The Dorkies 2014! (Matt's Picks)

    After two pretty rough years, 2014 finally brought it home for me.  Sure, it’s not 2011, but it’s a good year.  While the Fall season produced few films of note, the earlier part of the year was quite nice.  And that meant that I didn’t have such a glum demeanor throughout.  There were, perhaps, few so called ‘great’ films.  But there were plenty of good ones, and that’s OK by me.  Plus, they were all over the place, from drama to action, foreign to domestic.  Nice.  Take a look back at Dorkies past with 2011, 2012, and 2013.  And give a listen to our ITMODcast episodes about our top 10 movies; episode 1 and episode 2.


10.  The Raid 2:  The Raid and Dredd came out the same year, and they’ve got basically the same ‘plot.’  Between the two, I preferred Dredd, in part because of the science fiction elements; in part because they finally got the character right on screen.  But The Raid still slipped on to my top 20 list, because of how awesome the action and fighting were.  So, I was glad to see the sequel, but not especially expecting much.  What I got was a thrill ride whirlwind of extreme violence and visceral horror.  Half way through the movie, I was begging characters to start using guns to kill people, just to be more humane.  The story, while nothing new or special, does take the characters into new territory and the acting and character beats make the movie stand out among its peers, if the tremendous fight choreography didn’t already.

9.  Cold in July:  Director Jim Mickle has been making low budget horror films that have been among the best in recent years (Mulberry St., Stake Land, & We Are What We Are).  This time around he turns his eye on an 80s set crime story, and it’s awesome.  You will not be ready for where the film takes you.  When you think it’s one kind of story, it becomes another.  And when it goes dark…It goes so danged dark.  And Don Johnson!

8.  All You Need is Kill (aka Edge of Tomorrow):  Though there have been a lot of very disappointing science fiction movies lately, there really have been a lot of good ones.  In this Groundhog Day style story of a man stuck repeating the moments before his death at the hands of alien invaders, Tom Cruise gets to do what he does best in solid action scene after solid action scene.  The film doesn’t talk down to the audience, which is nice.  There’s a good story, and a good protagonist character arc.  But what I also really liked was that Emily Blunt, who is quickly becoming a Matt favorite, gets a meaty, badass role.  Science fiction film remains far, far behind the literature.  But I’m hoping that at least in the coming years, we can finally see women getting better parts in genre films.  More like this, less like Anne Hathaway in Interstellar (The crying…Oh, the crying).

7.  Mr. Turner:  It’s not too surprising that a movie about a painter would be beautiful.  But this late life story of J.M.W. Turner is more than a visual feast.  As the camera moves around through his day to day life, we get a growing understanding of the man and his world, of the wonders and horrors of life in Victorian England.  On the surface, the film is bright and beautiful, with less of the grim, sooty gloom you might expect from the world of Dickens and the like.  But as Turner’s servant slowly rots and one by one people die of various sicknesses, or chronicle lives of shattering horror, the viewer is reminded of just how terrible the past was, even for those we think of as privileged (in this case, the British upper class).  I like that the film doesn’t feel the need to tell you a lot.  You watch, and you take it in, and you make your own judgments.  Turner’s extremely sweet and loving relationship with his father, his horrible relationship with an estranged family, his budding romance with a twice widowed woman, the awkward dealings with a self-important/self-destructive and money obsessed fellow artist, his puppy-like devoted servant… We see it all, but without being told what we should think.  (As a side note, I saw this right after seeing this year’s Belle, and they make fine companion pieces.  Belle takes place about a hundred years earlier, and both have interesting things to say about class and society in England of that time).

6.  Ida:  Gorgeous black & white cinematography draws you in to this story of a cloistered young woman, about to take her vows and become a nun.  Contacted by an estranged aunt Wanda, she takes a trip out into the world, where she learns about her past and what it is that she’s preparing to give up.  Generations of guilt and horror lurk, as Ida explores her family history and her aunt reveals dark secrets.  The Holocaust, the Communist purges, and the shadow of the Cold War.  Dang.  Like 2012’s Barbara, it looks at the other side of the Iron Curtain in a different way than I’m used to.  Ida and Wanda are two fascinating characters, set apart from their world for different reasons.  Quiet, but compelling.

