Month: February 2018

film

Review: Annihilation

Posted on by spacecortez

Written and directed by Alex Garland, “Annihilation” is his second directorial feature after the hit “Ex-Machina” released a few years back.  This film, while maintaining an evolving yet clear style, is one of those rare movies that sticks with you-it buries itself inside your mind to stay with you after the credits have ended and you’ve driven home. This movie is everything I want from straight sci-fi films-no fantasy here (Which is fine, I enjoy ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and ‘Star Wars’ too), this is simply a different kind of science fiction. It’s a film that, in my experience, grows on you with time. So, the plot of the film is that Natalie Portman’s character, Lena, is a biologist professor who has lost her husband (Oscar Isaac), a soldier who perished on his last mission. She teaches her classes solemnly in her grief before an event occurs that gets her sent to Area X, an observatory stationed just outside a mysterious phenomena nicknamed “The Shimmer”. Her dead husband was part of the last mission sent into ‘the shimmer’, nobody ever sent in has returned. At the observatory she is met by other experts preparing for a crucial final mission into ‘the shimmer’, the only scientific group so far- all other efforts had been military minded. All four members Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), and Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) each have their own personal reasons for joining a mission that is concerned by all others to be a death sentence. Finally Lena, an accredited biologist, decides to join the team, as her skills could be an asset to the potential research findings.

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There are elements from the works of David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, H.P. Lovecraft, and Kubrick sprinkled throughout while never becoming homage or an ode to a specific style or anything other than itself. It reminds me of the greats of sci-fi without ever being subservient to what came before it. This film is somewhat difficult to discuss or review without giving up all of the secrets that the film has to give, so in the interest of piquing your interests reader, but without giving you all of the details, I implore you to give this film a chance. So, in order to facilitate a sense of the film so that you can better decide whether this is something you would enjoy or not, I’ll vaguely describe what I found to be the aspects of the film that made me love it.

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First, and most reviews of this film will note on this, the film has some beautiful imagery once the team is inside ‘the shimmer’. The production design and the practical effects that went into making the effects that ‘the shimmer’ would have on our planet are fascinating, the flora and fauna have been altered by these effects in brilliant colors and mutations on a cellular level. The sound design, and choice of music paired with soundtrack, is crisp and tactile, warm and familiar, but cold and strange in other ways. A pairing of folksy acoustic guitar with moody and bellowing synth seems like it shouldn’t work, but the way the film incorporates these two distinct sounds and tones throughout the runtime works to great effect. The characters are also a real treat, none of them make illogical or unsound decisions, they are smart characters that seem like the experts they claim to be. No character turns out to be a dumb foil for another and they all make as much sense of the mystery they’re wading into as best they can. Let it be said though that while this film is slow and fairly brooding, concerned more with asking thoughtful questions than crafting horror movie antics to get butts into seats- it does have scenes of truly creepy imagery and horrifying brutality.

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I feel as though revealing more would only be a detriment to those who might go and check this film out. Which I highly suggest doing. Smart sci-fi films like this are a rarity and if you enjoy such films, vote with your money. That’s the only way to encourage more risk taking from our cinematic storytellers. I say, go out there, make it weirder, make the story that drives you and fascinates you! Or at the very least, go watch a film that challenges you.

Final Score: 5 scientific explorers, 1 shimmer

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Old School Review: “Breathless” (1960)

Posted on by spacecortez

Written by François Truffaut and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, “Breathless” is a classic French crime film that helped to form the New Wave style of films coming from French filmmakers at that time. The story centers on Michel Poiccard, (Jean-Paul Belmondo) a petty thief in Paris who frequently steals cars for joyrides and pickpockets cash from unsuspecting pedestrians. He reunites with an American girl, Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg), who’s studying to become a journalist after he impulsively murders a police officer on one of his more casual grand theft autos in the countryside just outside of Paris. Most of the film is spent following these two in the streets of Paris, in cafes and hotels, almost always smoking while they discuss many aspects of life with whimsy through their opinions and fluttery definitions about everything from the opposite sexes to how one should drive while behind the wheel.

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Now, admittedly, I wasn’t a gigantic fan of this film after giving it a watch, but I had to know what made it so renowned and gilded among cinephiles. Given the year the film was made I was surprised at the speed and abrupt use of jump-cuts in the film’s editing. However that didn’t seem enough to make it supposedly legendary, so I did some reading on the movie. The late 1950’s and early 1960’s in France were a rebellious era of filmmaking characterized by a coup of sorts against the established narrative form in French cinema. These new French filmmakers broke away from any sense of a studio system and shot their independent features on shoestring budgets, often without permission on locations, and usually focusing on characters that weren’t natural protagonists by the standard definitions. As for “Breathless” itself, filming took place anywhere between 15 minutes to 12 hours depending on what Godard had come up with that day. They filmed in Paris in stores and cafes mostly without being granted access in order to secure the spontaneous feel in the film that Godard was going for. There was a considerable amount of improvisation and Godard reportedly kept his journal of dialogue close and only shared what he believed to be necessary.

