The Ballad Of Luke Skywalker

December 1, 2017 by Joe

It may sound crazy, but I feel that Luke Skywalker always got the short shrift.

Sure, everyone is super excited to see what’s become of the character thirty years after we saw him vanquish the Sith from the galaxy. But there was a time, a very long time I think, where no one really wanted to give Luke is props. At the very least, no one wanted to be Luke Skywalker.

Most people seemed to want to be Han Solo, because he was a roguish space cowboy. Or Darth Vader, because he was clearly the baddest dude in the galaxy. Or even Boba Fett, because he had a cool-looking helmet and a cool-sounding job title. But Han had no discernible character arc, Vader was overrated with a .500 record in on-screen lightsaber duels, and Fett was really just a jobber with cool ring attire.

Now, some may write off Luke as a boring old Chosen One character, but that’s not really true. The only thing “chosen” about him was something he shared with Princess Leia – that being Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader’s child. No, typically a Chosen One shows up, denies how chosen they are few a few scenes, and then suddenly save the world.

Luke, in fact, had quite a long and winding path to becoming the Jedi who saved the galaxy. I’m breaking his story down into eight parts (or Episodes, in keeping with the Star Wars themes) in honor of the forthcoming Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.

So gather ’round, ye children, and let me sing you the Ballad of Luke Skywalker.

Episode I: The Dreamer

When we first meet Luke, he’s a restless young man living on a moisture farm with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. We’re told that most of his friends have already left Tatooine to join the academy, and seek adventure amongst the stars. Meanwhile, the closest he can get to those stars is longingly watching the binary sunset.

His journey begins with the hologram of a mysterious girl beseeching a man named Obi Wan Kenobi for help. This leads to his recently acquired droids – R2-D2 and C-3PO – to lead him out into the desert towards Master Kenobi. It’s here that Luke learns of his heroic father (as far as he’s told by crazy old Ben Kenobi at any rate).

Obi Wan wants to lead Luke out into space on a quest to save the galaxy from Imperial rule. But Luke – being a good and responsible “son” – refuses to fly off until his aunt and uncle are murdered by Storm Troopers. Shortly thereafter he, Obi Wan, and the droids hire a smuggler and his Wookiee co-pilot to take them off Tatooine and mount a rescue mission of Princess Leia.

Episode II: The Hero Of The Rebellion

After getting an abbreviated Jedi 101 course from Obi Wan, Luke and his allies find their way onto the Death Star in their mission to rescue Leia. As any amped-up teenager on his first adventure would, Luke rushes headlong into heroism without a doubt in his mind that he is right, and that right always wins.

During their escape from the Death Star, with Leia in-tow, Obi Wan is struck down by Darth Vader. They manage to reach a Rebel Alliance base, but Luke is shaken from the loss of three parental figures in a very short span of time. Still, he’s willing to jump into an X-Wing fighter jet and strike back (as it were) by taking a massively long shot at destroying the Death Star.

With Obi Wan riding shotgun, in Force Ghost form, Luke is able to make the shot and obliterate the Death Star. This cements his role as a hero, and a symbol, to the rebellion. It also sets him on a path that he will soon be unable to walk away from even if he wanted to.

Episode III: The Impatient Padawan

After scoring something of a Pyrrhic victory on the ice planet of Hoth, Obi Wan sends Luke to Dagobah to seek out the ancient Jedi Master Yoda for further training. He proves to be a fast learner, but a failure during on of his tests proves to be a harbinger of darkness to come, as he lobs off Darth Vader’s head, only for the Sith lord’s mask to vanish, and reveal Luke’s own face staring back at him.

Despite Yoda’s warning that he’s not ready, Luke speeds off to Cloud City when he senses that his friends are in-danger. He arrives too late to save Han Solo from being frozen in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett – yet another loss of some he cares for – but just in-time to face off with Vader. Luke holds his own against the superior Sith lord, but it’s not long before Vader takes Luke’s hand from him, along with something much more precious: The belief that his father was a heroic Jedi martyr.

Episode IV: The Son Of Evil

What is a guy to do when he learns that the most evil man in the galaxy is his father? The first thing Luke does is mount a rescue mission for Han. This gives him a chance to flex his Jedi abilities, and bring his surrogate family back together to mount a final assault on the Galactic Empire.

The next thing he does is return to Dagobah to get confirmation about his ancestry from Yoda. Before passing into The Force, the old master comes clean and tells Luke that Vader and Anakin Skywalker are one-in-the-same. Yoda also leaves him with the revelation that there is another Skywalker somewhere out there.

He soon realizes that Leia is his sister, but that doesn’t change the fact that – with Yoda gone – Luke is now the last Jedi. Any hope of stopping Vader and his somehow-even-more-evil Emperor, falls completely on his shoulders.

Episode V: The Last Of The Jedi

By this point, Luke has lost everyone that ties him to his past. The aunt and uncle who raised him, and the two Jedi Masters who helped him become a man. The only things left binding him to anything at all are his sister, who he leaves almost immediately after dropping that knowledge bomb on her head, and his father, who he had spent the past few years training to kill.

It’s worth noting a few overlooked details at this point. The first being that, upon taking up the mantle of Jedi Knight, Luke clothes himself in all black. It’s a fashion choice worth mentioning not only because it is closer to what we’ve seen the Sith decked out in than the Jedi, but also Luke’s own previous white, beige, and orange gear.

The other visible change in Luke is with his lightsaber. While he’d previously wielded his (and his father’s) blue lightsaber, he now carries a saber with a darker, green blade. It’s not quite red yet, but it’s closer than we’d seen before (not considering the prequel films, of course).

Still, knowing that now he is the only one who can break the tyrannical Sith lords’ grasp on the galaxy, Luke allows himself to be taken to the new Death Star to embrace whatever fate might hold for him.

Episode VI: The Sith Apprentice?

