more than most…and on top of that in general I lean much more toward DC than I do Marvel.

That is a long-winded way of saying that I was predisposed to liking The Flash. And then I saw The Flash.

The movie is just a mess. Superhero fatigue is a real thing, and the abysmal failure of The Flash, both creatively and at the box office, is proof that the genre is running on fumes at the moment.

A big part of the problem with The Flash is that the story is convoluted and incoherent. There’s lots of talk about multiverses and time travel and such but the very core of the story, the murder of Barry Allen/The Flash’s mom, is a muddled and jumbled event that carries no weight because it makes zero sense.

Another major issue is that the CGI is egregiously abominable. The opening to the film features an action sequence where Flash has to save a bunch of babies falling from a collapsing building. The scene is reminiscent of the horrors of 9/11 but this time with babies in peril, which why I raised an eyebrow when Flash checks his watch during the action and it reads “9:10”. How odd.

The CGI in this sequence and throughout the film is just atrocious to the point of being ridiculous. Director Andy Muschietti has stated that the poor CGI was intentional as it gives the viewers the perspective of Flash…ummm…yeah, ok…and I intentionally failed trigonometry in high school so I could share the perspective of stupid people. Come on, that Muschietti claim is utter horseshit. The CGI is cheap and laughably bad and no manufactured, half-assed hindsight story is going to change that. The awful CGI matters because it undercuts the entirety of the cinematic enterprise from the get go.

On top of all that, Ezra Miller, who as I stated I liked in a comedic supporting role as Flash in the earlier Snyder-verse films, is simply not able to carry a feature film. Miller is a distinct type of actor, and he becomes more and more grating the more time you spend with him on-screen. That is only heightened in The Flash when you spend a great deal of time with him AND there are two of him…which is as annoying as it sounds.

To be clear, I actually don’t care about Ezra Miller’s much publicized legal issues – which have kept him from doing any publicity for the film, nor do I care about HIS preferred pronouns. I just find it mildly amusing and somewhat ironic that Ezra Miller is obviously batshit crazy and now stars in a movie featuring a bevy of Batmen.  

What made The Flash so frustrating was that it so easily could have and should have been not only so much better, but actually great. And the path to greatness, or at least making it better, is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain in their head.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP AHEAD IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS!!!

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Much Like Spider-Man: No Way Home, which featured three Spider-men and a cavalcade of villains from previous film versions of Spider-Man, The Flash could’ve exploited the deep reservoir of DC films and tv shows to deliver fan service, laughs and drama. Instead, the film badly stumbles in its attempt to be clever and pay tribute to the superhero projects that preceded it.

The marketing of The Flash made it clear that both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton would be playing Batman in the film. Keaton’s return was, much to my chagrin since I like movies to keep their secrets, much hyped and given away in the trailers.

The prospect of two Batmen is pretty intriguing, but The Flash does nothing with it. It also does nothing with the cavalcade of other DC superheroes it very briefly visually references….like Christopher Reeves’ Superman, Helen Slater’s Supergirl, George Reeve’s Superman and Adam West’s Batman.

That The Flash is unable to adequately exploit DC’s back catalogue effectively for drama or comedy is cinematic malpractice criminal scale.

What the film should have done is Forest Gump (yes, I’m using Forest Gump as a verb!) the Flash’s red ass into quick scenes from the actual George Reeves Superman and Adam West Batman tv shows and get a laugh when Flash realizes he’s in the wrong universe.

Do the same and put Flash into Christopher Reeves’ Superman films (maybe even in a scene with Richard Pryor!). The same is true for the Nicholas Cage Superman movie that never got made – yes, Cage’s Superman is briefly seen in The Flash, but it could have been used in a more substantial way. Hell, why not use all the Supermen…like Henry Cavill, Brandon Routh (from Superman Returns), Tom Welling (from Smallville) and Dean Cain (from Lois and Clark) even if briefly and even if only for comic effect?

Same with Batman…why not exploit all the weird villains from earlier films, like DeVito’s Penguin, Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze and Jim Carrey’s Riddler? Maybe even get a cheer by putting Flash in the Val Kilmer Batman universe. You could even steal from Top Gun: Maverick and have an emotional scene with a sick Val Kilmer as an aged and beaten Batman on his deathbed meeting Flash yet unable to speak to him.  

And you could also do a brief crossover with the Flash tv show on the CW and have Miller’s Flash bump into CW Flash’s Grant Gustin in some weird speed force intersection. I’ve never seen the CW show but why not use and exploit all the IP in your power? Fans love that stuff and it would give this project a sense of scope and scale, and God knows Warner Brothers loves nothing more than self-congratulatory commercials for itself (see the LeBron James Space Jam movie…actually don’t, it’s awful).

As for the two Batmen most prominently featured in the movie, Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, instead of having two Ezra Miller Barry Allen/Flash characters meet up, have Affleck and Keaton’s Batman characters jump into the other’s universe and meet up. It would be much more entertaining and much more dramatically and comedically satisfying to have Affleck and Keaton squaring off saying “I’m Batman” at each other and recounting how their parents died for the millionth time than to have Ezra Miller bantering back and forth with Ezra Miller for two hours.

