Brad's Two Weeks In Cap! (3/30/14-4/12/13)

It's all been building to this.  Every couple of months I fall into obsession - well, let's be real, I'm in a constant state of obsession but that Large Obsession develops into multiple mini-obsessions throughout the year.  When we first started ITMOD Matt & I were obsessing over Hobos With Shotguns, and since then you've seen me ga-ga for Star Trek, Shatner, Heston, Dirty Harry, Batman, Jim Brown, Avengers, Avengers, Avengers, and Avengers.  The hype building up to Captain America - The Winter Soldier has been typically intense across the internet.  Not quite to the level of when The Avengers super movie hit, or even when Pacific Rim flopped all over last year's Summer, but as April 4th got close and closer I found myself all a tingle with anticipation.  Of course, it didn't help that I was rereading Ed Brubaker's monumental run on the Marvel Comic - yeash, I barely got through it all in time for the movie.  When all is said and done, Brubaker's Winter Soldier & Death of Captain America arcs are TOPS while the rest is compiled with schizophrenic peaks & valleys.

But I've managed to squeak in some non Cap stuff as well.  AFI Silver screened David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Darren Aronofsky dropped his wacky Old Testament saga, Cheap Thrills hit VOD, Angelika had the kill crazy rampage of The Raid 2, and Ben Wheatly's magnificent mondo horror A Field in England just hit glorious blu ray.  And yeah, Captain America lead me into a mini-blaxploitation marathon which is proof positive that Winter Soldier is simply too cool for fools, folks.  Here's the breakdown -

Mulholland Drive:  "Maybe it's not me."  I'm almost fairly certain this was not the first David Lynch film I ever experienced (surely, I saw Blue Velvet some time during high school), but it was most certainly the first one I saw on the Big Screen.  And it is the film that propelled me through the rest of his catalogue in which I would eventually discover Lost Highway and Twin Peaks and forever question the realities we establish around us.  Mulholland Drive begins like a typical L.A. Noir.  A limousine crashes alongside a twisting road, a woman stumbles from the wreckage with no memory of who she was before, and a wannabe starlit plays detective.  A Nancy Drew styled investigation begins with sinister side characters popping up to send shivers down spines.  Who is the cowboy?  What horror lurks behind the diner?  What. Is. In. The. Box?  Those seeking answers or simple, tidy resolution should not bother.  You could probably crack some plot out of the script, but it's best to approach Mulholland Drive as an experiment in tone, style, symbolism.  There might be answers, but they're not going to be nearly as interesting as the act of Lynch's Hollywood deconstruction.  This is hard boiled poetry.

Captain America - Two Americas, No Escape, & The Trial of Captain America by Ed Brubaker:  After resurrecting Bucky Barnes and killing Steve Rogers, it felt like Ed Brubaker pretty much said all he had to say about Captain America.  With The First Avenger debuting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside Robert Downey Jr and the billion dollar promise of Joss Whedon's Blockbuster, Rogers had to be put back under the cowl in the comics.  I hated, hated, hated that cold hard fact at the time, but upon rereading the series I found myself really enjoying the comic book silly of Reborn.  And that's probably where Brubaker should have left.  Every story he crafted after that was a bit of a letdown.  Two Americas has its moments as Bucky Cap battles the Captain America of the 1950s while Steve Rogers goes off to have spin-off Super Soldier adventures.  It's decent.  50s Cap is a sadsack tidbit in comic book history worth exploring.  No Escape pits Baron Zemo Jr against Bucky Cap and the climax is emotionally confusing and utterly blah.  And after removing Bucky Barnes from the equation offscreen in Matt Fraction's abysmal Fear Itself event, The Trial of Captain America concludes The Winter Soldier storyline in a boring, run-of-the-mill prison escape.  The murky world of Cold War paranoia handled so exceptionally by Ed Brubaker and Steve Eptiing concludes with some half-assed/half-hearted storytelling.  It's rather depressing.