A very bizarre love(?) triangle plays out in Emperor Palpatine’s throne room, as both Vader and the Emperor wish to take Luke on as their Sith apprentice. This twisting dynamic plays out during Luke’s hellacious lightsaber duel with his father.

Here’s the part that doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough: Luke succumbs – at least in-part – to the Dark Side of The Force. In order to finally defeat Vader, he taps into his fear, his anger, and his hatred. The truth is that he likely would not have been able to win if he hadn’t.

Yes, he pulls himself back from the brink in the end, bringing what’s left of his father back with him. But would that be enough to heal the mental, and emotional scars that come with betraying everything Obi Wan and Yoda taught him about the Light Side and the Dark Side of The Force in his desperation to vanquish evil?

Episode VII: The Man Who Talks To Ghosts

The last we see of Luke Skywalker is Leia pulling him away from the Force Ghosts of Anakin, Yoda, and Obi Wan to celebrate the fall of the Galactic Empire. But what happened after that? How much of what happened in the throne room did he even tell Leia, or anyone else for that matter? Was the burden heaved upon him something he chose to carry alone for the rest of his life?

When we catch up to him in the closing moments of The Force Awakens, we’ve learned a little about how he spent the 30 years since defeating Vader and Palpatine. He started a Jedi school, only to have his students massacred by his own nephew, and then to flee into self-imposed exile. Other than that…

Episode VIII: ?

There are many questions that we need answered. Among the most pressing, for me at least, are:

When did he start his Jedi school?

How did he pick his students? How did he track down the Force-Sensitive people?

How long did it run before its destruction?

How did he lose Ben Solo to Supreme Leader Snoke, and the Dark Side?

Is he Rey’s father?

If so, who is her mother, and what happened to her?

What has he been doing while in exile?

I really do hope we find out the answers to these questions in Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. I also hope we get to see old Master Luke unleash the full power of The Force in at least one super ass-kicking scene, since The Ballad of Luke Skywalker is deserving of a big finish.

Defending The Justice League

November 25, 2017 by Joe

Justice League opened last weekend with a disappointing $96 million domestic box office gross (though it made about twice that much overseas). Expensive, and extensive, reshoots were clearly a part of the reason why this is a disappointing opening. But the important thing is that the reshoots worked, and the movie is closer to what it needs to be that it would have otherwise been.

Spoilers Ahead.

The best summation I can offer is that this movie felt like a two-hour episode of the Justice League cartoon that I always was (and still am) a big fan of. It was pretty simple, very streamlined, and actually fun. This is a good thing compared to where the DC Expanded Universe was previously.

This movie had to accomplish some lofty goals and, for the most part, it attained those goals. Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg came in with a clean slate, and they each acquitted themselves well. Wonder Woman was coming off her own excellent movie (far and away the best of the DCEU so far), so she came in with some cred and swagger. Batman and Superman, however, were in need of massive image rehab after the character assassination that was Batman v. Superman.

Batman and Superman were both in fairly decent shape coming into BvS. Christopher Nolan had made three damn good Batman movies since 2005 (not technically part of the DCEU) and unlike many people, I rather liked Man Of Steel. The issues that I had with it had nothing to do with Henry Cavill’s performance. My main gripe was the way Jonathan and Martha Kent gave the sort of life lessons to Clark that would make more sense in the Bizarro Earth.

Sure, Man Of Steel was far from perfect, but it did have the best live action Superman fight sequences of all time (massive Metropolis civilian body count aside). Then BvS made Superman a pouty Emo boy, and Batman a murdery, caped Punisher. The less said of everything Lex Luthor-related, the better. So Justice League’s primary mission had to be “Make the audience want to see more Batman and Superman movies.” To that I say mission accomplished.

Yes, the movie had issues. The flow of the movie felt choppy in places, and the CGI looks a lot cheaper than the supposed price tag would suggest. I suspect that both of these issues were due, in large part, to the necessary reshoots. The important thing is that I came out of the movie actually looking forward to seeing more movies starring any and all of these characters.

The Flash has most of the best lines. Aquaman seems like a cool hang. Cyborg’s story looks like it could go to some interesting places. Wonder Woman is still all good. Batman plays more like a Caped Crusader than a bloodthirsty maniac. And, out of all this, Superman was probably the highlight of the film for me.

For the first time since Superman II (1980) I was able to look at that character on the big screen and say “Now THAT is freakin’ Superman!” (Honorable mention to Brandon Routh and Tyler Hoechlin, who played decent Supermen with sub-par action surrounding them). A sort-of-amnesiac Man of Steel taking on the rest of the League is a cool set piece, but his big return in the climax of the film is what really won me over.

When he arrives just in the nick of time to give the team the final push towards victory, and those few notes of John Williams’ classic Superman Theme hits, it almost impossible not to get goose bumps. I’ll admit that Danny Elfman sampling his own Batman Theme along with Williams’ is a bit of a cheat code, but damned if they didn’t do the trick.

Anyway, Supes lays some smackdown on a giant alien bully, flies off to save a literal building full of civilians, then flies back to beat the crap out of the bad guy some more. It was the perfect use of Superman. If they can keep that going, then the granddaddy of all superheroes’ future is in a very good place.

Don’t get me wrong, the next round of films still need to be better. But, after Wonder Woman and this, I feel like the compass needle of the DCEU is finally pointing true north. Now, DC’s most iconic villains – Lex Luthor and The Joker – are still in desperate need of some character rehab. But at least DC/WB finally looks they they’re aware of that fact. And, hey, retcons have been a part of comic books almost as long as capes and tights have. So there’s hope.

I’m of the belief that having more good comic book movies is a wonderful thing. Marvel Studios has been banging them out of ten years now, hopefully Warner Bros comes to the understanding that the loss they may take from Justice League will lead to bug gains in the future. After all, if they started out making the movie they ended up making, it would have been cheaper (relatively speaking) and better.