Hell, imagine a fight between Affleck’s Batman and Keaton’s Batman, and then later they come together to fight against Zod or whomever. People would love that and come out to the theatre to see it.

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END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS

See, the possibilities for plumbing the depths of the DC catalogue for comedy and drama are endless, and yet what The Flash comes up with is the least creative, least interesting, least intriguing of all the possibilities.

The bottom line is that The Flash is the most disappointing movie in recent memory because it really should have and could have been at the very least entertaining…and maybe even great. But it’s neither of those things. What it is, ultimately, is a rather cheap, completely empty exercise in squeezing the very last vestiges of life from the superhero genre.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 80 - Black Adam

On this episode, Barry and I head to Kahndaq to go toe-to-toe with Black Adam, the new DC superhero movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Questions debated include to Rock or not to Rock? Will aliens murder us to put us out of our cinematic misery? And who ya got...The Rock or John Cena?

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 80 - Black Adam

Thanks for listening!

©2022

Black Adam: One Rock to Rule Them All

****THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!!! THIS IS NOT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW..BUT THE MOVIE IS SO BAD IT DOESN’T MATTER!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A bad, boring movie.

I just watched Black Adam, the new DC superhero movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, which tells the tale of, you guessed it, D-level superhero Black Adam, a 5,000-year-old super being awakened to either wreak havoc on modern-day earth or save certain segments of it, and there’s only one thing I can take away from the film…that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is going to eventually be the President of the United States of America.

I don’t think The Rock is going to be president because the movie is great and he’s fantastic in it. The movie is garbage and The Rock makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Sir Laurence Olivier. To give an indication of how bad Black Adam is, after the film, my date, a much younger woman who, the last time we went to the movies we saw Eternals, debated which movie was worse. We concluded Eternals was worse…but it was close.

No, the reasons I think the The Rock will be president are multitude. The first of which is that, even people who loathe his consistently atrocious movies, like me, still begrudgingly say that The Rock seems like a nice guy because he does seem like a nice guy. Americans love the idea of the “nice guy” president, which is how we got not only dementia-addled pedophile Joe Biden, but also bailout Barack Obama – the drone king and Espionage Act champion, and sociopathic war criminal George W. Bush (remember – he was the guy people wanted to have a beer with…yikes!).

Secondly, like his presidential predecessors (most recently The Donald), The Rock is a raging sub-mediocrity that has consistently failed upward throughout his life despite not actually being good at anything but self-promotion. Once you get past his incessant charm offensive it becomes clear that The Rock is so devoid of substance that even his attempts at style feel vapid.

Coincidentally or not, The Rock’s presidential bona fides are fully on display in Black Adam as he kills people with ease and without a second thought, and does so with a cock-eyed smirk on his face. Like numerous previous presidents, The Rock as Black Adam kills all these people in the Middle-East, but unlike those other presidents, the people he kills in the movie are almost universally white. I’m sure some will see that as progress.

Put on your tinfoil hat because Black Adam feels like a rather shameless subliminal and symbolic two-hour campaign ad for The Rock’s presidency directed at the only constituency that truly matters – the behind-the-scenes, nefarious power brokers who pull the strings in our perpetually fucked-up world. The soulless, blood-thirsty beasts at the World Economic Forum, as well as members of The Council on Foreign Relations, The Club of Rome, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, and the Bilderberg Group, among many others, will adore Black Adam, and will no doubt loudly receive the message from The Rock that he is all-to-happy to fellate them and serve their interests, and they will act in kind to make him the charming front-man to cover for their relentless deviousness and deviancy.

For example, the Illuminati hand symbol is a major plot point in the film, and is the symbol for the superhero/anti-hero Black Adam. The Illuminati symbol leads to and unleashes Black Adam – a Christ/anti-Christ figure, awakening him from a 5,000-year slumber. Black Adam’s rise brings all the non-white peoples of Khandaq, some exploited shithole in the Middle-East, to join together to repel, of all things, Satan. Yes…Black Adam is basically the second-coming of Christ but this time he’s a ruthless killer who splits Satan in two – again more duality symbolism. You see Black Adam isn’t actually destroying Satan, he’s destroying the Christian archetype of the last 2,000-years. The new ruling archetype will be an even older, more barbaric, more savage, less forgiving one, and it will usher in an equally barbaric, savage and unforgiving age.

In terms of just pure modern-day, mindless American politics, The Rock’s Black Adam is a champion of non-white people, for that is who he represents and rules over. Black Adam even performs the most blatantly false of symbolic acts when he destroys his new throne atop Khandoq to show that he’s not a king, he’s a man of the people. How subtle.

Delicious conspiratorial musings aside…and boy are they delicious, Black Adam is less an actual movie than a series of dull movie trailers strung together with barely the least bit of coherence.

Black Adam is a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with the DC film universe. When DC goes otherworldly instead of gritty, things get shitty really quick. Gods and spells and ancient dog shit make for bad plots, bad cgi, bad action, and bad movies.

The action sequences in Black Adam are almost as dull as the non-action sequences, which is quite an accomplishment for director Jaume Collet-Serra. The film has all the visual style of month-old roadkill.