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In today’s world, the film may not seem all that special, but it did a lot to give independent filmmakers an origin, somebody had to be the first to get their shots without the permission from the gatekeepers, right? Indie film cred aside, the film may harbor some resentment from modern audiences for its characters’ opinions. I suspect that many American audiences today could be triggered by the subjects that the characters discuss and how they go about discussing them. To be fair, the perspective is from an entirely different culture and from a generation and a half ago. As we’re still very much embroiled in the #MeToo movement here in America, everything is still tender. Simply talking about sexuality and the roles of women and men in life and the workplace can be a careful tap-dance of attempting to recognize and listen to every person’s point of view, let alone expressing the viewpoints that this film does. The French culture approaches these topics in a fairly different manner, but especially so in the 1960’s, in a post war Paris, and given that the New Wave movement was focused on morally ambiguous characters to stand aside from the greater film structures of the time- so there’s a lot to dissect given all of the variables in play.

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The film does have it’s place in celluloid history, but I wouldn’t say that its the most entertaining film out there. Which is fine, not every story works for every audience. I’d have to see more from the New Wave directors before making a final opinion on the select era and group of filmmakers’ work, but the making of this film was more interesting to me than the final product. Surprised by the international praise of the film, Jean-Luc Godard doesn’t regret making the film because they defied the power structures of the filmmaking process and he was glad that they had thrown all that aside and opened the process up. In the end, I’m glad I gave it a watch, another film can be checked off my list and my perspective widens because of it.

Final Score: 100 cigarettes and 50 cups of coffee

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Review: Black Panther

Posted on by spacecortez

Written by Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler and directed by Coogler, “Black Panther” is the 18th movie in Marvel Studios’ sprawling universe of superheroics and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) takes center stage as the titular Black Panther whilst being surrounded by an impeccable cast. This weekend marks a significant debut for representation not only in the Marvel Studios Universe, but for superhero films in general. We’ve had previous superhero movies starring African American leads like Wesley Snipes in “Blade” and its two sequels. There was also “Steel” starring Shaq, “Hancock” starring Will Smith, and the oft derided “Catwoman” starring Halle Berry amongst a few others. This is a different film though, one that doesn’t tiptoe around various injustices, but rather it makes those questions of morality and the adverse effects of colonialism the beating heart of conflict in the film. This film also doesn’t just recognize Africa, the film took great efforts to ingrain the fictional country of Wakanda into the real world setting of Northeastern Africa.

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Which brings me to what I believe is the greatest asset of the film, the incredibly effective world building that went into realizing Wakanda. The filmmakers’ crafted Wakanda as a place that felt as if it had existed untouched and unfiltered by time, hidden by superior technology granted by a chance vibranium meteorite crashing into Wakanda ages ago. Sprawling cityscapes depict a fascinating version of Afrofuturism unleashed in the bustling merchants district alongside the wide and open plains under the watchful eye of W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya) and the border tribe, there’s even a mountainous wintry region ruled by the Jabari tribe who are staunchly against the rule of T’Challa, chief among them being their leader M’Baku (Winston Duke). Along with the River tribes and the vast and intricate mining facilities, Wakanda feels like an interconnected country with a long history and that’s a feat that the filmmakers should be praised for accomplishing so efficiently.

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Another way that “Black Panther” stands out from the crowd is in its sense of community. There’s a balance between tradition and futurism that affects all those who live in Wakanda, but especially for those who lead among the isolationist nation. It is here between the pendulum of modernity and tradition that T’Challa has his conflicts within the film, but it has a rippling effect on all of the characters in some form. Okoye (Danai Gurira) the general of the royal guard, the Dora Milaje, and Shuri (Letitia Wright), T’Challa’s brilliant younger sister and head of the technological prowess of Wakanda, both perfectly exemplify this bridge between conflicting ideologies. Okoye is bound to a strict interpretation of tradition within the Dora Milaje-even after unspeakable acts (I’ll try to keep spoilers at bay) have taken place, she must fufill her duties to the throne. Whereas Shuri is bound to the future inherent in Wakanda’s tech, she is always looking to the next update or upgrade. Though Lupita Nyong’o’s  Nakia may be more of a divergent spirit in this sense. Nakia’s background in espionage and her former relationship with T’Challa provide her with a character that’s willing to break from tradition when its logical to do so. It is this divide that drove T’Chaka’s, (John Kani) brother N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) towards his revolutionary tendencies and the crux of the film’s conflict; should Wakanda open itself up to world and aid those worse off with their great technological feats? Or should they stay unconquered and safely hidden from the world? The film deftly handles the question of how the previous generations handled the world, in all it’s beauty and tragedy, and whether or not they were right by their actions.. or damned by them? Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger is the literal formation of these past demons come to haunt T’Challa, the new King and Black Panther of Wakanda.