Besides, you’ve still got a few weeks before The Last Jedi opens, and Justice League is definitely worth the fairly meager 110 minutes of your time. Did I mention this movie runs under two hours? It’s a nice break from the regularly inflated comic book movie runtime, and is another point in the film’s favor. So my real review is this: Go ahead and give it a shot. If you go in with realistic expectations, you won’t be disappointed. And, honestly, that’s only the second time I can really say that about the DCEU.

Showdown In Screamtown: Frightful Four & Chilling Championship

October 28, 2017 by Joe

This is it, boys and ghouls!

Only four competitors, and two matches, remain for our semi-finals round.

The monsters who survive those matches will need to step back into the ring tonight so that our champion can be crowned.

Godzilla may be known as King of the Monster, but tonight we’re going to crown the World Heavyweight Champion of Monsters!

SEMI-FINALS MATCH ONE: DRACULA (1) vs PREDATOR (7)

Predator has had some time to lick his wounds or, more accurately, pours that really unpleasant burning powder on them to expedite healing. But Drac, sensing weakness, wastes little time in transforming into Bat-Beast mode, and going right for the jugular (figuratively and literally).

He gets his fangs sunk in, but glowing green blood tastes a bit like the stuff inside of glow sticks to Dracula. This throws the vampire king off his game, allowing the hunter to become an intergalactic Van Helsing.

Predator thrusts his metal wrist-blades into Drac’s chest. Then with two big slashes, he uses the same weapon to take off Dracula’s head, and take his spot in our Main Event,

WINNER: PREDATOR (7)

SEMI-FINALS MATCH TWO: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs THE TERMINATOR (6)

Even with just one useful leg and one arm (period) our resident Killing Machine is able to pound the taste out of the Wolfman’s mouth. However, unlike Leatherface, Wolfie heals up almost immediately and goes on the offensive.

The Howling Horror gets right to ripping and tearing wires and hydraulics out of every joint he can find. The cybernetic super punches eventually begin losing the power behind them, and the metal endo-skeleton is soon immobilized and rendered little more than a shiny lawn sculpture.

For the coup de gras, the Wolfman digs into the brain chip slot that has already been scratched and softened up in the previous rounds. Once that little piece of silicon is pulled free, it’s light out for the glowing red eyes of the Terminator. With a mighty howl at the moon, Wolfie charges into the championship match.

WINNER: THE WOLFMAN (2)

CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: THE WOLFMAN (2) vs PREDATOR (7)

And now we come to our Main Event! The final clash of terrifying titans that we’ve all been waiting for.

This one gets bloody quickly, soon turning into a true war of attrition. Both beasts scour, stab, and tear with claws, teeth, and blades as the ring becomes a lake of gore. After a ferocious battle, both combatants fall to their knees and drag themselves off to separate corners.

But there’s one thing that Predator didn’t consider. A twist that he should have seen coming: Only silver can kill a werewolf. So the Wolfman heals up, and rises back to his feet.

He doesn’t move in for the kill right away, as even the most bestial of creatures can recognize a worthy adversary. Predator returns the respect, knowing this has been his last hunt. He rises back to his feet, stands on shaky legs, and nods at his opponent. Wolfman dashes across the ring in the blink of an eye, and makes the kill quickly.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE WINNER AND NEWWWWWWWWW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF MONSTERS: THE WOOOOOOOOOLFMAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

I hope you enjoyed reading about this tournament as much as I enjoyed writing it. Maybe I’ll try to come up with something similar in the near-future.

In the meantime, Happy Halloween!

And don’t forget to pick-up my latest novel: What Lies At Baelwood Manor

IT Conquered The World!

September 14, 2017 by Joe

As a part of my new personal initiative to stay active on my blog, I figure I’ll start posting reviews of movies, TV, and whatever else might strike my fancy.

We’ll kick things off with the biggest movie news of this past week: How Stephen King’s IT smashed all sorts of R-rated horror movie opening weekend records.

I’m a massive Stephen King fan. I’ve probably read more King than any other author combined, but I suppose that’s not saying much considering some of his page counts. But books like IT and The Stand prove themselves worth the time investment.

To go off on a slight tangent here, I’ll add The Shining and ‘Salem’s Lot as my other two favorite King books. I’d still love to see a good version of the former that’s truer to the source material than Kubrick’s film, while the latter has actually had two pretty damn good miniseries adaptations. Of course that doesn’t mean it couldn’t use another go-round now that Hollywood was finally able to produce a great adaptation of one of King’s horror novel

(Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption are great films, but neither was based on a horror story)

I’ll keep my review portion short and to the point: I thought IT was the best horror film I’ve seen in years. It accomplished that ever-difficult feat of making the viewer really care about the protagonists, and want to see them vanquish the terrifying-but-weirdly-charismatic villain.

IT works as a coming-of-age story, a story about the everyday terrors of living in a small (and seemingly cursed) town, and a tale of doing battle with an ancient monster.

Perhaps the most impressive thing was Andy Muschietti – and the team of screenwriters – creating the perfect sort of momentum. When the members of the Losers Club were terrified of Pennywise, then the clown was presented as the most intensely terrifying thing possible. And, towards the end, when the Losers began believing in their ability to defeat IT, the viewer was carried right along in that emotional wave as well.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how good all the kids and Bill Skarsgard were. I’ll always have a soft spot for Tim Curry’s Pennywise, if only because the 1990 miniseries hit me at a very impressionable time in my life, and I was the same age as the protagonists were at the time.

But Skarsgard’s Pennywise scared me when I’m 38 rather than 11, and that’s a bigger accomplishment (the R-rating and advances in visual effects sure didn’t hurt his efforts).

The subject of experiencing IT as a child and re-visiting it as an adult is the perfect segway to my last two cents. Everyone else is throwing their dream cast around for IT Chapter Two, so I’ll offer mine below.

