Now, without any ado, Part 2 (see what I did there?)
April
What to say about April? Well, there is another Emma Watson flick, this time she speaks with an American accent for reasons that confound me (unnecessary accent work is one f my biggest pet peeves), that also stars Tom Hanks, called The Circle. Here’s the trailer:
Not bad, right? Kind of a modern 1984.
April will also bring us a Julia Roberts drama (Wonder), a fully animated Smurfs movie (sorry NPH), some kind of DeNiro comedy (The War With Grandpa), the movie where Jenny Slate and Chris Evans met (Gifted) that would be more exciting if it were a comedy and not a drama, some Christian cinema (The Case for Christ) to be timed up with Easter, oh, and one little movie called…
Fast & Furious 8
That either fills you with excitement, apathy or disdain. We have had 7 Fast & Furious movies to help you form an opinion, if you are in the apathy camp an 8th one isn’t going to make you budge. The new film certainly won’t move anyone that hated the movies off of that opinion. Fortunately a significant portion of the world is with me and my wife on team “can’t wait”.
May
The beginning of summer, when the movies start rolling in week after week at a breakneck pace that even the biggest film geeks can’t keep up with. Here are a few of the important questions May will be asking us to answer.
Is Amy Schumer really a movie star?
Trainwreck was terrific and a big hit, but one hit doesn’t make you a movie star. In Snatched Schumer gets to star along side Goldie Hawn, who was one of the first female comedic actors to be considered beautiful and funny and could carry movies that weren’t Rom Coms, which seems to be exactly what Schumer wants to be able to do. Does this trailer seem like she is playing the same part as her Trainwreck character? Yup, but Goldie Hawn seemed like she was playing the same person in every movie from 1977 to 1987 so I’m not going to judge.
Will we ever have a truly great Alien movie again?
Prometheus wasn’t a bad movie, but it kind of missed the point. Alien isn’t awesome because of the lore surrounding the stories. Alien was awesome because it was a great horror thriller. Aliens was awesome because it was a kick ass action movie. If Ridley Scott wants to push the lore, well, Im not sure anyone cares. Here’s hoping he just makes a great movie.
Does anyone want another Pirates of the Caribbean movie?
Well, do you? Because you are getting one. Of course, last summer Johnny Depp tried to revive one of his “hit” characters from a movie that made a lot of money but that no one seemed to like and it didn’t go well.
Can The Rock make everything work?
Baywatch…Baywatch!!…Are you kidding me Dwayne Johnson? Baywatch! What’s crazy is I think I want to see it.
Do any of those questions actually matter? Of course not, in fact that may not really be answered because …
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
June
When I say summer is the time when movies start coming too fast for anyone to keep up with June is pretty much exhibit A. These are the week to week scheduled releases:
June 2nd
Wonder Woman Captain Underpants
We all know what Wonder Woman is, and for the record I think the previews look great and seem to speak toward a much needed sense of humor that was missing from Batman v. Superman, but Captain Underpants? You shouldn’t sleep on the animated flick from Dreamworks that has a voice cast including Kevin Hart, Nick Kroll and Ed Helms. It wont have much competition in the kids movie department when it comes out.
June 9
World War Z 2 The Mummy
Tom Cruise versus Brad Pitt!
June 16
Cars 3 The Book of Henry
The Kingsman sequel was originally scheduled to be released this weekend too, fortunately saner heads prevailed it has been moved to October. I wrote about this the other day when discussing whether Disney’s 2017 could match the studios historic 2016 but whatever you think about Cars and where it fits in the Pixar pantheon you should know that it sells more merchandise than any other Pixar film, by a mile. The Book of Henry is director Colin Trevorrow’s little movie he is putting out in between Jurassic World and Star Wars Episode IX.
June 23
Transformers: The Dark Knight Rock that Body The Beguiled
Counter programming alert! Rock that Body is a comedy starring Scarlett Johansen, Kate McKinnon, Zoe Kravitz and Demi Moore from one of the directors of Broad City and The Beguiled is Sofia Coppola’s latest.
June 30
Despicable Me 3 The House
If you thought Rock that Body sounded like it had a loaded comedy cast how does Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler sound? Yeah, that is what is going head to head with Despicable Me 3.
That is just a crazy full month of movies. It is so full that some of them will bomb, not because they are bad but because its just too many.
$3 billion. That’s a three, followed by nine zeroes. That’s 1,000 million times three. More than record breaking, Disney’s 2016 was record shattering. Here are just some of the highlights:
BoxOfficeMojo.com tracked 728 films that were released in 2016. Disney only produced 13 and still produced 26% of the total box office for the year.