Iron Man Three:  "Take me to church!"  This film will always suffer in the eyes of fanboys as the followup to The Avengers.  I hate hearing the complaint, "Why doesn't Stark just call up the Super Friends?"  It's a question you'll never hear from comic book geeks.  I'm sure we could spend hours/days/months/years concocting a reason why Captain America doesn't appear to kick The Mandarin's ass, but the simple fact is that every movie cannot be The Avengers.  Cap was busy.  Deal.  I think that Iron Man 3 is an exceptional emotional sequel to Joss Whedon's extravaganza.  Director Shane Black brings in as much of his personality as he can, and delivers a banter heavy buddy film in which Tony Stark battles his inner demons (PTSD here instead of that classic Demon in a Bottle) while navigating the shadowy world of domestic/corporate terrorism.  And I'll never understand the hate for Ben Kinglsey's Mandarin.  You wanted Yellow Peril?  You thought Fu Man Chu was a badass comic book villain?  No you didn't.  No one liked The Mandarin five years ago, and don't pretend this twist on the character is not genius and the only way the MCU could have gone.  For my money, Iron Man 3 is easily the best of the trilogy, and leaves Tony Stark in a fascinating predicament for Avengers - Age of Ultron.

Thor - The Dark World:  I really enjoyed the first film's romcom approach to super heroes, and it remains my favorite of the Phase One Marvel Movies.  With Jane Foster now coming to Asgard, I was hoping for some more of that fish-out-of-water comedy, but it doesn't seem like Marvel was interested in staying small and character centric after The Battle of New York.  Not as successful in moving forward as Iron Man 3, The Dark World still succeeds more than it fails thanks to the neverending charm of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston.  When Thor & Loki are on screen the audience is having a good time.  When Dark Elves and Aethers are filling exposition the audience is yawning.  Not a bad movie, and certainly not the worst film in the MCU cannon (cough, cough, Iron Man 2), The Dark World certainly doesn't thrill as much on repeat viewings.  Alan Taylor managers to craft a fun world hopping action sequence for the climax, and Mjolnir has never worked better then it does here playing catchup, but ultimately I feel that Thor 2 is simply a stopgap on our way to the next adventure.

Ultimate Spider-Man #200:  I don't really talk much about single issues on the blog anymore.  Frankly, as I struggle to keep these Weeks in Dork flowing on time, I just don't have the energy to ramble on about every floppy that gets my attention.  That being said, I just need to take a moment and gush about Brian Michael Bendis' latest bit of Ultimate Spider-Man goodness.  Peter Parker is dead.  I hope he stays that way.  I'd like to say that in the Ultimate Universe dead is dead, but that Carnage Gwen Stacy monstrosity is walking around and there's a retcon that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should - gross, gross, gross.  But hopefully Ultimate Petey remains in the ground...at least as long as Bendis is writing the book.  Writer leaves, I leave.  The 200th issue (I guess if you count all the relaunches and the Cataclysm event that makes sense) revolves around a memorial for Peter Parker.  Aunty May is there.  Gwen Stacy (again, Carnage, again, gross) is there.  Mary Jane.  Kitty Pryde.  Miles Morales.  Ganke.  Kong.  The whole supporting cast.  Each one is given the chance to imagine what the world would be like if Parker hadn't died.  Their splash pages are wonderful.  Kitty's page is heartrbeaking.  This is the type of melodrama that Spider-Man comics do so well, and Bendis reinvigorated my love for the character.  Just keep 'em coming.

Noah:  I enjoyed it.  More than I thought I would.  But I really haven't thought about the movie since I left the theater.  Russell Crowe's Noah is one tough hombre.  He's burdened by visions of God's watery wrath, and decides to construct an ark to hold the innocents of Earth - aka the animals, no room for man here.  I really enjoyed the first half of the film with Crowe partnering up with rocky fallen angels and defending his earthship from Ray Winstone's marauding sinners.  However, once the rains come and the family psychodrama takes over, I checked out.  The Genesis flashback is pretty cool, and when the film gets nuts, it really gets nut, but I never connected with Noah's pain.  This is more the kind of film I want from Aronofsky, but it's still nowhere near as engaging as his earlier films.

Captain America Volume 6 Issues 1-17 by Ed Brubaker & Cullen Bunn:  What a whimper.  As stated above, the best Captain America comics occur under the direction of Ed Brubaker, but his final run on the series is a tremendous letdown.  For the first five issues, Brubaker is joined by Super Star Artist Steve McNiven and he kills it...until he disappears from the series and the Operation Bravo storyline is rushed by the pedestrian work of Giuseppe Camuncoli.  Ugh.  And Operation Bravo???  Way back when in WWII, Cap & Bucky lose a military operative in a child's imagination where he partners with Hydra lackeys and..............snooooooze!  Bravo sticks around for the rest of these issues where Cullen Bunn finishes Brubaker's plot involving a floating Hydra base and Jack Kirby's Mad Bomb.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Along the way D-Man gets a 90s makeover and Diamondback gets catty with Agent 13.  It's hard to believe this is the same guy responsible for The Winter Soldier.  Brubaker was on his way out from Marvel and it's painfully obvious during his final moments.  A real comic book tragedy.