I gave myself a few rules to follow:

The actors need to be able to embody the attributes of the adult versions of their Losers Club child counterparts.
The actors have to be people who might realistically be cast in the role. So we’re avoiding megastars, and actors who command mega-millions in salary.
They need to be able to sell the audience on the idea of being grown-up versions of the Losers Club. Having a passing resemblance doesn’t hurt here.

Without further adieu:

Bill Denbrough – Jaedan Lieberher

Adult: Charlie Cox

We need someone who can display the scars from a traumatic childhood – Bill more than the others because of the way he lost his brother – but who can also snap into the leadership role when the time comes to confront Pennywise one last time. I feel like Cox brought both those sides to the table over the course of playing Matt Murdock/Daredevil for three seasons.

Richie Tozier – Finn Wolfhard

Adult: Paul Rudd

Rudd can sell Richie as a successful comedian, being one himself, who can simultaneously annoy his old friends and endear himself to them. His performance as Ant-Man also showed that he can shift into the hero mode needed to face down Pennywise.

Beverly Marsh – Sophia Lillis

Adult: Amy Adams

Jessica Chastain’s name has been bandied about for this part, and having worked with Muschietti in the director’s debut feature Mama might give her an edge. But I like the idea of Adams bringing the same emotional energy that she brought to Arrival to the role of Beverly Marsh. If you can deliver an honest emotional response to time bending back into itself once, I believe you can do it again.

Ben Hanscom – Jeremy Ray Taylor

Adult: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Several actors come to mind that could probably play the part of a formerly overweight punching bag who grew up to be a hunky architect. There were guys like Chris Pratt (too expensive) or Nathan Fillion (doesn’t quite have the gravity) so I went with Coster-Waldau, who’s been killing it in an ensemble over 6 seasons of Game Of Thrones, and who also worked with Muschietti in Mama.

Eddie Kaspbrak – Jack Dylan Grazer

Adult: Adam Scott

I’ll have to re-visit IT sometime to confirm this, but I felt that Eddie delivered just as many laughs as Richie. Therefore, we’re casting another comedian who has also shown some dramatic chops in things like Big Little Lies and Friends With Kids. Wouldn’t hurt to bring over some of that frazzled Ben Wyatt energy from Parks And Recreations either.

Mike Hanlon – Chosen Jacobs

Adult: Michael Kenneth Williams

Mike is the one who stayed behind to “keep the watchtower” so he’s spent the past 27 years serving as a librarian in Derry while his friends all dispersed to enjoy highly successful lives in blissful forgetfulness of their child-eating nemesis. Needless to say, Omar from The Wire has definitely seen some shit. Williams can bring both the shakiness that comes from realizing that the monster is feeding again, as well as the steely resolve needed to drag people he cares about back into the horror as the only ones who have a chance to stop IT.

Stanley Uris – Wyatt Oleff

Adult: Jason Segel

**SPOILER ALERT**

Stanley doesn’t last very long, opting to off himself rather than return to the place where he almost had his face eaten by the nightmare lady from his father’s creepy-ass office painting. Segel is a familiar face that the audience will be comfortable enough with to effectively feel the impact when he takes that fateful bath.

That’s what I’ve got for now. I’ll be back soon, so thanks for taking the time to humor me with a read.

America Is “R”-eady!

April 24, 2016 by Joe

Deadpool just became the highest grossing R rated film of all time, which is awesome, but I’m not here to discuss Deadpool specifically. Rather, what I’m here to discuss is what that film’s success means for the future of film in a more general sense.

The boxes checked off by Deadpool are comic book adaptation, action movie, and comedy film. It would be faulty logic to try and delineate which of these flavors were the biggest reason for it’s record breaking success, as the combination of all three is clearly what led to it. What I’m more interested in is which of those genres will benefit the most from Deadpool’s big win.

We’ll start with comic book movies, as brand recognition certainly factors into box office success. But you can’t really make any more money bringing DC and Marvel characters to life than they already are. These films have made billions of dollars and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Also, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that Deadpool was the first ever successful R-rated comic book adaptation. The three Blade moves were all rated R and – while only the first two were actually good movies – they all turned a profit. Kick-Ass was also received well enough by critics and audiences to warrant an admittedly inferior sequel. The Punisher (2004) and Punisher: War Zone (2008) were not especially profitable, but they were both enjoyable enough to sit down and watch whenever they come on TV some evening or weekend afternoon.

While James Gunn’s Super was very good, it was also an original property, so it may not entirely qualify for this list. But last year’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was a highly entertaining and well-reviewed R-rated comic adaptation. In fact, Kingsman itself did strong enough business to get a sequel greenlit. What I’m ultimately saying is that, even though the money Deadpool made was unprecedented for an R-rated comic book movie, the R rating itself was not.

Comedies with an R rating never really went away. You can track back even just the past 10 years to the films of Judd Apatow and Paul Feig to see that. The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Trainwreck, Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy all made money hand over fist and have strong reviews across the board on Rotten Tomatoes. However, those last two movies lead me to what I believe will be the real genre winner here: action movies.

Yes, The Heat and Spy were billed more as comedies than as action movies. But they are really just a slight shift in ingredient measures away from films like 48 Hrs, Lethal Weapon, and Die Hard. Action films used to proudly hoist their R rating before theaters began to crack down on underage viewers buying tickets to those movies. This is why memorable and fun 80’s and 90’s vehicles like the ones listed above, along with movies like Cobra, Predator, Bloodsport, Out For Justice, Con Air, and Face/Off (and numerous more that I could fill out a whole other blog post with) were replaced by a bunch of fairly toothless PG-13 movies.

It doesn’t seem like the general admission crackdown is going away anytime soon (I might write a post about how the overly Puritan mindset of the American public at-large is doing a disservice to entertainers and those they wish to entertain at a later date) but as long as you can make an R-rated action movie that parents and their tween or teen kids are interested in, then we could see a real Renaissance.