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Perhaps the single greatest part of this film is its villain in Eric Killmonger. Motivated by the death of his father as a child and abandoned in America, Killmonger pursued his interests with a lethal tenacity and never let a soul intercept his goal of invading Wakanda. Like his father before him Killmonger is a violent revolutionary in the spirit of Magneto, seeking to liberate those who were besieged by history’s injustices. Michael B. Jordan excelled in crafting an adversary whose intentions never wavered, and more importantly, he made Killmonger a layered individual with purpose behind his eyes. His goals, while extreme, can be understood. However since he’s a violent and careless individual we naturally side with T’Challa’s approach, but Eric’s a tragic character whose anger comes from a very real place.

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I have to say that I quite enjoyed the film overall. The film is the first since “Doctor Strange” in the MCU to have so few connections to the wider MCU canon and that’s a benefit to this story. There was no need for a Stark reference or even a Captain America cameo for this film to work within the structures of the MCU, it had enough to juggle without needless and contrived studio mandated team ups (though I do love it when it works well in other movies!). As for the two white guys in the movie, I really enjoyed Andy Serkis getting to work without being covered from head to toe in digital garb or practical effects and make-up, his Ulysses Klaue (sounds like Klaw) was a scene chewing performance well worth the time spent with him. The other melanin deficient character was Martin Freeman’s C.I.A. agent Everett Ross revived from his “Civil War” role and plopped into this film without feeling misplaced or ill advised. The film as a whole was a great time at the theater and I look forward to seeing how these events change the MCU from here out!

Final Score: 1 Prince and 1 Pauper (Seriously, just go see it- you don’t need my arbitrary and baseless scores to know whether or not you’re interested in this film)

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Review: Brawl in Cell Block 99

Posted on by spacecortez

Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, “Brawl in Cell Block 99” is a film in which Vince Vaughn stars as Bradley, an auto mechanic with a streak of bad luck that ends him up in prison. After being fired from his job and coming home to find out that his wife (Jennifer Carpenter) was engaged in an affair Bradley takes stock of his life and decides to work for an old friend running drugs, just until they can afford a better life to start again. Fast forward eighteen months and his scheme worked, he has a strict system about his drug running and his efficiency has afforded the married couple a decent house along with a pregnancy that drives Bradley throughout the rest of the film.

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However, since the title of the film is “Brawl in Cell Block 99” we know that the film has to take a downward turn, and it is quite the spiral of increasingly awful situations. It begins with Gil (Marc Blucas), Bradley’s drug running boss and friend, setting up a new business deal with a group of Mexican gangsters equally invested in the drug game. Bradley quickly assesses the men he is to work with on the next run and declines to work with one that he suspects is using, but Gil pulls him aside noting that the deal needs to go through for financial reasons and sweetens the deal for Bradley with a three month leave once his daughter is born. As you might expect, the deal goes awry when the runner that Bradley had pointed out earlier refuses to drop the drugs to be picked up later when the police arrive and a shootout blazes between them and the two henchmen from the Mexican gang.

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Bradley intervenes and gets sent straight to prison for a seven year sentence. Once inside he’s met by a representative of the Mexican Cartel (though admittedly I’m not sure if they were meant to be representative of the Cartel specifically) who informs him of the massive net loss that his boss took because of the botched drug deal. He expects Bradley to set this straight by killing a marked target of the Cartel who’s locked away in the maximum security facility of Redleaf, in cell block 99. If he doesn’t kill the target, the associates of the Cartel leader, who had already kidnapped Bradley’s wife, will sever the limbs of his unborn child in such a way that the child will still live through the birthing process. Thus Bradley must become infamous enough to get placed in Redleaf, and then he must become even more deadly to work his way into Cell Block 99 to save his family.