The script is, not surprisingly, laborious. The back story of Black Adam is convoluted and stupid, and the modern-day story lacks any and all interest and intrigue.

The characters are, across the board, moronic, annoying, or both.

The non-superhero characters, Adriana and her son Amon, are the types of people you pray get killed in every scene in which they appear. Amon, played by Bodhi Sabongui, is the most irritating character in any movie I’ve seen in recent memory. Amon is basically a Middle-Eastern Eddie Furlong from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and The Rock’s Black Adam is Arnold’s good guy Terminator who must be taught that killing is bad and what catch-phrases to say. Like Furlong’s teen John Connor, Amon skateboards – and is super fucking annoying. I’ve never wished so much for a character to be murdered in my entire life.

The collection of D minus level superhero characters aren’t any better.

Poor Aldis Hodge, a usually appealing screen-presence, plays a race-washed Hawkman and is given nothing but catch-phrase buffoonery to regurgitate. Noah Centineo is supposed to be the comic relief as Atom Smasher, but isn’t funny. Quintessa Swindell is a nearly invisible Cyclone, who may be the dullest superhero ever created. And finally, Pierce Brosnin plays Dr. Fate…and is actually pretty good. I’d prefer to see a Dr. Fate movie than a Black Adam one.

The Rock has been accused of always playing The Rock in his movies, and that holds true in Black Adam…and reinforces my subliminal and symbolic presidential campaign ad thesis.

The Rock’s biggest flaw as an actor is that he is completely devoid of any genuine charisma and is unconscionably dull. He is, at heart, a meathead wrestler who thinks arching an eyebrow is clever and meaningful.

To his credit, the guy is 50 and looks more like a superhero than any superhero we’ve ever seen, so he obviously works hard in the gym and with his pharmaceutical team, but at some point, you’ve got to bring the goods. Schwarzenegger was a steroid addled meathead too, but he had at least some inner life to him on-screen. Stallone too fits into the steroid/meathead type too, but he imbued his characters with a certain sad-eyed, sad-sack persona. The Rock isn’t Arnold or Sly, he’s a sort of dead-eyed, cheap imitation of them. But that won’t stop him from ruling us all from the White House someday.

But for now, The Rock will have to try and rule the world from the box office. And while fans will no doubt flock to see Black Adam…the movie is not going to break any box office records. Word of mouth will be brutal, and this movie, unlike The Rock’s political ambitions, will quickly fade from the spotlight and public consciousness. But that won’t stop the Sauronic powers that be from acquiring this one Rock to rule them all. You’ve been warned.

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

On this special episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I don our bat capes and cowls and do battle over all things Batman, first and foremost Matt Reeves' new movie The Batman. We have a heated debate about the new Bat-film and rank our all-time top Batmans, Batman villains and Batman movies, with some shocking results.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

Thanks for listening!

©2022

James Gunn's Shockingly Unwoke 'Peacemaker' Finale

After demeaning and berating white men for the first seven episodes, in the season one conclusion, James Gunn flips the script.

This article contains spoilers for the season one finale of ‘Peacemaker’!!

The first season of James Gunn’s ‘Peacemaker’, the HBO Max series which follows the travails of the flag-waving, meat-headed DC superhero Peacemaker, played by John Cena, came to a somewhat surprising conclusion.

After the series spent the first seven, and the majority of the eighth and final episode, painting all white-men as, at best, adolescent buffoons, and at worst, unrepentantly racist and psychopathic Nazis, and all minorities and women as smart, savvy and tough, the show’s climax was downright shocking.

In the final episode, Peacemaker and his band of misfit special agents head to a farm to try and stop a giant alien caterpillar, which is the lone food source for a large population of alien butterflies that are embedding themselves in powerful people on earth, from being teleported to a safe location, thus ensuring that these butterflies take over the planet.

After a long battle scene, Peacemaker and the lead butterfly named Goff, which has embedded itself in an Asian-American female police officer Sophie (Annie Chang), stop fighting and talk.

Goff pleads with Peacemaker to help the aliens because they left their planet due to global warming, and have come to earth not seeking conquest but to save the planet from the same environmental calamity.

In Goff’s passionate monologue she rails against climate change deniers and those who “ignore science”, as well as the plethora of Neanderthals that see “minor inconveniences as assaults on their freedom” instead of as a way to save the planet. In our current age of Covid, this harangue by Goff sounds very familiar.

Peacemaker ponders Goff’s appeal, and it certainly seems like he’s going to be won over. As a viewer, I was rolling my eyes as I fully expected Peacemaker to follow the Hollywood blueprint and be fully redeemed through embracing the fight against climate change, a staple in storytelling in recent years.

But then, much to my surprise, Peacemaker shoots and kills Goff and uses a voice-controlled Peacemaker helmet being worn by Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), a black lesbian woman on his team, to use her as a missile that he launches into the giant caterpillar, killing it and ending the alien butterfly threat.

In the aftermath, Peacemaker helps Adebayo out of the caterpillar corpse, then picks up and carries his wounded, hard-nosed feminist compatriot Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and carries her to the hospital, but not before cursing out the Justice League.