There have been some very good non-comic book “restricted” action movies that have come out just in the past year or two. A few that spring immediately to mind are The Guest, Blue Ruin, John Wick, and The Purge: Anarchy. None of these films carried anything approaching even the relatively low $58 million budget of Deadpool, and none of them had anywhere near the full court marketing press as that movie, but I found them all just as enjoyable.

There is still a market for “adult” oriented action, you can tell just by looking at some of the biggest television hits of the recent past. Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones were/are all excellent shows that bring in millions of viewers each week. Every one of those shows is much closer to an R rating than a PG-13 rating and, in fact, three of them are comic book properties. I can also guarantee that nearly half the viewers for these shows are under the age of 18.

You don’t need to be over 18 to want to see this sort of content but, if you are, then you’re not allowed to go to the movie theater and buy a ticket for it. Odds are that 99.8% of them suffer no mental trauma by watching these shows, this I say from personal experience, but now we’re moving back towards that Puritan values problem I mentioned earlier. My point is that, as long as the product is good, and as long as it is advertised and available enough, films of this nature will be successful.

My theory will get its first real test at the end of May when The Nice Guys opens. Shane Black’s last movie was Iron Man 3, so I suppose it brings a little secondhand comic book brand recognition. But he’s more well known for directing and co-writing great R-rated action films like the aforementioned Lethal Weapon and, one of my favorite action-comedies of the last 16 years, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Yes, there are some big stars in The Nice Guys. But this is not the sort of Oscar bait that most R-rated star vehicles are these days. In fact, it looks a lot more like a fun, old school romp in the spirit of something like Deadpool.

Obviously, I’m not banking on this as the be-all, end-all, since most of The Nice Guys was filmed before Deadpool was even ramping up its massive marketing campaign. But it bears watching trends over the next few years, and I’m personally hoping we get more of those vintage style action movies that I remember from when I was technically too young to watch them, but watched the hell out of them anyway.

It would be a nice break from the 21st century assembly line of sterile, overly polite versions we’ve been force fed. After all, the famous line does not go “Yippee Ki-yay, Jerkface!” it goes “Yippee Ki-yay, Motherfucker!”

Batman v Superman v Batman & Superman

March 29, 2016 by Joe

I’m about to lay out my take on Batman v Superman, so be warned, there are massive spoilers ahead.

The majority of reviews were pretty harsh on this movie and, to be honest, mine will be as well. But there were some things I liked about Batman v Superman, so I’m going to hit on those first.

One big positive takeaway was that Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot were both very good in their roles. They really did the best you could expect actors to do considering the material they have to work with. Their performances managed to get me interested in seeing solo Batman and Wonder Woman films. One other sort of character note was that Doomsday was scary as hell, so they nailed that.

This movie, like any other Zack Snyder film (even Sucker Punch), was great looking. Say what you will about his movies as a whole – and I will do so below – but the guy knows how to work an aesthetic. A more specific example of this is that, like in Man Of Steel, the fight scenes were all very well executed and exciting.

Some of the content from said fight sequences were questionable, but you can’t question that they were purely visceral. I’d like to also single out the scene towards the end where Batman systematically takes out a group of thugs is genuinely the best cinematic realization I’ve ever seen of the Dark Knight in full ass kicking mode.

Now for the rest.

Batman v Superman was absolutely joyless. Everyone acted like a dick to everyone else, and it seemed like the movie took place in a parallel world where smiles were punishable by death.

I’ve seen Henry Cavill be charming in other things, like The Tudors and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. But he’s not allowed a single moment of levity in this movie. Superman was all dour and depressed and nothing else. You think that you’d got to at least give the guy a chance to show how simply awesome it is to be Superman, but apparently you’d be wrong.

There’s a montage of him saving people and, in every example shown, he looks like he’s pissed off at having to pull these fools’ asses out of the fire (literally in some cases). That is not Superman. Superman, in pretty much ever incarnation, enjoys saving people and gets a sense a purpose and satisfaction from doing so. Zack Snyder’s version has more in common with Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, a distant and removed God among mortals doing what we must for no other reason than because it’s expected of him.

I’m well aware that Snyder directed a pretty good adaptation of Watchmen in 2009, but he clearly didn’t understand that Dr. Manhattan was meant to stand in stark contrast to Superman. He was written to be a version of Superman who lost his humanity, which is quite possibly the defining characteristic of Kal El. Even clinically gloomy Alan Moore wrote a more relatable Superman in stories like Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow and For The Man Who Has Everything.

Batman, meanwhile, was blowing people up left and right with no regard for whether they lived or died. That works for a certain type of protagonist, but it is not who Batman is. Tossing severe beatings to the bad guys is very much within the Dark Knight’s wheelhouse, and flipping over their cars is par for the course. But Zack Snyder could not lay off the explosions. A flipped car here and there is cool but, for crying out loud, they do not need to explode and ensure that everyone in the theater has no doubt that those dudes are dead.

I was willing to give Jesse Eisenberg the benefit of the doubt in his portrayal of Lex Luthor, even though the trailers gave me some pause. But he played Luthor as a jittery bundle of nerves, which seemed like the exact opposite of an appropriate characterization. I’m all for giving an established character a bit of a different spin, but completely routing out the traditional cold and calculating core of Lex Luthor is doing a disservice to the character.

Which brings up to the real problem. Warner Bros has never trusted the source material for their DC comics adaptations. Meanwhile, Marvel pretty much films the trade paperbacks panel by panel. As such, WB gave the keys to Zack Snyder and David Goyer, neither of whom seems to have any real affinity for the legendarily storied history of Batman or Superman.

Everything is darker, grittier, more violent, and more melancholic than it ought to be. And this comes from a guy who really liked the dark, gritty, violent Dark Knight Trilogy. But it’s just not the right tone for a movie that includes Superman and Wonder Woman. If I had to guess, I’d say the general flaw in their thinking is that they need to makes things as stylistically different from the generally bright and sunny tones of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a result, they’ve painted themselves into a corner.