5.  Guardians of the Galaxy:  Not a lot of movies, outside of the original Star Wars trilogy embrace the crazy, fun, weird, wild worlds of Space Opera.  And fewer still do it successfully.  Guardians of the Galaxy takes a handful of obscure Marvel Comics characters (though for once, characters I was familiar with) and thrusts them center stage.  And it’s Marvelous.  It’s like Farscape got a movie.  Fun, funny, irreverent, and full of heart.  The tone is light, but it still manages to tug on the heartstrings in ways the other Marvel Cinematic Universe films haven’t.  As a whole, I think the MCU films are fantastic, but individually, this and Thor are the only ones I truly love.  I feel like maybe I’m living in another Science Fiction golden age, akin to the 1980s.  Sure, I may be disappointed by the odd Prometheus or Interstellar, but I’m getting Science Fiction that ranges from thought provoking to heart pounding.  And I love it.  And finally, genre films like this are being seen and enjoyed by all, not poo-pooed by snobs.

4.  Jodorowsky’s Dune:  I saw a lot of documentaries this year, many of them quite good, many of them exciting and inspiring (see my top 20 for more).  But this portrait of professional mad bastard Alejandro Jodorowsky hits all my buttons.  It was a different time.  The 1970s.  And someone thought, let’s adapt the sprawling epic novel Dune for the big screen.  And of course, let’s put the man behind Holy Mountain and El Topo at the helm.  WHAAAAAAAT?  As this master of the weird assembled his Avengers of Transcendence, a movie that would shape decades of science fiction film would begin to grow.  But it was too much.  It couldn’t happen.  Yet, out of the death of this overly ambitious project, so much was born.  For a film buff, and specifically for a science fiction buff, this movie is a must.  And the central figure, Jodorowsky, is a marvel.  He lives up to everything you expect from the guy who wrote The Metabarons.  Makes me wish I could travel to an alternate universe, where Tom Selleck was Indiana Jones, Christopher Walken was Han Solo, and Jodorowsky made Dune (and perhaps took humanity to a new state of being).

3.  Under the Skin:  Did you watch Drive and think, “Why’s everyone talking so much?”  Did you see Only God Forgives and think, “Why’s there so much exposition?”  Well, have I got a movie for you.  I can’t really tell you what it’s about.  Figuring that out is part of the magic of watching the movie.  I can tell you this.  There is no exposition.  The film never tells you what’s happening.  It’s beautifully shot.  It’s occasionally horrific.  The first time I watched it, the ending really, really bothered me.  The second time I watched it, I came to the belief that the ending completely worked.  The music is very weird.  Hope that all helps.

2.  Godzilla:  I could gush and gush about this film.  It lived up to all my Kaiju hopes.  From the first teaser trailer with Oppenheimer’s “Destroyer of Worlds” speech to the moment Godzilla shot atomic destruction down the Muto’s throat, I was buzzing with excitement.  This is the Godzilla film I’ve been waiting for, the first one to really, really get to the heart of the beast since the classic Showa era.  Godzilla is the essence of the Earth, the manifestation of its will, nature personified.  Be it aliens, creatures from the deepest parts of the planet, pollution, or human meddling, Godzilla will put things to right, no matter how much gets broken in the process.  Bring on King Ghidorah!

1.  The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Probably the most meticulously Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson has made yet, this film is at turns funny, crass, sad, and intensely strange.  If you allow yourself to buy into Anderson’s ‘Doll House’ film making, this will be a delightful journey.  Elements hearken back to Golden Age Hollywood, to European adventure movies, and to Cold War paranoia.  The cast and cast of characters are top notch Anderson, with plenty of regulars and a few new faces.  And Ralph Fiennes is in top form as the wonderfully debauched, debonair, and downright profane M. Gustave.

Best Actress:  Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl plays so many different roles, from sweet to Satan.  Pike’s changes through the movie elevate what could easily have been silly into a truly terrifying performance.  And sometimes, in spite of all the horror she does, you still find yourself hoping things work out for the best.  That’s a tough thing to sell.  (Runner up: Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant)

Best Actor:  Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel is a profane charmer.  It’s a return of dashing Fiennes, and I love it.  He jumps into the hyper-stylized world of Wes Anderson and starts throwing dialog like he’s always lived there.  His delivery is as impeccable as M. Gustave’s Hotel.  A great comic performance if ever there were one.  (Runner up: Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner)