Warner Brothers produced 25 films and still finished over a $1 billion short of Disney’s total.
The $3 billion number is just domestic box office totals, which is crazy for a studio that produces films designed to play around the world.
Disney produced 4 movies that have (or soon will in the case of Rogue One) passed the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office, with a fifth film (The Jungle Book) finishing at $966 million and change.
Those five films are the five highest grossing films of 2016. That’s right, Disney produced 1-5 on the list.
Even crazier than all of that is that their year could have been, maybe even should have been, even better. Captain America: Civil War didn’t exactly under perform, but it certainly didn’t surpass expectations and you could probably say the same for Rogue One and Finding Dory and Moana. Think if all four of those movies had hit the high end of expectations? And what about Alice Through the Looking Glass and The BFG, two movies with strong pedigrees that bombed. The year could have been…incomprehensible.
Still, no matter how you slice it Disney had a great, great, great year in 2016. Which of course means we have to ask, can they do even better in 2017?
Here is what would have to happen:
Beauty and the Beast puts up Alice in Wonderland numbers
It is easy to forget just how big Tim Burton’s first trip to wonderland was. $334 million at the domestic box office and over $1 billion world-wide. In 2015 Cinderella was a solid hit, racking up over $200 million at the box office, but to beat 2016 Disney needs more than that. They need a monster hit, and don’t be surprised if they get one.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales has to perform like a Pirates movie
If you think Alice in Wonderland was a surprise $1 billion movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides may only be topped by the last Transformers movie as a film that critics HATED but that still went on to be a huge hit. $241 million at the domestic box office and $1.2 billion world-wide. The latest adventure for Captain Jack Sparrow has to match the last adventure. I’m not sure I’d bet on that happening, but I wouldn’t want to bet against it either.
Cars 3 has to come within striking distance of Finding Dory
Sounds crazy? Finding Nemo was a beloved classic and everyone hates Cars, right? Guess what Pixar movie rules in merchandising sales. Cars and its not close. Cars may not play across the whole age spectrum the way a lot of Pixar does, but as a pure kids movie it may have more legs than we are giving it credit for. Cars 2, the worst Pixar movie on almost everyone’s list, nearly grossed $200 million six years ago. Asking for $400 or $500 million might be a stretch, but maybe Cars 3 can surprise.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok have to pass Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange
Honestly, I think this is a lock to happen. I admit freely I am biased because Guardians of the Galaxy is my favorite MCU movie, but I honestly think it is going to be bigger than Captain America: Civil War. First, Guardians is awesome, and second spring of 2017 is not flooded with superhero movies the way 2016 was. There is no Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice muddying the waters, only Logan, an “R” rated turn for Wolverine, is coming out in the spring, and it will have long since run its course by the beginning of May. As for Thor, well, Thor is a little like Cars. People dismiss it and consider it less than some of the other MCU movies but Thor and Thor: The Dark World were both really big hits (Thor outperformed the original Captain America when they both came out in 2011). And this Thor looks to have a lot going for it. Not only is Loki back but the Hulk is going to be in this one. Of all of these “must happen” scenarios I’d say Thor outperforming Doctor Strange is the safest bet.
Star Wars Episode VIII has to come closer to The Force Awakens than to Rogue One
Here is one of the little secrets about Disney’s $3 billion in 2016, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens contributed nearly $300 million to that number. Rogue One will likely contribute over $100 million to 2017, but if $3 billion is in the cards Episode VIII is going to have to pick up some slack. It is doubtful the next Star Wars will be as big as The Force Awakens. The Empire Strikes Back, for example, did about 30% less business than the original Star Wars. If Episode VIII does about 30% less than The Force Awakens that would put the next Star Wars somewhere around $650 or $700 million. That would be a huge win for Disney.
Let’s say all of those things happen. Beauty and the Beast is huge (good chance), Pirates of the Caribbean is huge (50/50 chance), Cars is huge (it will be, but I doubt it will be as big as Finding Dory), Guardians and Thor kick ass (they will) and Episode VIII keeps the Star Wars momentum alive (just a question of how huge because it will definitely be huge), will that be enough? Will that get Disney back to $3 billion? No, it wont. 2016 wasn’t breaking records because of the predictable, it broke records because Zootopia and The Jungle Book shocked the world (and because The Force Awakens had legs well into the year). The only thing that will push Disney to new heights in 2017 is…
We count Spiderman: Homecoming as a Disney movie
Marvel is making Spiderman, and it will be part of the MCU, but it remains, at least technically speaking, a Sony film. So the $350-$500 million it will generate wont count to Disney’s total. My guess is that is almost exactly how short Disney will be to matching 2016.