Captain America - The First Avenger:  It's hard not to focus on the missed opportunities when discussing Cap's first appearance in the MCU.  Raiders of the Lost Ark + Marvel (should) = The Greatest World War II Nazi Smashing Adventure Film Ever Made!!!!  Sadly, the film looses itself (& WWII) through a series of limp montages as it propels Steve Rogers into the future where he'll contribute to the Damn Yankees of Comic Book movies, aka The Avengers.  Pretty much ignoring Hitler and his SS Goons in exchange for the toy friendly Hydra, The First Avenger screws itself when it comes to the villain threat.  The Red Skull is the most terrifying villain in the Marvel Universe, and he's tidied out of the plot with a couple of punches and an inexplicable (although extremely opportune) touch of Asgardian teleportation.  I'm still crossing my fingers that The Skull will redeem his villainy in Captain America III, and if enough money/sandwiches are thrown Hugo Weaving's way I'm sure he'll supply his Herzogian razzle dazzle.  What the film does get right is Steve Rogers.  The First Avenger is easily the most successful of the cinematic origin stories, and there is more heart in Chris Evans's performance than in all of his Super Friends combined.  His final moments with Stanley Tucci's Dr. Erskine reduce me to tears every single time - that index finger to the heart...gosh...heart in throat. Movie Audiences can be a cynical bunch of eye-rollers these days, and it's truly impressive that a golly-gee "Truth Justice & The American Way" kinda super hero can snatch their attention.  I only wish Warner Brothers had that amount of trust in their audience when it came to their gritty, modern Man of Steel.  So, for that first hour alone, Captain America The First Avenger ranks as one of my very favorites in Phase One of the MCU.

Captain America - The Winter Soldier:  Ten minutes in, the film had me.  No other studio on the planet would open their giant franchise blockbuster with a character beat.  Steve Rogers, the Man out of Time, runs laps around the Washington Mall and has a chance encounter with modern day soldier Sam Wilson.  The two bond through their Military Experience and Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man soundtrack. Captain America, The Falcon, & Mr. T! Does it get any better than that!?!?!?!?  Oh my goodness, YES!  From their we get a S.H.I.E.L.D. Assault on a hijacked ocean liner, a wannabe Bourne ass kicking of Batroc The Leaper, a Downtown DC Nick Fury beatdown at the hands of the not-so-mysterious Winter Soldier, a cold war bunker full of War Games, and a climactic trilogy of action straight out of Return of the Jedi.  Did I enjoy The Winter Soldier as much as The Avengers?  No, I don't think so.  There will always be something special about The Avengers - it was the first to put Cap, Thor, & Iron Man on the same screen.  It's hard to top.  Is The Winter Soldier a better movie than The Avengers?  Maybe.  It certainly contains the best action sequences we've seen in the MCU so far.  Cap's shield has never been more comic book perfect.  The film absolutely understands the sadness behind the Man Out Of Time concept, as well as the hopefulness of The Greatest Generation Warrior.  If I had one complaint about the film is that since the Bucky Barnes character was horribly underused in the first movie then those in the crowd without a built-in investment for their friendship might not fully grasp the tragedy of The Winter Soldier device.  Of course, despite the subtitle, Cap 2 is less about the brainwashed villain and more about the Cold War Conspiracy infecting the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Who is Captain America when America is no longer America?  Old Fashioned Values vs. Post 9/11 Freedom Isn't Free Morality.  It's a juxtaposition of ideals that writer Mark Millar plunged exceptionally in both his Ultimates run and the Civil War saga, and it's exactly where Captain America belongs on the big screen.  The Winter Soldier leaves Steve Rogers with a friend to rescue, and his own humanity to uncover.  This Cap fan couldn't ask for anything more.