Best Supporting Actress:   Agata Kulesza in Ida almost steels the show as the weary and wary old revolutionary.  She is the bitter, shattered husk of a disillusioned party shill, and Kulesza manages to make you feel for someone that by all rights you should hate.  A monster in her latter days, possibly redeemed in some small way by gifts of worldly wisdom to her innocent niece.  (Runner up: Rene Russo in Nightcrawler)

Best Supporting Actor:  Dave Bautista in Guardians of the Galaxy took a character that could have been dull, even with the script, and spiced it up with his teddy bear charm.  It’s really a break-out role for him, and I hope that he can turn it into something.  (Runner up: Don Johnson in Cold in July)

Best Director:  Pawel Pawlikowski for Ida.  A beautiful, tight, well acted study of two women in the shadow of the Iron Curtain.  It may not be as flashy as some, but it’s darned fine.  (Runner up: Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel)

The Bottom Five Films of the Year:

(I don’t even want to talk about how bad these movies are.  I’d simply advise not to bother).

5.  Raze

4.  Hector and the Search for Happiness

3.  Transformers: Age of Extinction

2.  Transcendence

1.  300: Rise of an Empire

"This!  Is!  ....Bullshit!!!"

Biggest Disappointments:

5.  Interstellar: Beautiful, with a great score and a couple good performances.  But kinda obvious and too rooted in 2001.  I’d rather go back and watch Dave, Hal, and the bone wielding apes than see the infinite bookshelf room again.

4.  Lucy:  I wanted to see a return to early Luc Besson.  Alas, no.  Just more contemporary Luc Besson (read: crap).

3.  Expendables 3:  That’s it.  I’m out.  I loved the heck out of the first two stupid movies in this stupid franchise.  But part three gutted the violence, focused on unlikable/unwatchable young actors and felt like it missed any and all points.

2.  Snowpiercer:  The look and concept are fantastic.  The script…not so much.  For this viewer, the film needed to be a 30 minute shorter action movie, or an 8 hour longer mini-series.  Nowhere near enough world building or character development to make me care when things start happening.  I feel like there was a good movie in here somewhere.

1.  The Immigrant:  The production design is beautiful and atmospheric.  And the three leads are all excellent.  Unfortunately, it seems like the three actors are in different films, acting past each other, not with each other.  Marion Cotillard is especially good and feels the most right for the story.  If only the film had focused on her, and not bothered with the weird, totally tone-deaf love triangle.  Alas.

Video Finds:

10.  Mr. Nobody:  A strange and interesting science fiction movie that deals with what might have been and what might be.  The differences in our futures based on the choices we make.  Similar in theme to Run Lola Run, it handles the topic in a very different way.

9.  The Ballad of Narayama:  A beautifully crafted fairy tale about age and death.  It has a beautiful artificiality that lends a lot to the feel of a tale told around a fire.

8.  Vanishing Waves:  This Lithuanian science fiction film is all kinds of weird.  Kind of a new take on Altered States, but with plenty of its own twists.

7.  Love:  A solid, artsy but not to pretentious science fiction film, shot on a budget.  It looks really good and has enough going for it that fans should seek it out.

6.  Legendary Weapons of China:  Plenty of badass weapon combat in this classic Martial Arts flick.  Great action.

5.  Age of Consent:  James Mason goes off to an island to get a sense of himself.  There, he meets a young woman who helps remind him of how to live life.

4.  Manborg:  What can one say about Manborg?  If you were (are?) one of those people who haunted the library stacks of video rental shops, hunting for that rare film you’d never heard of (Slipstream, Xtro, Basket Case, Spacehunter, etc.); if you waited with bated breath for the newest Full Moon or Troma video release; if you love a really good bad movie; you’ve got to check out Manborg.  It gets it so right, and so wonderfully wrong.  Obviously crafted by folks with a deep love for those obscure works of the past, it’s a thrill for a fan like me.

3.  The Wraith:  Related to Manborg, this is one of those 80s movies that used to sit on those very video rental shop shelves.  For some reason I’ll never understand, I hadn’t seen this film until this year.  Now that I have, I can’t believe it isn’t talked about more.  Such great 80s weirdness, great cast, and so much fun.

2.  Die Farbe:  I’m always on the lookout for good Lovecraftian horror films.  More, I’m on the lookout for good actual adaptation of Lovecraft’s work.  And here we have The Color Out of Space, in German.  It’s an excellent take on the tale, with fairly limited alteration (connections to WWII, for example) that do nothing to detract from the source (like the romance in the otherwise excellent The Resurrected).  Very much a film to seek out.