At the hospital, as Peacemaker awaits word on Harcourt’s condition, he second-guesses himself and asks Adebayo, “Did I just kill the world?”

Adebayo responds, “Maybe you just gave us a chance to make our own choices instead of our bug overlords.”

She then asks him, “Why did you choose not to help? Because of your proto-fascist, libertarian idea of freedom?”

Peacemaker replies, “Because I knew they’d hurt you and the others if I did (help them).”

In the context of the show, which I often found amusing despite its incessant woke preening regarding the evils of white men and the glories of everybody else, Peacemaker’s ultimate heroism was a stunner.

Equally stunning was the inherent admission from creator James Gunn that all the woke preaching in the previous seven episodes was a pose. Peacemaker may have a “proto-fascist, libertarian idea of freedom”, but he wasn’t a bad guy or a racist or misogynist, it was the bevy of snarky minorities and women around him that projected racism and misogyny onto his buffoonish and brutish personality.

The bottom line was that it was Peacemaker, the questionable white guy, who not only saved the day, but revealed himself to be considerably stronger mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically, than all of the women and minorities who berated him for his barbarity throughout. And these women, like Adebayo and Harcourt, grew to love Peacemaker for who he is, and no longer hated him for what he wasn’t, and for the reflexive wokeness that he lacked.

In a way, this conclusion paints Peacemaker as the embodiment of the famous Jack Nicholson speech from the film ‘A Few Good Men’, where his Colonel Jessup declares, “You can’t handle the truth!...we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You?...You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know…and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.”

Peacemaker may be an idiot and a jackass, but the woke brigade on the show need him on that wall, as he is not only able, but willing, to do what needs to be done, and those that ridicule him for his prehistoric cultural politics are ultimately grateful for him because only he can keep them safe.

The irony of it all is that it’s uncouth, brutal men like Peacemaker, with their “libertarian ideas of freedom”, who do the nasty, dirty work that create the protected, safe spaces where the decadence of racial and feminist wokeness can be born and thrive.

‘Peacemaker’ isn’t a perfect series, and James Gunn’s writing and directing style can be grating at times, but to his and the show’s credit, Gunn cleverly turned the usual woke politics of entertainment on its head with ‘Peacemaker’s’ conclusion, which was a refreshing change in the suffocatingly uniform cultural politics of Hollywood.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2022

'Birds of Prey' Hates Men, but Wants Their Money - No Wonder It's Bombing at the Box Office

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 28 seconds

The new film Birds of Prey is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: Financial losses and moral bankruptcy.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) opened on Friday and stars two-time Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie reprising her role as DC Comics super villain Harley Quinn.

The film is marketed as a girl power manifesto that re-imagines Harley Quinn without the condescending sexism feminists felt was so prominent in Suicide Squad (2016), the last movie that featured Margot Robbie as Harley.

Suicide Squad was a horrifically shitty movie, and was regarded as a box office underperformer with a notoriously troubled production history, but it still made $750 million in total.

Early numbers suggest that despite oddly positive reviews from woke pandering mainstream critics, Birds of Prey will struggle to do half that number in its theatrical run. With a reported production budget of between $80 and $100 million, and additional marketing costs, Birds of Prey looks primed to lose money for the suits at Warner Brothers.

How did things go so wrong?

Birds of Prey banished the problematic “male gaze” of Suicide Squad that allegedly dehumanized Harley by making her purely an object of desire, by employing an all female creative team that included producer Margot Robbie, writer Christina Hodson and director Cathy Yan. The production goes so far in exorcising men as to even have a soundtrack with all-female artists on it.

The problem though is Birds of Prey tries to thread the needle and make a chaotically cool combination of Deadpool meets Wonder Woman, only it doesn’t have the first clue about the sardonically masculine humor of Deadpool and the appealing feminine power of Wonder Woman, or masculinity and femininity in general.

The film’s sexual politics are aggressive to say the least. In our current cultural moment, toxic masculinity and masculinity have become synonymous, so it is no surprise that Birds of Prey goes to great lengths to denigrate and disparage all its male characters and yet also to venerate all its female ones.

Every man in the movie, with the lone exception being a character (played by the criminally underused actor Eddie Alfano) with fifteen seconds of screen time and no dialogue, is either entitled, conniving, maniacally violent, a rapist or all of the above.

In contrast every female character wears the noble crown of resilient victimhood after having suffered at the cruel hands of men.

The portrayal of men as misogynist beasts is pretty heavy handed, as at one point Harley and female friends are surrounded and the sadistic Roman Sionis (Ewen McGregor) yells to his army of all-male thugs, “Men of Gotham, go get those bitches!”

What’s so bizarre about the supposed girl power message of the movie is that while it relentlessly tells us that men are despicable creatures, all of the female characters are lionized for trying to behave like men. Like the recent batch of feminist movies such as Charlie’s Angels (2019) and Terminator: Dark Fate, Birds of Prey believes that feminism means women should act like men.

Even more baffling is the cinematic schizophrenia of Birds of Prey, as it obviously loathes men yet is so desperate for their attention it serves up a steady supply of hyper-violence. As Harley Quinn says, “nothing gets a guy’s attention like violence…blow something up, shoot someone.”