Trouble Man:  Shaft, Foxy Brown, and Black Belt Jones might get more attention, but for my money there is no better example of the blaxploitation genre than Ivan Dixon's Trouble Man.  Robert Hooks is Mr. T, a pool hall fixer hired by Paul Winfield to prevent a ring of thieves from knocking over his clandestine poker games.  Of course, things are not what the seem, and T is framed for a killing he did not commit....and proceeds to commit plenty of other killings to get to the bottom of the inner city mystery.  Robert Hooks is the coolest cat on the planet.  Every line of dialogue is delivered with icy confidence.  Men want to be him, and women want to be with him - I'm sure men would take a shot too if T swung that way.  Ernest as all hell, Trouble Man has no room for your irony.  Criminally underrated, if you want to understand the appeal of blaxploitation look no further than Trouble Man.  And as The Falcon already knows, the Marvin Gaye soundtrack is stellar.

Cheap Thrills:  Brutal.  Ugly.  Gross.  Funny?  Not really.  If you've seen the trailer then you've pretty much already seen the movie.  Pat Healy is a down-on-his-luck husband & father.  He's just days away from eviction, and recently unemployed.  He stumbles into a bar instead of facing the crying baby at home.  There he encounters a former high school friend and a peculiar couple flashing wads of hundred dollar bills for any poor sap to take notice.  Drinks are bought, coke is snorted, and a vile game of Truth or Dare (mostly Dare) ensues.  What starts off as Slap That Waitress for $200 escalates into Chop Off Your Pinky for $15000.  There's not much to it.  Blood.  More blood.  Death.  More death.  You get the idea.  The story feels a little bit like a modern day Roald Dahl short story without the Twilight Zone whimsy.  Not a bad movie, but it left me empty.

Rodan:  Pretty much the same story as Godzilla or Mothra, but instead of a giant lizard or a giant moth you get a giant pterodactyl.  When he appears later in the series, I love, love, love Rodan.  He's a giant hunk of rubber that loves to flap his wings and tear down buildings.  Sometimes he even does it for good!  But for his first outing, I just couldn't find enough unique properties to separate him from his progenitors.  The film starts off with some nifty giant insects, but their terror disappears once the big bad shows up.  This film could have really used some Kaiju on Kaiju action.

Three Days of the Condor:  After listening to the Russo Brothers discuss their influences for The Winter Soldier on the Empire Podcast, I felt like it was high time that I saw this seminal example of espionage cinema.  Robert Redford is a low level CIA analyst who steps out for lunch one day only to return to an office full of corpses.  After contacting the higher ups, Redford flees from Max Von Sydow's trenchcoated assassin and into the arms of Faye Dunaway's passerby.  The thriller aspects of the plot are exceptional, and Von Sydow is as chilling as he is inconspicuous.  However, I have no idea why Dunaway is in this movie.  Is it simply a Hollywood requirement that all films must have a love interest?  She's utterly superfluous, and every moment she's onscreen subtracts from the film's tension.  Other than that, solid flick.

The Raid 2:  This was quite simply the most violent, horrible, disgusting, violent, insane, grotesque, mean-spirited, violent, deplorable, violent, gratuitous, violent, over-long, badass, and violent thing I've ever seen.  Yowza!  Having watched and thoroughly enjoyed the first film, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.  Instead of an hour and forty minutes of asskicking and bloodshed, there would be two hours and forty minutes of asskicking and bloodshed.  Yeah, that's kinda accurate.  But "bloodshed" doesn't do the film justice.  What spawned from a siege assault action picture bloats into a Godfather/Serpico wannabe in which Iko Uwais's Rama infiltrates the Indonesian underworld by selling his soul to the morally bankrupt police department.  What once took an hour to fight his way out, now takes years.  The film has the slimmest of plot, just an excuse to pause fifteen minutes between bone shattering action set pieces.  And I Loved Every Second Of It.  I cannot believe the film squeaked by with an R rating, and it certainly won't be for the masses, but if you're a fan of blood, guts, and limbs flying action than The Raid 2 is absolutely an essential film watching experience.  You'll be out of breath by the time the credits roll.

3 Dev Adam (aka Turkish Captain America):  "Adios Mafia!"  Here's one that simply needs to be seen to be believed.  A thief dressed in a thrift store Spider-Man costume pillages the rich of Istanbul to sell antiquities to the richer of North America.  This catches the attention of both the American & Mexican government who hire Captain America & Santo to take down the Turkish villain.  At least that's what I think is going on.  It's nearly impossible to discern the plot thanks to incoherent subtitles, and seemingly random plot developments.  What is certain is that 3 Dev Adam is an absolute blast to behold.  Whether it's The Spider's endless deaths, or his terrifying puppet orgasms - this Turkish Captain America has to be one of the best unintentionally funny films I've seen.  Projected from a shoddy VHS, the Alamo Drafthouse delivered the goods for this latest Video Vortex selection, and guaranteed my butt in the seat for whatever the dare to screen next.  Bravo.

