Dark Phoenix - Movie Review

Starring James McAvoy, Sophie Turner, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Jessica Chastain, Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, Alexandra Shipp and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Written & Directed by Simon Kinberg.

★★½ 

We’ve had three X-Men movies, three Wolverine movies, and this is the fourth X-Men First Class movie. Between this and Apocalypse, it’s a good argument for the franchise to hibernate for a few years and come back rebooted in the MCU.

Why is this movie retreading the plot from X-Men: The Last Stand? For one, I’d argue it was the worst movie of all of them so they wanted to retell this story right. For another, the events of Days of Future Past screwed up the timeline, so the events of the Patrick Stewart trilogy wouldn’t have happened that way in this timeline.

I did find it strange this movie takes place in 1992. That means it’s been 29 years since McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, etc. were in X-Men: First Class, and there’s no effort to age them accordingly. Oh well.

So how is it? Well, for starters, maybe the producers thought Sophie Turner’s big from Game of Thrones so it’d pay off to make her the star of the show. But this means other, more famous actors take a back seat to her in the action. Jennifer Lawrence seems like she’d rather be anywhere else than doing another one of these movies. Michael Fassbender doesn’t show up until a good 45 minutes in (but when he does show up, the movie is better for it.)

I liked it a little more than X-Men: Apocalypse. The third act final battles are more satisfying, especially the part on the train. But ultimately I’m glad this was the last outing.

Alien Covenant - Movie Review

Starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Egojo, Amy Siemetz, Jussie Smollett and Callie Hernandez.
Written by John Logan & Dante Harper.
Directed by Ridley Scott.

★★★

This is a sequel to Prometheus, while still being a prequel to Alien, and while the familiar xenomorph does show up, along with the face-grabber, this is still more in the vein of Prometheus.

At the end of that movie, the survivors Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and David (Michael Fassbender) set out to find the home planet of the Creators, the large white creatures that apparently designed the aliens. We eventually learn their fate in this movie.

Meanwhile a colonalization crew aboard the Covenant is headed for a new planet to colonize, but they receive what may be a distress signal from a different, habitable planet that they were unaware of. The captain dies in his hibernation pod due to malfunction, and the second-in-command Oram (Billy Crudup) doesn't seem to be up to the job. Daniels (Katherine Waterston) is his backup, and she happens to be the wife of the now-dead captain. This crew of 14 decides to explore the new planet, and if they like it, they may use it to settle as their new home instead.

And on that planet, they meet David.

Now the Prometheus crew has their own synthetic with them named Walter. Fassbender plays both, and he does a great job of making them two complete characters. We can always tell who's who when David cuts his hair to match Walter's. (Which seems a little weird that no one questions it.)

It features some pretty gory deaths once the action kicks in, aliens bursting out of people's chests, backs, and mouths, and then when the main alien grows to its usual height, more people die in body-shredding ways. This movie filled in some holes that Prometheus left, and it's still very open for another film, which director Ridley Scott plans to be the final bridge between these prequels and 1979's Alien.

My biggest problem with this is the giant fluxuations in continuity, as far as how quickly these aliens incubate and grow. Remember when John Hurt had that thing on his face for 24 hours before it let go, and it took a few more hours before something burst out of his chest? This one has a face-grab to chest-burst in about one hour. And I can't say it was that scary. It's monster-movie fun, with a Hammer horror flavor to David, but the first two movies may never be topped.

SAG Award Nominees 2013

FILM
Ensemble Cast
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
August: Osage County
Dallas Buyers Club
The Butler

Lead Actor
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Forest Whitaker, The Butler

Lead Actress
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County
Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Daniel Brühl, Rush
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
James Gandolfini, Enough Said
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

Supporting Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey, The Butler

TV
Ensemble – Drama
Boardwalk Empire
Breaking Bad
Downton Abbey
Game of Thrones
Homeland

Ensemble – Comedy
30 Rock
Arrested Development
The Big Bang Theory
Modern Family
Veep

Actor – Drama Series
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Jeff Daniels, The Newswroom
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

Actress – Drama Series
Claire Danes, Homeland
Anna Gunn, Breaking Bad
Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Coven
Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Kerry Washington, Scandal