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Which brings me to the violence of the film. This film is cruel and it is brutal in its depictions of arm snapping and skull bashing grindhouse prison fighting genre action. I’d seen Zahler’s last film “Bone Tomahawk” a western horror film in which Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, and Patrick Wilson are settlers besieged by a crude sect of Native Americans that brutalize those they take captive. I personally wasn’t a fan of that film, even though it had it’s merits in performances and cinematography. The senselessness and depressing void of morality that encompassed the film, especially its ending, wasn’t something I enjoyed. This film however, changes the tone in its ultimate notions of justice and victory. I won’t spoil anything regarding the final act, but it’s a much more satisfying film overall for me personally. You can definitely tell that this film is from the same filmmaker that gave us “Bone Tomahawk” though. Both films are quiet in nature until they burst with unchallenged sounds, startling the auditory senses. This story also puts our lead through many hurdles and hoops of suffering. As a former boxer in his youth Bradley came slightly more prepared to his round of unjust brutality than the settlers of “Bone Tomahawk” were for their suffering to come.

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This film is an entertaining piece of genre fair, though not all will enjoy it. It’s not incredibly high on my list of favorites from 2017, but it was a unique offering for sure. Vince Vaughn effectively shows us a man backed up against a wall, fighting for his family’s freedom any way he can. Even if that means becoming a person that he doesn’t see himself as. There’s also a fun scenery chewing performance by Don Johnson as the final warden that Bradley faces. If you’re okay with extremely brutal violence and the grindhouse style of films, then you might enjoy this. If anything else it’s just another way to pass the time this winter.

Final Score: 2 snapped arms & a couple bashed-in skulls

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Movie Pitch: DOOM (REBOOT)

Posted on by spacecortez

Way back in 2005 there was an adaption of the infamous video game property DOOM starring Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban. That film ended up being a commercial and critical failure earning only a paltry 56 million (worldwide total) on a 60 million budget. The major problem with the film, in my opinion, was that it diverted from the simplistic and satisfying nature that made the games so fun. Instead the story placed the focus on a search and rescue mission wherein a squad of space marines are sent to Mars and discover that the monsters of the film are actually scientific aberrations created by infecting the humans of the Martian site with a Martian chromosome synthesized from the bones of a long forgotten genetically advanced race. What? Where are the demons from Hell? The film gave more questions in the end than answers, and it wasn’t paying homage to the true spirit of the games at all. Now, if I were given the opportunity to draft a reboot of the property I’d follow the basic blueprints from the recent video game update in 2016.

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The basic plot of the story is that in the future we humans became entrenched in an energy crisis, so, the solution that we came up with was to build a technical facility on Mars that houses a portal to Hell where we siphon the dark energy from the demon realm to charge our i-phones. Eventually acolytes or otherwise corrupted individuals,  such as Olivia Pierce, make a pact with the demon realm for power and unleash the demons onto the Mars facility halting the energy production for Earth. The DOOMSLAYER, or main character, is reawakened by Dr. Samuel Hayden (the facility director on Mars that now inhabits an android after his human brain was lost to a deadly cancer) as a last ditch effort to stave off the demonic invasion.

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After being awoken, the DOOMSLAYER (the caps make it more fun!) goes on a violent journey serving up bone crunching and head splitting action until he travels to Hell and severs the connection between worlds. It’s a fast paced and gory affair with heavy metal accompanying the glorious melding of science fiction and fantasy in this revamping of the video game property and I think this new iteration could be translated into a supremely entertaining action/sci-fi/fantasy film. The three main points of focus here should be similar to the game in it’s momentum, horrifying character designs for the demons, and the absolutely gruesome displays of violence. This would definitely be a hard-R rating, but with movies like “Logan” and “Deadpool” out there earning accolades and cases of cold hard cash,  this proves that there’s an appetite for over-the-top violence when done right.

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As far as casting is concerned, I have four characters that I believe the story hinges on, and four actors that seem particularly appropriate for the requirements of such an adaption. Firstly I’d pursue Tom Hardy for our hero in the DOOMSLAYER (still fun, every time). He’s proven in recent performances like “Mad Max: Fury Road”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, and “Dunkirk” that he can act particularly well with a lack of dialogue, but he’s also especially great at conveying personality and attitude through actions like in “Fury Road”, and the DOOMSLAYER requires a certain amount of attitude through characterization.

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As for Dr. Samuel Hayden I would cast James Spader in the motion capture and voice over role as the mechanical genius overseeing the facility long after his body had rotted away. Up until the writing of this article I had assumed that it actually was James Spader doing the voice over in the video game reboot, he sounds exactly like Spader’s rendition of Marvel Comic-book villain Ultron. That role was actually from Darin De Paul, but I say bring on Spader, the android doctor had a dry sarcasm embedded in his performance that would be perfect for the character actor to play off of without entirely riffing his Ultron performance, they are definitely two different characters with different motivations and intentions.