Totally coincidentally, The New York Times published an op-ed by an actress, Brit Marling, titled “I Don’t Want to be the Strong Female Lead” on the day Birds of Prey premiered.

In the piece Marling describes strong female leads as, “She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.”

In some ways this applies to Birds of Prey, since the women in it are smarter, tougher and stronger than the men, except they have been stripped of their sex appeal in a convoluted attempt to be pro-feminist.

For instance, Harley Quinn wore short shorts and alluring outfits in Suicide Squad, but in the female empowering Birds of Prey she dresses in baggy, Bermuda length shorts and a pink sports bra. It’s as if Harley went full Lady MacBeth and cried “unsex me here” and the filmmakers dutifully complied to stick it to the patriarchy.

Contrast this with the Super Bowl halftime show where Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were declared fiercely feminist when they wore skimpy outfits and literally danced like strippers.

How can female filmmakers like Cathy Yan properly tell an empowering feminist story if feminists haven’t even figured out what feminism is just yet?

This confusion manifests when Birds of Prey defines women solely in opposition to men, but then has them emulate masculinity as a show of their feminine strength.

Brit Marling wasn’t commenting on the troubling Manichean anti-male sexual politics of Birds of Prey, but she could have been, when she eloquently wrote, “I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance?”

That is a good question, but Birds of Prey is oblivious to balance…and quality for that matter. It’s a hot mess of a movie that features derivative, repetitive and dull action sequences, and that tries to be funny, but isn’t…hell…there is a hyena in the movie and even he wasn’t laughing. Watching this thing felt like wading through an Olympic-sized swimming pool of radioactive girl power vomit.

If equality is women making misandrist, hyper-violent, incoherently vapid and dreadful movies…then Birds of Prey is a smashing success for feminism. It is also an abysmal failure for cinema…and probably humanity. It deserves to fail.

A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

Avengers: Endgame - A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. If you like Marvel movies you’ll love this one. A satisfactory conclusion to the epic twenty-two film run of this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Unvierse.

Avengers: Endgame, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is the story of the Marvel Avengers as they do battle with super villain Thanos. The film stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Chris Hemsworth, Josh Brolin and a plethora of other movie stars.

Avengers: Endgame is the fourth Avengers film and is the direct sequel to last years smash hit Avengers: Infinity War. Endgame is also the twenty-second film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and marks the conclusion of this cycle of Marvel movies.

Just as super villain Thanos became a de facto god by acquiring the infinity stones, Disney, under the leadership of my dear friend Bob Iger, has turned into an all powerful entertainment industry god by acquiring over the years Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. Now, with the additional purchase of Fox, Disney will hold an astonishing 40% market share of the box office.

The crown jewel, at least right now, in Disney’s empire is the aforementioned Marvel behemoth, which Disney bought in 2009 for $4 billion and which has brought in around $20 billion in box office gross alone over the last ten years. I have not always liked the Marvel movies, in fact, I’ve downright loathed a good number of them, but I readily admit that what Disney has pulled off with their Marvel Cinematic Universe is a stunning achievement in popular entertainment that will never be duplicated. To be able to roll out twenty-two different movies over a decade and weave all of the characters and story lines together into a coherent and cohesive whole that culminates in two gigantic movie events, Infinity War and Endgame, is a Hollywood miracle. One need look no further than the shitshow over at Warner Brothers and their inept handling of the DC Cinematic Universe (Batman, Superman etc.) post Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy to recognize how remarkable Disney’s efficiency and acumen regarding the Marvel properties has been. No doubt Disney will be further rewarded for their corporate diligence by Endgame’s box office which will break all sorts of records as it rockets past the two billion dollar mark in two weeks with ease.

As previously stated, I have disliked some of the Marvel movies, the first two Avenger movies in particular were quite dreadful. The Marvel movie formula has always been geared more toward adolescent boys…even the middle-aged ones, with lots of light-hearted action, noise and destruction all with some witty one-liners and comedic self-consciousness thrown in. The Marvel universe is decidedly fictional, a piece of escapist fantasy…whereas something like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy for example, is more grounded in a recognizable, but very dark, “reality”. Marvel’s lack of grit has always irked me because their line up of characters is chock full of archetypal riches which are begging to explored in a psychologically and culturally serious way.

But with that said, I have also loved a few of Marvel’s formulaic films, with Infinity War and Thor: Ragnarok being prime examples. Infinity War is easily the best film in the MCU and that is because its narrative is the darkest and most consequential of all the movies. While Endgame has a certain darkness to it, is not as nearly as good as Infinity War, but it isn’t awful either.

Endgame is really more an event than a movie, a culmination of the franchise that is the perfect embodiment of everything good and bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On the plus side it has fascinating archetypal characters and great moments of poignancy and levity, but on the downside it also has some narrative incoherence, sense-assaulting battle scenes that are relentlessly vapid, and a heavy dose of cringe worthy “wokeness” and political correctness that is shameless in its corporate human resources level pandering.