Actor – Comedy Series
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Jason Bateman, Arrested Development
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Don Cheadle, House of Lies
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

Actress – Comedy Series
Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Actor — TV Movie or Miniseries
Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra
Michael Douglas, Behind the Candelabra
Jeremy Irons, The Hollow Crown
Rob Lowe, Killing Kennedy
Al Pacino, Phil Spector

Actress – TV movie or Miniseries
Angela Bassett, Betty & Coretta
Helena Bonham Carter, Burton and Taylor
Holly Hunter, Top of the Lake
Helen Mirren, Phil Spector
Elisabeth Moss, Top of the Lake

STUNTS
Television Stunt Ensemble:
Boardwalk Empire
Breaking Bad
Game of Thrones
The Walking Dead
Homeland

Film Stunt Ensemble:
All Is Lost
Fast and Furious 6
Lone Survivor
Rush
The Wolverine

LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Rita Moreno

12 Years A Slave - Movie Review

Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Alfre Woodard, Adepero Oduye, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams, Bryan Batt, Taran Killam, Scoot McNairy and Quvenzhane Wallis.
Directed by Steve McQueen.

★★★★

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender

Probably the best movie on slavery since Roots. But very difficult to watch.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, Salt) stars in the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man living in 1841 New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South.  Solomon is an educated man, well off from what we can tell as a violinist for hire.  He is our window to the experience, and it's a shrewd way to let us in.  Solomon is not a slave, nor is anyone in the audience, and so it makes easier to relate to the horrors thrust upon him, as opposed to someone who just grew up with it as their lot in life.

I've read some articles recently on trauma and PSTD, both what it does to children and to adults, but then there's the entire spectrum of damage done by slavery.  What does it do to generations beaten and imprisoned their entire life, family routinely removed from them, dehumanized daily.  What does it do to generations to raise them believing these humans over here aren't really humans so you can torture them and degrade them all you like.

Some of us descend from psychopaths who were okay with treating other people worse than animals.  Some of us descend from those other people who lived their entire lives at the mercy of those psychopaths.  How can a nation heal from such origins?

There's a scene where Solomon, on his way to the store, runs into some white men about to hang two black men.  And it's all treated so casually by everyone else in the scene.  The white men are just doing what's done, the black men know they can't do anything to resist, and Solomon has to walk away in despair as he hears the death throes of the slaves behind him.

Director Steve McQueen has an unflinching eye in the brutality.  There's another scene where Solomon is strung by his neck and his toes can barely touch the muddy ground.  We keep hoping the scene will cut away to something else, but it stays on him, and we hear him choking, and in the background, we see the other slaves ignore and go about their day. This is just the way life is.

Solomon spends most of his 12 years under a mentally unstable alcoholic named Epps (Michael Fassbender).  Epps has a mantra that "a man can do whatever he likes with his property." Epps' wife (Sarah Paulson), in ways, is as evil as he is, for when she gets upset, she wants to see some slaves beaten.  Slavery in all its brutality could only happen if there were women in on it.

I view it similar to Passion of the Christ, in that it's very violent, but it also leaves you with a lingering sense of the scope of suffering.  I was impressed with the pacing of it, and the way each event led to the next.  This is sure to get award nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor (Fassbender) and Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o, as slave-girl Patsey who unfortunately is liked by Epps).

One other note: there's a scene when a supervisor played by Paul Dano starts singing "Run N----r Run" to the slaves. It shows off his own deranged joy at keeping slaves in their place, but it also seems relevant to the headlines of today with Richie Incognito and others are still using the word. Let's just say I agree with Isiah Thomas's take on it.

Prometheus - Movie Review

Starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Alba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris and Rafe Spall.  Directed by Ridley Scott.
★★★

This is a prequel of sorts to Alien, but it's a distant prequel, by which I mean I can see another movie or two happening between the events of this and Scott's original classic Alien.

The setup is familiar. A team of scientists, experts, etc., are on an exploratory mission. They believe they've found where life on Earth came from. They're in hibernation for two years while the ship travels; only the android David (Michael Fassbender) is awake. The scenes of David by himself are very reminiscent of the first half-hour of Wall-E.