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As for the ultimate villain of the story, Olivia Pierce, I would cast either Tilda Swinton (who would be fascinating in this role-though I doubt she would take it on), or Elizabeth Debicki. Both actresses have the look of the villain down, plus I feel they could both give some extra characterization to a villain that does have motivations behind her actions, but they are slightly cardboard-thin in the game. We can give slight altercations to improve such things through the acting, but still I believe both women would pull excellent performances out of an over-the-top adaption such as this.

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This last role isn’t one that was in the game or the earlier film adaption, but instead of doling out weapons upgrades to the DOOMSLAYER through another A.I. type character like the recent video game reboot did-I would create a sort of comic relief character that would function as this role. I would cast Charlie Day in this role. As a facility worker that hid from the demonic invasion, you could have Day play the role of the scared but capable engineer that has secret knowledge of the weapons division. He could pop in and out of the story communicating to the DOOMSLAYER and providing support by pointing out where things like the chainsaw, rocket launcher, or say the B.F.G. are hidden. He could also support in the closing of the portal to hell at the end of the film, severing the connection between the realms. The DOOMSLAYER could choose to stay in hell? Or we could have Dr. Hayden take matters into his own robot hands by transporting the crucible (magical blade used to kill Olivia Pierce in the game) back to Mars to research for energy creating purposes, but not the DOOMSLAYER. There’s a lot we could do with the ending, but nonetheless, I think having a comedic relief character portrayed by Charlie Day could be a benefit to the film’s entertainment value.

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The last major choice I would pursue with this adaption would be to secure the writer-director team behind the “John Wick” movies, Chad Stahelski, David Leitch and Derek Kolstad. I believe the style and fast paced nature of what they’ve accomplished with “John Wick” and its sequel proves that they know how to direct action-not just well, but creatively. They’ve shown that they know how to build mythology effectively, and provide flare and personality through the action on the screen. If they can transfer their slick gunplay action to the realm of the DOOMSLAYER, they’d benefit greatly from this material.

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Combine all of these elements and I believe we’d have a hit on our hands. The market and box office numbers in the last few years have proven that the fantastical and the hyper violent can be a boon both creatively and financially. With committed talent and a stripped down bare bones idea of DOOM in place, I’m pretty sure we’d have an entertaining and profitable movie to put in theaters. I know I’d want to watch this!

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Review: The Cloverfield Paradox

Posted on by spacecortez

There Will be spoilers in this article, as it would be difficult to discuss the film without acknowledging them. You have been warned.

On Sunday during the Super Bowl a trailer was revealed for the newest film in the evolving Cloverfield series titled “The Cloverfield Paradox”. An intriguing and quick snippet marketed the latest installment as a sci-fi horror with mysterious ongoings, but more importantly- the film would be available immediately after the Super Bowl on Netflix. So, I thought I’d give it a shot, I adored the initial Cloverfield film and the secret sequel in “10 Cloverfield Lane” was a nice little surprise when it was released- why not give this flick a watch? Written by Oren Uziel and directed by Julius Onah, “The Cloverfield Paradox” is a science-fiction thriller set on an international space station in a future timeline where the Earth is embroiled in a dire energy crisis that threatens to throw the nations of the world into world war three.

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First let’s discuss the best part of the film, the cast. The crew of the Shepard consists of seven experts from different fields of study and different countries of origin. They include our lead, Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) from Britain, Kiel (David Oyelowo) the commander of the Shepard and an American, Mundy (Chris O’Dowd) an Irishman and the comedic relief, Monk (John Ortiz) the doctor aboard the ship and resident representative of the faithful alongside Oyelowo’s American Kiel. Next up are Schmidt (Daniel Brühl) the German electrician and Tam (Ziyi Zhang) the Chinese scientist who together are the only relationship on the Shepard while, curiously, Tam is the only specialist that speaks her country’s language. The last member of the Shepard is Volkov (Aksel Hennie) the Russian navigator that ironically instigates the others into fisticuffs and arguments.