All of that said, Endgame succeeds because it ultimately satisfies on an emotional, psychological and narrative level as a conclusion to the twenty-two film Marvel epic that has dominated popular culture for the last decade. The story leaves no loose ends or arcs unfulfilled, and that is really all you can ask from a movie like this.

The sun at the center of this cinematic universe is Robert Downey Jr, whose skill, charisma and charm have propelled the MCU forward from day one. Without Downey Jr as Iron Man, none of this stuff works…none of it. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Mark Ruffalo and all the rest do solid work as their respective super heroes, but none of them could carry this franchise like Downey Jr. has. When Downey Jr. stops being Iron Man, and that day will eventually come, Marvel/Disney is going to take a big hit…I promise you that.

The ensemble of Endgame all do decent if unspectacular work with a few notable exceptions. On the plus side, Paul Rudd and Chris Hemsworth are fantastic, as both of them fully commit and have impeccable comedy chops (who would’ve thought that Thor would be the comedy gold in the Marvel universe?). As for the negative side…good lord…Brie Larson is just dreadful. Now to be fair, I have not seen Captain Marvel…so maybe she is great in that, but in Endgame you could’ve replaced her with a cigar store wooden Indian and it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference. Larson is so dead-eyed it seems like she died on the table while undergoing a charisma bypass and we are left to watch her corpse be animatronically maneuvered throughout the movie.

There are also some issues with narrative incoherence in the film, mostly dealing with the topic of time travel. The lack of “time travel rules” clarity makes the whole enterprise pretty confusing and logically unstable if you try and follow it too closely. The best approach is to leave logic at home, where it is hopefully safe and sound, and just go with where the movie takes you. The logic/time travel issue though is a big reason that the film doesn’t soared like Infinity War did, which had a very clear and concise plot from which all of the action seamlessly flowed. In Endgame the plot feels more like a manufactured way for Disney to escape any commitment to what took place in Infinity War that could dare harm the corporate bottom line by taking away some cash cows.

While Endgame is the end of this phase of the MCU, Disney has a plethora of Marvel movies lined up for the next few years as they keep the assembly line going. As stated, the next phase is going to have a bumpy time of it as Disney is trying to transition to younger and more diverse stars to refill some roles. Disney is betting big that Brie Larson and Captain Marvel will be the female equivalent of Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man, the new sun at the center of the Marvel universe. That is a bad bet, as Larson has big shoes to fill and very little feet with which to fill them.

Disney’s desire for more diverse Marvel movie characters, like a Black Captain America or a Latina Hulk, may (or may not) be a noble idea, but just as it did in comic book sales, it will negatively affect the bottom line at the box office. In my opinion it will also affect the artistic and cultural value of the films, for as I keep saying, “wokeness kills art”….but that is a painful discussion for another day.

In conclusion, Avengers: Endgame is a worthy finish to this phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. The film has its ups and downs but ultimately is a satisfactory ending for the long journey we’ve all been on with these characters over the last decade. If your a fan of super hero movies, you should plunk down your Disney tax and help pad Bob Iger’s bank account by seeing the movie in the theatre. If you have just a passing interest in super hero movies, then wait for it to come out on cable or on Disney’s soon to be active streaming service, which will no doubt bring in even more gobs of money for Mickey Mouse. But Mickey should enjoy this ride while it lasts, because it won’t last forever. Just over the horizon there could be some some stormy weather waiting for Disney.

©2019

Aquaman: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A real bore of a superhero movie that is as odious as week old chum.

Aquaman, written by David Leslie Johnson and Will Beale and directed by James Wan, is the origin story of DC comic book superhero Aquaman, who is the bastard son of a queen from the underwater empire of Atlantis. The film stars Jason Mamoa as Aquaman with supporting turns from Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, Amber Heard and Patrick Wilson.

Having spent the last few months almost exclusively at the art house and reeking of its pretentiousness, I decided to head out to the cineplex in search of some mindless fun. Aquaman is putting up Black Panther-esque numbers at the box office as it has made nearly a billion dollars since its release in late December and has come in first in the money tally for three straight weekends, so I figured it would be a good choice for my descent back into the cinema of the unwashed hoi polloi.

The problem with Aquaman is not that it is mindless fun, the problem with it is that it is so mindless that it is absolutely no fun. The film is so chock full of nonsense it feels like a parody of a superhero film. This version of Aquaman made me feel as if the dead eyed Vincent Chase from HBO’s faux-Hollywood sexploitation show Entourage really did get to make his Aquaman movie in real life.

A few weeks ago I saw a headline that read “Director James Wan Says to Blame Him if Aquaman Fails”. It is nice to know who to blame. I am sure that Wan was referring to the film’s box office and not its artistic merit when he spoke of failure, but since I judge a movie on its merits and not its finances, I’ll still point the finger at Wan. Although to be fair, Wan is not the sole owner of blame for Aquaman’s stinkiness. The suits at Warner Brothers and their DC point man Goeff Johns are just as guilty if not more so than Wan. I mean, who thought up this monstrosity and more importantly, who thought it would be a good idea?

Aquaman is such a derivative and unoriginal bore it is like a sea serpent that wraps itself around you and slowly suffocates you to death over two and a half long hours. It is so unrelenting in its imbecility that the harder you fight against it the harder it squeezes the life out of you until you simply acquiesce and let it drown you in its inanity.