The crew eventually awakens, and then they are given their mission brief. I think it's amazing that a crew would agree to go on a four-year mission without being told why before they were put into hibernation, but work with me here. They have found a habitable moon around the planet LV-223 (look up Leviticus 22:3), where they believe their creators - they call them the Engineers - are from.

I caught this in 3-D, and I really enjoyed it that way. This is a visually gorgeous film. The set design has H.R. Geiger's handiwork everywhere, and the eventual mythology spelled out makes sense in the Aliens universe.

There are three primary issues I have with this film. I have many more, but these are the three primary ones.

1. Unanswered questions. I am cool with some unanswered questions; it invites discussion. But there are so many unanswered questions that it's hard to tell what they were intentionally ambiguous about and what they just had no idea what the actual answer is. Rememeber how the end of Star Trek V felt like a cheat? Prometheus isn't as bad as that, but it made me think of it.

2. Stupid characters. Stupid character decisions are okay here and there. I mean, why is Brett looking for the cat by himself in 1979's Alien when he knows that killer critter's on board? But Alien had seven people and we got to know each of them. Prometheus has seventeen people on board, and half of them could be named Soon to Be Alien Fodder Especially If You Have An Accent. The experts in their fields, allegedly smart people (especially the biologist), behave as idiotically as teenagers in a Friday the 13th movie.

3. There is one character who dies near the end in such a stupid way that I can't help but think that maybe they actually survived and we had a bad camera angle. I mean, it's stupider than anything else anyone else does, and therefore it gets its own issue number.

It has its other, more minor issues, like why cast Guy Pearce if he's going to be in old-age make-up the whole time? And despite all of this, I am hungry for Prometheus 2. Prometheus 2 doesn't even have to connect us to Alien yet. There's plenty of room there, and possibilities. A lot of the bioengineering stuff worked for me. The explanation of what's really going on on that planet worked for me. Most of the time we don't know much more than the characters. I devoured the visuals.

It's a brilliant mess, a moronic masterpiece, a wonderful misfire. It's a paradox. And so I would recommend it to those who are curious, but expect to be a little annoyed when you come out.

A Dangerous Method - DVD Review

Starring Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel and Sarah Gabon.
Directed by David Cronenberg.

★★

I'll start with the good. Viggo Mortensen is very good as Sigmund Freud, and Michael Fassbender is very good as Carl Jung. Their conversations crackle.

Unfortunately this movie about talks itself to death. It centers on Sabina Spielrein, a groundbreaking psychoanalyst in real life, but here we meet her as a shreiking woman entering an asylum. We watch Jung analyze her, watch him deal with her issues. He talks to her, he talks to Freud, Freud talks to her. Jung eventually crosses the professional line and takes her as a mistress.

Keira Knightley's performance is all over the map. Sometimes I admired its fearlessness, yet other time she made me want to laugh out loud.

I read about the true story afterwards, and it sounded like they'd been more faithful to real events, it would have been a better movie.

Haywire - DVD Review

Starring Gina Carano, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Matthieu Kassovitz and Michael Angarano.  Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

★★½

The boast of this fairly standard thriller is that the fights scenes are more realistic. Gina Carano is an MMA fighter, and therefore her fights are a little more belieavable than those from DOA: Dead or Alive. Even then, though, there were a couple times where the sped-up editing felt like there'd been some CGI tweeks to what I was watching.

But they are good fights. They're fast, they're brutal, they have a more realistic choreography to them than what we're accustomed to from Hollywood.

Now I need to back up. The plot bears more than a passing resemblence to the Bourne series, though it is a little murky, in that Carano's an agent who's very good at her job, so why her government chose her to be the fall guy for an assignment gone wrong doesn't make sense. But hey, at least she gets to go on the run and beat up guys like Michael Fassbender and Channing Tatum.

The movie has its slow spots, and it's clear that some of the big name stars (Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas) only had a day or two of filming for their scenes.

Is Carano the next female action star? Meh. She needs to work on her on-screen charisma, but I'm willing to follow her, see if she improves from here.