Yes, Batman should have some edge and darkness. But Superman is meant to represent the diametric opposite of that. If the symbol on his chest stands for hope, then why is his outlook – and the outlook of this film – so hopeless? BvS just came off as Dark v Darker, and this ain’t Punisher v Wolverine (as awesome as that would be). The filmmakers simply pressed too hard for distance between their brand and the Marvel brand, and ended up in a shadow realm.

WB Films should take some notes from their TV brethren. Greg Berlanti and his team have made a fully fleshed out and realized world that is the closest thing to a comic book brought to life ever seen to television. Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl bring the heart and the fun to the party. In fact, the recent crossover episode they had might as well have been called Supergirl xo The Flash.

But these shows also manage to hit the darker notes when they need to. The big difference being that they don’t start off somber leaving only a deeper abyss to descend into when they want to raise the stakes. When you feel the need to have Superman beaten down by Batman, blown up by a nuclear missile, and THEN stabbed through the chest by Doomsday in the same night to make a point about how hard it is to be a hero, then maybe you ought to reconsider your starting point.

There were other issues with BvS, such as too many nonsensical subplots, and an Apokolips teasing dream/vision sequence that absolutely no one would have missed had it ended up on the cutting room floor. Yes, it was cool to see parademons, Darkseid’s omega symbol burned into the ground and the classic Apokolips fire pits. But all that ate up 10 minutes of screen time that did nothing to serve the story as a whole.

Here’s the thing, I did appreciate the film for what it was. It had a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to be the launching point for a new muti-film franchise. It wasn’t what I’d call enjoyable, but I will certainly watch it again when it’s released on home video, even if I happen to zone out through a good half of it. And I am glad that it had a massive, record breaking opening weekend. A unified DC Universe deserves the chance to exist on the big screen. The upcoming films on the slate simply need to do better in terms of quality.

Maybe giving Snyder and Goyer a little time out, and allowing some DC people like Geoff Jones and CW people like Berlanti a place at the table would be beneficial. I’m not especially hopeful that WB suddenly decides that 80 years of continuous interest can translate to the movies, or that Snyder and Goyer will step back and re-evaluating their vision for the DC Cinematic Universe.

But the world of pop culture and entertainment will be a more interesting place with good, proper DC movies hitting the theaters every year. I just hope they can get out of their own way enough to get it right.

We Need To Talk About Movie Bloat

January 13, 2016 by Joe

A few weeks ago my three month old was only sleeping about an hour at a time – he’s since gotten much better. But this led me and my wife to watch a recently released three hour long movie that shall remain nameless in three or four separate segments and, honestly, it felt like a much better way to watch it than siting down for it all at once.

Historically, epic movies with a massive sprawling tale to tell tended to run about three hours. See movies like Gone With The Wind, The Ten Commandments, or Lawrence Of Arabia. But these films came out at a time when films were still competing with live theater, so two hours, followed by an intermission, followed by another hour was by and large acceptable.

Those times have long since passed. Films are more popular, more accessible and certainly more affordable than live theater. So it’s time they broke from that mold. But I’m willing to forgive a Braveheart here, a Heat there, or even the occasional Gladiator over yonder.

What bothers me is why so many contemporary movies are running up around the three hour mark, for seemingly no other reason other than the director’s ego demands you spend half your day staring at his creation.

Now, I look at the most guilty culprits and it’s easy to understand why this type of bloat is allowed. Martin Scorsese has been making great films forever, Quentin Taratino is one of the last guys can can legitimately claim the title auteur, Michael Bay’s terrible movies make a billion dollars every year, and Christopher Nolan is probably the most successful filmmaker (combining critical and commercial success) of the 21st century.

That being said, The Wolf Of Wall Street was a good hour too long. It was basically a series of events, several of which could have been excised without hurting the film in the least. But him making us watch these awful people do awful things for three hours is just an awful way to treat your audience.

Most of The Hateful Eight’s runtime takes place in a single location with maybe ten characters. How the hell do you allow that picture to explode up to three hours? I mean this is the same guy who made the same kind of movie in Reservoir Dogs more than twenty years ago, and he did it then in just over 90 minutes.

He had the right idea about ten years ago, though, when he released Kill Bill in two volumes that ran about two hours a piece. Why, then, did he decide that he would rather have his viewers slog through the whole damn thing in one sitting?

And, come one, is there anyone out there who doesn’t think Django Unchained should have ended with that first big shootout in Candie Land? I don’t recall anyone calling out for an extra monologue, Tarantino’s terrible South African accent and a second – smaller – shoot out in Candie Land. Do you?

There’s not really anything I can say about Michael Bay’s monstrously bloated, increasingly lackluster filmography that hasn’t been said before. But I would like to point out that he’s made four Transformers movies, the first of which was two and a half hours long, and each proceeding sequel was five minutes longer than the previous one.

At this rate, the next one will run all of four hours, and it will still only have about 45 minutes of giant transforming robots punching each other.

Every film Christopher Nolan makes is more critically acclaimed and makes higher box office grosses than the one before it. However, he seems to think that the way to keep that going to to make each movie longer. The Dark Knight Rises was 2 hours and 45 minutes long. I love me some Batman, but come on!

Interstellar had some really strong and interesting central ideas, along with great visuals, but it did not need to spend an hour driving around the future dustbowl with astronaut farmer Matthew McConaughey before he decides to take off into space in order to save humanity. That entire first act could have been summed up in a five minute flashback segment halfway through the movie.

The truth is that no studio is going to force edits upon these guys, at least not until one of them stumbles and puts out a three and a half hour critically reviled box office bomb. But these are smart guys, they should be able to figure out how to edit themselves to maximize a solid two hours, give or take.

My solution, revealed to me by hourly baby cries, is not really an appealing one for these filmmakers or their studios. The reason being that these films do make upwards of a billion dollars each.