Hell Up In Harlem:  "I've got some funerals to attend."  At the end of Black Cesar, Fred Williamson is gunned down in the street by the murderous agents of Whitey.  Dead is Dead?  Yeah right!  Hell Up In Harlem opens with Williams brushing himself off, stumbling into a hospital, and - All Better.  I'm not really a big fan of the original film; it's a rather rudimentary retelling of The Godfather.  However, this sequel?  Jeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzuuuus.  Forget Don Corleone, Hell Up In Harlem is all Scarface, and Fred Williamson is never cooler than when he's looking for a little payback.  And it's a sweet, weird ass revenge.  You've got Pimps vs Ninjas, A Long Island Scuba Assaults, Mammies With Machine Guns, and what might be the longest distance fist fight ever - yeah, it's takes a whole continent for The Hammer to satisfy a beatdown.  But then Williamson quickly finds the show being stolen away from him by Julius Harris as his father gone wrong.  Big Poppa!  He goes from disapproving patriarch to tommy gunning flesh trader.  The transition of character makes absolutely no sense, but it's a whole heap of entertaining.  Hell Up In Harlem comes close to being my favorite blaxploitation film, and it's certainly one of my all time favorite sequels.

Truck Turner:  "She's a middle class broad...and you're one gross son of a bitch."  This is a bizarre movie.  Not the typical black hero vs. white devil, Truck Turner is a vile, cat-piss wearing bounty hunter targeted by a ring of pimps & prostitutes lead by Nichelle Nichols & Yaphet Koto.  Isaac Hayes seems to relish his big chance to spout heinous profanity and commit savage acts of violence.  Truck Turner embraces its exploitation in ways that its contemporaries seem to only scratch the surface.  Sometimes that makes for some uncomfortable bits of awkwardness, but for the willing audience member, that political incorrectness is also Truck Turner's charm.  Where does it stand next to the greats?  Not sure.  Every time I watch this film I forget how gross & weird it is, but I'm now thinking that it's time to put it into a yearly rotation.  It's a trip.

Slaughter:  Trouble Man is numero uno.  Slaughter is a close second.  After his parents are murdered by the mob, Jim Brown's badass cop leaves the badge behind and descends into the hell of Mexico to take down the demons responsible.  Part Dirty Harry, part Death Wish, all Jim Brown - Slaughter is an exceptional example of tough cop cinema.  But every hero needs a great villain, and Slaughter fills that order grotesquely with Rip Torn's rat-faced hitman.  Even when he knows better, he cannot help but spit venom and hate.  Torn would rather die in a wreckage of gasoline & flames then say one last nice word - "Yeah, I did that."  The rest of the film is peppered with a perfect supporting cast: Stella Stevens's mafioso playmate, Don Gordon's sideburned sidekick, Norman Alfe's confusingly afroed kingpin.  An exceptional cast of oddballs, and a leading man of total cool & confidence separate Slaughter from the rest of the pack.

Captain America & Bucky by Ed Brubaker, James Asmus, & Francesco Francavilla:  When a comic book creator is popular that inevitably leads to Spin-Offs! Spin-Offs!  Spin Offs!  Ed Brubaker's Captain America & Bucky series originally started out as another way to explore their WWII past, but quickly transformed into just another Cap book.  I didn't stick around for long.  But since I'm loosing my mind with the star-spangled super hero this month, I thought I would give the series another shot.  At least the trades illustrated by pulp maestro Francesco Francavilla.  Old Wounds revolves around a series of terminator androids leftover from Cap's Invader days.  Robots & Human Torches?  Just perfect for Francavilla's pulp noir style.  The story is so-so, but Francavilla sells it.  Not the highest recommendation, but it's a fun stop on your way to the real gem...