1.  Altered States:  One of those movies I’ve been aware of for what seems like forever, but have rarely heard good things about.  Often referred to as ‘boring’ or something similar.  For whatever reason, I decided it was time to break down and check it out, and I’m glad I did.  I loved it.  Steeped in all that post-Hippie, Utopian, drug-fueled, mad science stuff that I love so much in Fringe, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Rabid, and more, it’s got lots of cool images, some solid performances, and a pretty crazy ending.  For Fringe fans, this is a must, as it absolutely feels like the stuff Walter, Belly, and Nina were getting up to in those early days.

2014’s Most Forgettable:

Jack Ryan: Not a bad movie, but didn’t this come out years ago?  No?!  Wow.  I vaguely remember watching it, I guess.

Seriously, I have the ticket stub. I know I saw it.

Best Viewings at the Alamo Drafthouse:

5.  The Good the Bad and the Ugly

4.  Halloween III (this is up there with seeing Phantasm II & Razorback at the AFI Silver)

3.  City Lights

2.  Rocky IV

1.  3 Dev Adam (aka Turkish Captain America)

Glad to See You Again:

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  I was glad to see a fun and enjoyable Middle Earth again.  After a lackluster first film and a crappy second, I was glad that the third Hobbit film was more enjoyable, and more in line with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Hey, It’s Better Than Avatar! (movies that might not be great, but they‘re better than Avatar):

5.  Chef

4.  Noah

3.  Interstellar

2.  How to Train Your Dragon 2

1.  Big Hero 6

The Life of Pi Award for Most Simpering New Age Crap:

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Best Documentary:

Life Itself:  While not shying away from the uglier sides of Roger Ebert, this ultimately uplifting film celebrates the man, warts intact.  More emotionally resonant than many fictional works, it made me love the life’s work of a man I rarely agreed with.

Mulder’s Beard (the one good thing in an otherwise unwatchable film):

Antonio Banderas’s crazy bastard performance in The Expendables 3

Best Score:

Under the Skin

Best Soundtrack:

Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Moment:

Godzilla’s Atomic Breath

Best God Fight:

Yahweh VS. The Sinful Hoards in Noah

Best Cameo:

Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy

My Most Anticipated Film of 2015:

Jupiter Ascending:  I’ve liked all the directors’ previous films and I’m super excited to see original, grand scale science fiction being realized on screen.  Sadly, while everyone complains so heavily about a lack of originality in movies, bemoaning sequels and remakes, everyone also seems bound and determined to ignore anything original.  Well, I’m gonna be there, dang it.  And so should you.  For the future.  For America.  For the children.

Top Twenty:

20.  Nightcrawler
19.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier
18.  Tracks
17.  The Signal
16.  The Rover
15.  Particle Fever
14.  Life Itself
13.  Tim’s Vermeer
12.  Belle
11.  Automata
10.  The Raid 2
9.  Cold in July
8.  All You Need is Kill
7.  Mr. Turner
6.  Ida
5.  Guardians of the Galaxy
4.  Jodorowsky's Dune
3.  Under the Skin
2.  Godzilla
1.  The Grand Budapest Hotel

-Matthew J. Constantine

Brad's Week in Dork! (3/16/14-3/22/14)

Most of this week has been spent in a fidgety state of anticipation.  Marvel Studios (THOSE BASTARDS) decided it was just peachy to screen Captain America - The Winter Soldier to the online critic community a month out from the public release, and my Twitter Feed has been abuzzing with copious spurts of geekgasms.  If you believe the hype then Captain America 2 is not only better than The Avengers (a feat I personally would find astronomically astounding), but the single greatest comic book movie ever made.  That certainly cannot be true, and I'm immediately attempting to temper expectations on the homefront.  But that is oh so hard for us dorks, right?