The movie opens during a blackout in Britain before the Shepard takes flight. We’re introduced to Hamilton and Michael (Roger Davies) a doctor in London, and her husband. They discuss her options between staying on Earth and helping as best as practically possible while getting over their shared grief, or to secure her position on the Shepard and use her skills to the greater betterment of humanity. Ultimately, we know the choice that she will make, which leads me to one of the issues I have with the film. While I did enjoy my time with this film, and I’d be doing a disservice to myself and this review by saying otherwise, the movie does telegraph a lot of the the film’s ideas in play a smidge too much for me, which clashes a bit with the mystery box style so beloved by the properties that J.J. Abrams has had a hand in producing. To it’s credit though there are some excellent moments and scenes that fully encapsulate the “What the hell just happened and how do we deal with this?” aesthetic, such as the earth disappearing from view after the particle accelerator is turned on, and the mysterious woman that the crew finds in the walls of the ship.

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Eventually the crew discovers the Earth on the opposite side of the sun. They can receive signals but they cannot transmit any, thus during their celebration they discover that the Earth is in the midst of a forty month war across Europe as the energy crisis has erupted into a full blown world war. They also see a newsflash of their ship, now called The Cloverfield in pieces floating in the ocean. They quickly realize that they aren’t in some future or past, but rather they are in another dimension. One where the Particle accelerator blew up the space station instead of transporting it across dimensions.

So, here I’d like to take the time to discuss the confusing response to the film’s release and what I enjoyed about the film overall before getting into my own theory on what happened across all of these films. I was quite taken aback by the anger and vitriol thrown at this movie from all corners of the internet after it’s release. Some called it a comedy, while others trash the film as somehow tricking moviegoers into watching a movie, and even a few seemed to outright hate this film and conveyed feelings of betrayal. I’m not sure how so many people came to despise this movie when nobody had to even pay for it, with the exception of the monthly Netflix fee. It’s not a truly horrible film, nor is it a pillar of exceptional science fiction filmmaking. It’s just fine. I would argue that it’s the perfect sort of film to get a streaming release as it did because it can be enjoyed at the viewers’ leisure without undue costs.

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I really enjoyed my time with this film. It wasn’t the best film I’ve seen, or even the greatest film I’ve seen recently (that award goes to you Shape of Water!), but it certainly wasn’t awful either. There was some good tension among the various crew members with alliances known and unknown that, paired with the quick pace of the film, helped to keep me engaged. The film had a good production design, the special effects were handled efficiently, and we got some deliciously gross body horror involving space worms! Hell, we even got a bit of space espionage to boot. While the film can be a bit predictable at times there was enough positive aspects to the film that they outweighed the negatives for me.

In fact, I personally believe the film gave another layer of intrigue to the Cloverfield series. If you factor in the multiverse theory, I think this film does help to explain more of what happened with the film series. First let’s simplify things with labels. Let’s call the first film in the Cloverfield series Earth 1, the Shepard crew’s Earth as Earth 2, and the Earth that they travel to in Paradox as Earth 3. I’m not sure if the events in “10 Cloverfield Lane” exist on their own separate Earth or if that was just a smaller story taking place on Earth 1 later in the timeline. For now, let’s say it happens on Earth 1 for clarity.  The Shepard’s particle accelerator malfunction at the beginning of Paradox is the inciting incident that triggers a wave of effects throughout the multiverse resulting in untold horrors of monsters and aliens being catapulted across space-time and colliding with various Earths. This is doubly proven when Hamilton crash lands back on her own Earth and a noticeably larger Cloverfield monster bursts through the clouds while her husband Michael screams into his phone “Tell them not to come back! Tell them!” After which I had a hearty laugh and then scrolled around Netflix to see what’s next..

Final Score: Two Earths and an infinite amount of Cloverfield Aliens

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Superbowl 2018 Movie Trailers

Posted on by spacecortez

Yesterday five movie trailers aired during the Super Bowl that were especially fun. Some of them were entirely new, while others were new teasers or new cuts of trailers that helped to sway me personally into giving several of these films the benefit of the doubt, even through all the exploding volcanoes and starships.

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Mission Impossible 6: Fallout

Ever since the fourth Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, the series has continually edged upwards in quality for me. This new Mission Impossible looks to turn expectations upside down with Ethan Hunt and company going against their former agency in the IMF? Plus there’s the new addition of Henry Cavill who should be an exciting new factor thrown into the mix. We’re also retaining writer-director Christopher McQuarrie for a series first, Rogue Nation was an excellent film so I cannot wait to see how they step up the stunts from previous entries in the series!

 

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Avengers 3: Infinity War

Infinity War has been a long time coming in the Marvel Studios Universe, it will be the nineteenth film in the interconnected saga and will include all of the major characters from across all of those films. Naturally not much is known outside of the initial trailer besides rampant fan speculation but this new teaser gave us precious seconds of new shots to drool over and analyze until May, but hey, you don’t need to do much to sell tickets to this event film at this point.