Captain America & Black Widow by Cullen Bunn & Francesco Francavilla:  When Bucky left the Marvel Universe for the second time, this series became a revolving door of Captain America team-ups.  Brubaker is gone, but The Sixth Gun's Cullen Bunn steps in to fill those mighty big clown shoes.  Cap & Black Widow are warped into the wacky concept of multi-universes, and have a series of run-ins with steampunk tripods, Lizard/Doctor Octopus Hybrids, and diabolical doppelgangers.  High art?  No.  But this is exceptionally comic booky!  And it's a shame that Francavilla only had these two tiny arcs to play in the Captain America sandbox.

A Field In England:  "I am my own master."  Three viewings now, and after each one I love this film just a little bit more.  If I was redoing my Top Ten List from last year, A Field In England might even squeak ahead of The World's End, The Act of Killing, & Only God Forgives at this point.  That seems crazy to me in some ways, but this latest Blu Ray addition simply floored me at the end of the week.  I find myself less entranced by the oddity of the film - that Monty Python cast wondering into the madness of HP Lovecraft.  Yeah, that still fits, but with each rewatch I become more and more enamored with Reece Shearsmith's bumbling alchemist and his transformation into a real-deal Solomon Kane.  Ben Wheatley made a couple of solid flicks in Kill List & Sightseers, but I'm starting to see a masterpiece in A Field In England.  I may even rank it up their with Zodiac & The Proposition as one of my very favorite films of the last fifteen years.  There certainly is nothing out there quite like it.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/30/14-4/5/14)

    Another good week for this dork.  Too many sleepless nights, though.  I can’t believe the insanity of the times we live in.  For dorks like me, this is a wonderful and weird time.  Marvel Comics are hitting the big screen to critical and financial success.  Science fiction movies are starting to be taken somewhat seriously, and there are even occasional good ones.  It’s wild.  But it brings with it some negative elements, too.  I recently went back and watched some classic Doctor Who, just to remind myself why I love that show.  Like late-coming comic fans who claim their favorite superhero is Hawkeye (NOBODY’s favorite hero is Hawkeye!), the new Who has produced a good deal of new fans who make older fans like me feel kind of awkward and uncomfortable.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m glad the new show is a success, and I love that it’s bringing in new generations of fans.  I am.  I just can’t relate to them.  What they love about the show is not at all what I love about the show.  In fact, more often than not, what they love about the show seems to be the stuff that’s making me less and less of a fan of the new series.  Still, young nerds are our future.  I should remember that.  Anyway, on with the week.

Put the screwdriver away and use your brain!

    Sunday morning, I read the first two volumes of Abe Sapien.  It’s OK.  At best.  For part of the Mignola universe, it’s pretty disappointing.

Grand Hotel:  This pioneering ‘all star cast’ film is full of wit and charm and fun characters.  It’s gorgeously produced and keeps a good pace.  There isn’t a plot, so much as a bunch of characters going through various arcs of their life over a couple of days stay.  From residential folks to temporary guests, the quirks and concerns of people give way to humor and drama.  Everyone is so good, but my personal favorite is John Barrymore, who is so charming and so sad as the down on his luck baron in desperate need of some quick cash.  A must see film.

Doctor Who: Paradise Towers:  Ultra 80s with a strong dose of J.G. Ballard, this is one of the few good stories of the last few years of classic who.  There are gangs, oppressive guards, robots, cannibals, and a cowardly action hero.  I like the look and general vibe, which I’ve said before, reminds me of 2000AD comics.  The late years of Doctor Who make me kind of sad, but this is one of the few bright spots, and so earns some marks.  It’s what Who could have been in the late 80s, as opposed to the lackluster stories that were much more common.

Mulholland Drive:  “It’s been that kind of a day.”  In many ways this film is Lost Highway Redux.  It covers some of the same themes, similar storytelling techniques, and general mood.  The major difference is the lesbian angle, which seems to be what made critics who hated Lost Highway love Mulholland Drive.  It is some wonderful David Lynch madness, and it’s got some great performances and great scenes.  But it doesn’t feel as smooth, or as (I can’t believe I’m going to use this word) coherent.  This is a nightmare turned into a film, and as such, it’s kind of beautiful, but also very frightening in a way horror films rarely are.