In an effort to distract myself from the social media blitzkrieg, I've made it my mission to complete Ed Brubaker's Epic Run on Captain America that began in 2007 with The Winter Soldier, and completed in 2012 with the oh-so-lackluster Hydra Island business with co-writer Cullen Bunn.  That's a crap ton of comics, and I've only completed the first 25 issues, but I think it's a goal this dork should have no problem accomplishing.  And I'm not the only one in this apartment excited to see Chris Evans crush some (Red) Skulls.  As we did with Wes Anderson (more on that later), The Wife & I are making our way through the entire Marvel Studios canon.  We've already brushed through the Iron Mans & The Incredible Hulk, and this week saw Marvel go all-in with the comic book crazy in the first Thor film.  Taken on their own these movies range from "ok" to "pretty good," but when you look at the Universe Building getting done as well as the climactic whiz bang wow of Joss Whedon's The Avengers, I cannot help but love each and every building block in the series.  Here's hoping they can keep this spandex ball rolling.

But enough of that super hero silliness!  The rest of the week saw another totally badass screening at The Alamo with Dirty Harry, Veronica Mars crawled her way back into our Marshmallow hearts, Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neal unleashed their latest fanboy apocalypse with The Roses of Berlin, and yes, Wes Anderson delivered what is possibly my favorite film in his dollhouse universe.  I really am stunned at the degree in which I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel.  I hate to leave a theater spouting the superiority of the latest work above all previous past efforts, but it's an enthusiastic urge I find difficult to stifle here.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Having recently watched every single film from Wes Anderson in chronological order, I can safely say that I've enjoyed all of his movies to one degree or another.  Picking a favorite is tough (The Life Aquatic & Fantastic Mr. Fox will probably be locked in a death struggle for some time), and even my least favorite movie (Moonrise Kingdom) found its way into my Top Ten Films of 2012.  Haters accuse the director of arrested development - the Father/Son theme drummed to death, the stagnation of style, the twee aesthetic.  However, as we left the theater Sunday evening, The Wife compared his films to the Baroque era.  Anderson is variations on a theme; his career so far has been an attempt to work/rework and perfect his technique, and I am hypnotized by his craft.  The Grand Budapest Hotel certainly dabbles with the Father/Son issue once again, but what I found myself gravitating towards was what the film's framing device says about the importance of storytelling to the human experience.  A young woman sits down at a grave to read a book...an author struggles with his introduction...an old man tells his story.  Ralph Fiennes gives a career best as the profane Gustave H, a concierge who stuffs his basest urges to sleep his way into prosperity.  Never mind the World War grinding its wheels all around him.  Anderson has dabbled with violence and tragedy in the past (Machetes in Aquatic, severed tails in Mr. Fox), but he brings real darkness to his pristine workshop and it clobbered my emotions.  The Grand Budapest Hotel demands a rewatch real soon, I'm guessing next week, but if it is not at the very top of my Top Ten Films of 2014 I will be very, very, very surprised.  And probably utterly elated since that will mean this year will go down as one of cinema's finest.

Dirty Harry:  Kicking off that vigilante spirit that eventually climaxed in a dozen crappy 80s wannabe Death Wishers, Don Siegel's Dirty Harry is a beastly statement on the public's frustration with perceived runaway crime.  Clint Eastwood is Judge Dredd, a San Francisco police detective who rips free from political red tape to blast his way through the scum of the city.  Loosely based on the unsolved Zodiac killings, Andrew Robinson's Scorpio sniper holds the city hostage from the rooftops while Harry beats the streets below.  Killer vs Killer.  Eastwood is super cool TNT with his elbow patches, sunglasses, and .44 Magnum.  As much as I love The Man With No Name, it's' really in Harry Callahan where the mancrush solidified.  Who doesn't love righteousness?  Law & Order?  F-That.  He's the badguy.  Shoot the badguy.  Clean up the streets.  Black & White Justice, that's the dream.  Or a deeply troubling fantasy for good ol' U-S-of-A.

The Dead Pool:  When I got home from The Alamo on Tuesday night, I was not done with Harry.  Jumping over the first three sequels, I chose The Dead Pool for my followup because it was the first film I ever saw starring Clint Eastwood, and therefore it holds a very special place in my heart.  It's not a good movie.  And it's a terrible Dirty Harry sequel.  But it is fun as all hell.  When Jim Carry's Guns & Roses lipsinker cokes out in his movie trailer, Harry Callahan is called to solve the case of Celebrity Threes.  Gorehound Director Liam Neeson is prime suspect number one, but does he have the know-how to construct an army of remote control car bombs???  Yeah, what the hell is going on in this movie?  Dumb, dumb, dumb, and the Dirty Harry schtick is wearing thin.  "You know what that means?  You're shit out of luck."  Not quite "Feelin' Lucky Punk" is it?  But dang it, The Dead Pool still makes me smile and I would certainly shill out some cash for another senior citizen Harry flick.  Come on Eastwood, you gotta another Harry in you for sure.