 

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Solo: A Star Wars Story

We finally got a (teaser?) trailer for the Han Solo standalone film, and it did enough to sway me towards a more positive outlook on the upcoming release. While we might not have asked for a Han Solo film, it’s nice to get to play around in the sandbox of the Empire’s early reign over the galaxy again. We didn’t see much, but we did get confirmation that the overall plot from the original expanded universe detailing Han’s origins in the Empire before he turned coat and became a smuggler was seemingly on track. We got quick shots of Woody Harrelson’s mysterious mentor character, Donald Glover’s sly Lando Calrissian, and of course- Chewbacca. We’ll see if this movie turns out to be worthwhile in the end, but hey, I’m always ready for another adventure in this universe, hopefully it will be a positively memorable one.

 

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Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom

This trailer did a lot to turn me around after that awful cut the first time around. The first Jurassic World worked for me in concept and in practice. That film made sense as a sequel, and we’ll see how this film turns out, but not focusing solely on the volcano scenes helped a lot. If that had been the whole story I wouldn’t have bothered, but here it looks like a combination of Lost World with a sprinkling of the original’s texture thrown in, so we’ll have to wait and see if it was worth our time and money- but this trailer did put me into a more positive and hopeful mood for the sequel.

 

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Skyscraper

Another year and another Dwayne, the Rock, Johnson action film bursts onto silver screens across the country. This time around Johnson looks to be a war vet that designs buildings, but when everything goes wrong he has to pull it together and save his family on the 240th floor of a burning building. There’s a lot of standard action beats here but the trailer was cut for maximum tension while maintaining the heightened reality of Johnson’s action movie repertoire and that works for me. Johnson can sell a movie no matter how ridiculous it may seem, hell, I never thought the Jumanji sequel was going to work out but in the end I really enjoyed it! I might just have to give this flick a shot when it hits theaters this summer.

 

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Dundee: the perfect tourism ad

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly disappointed that this isn’t a real film, but it was a great idea for a tourism ad! The reveal doesn’t even happen until Danny McBride notices that Chris Hemsworth keeps talking up the beauty of Australia, which was brilliant by the way. We even got Paul Hogan to put on the old costume and playfully poke fun at rampant and excessive love of Australia that America experienced in the 1990’s.

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film

Old School Review: Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” (1961)

Posted on by spacecortez

Spoilers will be included in this review. You have been warned.

Written by Ryûzô Kikushima and Akira Kurosawa and directed by Kurosawa, “Yojimbo” is a Japanese Samurai film, set during the 1860’s, in which a lone Ronin (Toshiro Mifune) happens upon a small town that happens to be besieged by two warring clans with a blood feud. The Samurai then decides to play them against each other to free the town, and possibly make some money while doing so. As the opening credits scrawl by, our Ronin walks into frame as he wanders the countryside. He tosses a stick in the air when faced with a cross in the road, letting fate decide his path. He soon stumbles across a small farm in which he overhears an argument amongst a family. The son doesn’t want to work the hard but simple life of a silk farmer as his father before him and instead decides to join a gang as a hired warrior in a nearby town. The Samurai lets curiosity lead him and soon he’s sitting in a small tavern in that town ran by Gonji (Eijirō Tōno). The cantankerous old man lays out the situation for him and tells him he’s better off leaving town before everyone kills each other.

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Gonji reveals that Ushitora (Kyū Sazanka) and Seibei (Seizaburo Kawazu) are the heads of the two warring clans, though Ushitora used to be Seibei’s second in command until Seibei claimed that he’d eventually cede his land and power to his son Yoichiro (Hiroshi Tachikawa), a notoriously useless individual. Thus Ushitora broke away from Seibei and formed his own clan challenging the power structure of the town. Each patriarchal figure had made claims to power in the village, Seibei had the local silk merchant and mayor Tazaemon (Kamatari Fujiwara) in his pocket while Ushitora sought the local sake brewer, Tokuemon (Takashi Shimura), proclaiming him the new mayor instead. After listening to the current state of affairs in the town the Samurai decides that the whole town would be better off with both clans eradicated and begins to craft sly machinations between the two.

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The Samurai then proves his violent worth by making a spectacle in the middle of town by killing three of Ushitora’s men and then aligning himself with Seibei. Seibei then decides that with the new Samurai on his side he must defeat Ushitora and his hired men that very day. When asked his name the Ronin happens to be looking out an open door and responds with Kuwabatake Sanjuro, the first name meaning Mulberry field (The same type of field he was looking at), and the surname being a wry definition of the thirtieth son, but he implies that it’s closer to a meaning of his age-though he admits he’s “..actually closer to forty”. After they agree on a price for his help in the coming battle Seibei goes to discuss logistics with his wife Orin (Isuzu Yamada), which Sanjuro secretly listens in on. Orin devises a plan to simply kill the Samurai once the fight is over so they don’t have to pay his high costs.