Noah:  This never gets as bugnuts crazy as the source material, but it is high myth-fantasy, and as such isn’t bad.  The first two thirds of the film is the best.  Honestly, once the Flood happens (sorry…spoilers) the film drops several gears and I found myself just waiting for the eventual end.  But up to that point, it was entertaining.  I wish the Watchers and that armored dog thing weren’t the only creatures, though.  Jewish myth and a lot of early proto-Christian mysticism has so much crazy I’d have loved to see them attempt.  Where were the Nephilim?  Where were the ‘wheels within wheels and covered in eyes?’  Still, flame-burst swords, drug-trip conversations with the divine, and Rock-Ents.  Oh, yeah.  Drunken Russell Crowe.  Awesome.  Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins play exactly the same character they play in all these historic/fantasy films.  Not great, but not bad.  And easily the best thing Aronofsky has done since The Fountain.

Drink blazing hot redemption, sinners!

The Legacy:  Typical, boring 1970s horror movie, The Legacy features the conspicuous credulity of protagonists that was common in the time.  Everyone seems perfectly willing to simply accept that there’s a witch cult, that they’re doing black magic, and that everyone’s in on it.  No question, no ‘this can’t be happening,’ nothing.  The leads are super dull, and Sam Elliot does NOT work as a romantic interest.  It’s competently shot, but ultimately dull.

Captain America: The First Avenger:  I still wish this movie was a more solid Captain America film, and less of an opening chapter for The Avengers.  I wanted the whole thing to be set during World War II, and for those couple of montages to be spread out into the meat of the film, the battle against Red Skull.  That said, watching it again, and looking at the film as part of a greater whole that Marvel/Disney is building, the film works much better.  That’s something I’m finding interesting about all this crazy business.  They’re making movies that are individually OK, that when taken as a whole are kind of amazing.  All the connections, all the world building, all the ground work being put in place for an ever expanding series of films.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier:  This is a sort of nerd nirvana that is still blowing my mind.  The story in this is OK.  It’s a pale shadow of Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier comic, but it’s not bad.  Characters get more time, we see Cap deal with some of the effects of his dislocation in time, and we get many nods to various comic characters and ideas that I need a guide to figure out.  I really enjoyed the addition of Falcon, and I liked him and Cap as a team.  I’m still not really sold on Black Widow in the films.  I don’t know if it’s the actress or the writing, but whatever the case, she’s typically the most iffy part for me.  There’s much more of her in this film, and while not bad, it wasn’t holding my interest.  Which is too bad, since I’d liked her so much in the Captain America comics I read.

Black Plague (aka Anazapata):  “Don’t look at us! There’s none of us can write.”  A kind of run of the mill Medieval mystery/drama.  It’s well made, I suppose, and fairly well produced.  But it’s simply not all that interesting.  And as the movie goes on, you start to realize it’s another one of those movies where all men are monsters and all women their perpetual victims.  And the film isn’t even French.

Moby Dick: “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee!”  Obsession and madness drive men to their graves in this adaptation of the nautical classic.  Like Joseph Conrad, I’ve never been able to get into reading Melville, but also like Conrad, I find elements of story and theme that resonate, even if the writing doesn’t.  The finale of the film is pretty awesome, and I love the look of the whale and its violence.  However, it felt like the movie was overall, a bit too stodgy, a bit too traditional.  It’s a story that begs for a more Gothic or even Noir style.  I wanted the extremes of the men to be echoed in extremes of design and cinematography.  Instead, the somewhat utilitarian filming seems tone deaf.  That is, except for Orson Welles’s opening sermon and the film’s climax, which are pretty wild.

Dredd:  This is the hardcore, ultra-violent cyberpunk movie I’ve been hungering for since Robocop.  They finally get Dredd right, get his world right, and make a heck of an entertaining movie.  The cast is good, the effects are kind of beautiful, and the violence is crazy…and also beautiful, it its way.  Grim, bloody, and tough as hell.  I love it.  It’s developed quite the cult following since hitting DVD.  Here’s hoping that gets enough attention to get a sequel.  But I doubt it.  Still, we got a proper Judge Anderson, finally.  Even if it is as a rookie.

Forbidden Planet:  I was kickin’ around when this popped up on TCM, and I had to watch it.  Great movie.  I’ve seen it many times before, and I love it every time.

    I had Forbidden Planet on while I was working on my list of hoped for Marvel movies of the future.  And after working on it, and thinking about Captain America 2, I had to put on my copy of Trouble Man.

What if Marvel Madness happened in the 70s?!

Trouble Man:  “T is the last man in this world I want looking for me.”  Mr. T is one seriously bad dude.  He’s got the world on a string, but somebody is looking to start some trouble.  As he unravels the conspiracy, he chews through the underworld.  Robert Hooks is super cool.  This one is right up there, near the top of the list when it comes to great Blaxploitation films.  I don’t know why it isn’t talked about as much as some of the others.  It should be.  See it.