Thor:  Here is the film that made The Avengers possible.  The God of Thunder.  How do you make that work in the world of Iron Man?  You avoid the God issue by transforming Asgardians into immortal aliens.  You snatch this space age Shakespeare play and drop them into Middle America for a lighthearted romcom with explosions and hammer fights.  Job well done.  The stakes may be low, the scope may be tiny, and the budget is certainly lacking.  But Chris Hemsworth embodies The Mighty Thor in the same way that Christopher Reeve WAS Superman.  Tom Hiddleston is a breakout star as the trickster Loki, and Natalie Portman acts the hell out of Golly Gee WonderLUST.  Marvel Studios sells us on one of their whackiest creations, and not only does it pave the way to The Avengers, but also The Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and The Inevitable Crusade of D-Man...ok, that last one might not happen, but here's hoping.

Captain America (1990):  Oh, hey you, Marvel Movie Haters...HOW DARE YOU CRAP OVER JOSS WHEDON'S THE AVENGERS!!!  "It's not as good as the comics!" Blah, blah, blah - SHUT UP!  You don't know how great you've got it.  You weren't there in the trenches of Direct-To-Video Hell like us oldtimers.  You don't remember Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD, The Punisher, or this miracle of crap.  But now thanks to the wonders of blu ray and the good folks over at Shout Factory, you too can experience this "film" from master craftsman Albert Pyun.  However, if you squint your eyes and if you're in a MST3K kinda mood, then this very shoddy Captain America is actually a good deal of fun thanks to its puttied Red Skull straight off the set of Star Trek Voyager, and The Captain's baffling rubber ears.  Ronny Cox guest stars as The President of the United States, and Ned Beatty is his four-eyed cub reporter hungry for a good story.  So you know...squeal like a pig and enjoy!

Veronica Mars:  It's been what, seven years since the final season of Veronica Mars aired on television?  I really enjoyed that first season, the second season was ok, and I could never finish the date rapey college years.  As much as the people of the internet screamed for more, I was good.  But then came kickstarter, three million fanboy/girl dollars, and a mad marketing campaign.  The Veronica Mars movie is solid.  It's like an extra long episode of the tv show.  Veronica ditches Piz and her high paying job to head back to Neptune for a high school reunion and yet another murder case involving bad boy Logan.  I can't get too excited about it, but I can't crap over it either.  It's fine.  I'd watch another.  That's bout it.

Captain America - The Winter Soldier Omnibus by Ed Brubaker:  Sooooooooooooooo gooooooooooood.  Robert Kirkman's Invincible is my all time favorite Super Hero Comic Series.  But Ed Brubaker's Captain America run is my all time favorite Marvel Super Hero Comic Series.  And I initially refused to read it back in 2007.  Bucky Barnes, back from the dead?  Hell no.  You don't resurrect Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Bruce Wayne's Parents, or Bucky Barnes.  That's law.  And yet...Brubaker breaks it with so much damn class that fanboy history be damned.  Retcon away sir!  Brubaker's run on Cap is a noirish spy thriller involving a demonic leftover from The Cold War, and heaps of sinister espionage.  The first half of this book is damn near perfect.  It opens with the apparent assassination of The Red Skull by a shadowy agent from Soviet Russia called The Winter Soldier, who has now fallen under the control of villainous businessman Alexander Lukin.  Where The Skull is involved so is Steve Rodgers. Captain America's investigation leads him through various A.I.M. laboratories, hand-to-hand combat with Nazi goon Crossbones, and another horror of domestic terrorism.  And it climaxes with a face to face assault from long ago sidekick James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes.  The back half struggles a little as Brubaker tries to integrate Marvel's Civil War Event.  I've seen such tie-ins handled much worse, but it certainly feels like you're missing some serious plot if you don't read Civil War in accordance with the back half of the Omnibus.  The Death of Captain America cliffhanger though...that will certainly send you into the next chapter quickly.  If all you know about Cap are the movies then you seriously owe yourself to at least read the two-part Winter Soldier storyline.