The film is basically trying to turn Aquaman into King Arthur of the Sea or something but is so convoluted and tone deaf it ends up being less an homage to that myth than a vomiting up of a rancid cliche fish stew of every other super hero movie. The pacing and the tone are all over the place, the narrative structure is distractingly serpentine and the film lacks any and all thematic and dramatic depth.

On the bright side, Jason Mamoa is a very likable actor and to his credit, at the very least, proves himself worthy of carrying a big budget action film for two and a half hours, which is no small feat. But even his charms wear pretty thin as he has to repeat the same old tired superhero moves over and over again. In the opening fight sequence, I counted at least three times that Momoa’s Aquaman did the standard superhero three point landing along with three superhero “gonna kick some ass” looks with accompanying music cues, and that was just in the first 5 minutes of Mamoa’s screen time. So much posing, so little time…how exhausting that must have been.

As I said, I like Jason Mamoa, and frankly it is to his credit that I cannot imagine anyone else playing the part anymore. Mamoa has a natural charm and charisma on screen and combined with his surfer dude/biker gang persona, makes his Aquaman palatable. Although to be fair, I probably like Jason Mamoa because we look so much alike. If it weren’t for the fact that he is a little bit shorter and has a slightly higher body fat percentage than me, we could be identical twins.

As for the rest of the cast, they pretty much embarrass themselves by being stuck in this dull and ridiculous farce. Having worked with coaching clients on roles like these, I know how hard they can be. I have clients rolling around on my office floor fighting imaginary monsters all the time, and let me tell you, it is one of the most difficult things for an actor to do. Buying into this sort of nonsense, especially when the script is so hackneyed, takes a Herculean effort and a great deal of self-confidence and commitment. That is why I felt so bad for poor Willem Dafoe, who deserves so much better than this mess, or Nicole Kidman and Patrick Wilson, who had to do all of this foolishness with a straight face. I also felt awful for Amber Heard, who is absolutely dreadful in her role and seems like a puppy lost on a highway.

To the actor’s and film’s credit, it is not only a tremendous filmmaking accomplishment but a tremendous evolutionary accomplishment just to get this film made at all. I mean, how all of these actors were able to hold their breath underwater for such long takes is literally a miracle. Add to that the fact that they were able to speak all of their dialogue so clearly and engage in very complicated fight choreography despite the lack of oxygen and under the massive pressure of the ocean, is a staggering achievement for humanity. And then to think that it wasn’t just the actors under water for hours on end for days, weeks and months, but the crew as well. I shudder to think of the poor hair and makeup people and how they kept everyone beautiful at such cold, pressure filled depths.

Another group that deserves credit are the animal wranglers on the set. I had no idea that sea creatures, from great white sharks to giant squid to octopus to giant crabs, could be so tamed and controllable. To see Willem Dafoe riding a hammerhead shark with such aplomb is not only a testament to the death-defying skill of Dafoe, but to the professionalism of the shark as well. I know the Academy Awards scuttled the Popular Film category this year, but I hope they consider a Best Non-Human Acting category in order to reward the fish cast of Aquaman, because they sure as hell deserve it!

In conclusion, Aquaman didn’t make me angry because it was so bad, it simply made me tune out very early on because of its repetitive and stultifying dullness. As someone who is one of those rare people who actually liked DC’s Batman v Superman and mildly approved of Justice League, I had no use for the mess that is Aquaman. Even if you love superhero movies, you can skip this one in the theatre and see it on Netflix for free. If you are even remotely less than a superhero uber-fanatic, there is no reason to ever waste your time watching this stinky and decaying fish tale.

©2019

Wonder Woman : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

My Rating : 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation : SEE IT IN THE THEATRE.

Wonder Woman, written by Allan Heinberg and directed by Patty Jenkins, is the story of the DC Comics superhero Wonder Woman, the Amazonian Warrior-Princess. The film stars Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, with Chris Pine, David Thewlis, Robin Wright and Connie Nielson in supporting roles. 

Just to set the record straight…I have always loved Wonder Woman. When I was a little kid, Lynda Carter starred on the TV show Wonder Woman and I watched religiously. Back then, every year for Halloween I would dress up as Wonder Woman. That tradition has continued well into my adulthood and has extend beyond Halloween. In fact, I am wearing my Wonder Woman garb at this exact moment as I type. Ok, truth be told, nothing in this paragraph is true. Well, not nothing, Lynda Carter did play Wonder Woman on TV in my childhood, but I never watched, and frankly, sorry ladies, but I have little to no interest in Wonder Woman as a character. I know, I know, I am a misogynist mansplainer for the patriarchy…guilty as charged.

Wonder Woman, in case you do not know, is the fourth film in the current DC Universe, with the first three being Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad. All three of the previous films have been very poorly received by critics, and even though they have made gobs of money, audiences haven't been too thrilled with them either. Like most, I greatly disliked Man of Steel and Suicide Squad and unlike most, I actually enjoyed Batman v Superman. So when I heard Wonder Woman was coming out, due to the previous films and my own feelings about the character, I was a bit ambivalent, to say the least. That said, I readily admit that when Wonder Woman appeared in the Batman v Superman film from last year, I thought she jumped off the screen and was one of the better elements of the film.