January, vis a vis movies, is a little bit like September, which is to say not the best. The studios have little expectations, so they blow out some genre franchise fare that wont hit their stride until they are on iTunes available for rent or playing on the Syfy channel at 11 p.m. when you are having trouble sleeping (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and Underworld: Blood Wars), and they toss out an action movie or two because nobody has released a dumb action movie in a few months and sometimes people like dumb action movies (XXX: The Return of Xander Cage and Sleepless where Jaimie Fox gets to try to be an action star), and they they just drop stuff that they don’t really know what to do with (Split, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest starring James McAvoy as a Norman Bates-esque nut job with a whole bunch of split personalities). They will get one mild hit out of that bunch (The Ride Along movies have been the “hit” the last few years, the safe bet this year is XXX: The Return of Xander Cage) but it doesn’t really matter because what January is actually all about are the movies that got the soft opening in December so they qualify for Oscar consideration but truthfully open in January. Assuming they get nominations Manchester By The Sea, La La Land and Moonlight will linger at your megaplex, and these three movies will hope to do a little more than linger:
Hidden Figures
Opening “wide” this week the story of a team of African-American women who provided mathematical support for the space program in the 1960’s is loaded with acting talent (particularly Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer who are both always great in everything they are in) and seems to have the kind of story that will appeal broadly. It will help, a lot, if Henson or Spencer get an Oscar nod (Octavia Spencer is nominated for a Golden Globe already), but it may not be necessary for this movie to succeed.
Silence
How interested would you be in the story of two Jesuit Priests who travel to Japan to find their mentor and spread catholicism? What if I told you it was a period piece and the Priests face violence and persecution? Not sold? What if I told you it starred Adam Driver (Kylo Renn!) and one time spiderman Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson? Still no? Okay, but it is directed by Martin Scorsese, who also co-wrote the screenplay, so if you are any kind of a film buff you know you are obligated to see and probably like this movie. I have the nagging suspicion that if this were a classic Scorsese we would have seen this open wide on December 13th not January 13th. Truthfully, the filmmaker has been obsessed with the ideas of religion and God for years but every time he has addressed the subject directly (Kundun, The Last Temptation of Christ) the films have frankly been too personal and simply haven’t connected broadly (which may be the very nature of faith, but that is a broader discussion than is worth tackling on a movie blog). This is a film that will likely need Oscar nominations to gain any kind of commercial traction but it has been surprisingly absent from most of the critics awards and Golden Globes which usually hint at what the Oscars are likely to nominate.
Patriots Day
If you have a serious gambling problem and are therefore looking for anything and everything to bet on here is a pretty safe tip for you, Patriots Day will be the biggest movie of January. This movie has everything going for it. It is based on a story that we remember but probably don’t really know. It will be dripping with patriotism (in the good way). It is getting award buzz. And Mark Wahlberg owns January. This will be this year’s Lone Survivor (also starring Wahlberg and directed by Peter Berg) or American Sniper, but it will have a cleaner, more uplifting story to work with than either of those films. We win in the end, we know we win in the end, and when the movie ends with the 2014 Boston Marathon and all of the Boston Strong your going to have a little life affirming moment as you sit in the dark surrounded by other people having life affirming moments of their own.
February
Look, February is usually only slightly better than January as a whole, but February does have a couple of weekends where the studios will swing for the fences. On President’s Day weekend, for example, we are going to get the Matt Damon Great Wall of China movie that was supposed to come out in December but then the studio remembered “hey, this will movie will get destroyed in December, let’s push it back” (The Great Wall) and an Ice Cube comedy (Fist Fight). Don’t sleep on the Ice Cube comedy, they always do way better than you think they will. But that isn’t the big weekend, not in my opinion anyway. The BIG weekend is the week before, February 10th:
Fifty Shades Darker
Chris Rock used to do a joke about Kmart. He used to say we all make fun of Kmart and act as if we would never actually shop their but we all know what a blue light special is (kids, that was what they called sales at Kmart), in other words, a lot of us are shopping at Kmart. I do not know one person who has admitted they went and saw Fifty Shades of Grey, in fact, I don’t even know many people who will admit they read the book, but here we are with a sequel following a movie that made nearly $600 million world-wide and until Deadpool came along last year held about every February box office record that existed. For my part I think my record for copping to having seen pretty awful and/or embarrassing movies is established enough that when I say I could only make through about 5 minutes of the first one on HBO you know I am not lying. Still, some of you watched it, some of you liked it and some of you will be going to the sequel right before Valentine’s Day.