American Hustle:  I was reading some review or some tweet or some something that said that the best thing to ever happen to American Hustle was not winning The Academy Award.  Now the film is free to just be a film and not worry about that Oscar baggage.  It's a little pompous, but I get it.  It's certainly Scorsese-lite, but I think time will distance it from those comparisons, and eventually you'll just be able to watch it as the fun time at the movies that it is.  It's a fantastic bit of performance - been too long since I've seen this Christian Bale.  He takes a character that should be an utter scumbag, and makes him a sympathetic little sadsack of a conman.  Bradley Cooper is hilarious as the FBI tool desperate for recognition, and Amy Adams is - god damn - a freaking monster of manipulation.  Last year I gave Cate Blanchett my Best Leading Female Performance, but this second watch has me seriously questioning that decision.  That scene between her & Cooper in the Disco Bathroom Stall is scary, scary, scary.  And it makes this movie a must watch for me.

Nemo - The Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore & Kevin J O'Neal:  Spinning out of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and a direct sequel to Nemo - Heart of Ice, this latest dip into the pantheon of literary & cinematic history revels in the worlds of Fritz Lang's Metropolis while peppered with the evil of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.  If that doesn't get you jazzed, nothing will.  It's 1944.  The Daughter of Captain Nemo & Broad Arrow Jack has been taken hostage by Hynkel's forces, and it's up to the crew of the Nautilus to storm Berlin and rescue the child.  It reads quickly if you want to, but I'm already desiring a second trip with the aid of Jess Nevin's essential annotations.  LXG proves time and again that being an English Major and film fanatic is super cool.

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K Vaughan & Niko Henrichon:  I closed out the week with the 22nd meeting of The Ultimate Justice League of Extraordinary Graphic Novel Book Club.  Wow.  I can't believe we've been doing this for almost two years.  Crazy.  I love it.  In those nearly two years we've only read one author more than twice and that's Brian K Vaughan (Y The Last Man, Saga, & Pride).  Each one of those books grabbed a positive vibe from the majority of the crowd.  Everyone seemed to dig Pride, and I cannot disagree.  It's a solid fable based on the "True Story" of a group of lions that escaped the Baghdad zoo during the second Iraq conflict.  It's a brutal little tale with an obvious message.  War is hell.  People suck.  Why do we do this to each other?  Brian K Vaughan is preaching to the choir.  Personally, I would have liked a little more story, a little more character.  As is, decent book with some freaking gorgeous art from Niko Henrichon.  I want more of this guy.  I need to track down every bit of art he's done and consume it.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/9/14-3/15/14)

    On Sunday morning, I finished up Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Bagdad, the next selection of the graphic novel club.  I liked the art a lot, but the actual story was a bit obvious and pretty bare bones.  Not bad, but not something I’d ever need to read again.  But then it was off to the races on what ended up being a pretty busy week (including my ranty letter to the makers of Star Wars).

The White Queen:  Considering it’s from Starz, this show is shockingly classy.  Sure, it’s full of nudity and violence, but it’s far less crass and exploitative than Magic City or (shudder) Spartacus.  It tells some of the story of the War of the Roses, with a focus on the women involved in the story.  Though women, particularly when seen through the lens of Victorian and consequently early 20th century histories, have often gotten either a bum rap or completely ignored, the idea that women and men do not share a common history is idiotic (why I’m against the idea of ‘women’s history,’ as opposed to ‘women in history;’ to separate one from the other is to miss the point of it all), and the idea that major historic events didn’t involve women is illogical and counter to common sense.  I like that this series shows the active involvement in the changing politics these women take, while not trying to somehow take away from what the men were doing.  You often see in more female-centered history-based tales, not the building up of women, but the tearing down of men (making them stupid, sex-mad monsters, in much the way male-centered histories of the past tried to cast women as either docile or dangerously predatory [akin to the virgin/whore problem]), so this was a welcome and refreshing aspect of the series, with men and women being shown as all the shades of gray one would expect in reality.  Early episodes were a touch wonky, in part because they brought in a bit of the supernatural, which I found off-putting.  I’m assuming that’s from the novels(?).  It wasn’t needed, and distracts from the more interesting, real story.  And I think adding the magic to the female characters lessened their power as humans, by giving in to that old idea that women can only succeed through magic, manipulation, or subterfuge.  Overall, it’s not as well done as some history based shows, and some of the cast is a challenge to get behind (Max Irons, I’m looking at you!…and I wish I wasn’t).  Still, it’s mostly good and worth checking out, and series lead Rebecca Ferguson is darned good.  If this is the direction Starz is headed, who knows.  Maybe one day they could rival HBO in quality programming.  I’m not holding my breath, but maybe.