    And that’s it.  This ended up being a bit of a weird week, where plans fell through a couple times, and a lot of stuff ended up playing out differently than I’d expected.  But it all worked out.  And I did finally, finally get a little sleep.  I’m still trying to get more reading done.  After that surge of comic reading last week, I’ve been somewhat lax.  And I really, really need to finish Lord of Light, which I started a dogs age ago.  But it’s tough.  You need to be focused, and I’m not.  Anyway, next week is already shaping up to be a good one.  So, ‘til next time.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (1/19/14-1/25/14)

    Not a lot of movies this week, but some good dork life living.  Finished a book, listened to some tunes, and did a bunch of reading and worrying in preparation for hosting my first role playing game in a very, very long time (with one very brief exception 3 years ago).

Airplane:  Some of the humor of this film is lost now, due primarily to the world changing.  It’s not shocking to hear some of the topics addressed in such a frank way.  But in spite of some of that inevitable aging any comedy that dares to tackle current events or cultural trends is going to go through, it’s still quite funny, and some jokes appear to be timeless.  It’s so absurd, but so well delivered.  And every danged line Peter Graves delivers is pure gold.

    Sunday night, Lisa, Brad, and myself headed out to the Alamo Drafthouse to see an early favorite of mine, Brazil.  It was really something seeing the film on the big screen, and the first time really watching it in a several years.  What a wild movie, and it must have been pretty darned out there when it hit theaters.

Brazil:  One of those films that was so important to impressionable young Matt, Brazil captures that faded dream of a retro-future Utopia so beautifully.  Terry Gilliam tries his hands at Orwell, through the lens of Kafka, and the results are amazing.  It’s funny, it’s unsettling, it’s horribly dark and on occasion, downright mean.  And it’s full of fantastic performances.  Even the repair men are great.  The script is funny.  The world creation is phenomenal.  The music is great.  A classic, all around.

Snow Queen:  Ten minutes in, I checked the runtime and my heart sank.  Three boring hours.  Boring, boring, boring hours.  Made in Canada.  Made for TV.  Dullsville.  Acting sucks.  Directing is lifeless.  Script is crap.

In the Mirror of Maya Deren:  This documentary, as surface as one expects from less than two hours, does serve as an overview of the woman and her art.  Plenty of interviews with people who knew and worked with her, combined with some footage from her films lets you get something of a sense of Deren, a strange and passionate person who broke a lot of rules, and not just the obvious one of being a woman filmmaker in the 40s.  Her work exudes the dream logic I’ve come to love in later David Lynch, as well as the late Euro-trash cinema wunderkind Jean Rollin.  Can I tell you what a lot of her films mean?  No.  Not remotely.  But they capture a mood.  As a jumping off point, I think this film works very well.  I kind of wish I’d seen it 15 or 20 years ago, when I was interested in voodoo.  Deren did a great deal of research and filming, and even wrote a book on the subject, which apparently gets high praise.  A woman ahead of her time, her work is something film fans should seek out.

    On Friday night, I finished Cleopatra.  An excellent, accessible look into the late Egyptian world and the beginnings of the Roman Empire we tend to think of when we think of Ancient Rome.  It reads like a novel, while having lots of insight and context.

The Flame and the Arrow:  “We’re civilized and the art of civilization is doing natural things in an unnatural way.  I’m just a little more civilized than other men.”  Medieval adventure with heaping piles of high-flying gymnastics.  Burt Lancaster can’t seem to stop doing crazy circus tricks with his outlaw buddies, as they face off against a typically stuffy historic adventure movie foe.  The girls are pretty, the guys are dashing, the villains are pompous.  And the sets look pretty good.  Hardly a game changing classic, it bares more than a passing resemblance to any number of other Technicolor action films of its time.  But it’s fast paced and filled with fun, colorful characters.  And that’s pretty good in my book.

    Saturday night we had our 20th meeting of our graphic novel club, hosted by Brad and Lisa.  This time around we read Sailor Twain, which while lauded by critics, turned out not to wow most of us in the group.  A couple people hated it, one person really liked it, and most of us felt very mixed.  It’s no wonder I stalled while writing my review for it nearly a month ago.  I’ll have to go back and try to finish it.

-Matt