I was not alone in my skepticism about the film leading up to its release. While the recent buzz surrounding Wonder Woman has been overwhelmingly positive, that hasn't always been the case. Just this year there were rumblings that Wonder Woman was a disaster waiting to happen and that Warner Brothers were scared to death they had a gigantic flop on their hands. The box office receipts, nearly $500 million so far, strongly suggests those fears were entirely unfounded.

Quite to the contrary, in fact, Wonder Woman has tapped into a nerve and is resonating across our cultural consciousness like none of the previous DC films were able. Women in particular have embraced the film as a feminist power totem and have reported crying during scenes where the female superhero is at her most forceful. I knew all of this heading into the film, and while that got me excited to see the movie, I assumed my high expectations would not be met. I was totally wrong.

Simply stated, Wonder Woman is as good a superhero origin story as you are going to get. Is it a perfect film? No, not even close, but it is a really good superhero movie that is exceedingly well made, acted and entertaining. 

The key to the film is that it is grounded in reality, and from that reality all of its power flows. Set in Europe during World War I, the film does not shy away from the brutality and suffering inherent in war. Part of Wonder Woman's appeal is that she has a pure heart and wants to help and save everyone, and cannot grasp the cold and callous approach of mankind that permeates the war to end all wars. 

A lot has been said about the tone of Wonder Woman, which is lighter and more humorous than the previous DC films. While this is true, that humor is never forced, rather it is born out of the main character's orientation, or disorientation as the case may be, to the film's reality. It is funny, for instance, that Wonder Woman has to learn the baffling female etiquette demanded by a male dominated world. To the film's great credit, it never pushes or distracts with its comedy or lightheartedness like the Marvel films do, it lets that humor grow spontaneously out of setting and situation. 

Director Patty Jenkins does a stellar job with the look of the film. All of the DC films have a grainy, gritty and dark visuals, and Wonder Woman is no exception, but that effect works exceedingly well in bringing this period piece to life and making it feel real. Jenkins does a remarkable job of setting the right tone and maintaining a solid balance between love story, action, comedy and drama. Jenkins walks a tightrope, and never falls into the trap of turning the film into a self-conscious farce, one of the weak spots of the Marvel films.

Wonder Woman does suffer from some script problems though, but that is not Jenkin's fault. The film gets a little lost trying to make itself bigger than it needs to be, but that is a problem with which nearly every superhero film struggles. I believe the wiser choice for these types of films is to do less, and be more simple, but what the hell do I know?

As for the acting, Gal Gadot does superb work as Wonder Woman. Gadot, a statuesque beauty, imbues Wonder Woman with a strength, sincerity, earnestness and ferocity that makes for a compelling character indeed. Her battle scenes are believable because of Gadot's natural grace, athleticism and magnetic intensity. 

I will be interested to see if Gadot can crossover from non-superhero action films and make a mark in pure drama. She has all of the tangible qualities, beauty, intelligence, charisma, that make for a movie star, but she also possesses the intangible qualities that make for a great actor, emotional intelligence, compassion and complexity. I hope she gets to spread her dramatic wings in the future, she has the makings of an intriguing artist.

Chris Pine continues his recent run of top notch work, following up last years stellar Hell or High Water with his turn as the love interest Steve Trevor opposite Gadot's Wonder Woman. Pine is outstanding as the rogue and daring spy trying to stop the Kaiser's war machine. His light comedic touch and dramatic sincerity elevate Wonder Woman to heights it would not see without him. 

The rest of the cast have minimal roles but do consistent work. David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Ewen Bremmer and Said Taghmaoui solidly buttress Gadot and Pine's more demanding work. And Lucy Davis does exceedingly well as Etta Candy, Steve Trevor's secretary. Davis brings a subtle, yet masterful bit of craftsmanship to her role which would have been a throwaway in lesser hands.

Wonder Woman is a top notch superhero movie that feels particularly relevant in a world filled with strongmen, from Trump to Erdogan, to Duterte and Putin. Wonder Woman gives voice and vision to the anima in our collective unconscious that yearns to be actualized in the real world. The reason Wonder Woman is resonating so deeply with audiences in general, and women in particular, is that the archetypal feminine energy, the anima, has lost its value and power in our modern world by trying to imitate and mimic the masculine, the animus. Wonder Woman is a force not because she is mimicking masculinity, but because she is uber-feminine. Contrary to what many women will claim, it is not men that need to learn that lesson, but women, and Wonder Woman is a great place for them to reconnect to the primal power inherit in the anima and to engage in therapeutic psychological catharsis.

In conclusion, Wonder Woman is a well made, entertaining and ultimately satisfying film that both men and women can thorughly enjoy. It isn't Citizen Kane, but it is a top-notch superhero movie that gives insight into the character Wonder Woman, and propels the DC Universe forward in a positive direction. I wholly encourage you to spend your hard earned dollars and go see Wonder Woman in the theatre. You never know, the anima you save, could be your own.

©2017