The Last Days on Mars:  This film has everything it needs…except a good idea.  The production design, the cast, the music, the setting.  It’s all great.  The film looks fantastic.  But once the central idea is revealed, it turns stupid and never looks back.  Now I can add this to the lengthening list of should-have-been-better Mars exploration films, like Mission to Mars and Red Planet.  All of them have good things going for them, yet all of them are failures, because of bad scripts or poorly conceived ideas.  And this film fits right along side.  I can not stress how annoyed I was upon realizing just how lame the central struggle would be.  There was a grimace, followed by a lot of head shaking, and at least one ‘oh, no.’  Please, film makers.  Please.  Don’t do this again.  It works in a movie like Ghost of Mars, because nobody is going to Ghost of Mars for a serious science fiction film.  It doesn’t work here.  Maybe one day we’ll get an adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars that will live up to its potential.  Until then, I guess we’ll just get a bunch of this crap.

Donnie Darko:  This is a movie that really blew me away the first time I watched it.  It broke my brain in all the best ways, stayed with me for years.  But I have to admit, I don’t feel the same awe and wonder I once did.  Watching it again, I still find a lot of things to like in the film, and there are some excellent bits.  But I see more of the ‘first film’ syndrome than I noticed before.  Still a must for fans of the surreal and challenging.  But perhaps not the modern classic I’d have once named it.

Von Richthofen and Brown:  This Roger Corman WWI movie is surprisingly good, with lots of excellent flying footage.  The acting is uneven and there are some technical issues.  But for one of his more serious efforts, it’s a winner.  The star really is the flying, though.  And a lot of that is gorgeous.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Wes Anderson makes a very peculiar sort of film, and he does it very, very well.  This time around he taps into the Golden Age Hollywood madcap comedy films, with plenty of World War II and Cold War allusions.  It’s wistful and nostalgic for bygone eras, but not cloying.  It’s also delightfully crass, and typically surreal.  The by now trademark Anderson artificiality is on display, enhancing the old Hollywood vibe in the sets and backdrops.  The cast is awesome, and it’s so nice to see Ralph Fiennes doing comedy again, and playing someone so dashing (if sleazy).  I love that this movie revels in the wonder and visual craziness of the very medium.  It’s not naturalistic.  It’s not realistic.  But it gets to some truths, even while reveling in its fantasy world.

    Saturday was a crazy danged day.  I assisted Satnam on the set of the film he directed from a script I wrote.  It’s been a danged long time in the works.  I first conceived the idea as something I thought I might be able to do myself, building the ‘set’ in a closet in my old Brewer, ME apartment, about ten or twelve years ago.  Only one cast member, and no camera movement.  I thought I could handle that.  But cameras were too expensive and I had no skill or knowledge of how to do it.  Still, I liked the idea.  Some time after I moved to Virginia, I met someone who expressed interest in filming it, someone with skills and resources.  But it never materialized.  Lots of talk, but no action, and nothing happened.  But after assisting Satnam on a previous film, he said he was looking for another project, and I mentioned my idea.  He liked it enough to want to read my script.  Well…I don’t know what happened to it.  I’m sure if I go searching through my old disks, I’ll find it.  But, I didn’t want to.  So, I sat down and re-wrote it.  And that was it.  A few re-writes, a search for an actor, our fumbling attempts at set construction, finding other professionals to help us out with sound and make-up.  And then filming.  To say I was a ball of nerves is an understatement.  It’s kind of amazing to see words you wrote being spoken by an actor on a set.  I would not be heart broken if I had to do this for a living.

    Now that the movie is in the can, the editing and post production and all that starts up, and I don’t have anything to do with that.  So, it’s on to my next project, prepping for next weekend’s Call of Cthulhu game.  Most of the heavy lifting was done for the first session, so now it’s going to be a lot of details, extra bits, and such.  And then of course, to get myself psyched up and ready to go.  Though it may not be, I could see this being the final session of this game/story.  It might go on to a third or fourth night, depending on how their investigations go, and how deadly things get.  So I'm trying to think ahead for what folks might want to do next.  I think this group would be best suited for something light, fast paced, action and mystery packed, with plenty of room to roam.  I'm still thinking.

-Matt