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As both clans appear on the opposing sides of town, rabid and eager to end their feud in a bloodbath, Sanjuro walks across to Ushitora and announces that Seibei has offended him and that he declines the fight. Sanjuro then climbs the ramshackle tower in town to watch the two clans fight to the death with a gleeful smirk. Though before anyone can get the nerve to kill, a scout on a horse reels into town to warn that a government official is on his way to inspect the town and it’s wares of silk and sake. To the disappointment of Sanjuro everybody drops their swords and quickly rush to make the town appear as if everything is normal. The government official stays a grueling ten days until another government official is murdered a few towns away, forcing an early departure from the corrupted elite.

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Sanjuro overhears two drunken assassins talking too much at Gonji’s tavern shortly after this, revealing that it was Ushitora who hired them to commit the other official’s murder. Armed with this knowledge Sanjuro captures the killers and delivers them to Seibei for a price, after which he heads to Ushitora and tells him that it was Seibei’s men who captured the two. Ushitora, shocked by this reveal, pays off Sanjuro for the information and then orders the kidnapping of Seibei’s son Yoichiro. Things get out of hand quickly after this as Ushitora makes an offer for Seibei to retrieve his son in exchange for his two murderers, but instead he double-crosses Seibei by shooting the two killers before Seibei can reclaim his son. Seibei had expected this double-cross however and had preemptively kidnapped Ushitora’s claimed mayor Tokuemon’s prized prostitute, Nui (Yoko Tsukasa). Sanjuro later finds out that Nui isn’t truly a prostitute but a bargaining chip as her husband Kohei (Yoshio Tsuchiya) had owed a gambling debt to Tokuemon and couldn’t pay off his debts, so Tokuemon took Nui instead.

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Sanjuro ponders this and eventually tricks Ushitora into revealing where Nui is kept and investigates with Ushitora’s younger, and far dumber, brother Inokichi (Daisuke Katō). Sanjuro quickly kills the guards, while distracting Inokichi, and then sends Nui, Kohei, and their child away into the night with the gold he received from both clans. He shows Inokichi the dead guards and sends him back to Ushitora to warn him of the attack and that Nui must have escaped or been captured back by Seibei’s men. This results in a fast escalation of violence and sabotage in the town. First Tazaemon’s silk stock is set ablaze, then Tokuemon’s sake barrels are destroyed as the town’s financial industry becomes ruined and unprofitable.

Eventually Ushitora’s youngest brother Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), the only gun toting gangster among the bunch, becomes suspicious of Sanjuro’s role in all of this and discovers evidence of his double-cross against Ushitora and beats Sanjuro without his sword. Jailed and bloodied, Sanjuro outwits Ushitora’s guards and crawls to Gonji for help. Gonji enlists the casket maker’s (Atsushi Watanabe) help in transporting Sanjuro out of town to heal in a small shrine in the cemetery, but before they leave they stop to witness Ushitora’s final attack against Seibei as they slaughter the opposing clan in entirety. As he recuperates Sanjuro practices throwing knives, but is pulled back into town when he hears that Gonji, who had been delivering food and ointments to Sanjuro, has been captured by Ushitora and his men. The final showdown is very reminiscent of the classic western trope of a showdown through the street on opposing sides as Sanjuro precisely and efficiently kills Ushitora and his remaining forces, he even bests Unosuke and his pistol, with his throwing knife. The final moment is given to Tazaemon though, who appears from the rubble beating a prayer drum, seeking his prey. Finally he finds Tokuemon and kills him, thereby ending the blood feud and violence. Happy with this conclusion, Sanjuro exits the town to the beginning of the credits roll.

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This was a great Samurai film from Akira Kurosawa. There was a lot to love with this film. The framing, cinematography, the performances and action, everything was a tightly knit piece of genre entertainment and I genuinely loved it. I started with this Samurai film after finding out that Sergio Leone’s first film in his infamous “dollar trilogy” A Fistful of Dollars (starring Clint Eastwood) was a remake of this film. You can definitely see the love of this film in Leone’s remake, and I really enjoyed recognizing how that transition was made between the two. If you’re looking for a classic Samurai film from one of the best filmmakers of the twentieth century, you can’t find much better than this!

Final Score: One Samurai, two clans, & a dog

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