Oddly enough, I really don’t have a problem sitting for three hours of a TV show on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or HBOGo. I’ve realized that this is mainly because I know I don’t need to since each episode will end in a place for a natural break. But, again, while TV may offer a legitimate artistic outlet for guys who want to film something that lasts for six hours, it will never rake in the box office millions.

To that I’ll say that I’m very happy my boy is sleeping pretty much through the night now. But I’ll keep utilizing the lesson he taught me, and watch these big fat bloaters in nice bite sized treats.

Crying Like A Man

December 17, 2015 by Joe

What sort of things make men cry?

I won’t pretend to speak for all men, but I’ll speak for myself and maybe that will shed some light on men at large.

Musical tends to be a major factor in firing up my tear ducts, in fact it is the most frequent culprit. A swelling string section can get to the soft, gooey center of just about any man who is not dead inside.

That’s true whether in an orchestra film score, or incorporated into a ballad or lament. Give me the cellos stirring things up deep down inside, and then the higher pitched choir of the violins to grant the release of tears.

Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back album, especially The Book Of Love, is a prime example of blending pop music with classical trimmings.

Same can be said about Damien Rice songs like Amie, Delicate or Colour Me In. Something with a slow build and a big finish a la With Or Without You, Journey’s Faithfully or Bloc Party’s Sunday tend to get my emotions roiling as well. It’s that they’re working the body bag of my emotions before knocking my block off.

Thematically speaking, the idea of letting go of a dream, a belief, or especially a loved one, can often hit my soft spot. Of course, that’s usually accompanied by the aforementioned musical cues.

John Barry’s theme from Somewhere In Time calls to mind the great essence of an otherwise flawed story about love made possible by impossible circumstances and then torn asunder by the unstoppable force of time.

Meet Joe Black, is a bad three hour movie that might have made a pretty decent two hour movie buried in there somewhere. But the ending featuring Anthony Hopkins saying goodbye to his family and friends with the fireworks and the swelling Thomas Newman score building out of What A Wonderful World always gets me misty.

Stand By Me starts with a simple string rendition of the titular song and ends with the main characters having to leave the innocence of childhood behind. So it gets me every time.

James Horner’s score from Braveheart is fantastic. At one point it takes a fairly over the top torture and execution scene and turns it into the build up of a moment of pure catharsis. The musical score bangs home the idea that, while they may have killed William Wallace, they did not destroy his beliefs. It’s one of those all too rare swelling-tears-pumping-fist moments.

I can occasionally be caught off-guard by understated pieces of a story that are not punctuated by a 50 piece orchestra. Stallone’s locker room interaction with Michael B. Jordan in Creed where he briefly talks about what he’d give up for one more day with his late wife is a recent such emotional movie moment.

Another moment is in Of Mice And Men, when George kills Lenny to save him from a more painful death at the hands of the lynch mob, but also because he knows Lenny can’t help himself but be dangerous sometimes. Either way, he killed the only person who he really cared for, the only thing he really had to hold onto in the world, and that’s a button pusher for me.

As Flowers For Algernon winds down the formerly mentally handicapped narrator starts losing his super intelligence and falls back into his lesser intellectual state. You can tell that he can, and cannot, sense him losing himself again and it’s pretty heartbreaking.

And, good lord, do not even get me started on anything that involves someone’s pet or animal companion dying. That’s the one thing that breaks me down every single time, even if it’s hammy or kinda rudimentary.

At any rate, it’s healthy to have a good cry every once in a while – manly or otherwise. So I’m always happy to revisit the things that bring me the sweet release of sorrow, and you should be as well.

Fighting The Horror

October 17, 2015 by Joe

It’s been a little while since my last blog post, and I wanted to make sure that my favorite time of the year – Halloween Season – didn’t pass without putting something out there. So, what I’m going with is my taste in horror movies and where that taste may come from.

I grew up in the ’80’s, so the focus here will be on the first horror flicks I can remember seeing and the effect they had on my scary movie proclivities. Let’s do this chronologically to give it some form of order.

I was only 2 years old in 1981, so Halloween II had been out for a few years before I ever managed to see it. It still left an impression on me, as the location of a dark and mostly empty hospital still strikes me as one of the best locations for a scary story. And it was a simple enough story, Michael Myers was seeking to finish the job by killing his sister Laurie Strode (that she was his sister was only revealed in Part II and never mentioned in the first Halloween). At the same time, Dr. Loomis was hunting for his own answers about what made Michael Myers into what he had become. Admittedly, Halloween was a better movie that Halloween Part II, but I rather liked how Loomis’ and Laurie’s arcs finally tied together better in the sequel.

1985’s Fright Night was the first vampire movie that I remember watching. Living in the suburbs myself, I really dug how they turned all the things that make people who live in the ‘burbs feel safe dangerous. Because, if you can see a vampire taking a victim and he can see you watching him then there really is no safe haven. But it ultimately had to be high schooler Charlie Brewster who dragged actor-turned-vampire hunter Peter Vincent in the battle against the bloodthirsty Jerry Dandridge. That Fright Night managed to inject a good bit of dark humor into the proceedings only made me connect with it more. As everyone knows by now, laughing and screaming are really just a short breath away from one another. The 2011 remake wasn’t too bad either.

Silver Bullet, based on Stephen King’s novelette Cycle of the Werewolf, also came out in 1985. There would be several werewolf movies from around this era that would blow away this one in my mind eventually (An American Werewolf In London & The Howling), but I didn’t see them until I was into my teens. This one was similar to Fright Night in that it set the horror in a quiet little town that couldn’t possibly be equipped to deal with it, while one kid knew the truth but nobody believed him. Swap in a werewolf for a vampire and I’m good to go!

Looking at the common bond between these first three movies – “Watch out suburbs, here come the monsters!” I probably was just really hoping for a creature to sweep into my hometown so I could get my hero on. Of course, that would be after said creature took out some of the folks I was less fond of in my school. I, of course, would be ready to deal with the beast because…well, because I’d seen these movies after all.