The LEGO Batman Movie
First, I loved The LEGO Movie. Not because my son was 10 at the time and that film was like mana from heaven for him, but just because I loved it. At first, however, I was not particularly excited about this movie. The original seemed perfect, just the right mix of having fun with something while not making fun of that thing. It seemed impossible that they could do that twice, and maybe they can’t, but man did this trailer change my mind.
John Wick: Chapter 2
My favorite kind of movie experience goes like this; someone tells me a little known movie is really good (or I hear about it from other movie blogs or podcasts or whatever), I DO NOT rush to see the movie but it needles at me in the back of my mind, this idea that I really want to see that movie, then I finally see the movie and it surpasses all of my inflated and built up expectations. That progression is rare because I usually either see the movie soon after hearing about it (like La La Land, although that was far from a little known gem) or my inflated expectations kill the movie (this almost always happens with comedies). Still, in recent years I have had that perfect progression happen a few times. The Raid: Redemption is a good example. Man Up is another. Kingsman: The Secret Service is another great example. I recently watched Mr. Right and it roughly fit into this mold. The best example, probably in my life, was with John Wick. I LOVED John Wick (still do). Does that make me excited for a sequel? Let’s say I have mixed emotions. On the one hand I can’t see where they are going to go with it and I think the first film is a perfect, wholly contained story. On the other hand the outside chance that they may capture some small part of the magic really gets my juices flowing. It may not work. It probably wont work. But I really want it to work.
March
Did you know that Police Academy, Police Academy 2 and Police Academy 3 were the biggest box office performers of March in consecutive years? Of course you didn’t. I didn’t even know that until I looked it up. The point is that March used to be just another dead month as far as the movies were concerned. If a hit came out in March it was an accidental success like Basic Instinct or Four Wedding and a Funeral. Blockbusters weren’t released in March, but much like the NFL has become a year round things so have movies and March is now a big month. 300, Alice in Wonderland, Zootopia and maybe most significantly The Hunger Games are all March movies. So what will it be this…
Before I get to that, did you know they made a sequel to Trainspotting? Crazy, right? Trainspotting 2? None of those Scottish drug addicts should, would or could be alive 20 years later. Only Keith Richards could survive that much heroine and cocaine and everything else. Anyway, that’s coming out this March too. Now, back to my point.
Here are the most likely blockbusters…
They also made a CHIPS movie, you know, from the old TV show, which, I mean, I get the whole existing IP thing but has anyone been clamoring for a CHIPS movie? I loved CHIPS when I was a kid and I don’t even really care about a CHIPS movie. AND they made another Power Rangers movie, which also makes no sense to me, but then again I am too old for Power Rangers so what do I know? AND they made a Ghost in the Shell movie with Scarlett Johansen which is almost like making that Gods of Egypt movie last year starring a bunch of blond haired, blue eyed actors. Ghost in the Shell is about as Japanese as you can get. On top of that, I mean, quick raise of hands, who has seen the original Ghost in the Shell? It was a groundbreaking anime 18 years ago before anime was even close to a thing in the U.S. (and yes, I know, anime really isn’t a thing now). Anyway…
The most likely blockbusters are:
Kong: Skull Island
Honestly, this would also have made the list of biggest potential flops. It was originally supposed to come out in December (along with the Matt Damon Great Wall of China movie), but it also got held back. Now, movies get held back all the time for all sorts of reasons but I don’t recall the last time something was held back because it was awesome and turned out way better than the studio thought it would. Also, funny odd twist of ownership, they didn’t have the rights to King Kong but apparently as long as they don’t put “King” and “Kong” together they are okay. Kong alone, no problem. Skull Island, no problem. Isn’t this a little like making a Superman movie without the rights to the word “superman”, so you call it “Super: The Man from Krypton”? All of that aside this is another shot from an actor who became famous for a character in a Marvel movie trying to prove he can be a star outside of of the MCU. I like Tom Hiddleston. I always get confused when people say Marvel hasn’t produced a great movie villain because I think Loki is a terrific movie villain. I highly recommend The Night Manager, the spy TV-show that Hiddleston made last year with Hugh Laurie, it is terrific and Hiddleston is really good in it. Will this be the right movie to make him a bigger star? Maybe not, but then again this movie is loaded with really good actors. Sam Jackson (because it is a “franchise starting” movie and there is a law in hollywood that every franchise must have Sam Jackson in it), Brie Larson (soon to be a Marvel superhero herself), John C. Reilly, John Goodman, a bunch of those people who have been in a lot of movies so you recognize them but you never know their name, it’s not just Loki.