Moving away from the suburbs and into the summer camp, Friday The 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) was the first of the franchise that I’d seen. Honestly, it still may be my favorite of the series. That it was the third film in the Tommy Jarvis Trilogy of Friday The 13th films helps to earn it that top spot. After confronting Jason Voorhees in the previous two Friday films (okay, technically it was only actually Jason in Part IV) he was finally a bit better prepared to fight back. I mean he was no Dr. Loomis, didn’t even have a Medical Degree, but he was the best protagonist that the Friday series ever rolled out. That Tommy and co-lead character Megan made up a poor man’s Kyle Reese & Sarah Conner combo only further endeared this film to me.

The next pair of films are more action/sci-fi than horror, but they hit my sweet spot early on in life just the same. Aliens (1986) and Predator (1987) are two of the greatest genre films of all time, and there’s nothing I can say about them that you haven’t already read five times over. Other than, perhaps, the reason I was drawn to them. I liked how Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley and Arnold Scwarzenegger’s Dutch ended their respective films as equals to the monsters hunting them, and went into a final battle against them as such. In my opinion, nothing beats a good smackdown to end a movie on a high note.

1990 saw the release of the mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s IT, part one of which is still one of the greatest episodes of genre television of all time. I was about the same age as the protagonists trying to survive the terrors of Lovecraftian College of Clowning graduate Pennywise (Tim Curry adding another iconic character to his resume), and so when this one rolled around I was dragged along in its wake.

At around that point, the flood gates opened and 11 or 12 year old me was about to discover a whole lot more horror in a very short period of time. Which makes this a good place to wrap things up.

The one common strand of DNA that runs through every one of these stories is a theme that I look for in any other genre as well: the ability to fight back against the enemy. If I’m being honest, ghost stories creep me out more that monster mashes, because in many ghost stories there’s not much you can really do to battle the forces of darkness.

I suppose I’m just not really drawn to tales of helplessness, and that’s something that applies to things I watch, things I read, and things that I write. which is also why I get very flustered about stories of how the little people cannot possibly win against the sinister and corrupt power elite of society. I may not be a super optimistic person, but I certainly respond more to optimism than to fatalism. There’s more than enough of the bad guys winning in real life, I don’t need to see it in my fiction.

I believe that everyone has free will, and can fight as long as they have the strength to. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you win but don’t survive to enjoy the victory. But, as long as you’ve saved the people you care about, then it’s a worthwhile sacrifice. If you can deliver something fantastical, and stick the landing on the message above, then take my money because I’m there!

The Alpha Breakdown – Story

June 29, 2015 by Joe

Now it’s time for the last part of my three part series breaking down The Alpha. This one will focus on the influences and inspirations for the story itself.

**There are spoilers involved so, if you haven’t read The Alpha (or The Pack for that matter), you may want to skip this until after you have.**

As mentioned in the characters post, the main theme of The Alpha is finding where you belong in the world. Of course, that also involves resolving past traumas and moving on to where you’re meant to be.

That the characters are working through their tragic pasts also allowed me to go a bit lighter with the tone. Which makes sense since who didn’t have a better time in college than in high school? You get a fresh lease on life, and you really are more well equipped to handle the emotional landmines that life lays in front of you.

I’ve also always been intrigued by the idea of secret societies directing the course of the world for their own nefarious ends. I was glad to have Hadrian Graysmith’s long tendrils give me a chance to explore that in this novel.

I wanted to change the mechanics of the story to differentiate it from the dread of the unknown that permeated The Pack. That is why I presented a trio of fully-formed venatores in the prime of their lives. In a way it was me reliving the excitement I felt when Star Wars: Episode One promised to show us that sort of fully-trained Jedi.

Luke never really became a true Jedi, Yoda and Obi Wan were past their primes, Darth Vader was an abomination, and The Pack only really showed Jack Halliday doing his best after being on a 10 year bender. Meanwhile, Craig, Izzy and Michael are all in mid-season form. I do rather hope that The Alpha was executed better than Episode One, but that’s still what planted the seed.

I also wanted to get into more action in this book than in The Pack, which built up the tension for the first two-thirds of the story before unleashing the horrific fury of violence of the last third. Allow me to indulge myself and discuss my favorite action set pieces from The Alpha.

The subway train/tunnel massacre was inspired by my many subway rides that were spent imagining what would happen if the train were suddenly attacked by monsters. What can I say, being stuck in a subterranean metal tube causes my mind to wander. It was also inspired a bit by the cult classic C.H.U.D, the creatures from which I also spent time looking for in the darkened tunnels that shot off in all directions.

That led directly to Michael winning a hard fought battle against a horde of vampires, and then moving directly onto the big boss. The rooftop pummeling was my chance to lay some groundwork similar to Batman: Knightfall, wherein our hero is not really prepared to deal with his nemesis and so is nearly beaten to death by him. That, of course, sets up the big rematch at the end.

Michael and Natalie as reluctant partners has its roots in most buddy cop movies or team-ups similar to Buffy & Spike or Daredevil & The Punisher. The pair fighting their way up the Graysmith Enterprises building was inspired by a number of sources as well. Not the least of which would be Ong Bak 2, The Raid and Dredd.

Alpha Michael vs Vamp Lord Graysmith was probably based more on the countless hours of pro wrestling I’ve watched over the years than anything else. Natalie cleaning up after Michael, and being the one who actually finishes off Graysmith, was just a fun twist on the typical End Boss Battle.

That concludes my three part blog breaking down The Alpha. I hope you found it insightful and, if you haven’t yet read The Venator Series, maybe it will inspire you to do so. There will be another Venator Series entry in the near future, but be on the lookout for a couple of other works coming from me in the even nearer future.

Thanks for stopping by, and keep readin’!

Joe Mikolay

Author Of The Venator Series

Category Archives: movies