Beauty and the Beast
I think we can all agree that when Disney turns one of their beloved princesses into a live action, big budget, spectacle it will draw a lot of kids who don’t love comic book movies to the theater and will look great. Maleficent happened to be good and a big hit. Cinderella was a big hit and quite a thing to look at, just maybe not good. This will be a big hit. Will it be a good big hit or just a pretty big hit? Only time will tell.
Life
For some reason I thought this was coming out in May, which seemed a bit of a stretch for a movie that seems to be aspiring to be Alien. Aspiring to be Alien is a good thing, remember that movie used the juxtaposition of the vastness of space with the confinement of being stuck on a space ship with a killer alien monster to amazing and thrilling effect. But that’s not a summer movie (and, there is an actual Alien movie coming out in May). This is better suited for spring. Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal are both great even if they don’t always choose great movies and ultimately Life wont impact how we think of either of them. The curious actor here is Rebecca Ferguson. She is coming off her “as close to a star making turn as anyone can have playing opposite Tom Cruise” part in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Paula Patton had a similar turn in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, went on to be the female lead in 2 Guns and…thinking…thinking…Oh, right, she was in that Warcraft movie last summer, so, obviously her career really caught fire after Ghost Protocol.
Logan
More than any other comic book character it feels like being tethered to PG-13 has really hindered the progression of Wolverine. He’s violent and he’s crass and he kills people with claws that come out of his knuckles. More than just the character, it has felt like Hugh Jackman is being held back and lately that holding back feels like it has drained his passion for being Wolverine. I couldn’t even remember if he was in X-Men Apocalypse, not just because that was an entirely forgettable film but because Wolverine has become a mostly forgettable, one-note thing that pops up now and again in the X-Men universe. But, Logan is supposed to be different. Logan is supposed to be what the last standalone movie (Wolverine) was supposed to be (and, honestly, almost was). If Logan gets there, to a dark, violent, funny, kick-ass kind of place people are clamoring for, then we can thank Deadpool. People who have seen early cuts say it is going to blow people’s minds. I hope so. I like Jackman and I Wolverine and I would love to see them both cut loose. And then I would really like to see a Wolverine/Deadpool movie.
I haven’t posted on this site since July 15, 2015. TWENTY-FIFTEEN! That is an embarrassing amount of time. I have started a number of entries. I began pulling together my top 100 movies of all-time list. I started several posts about how bad the summer of 2016 was (more on that later). I started and stopped a bunch of times but I never finished, until today (or maybe not today, I certainly started those other posts with the intent of completing them so who’s to say that this will be any different, but we can hope). Why today? Because 2016 needs to be commented on, and it needs to be commented on before Rogue One does to this year what The Force Awakens did to last year. A gargantuan Star Wars movie simply changes the conversation. It is like the boat sinking at the end of Titanic, it is so cool that you forget how bored out of your mind you were for two and a half hours before the iceberg even showed up. After next weekend 2016 will be judged by Rogue One, but I think it is important (in the “not at all important but I like to write about this stuff anyway” kind of a way) to remember the year that actually was before Darth Vader returns to our lives.
So, what can we say about 2016? I can say 5 things about the year that many are saying is the worst year EVER.
1) 2016 Is Not The Worst Year Ever
I get it, the election bummed us all out and the fact that between recounts and Russian hacking scandals the damn election wont go away makes it all the more disheartening. Sex scandals, cops getting shot, cops shooting, mass shootings, pipelines, Julian Assange, fake news, there was a lot of shit out there making us all feel bad basically all year long and if the movies role should have been to rise above the malaise and give us all the kind of welcome escape that would bring light to our lives in the cesspool of darkness we were all living in, then yeah, hollywood failed. But that seems a wholly unrealistic ask. No one is going to argue that, judged in a vacuum, 2016 was a great year for film, hell it probably didn’t even reach the level of “good”, but it would be just as insane to argue that it was the worst year. As a whole 2016 was somewhere between blah and meh. It had some highlights (see the first half of the year), it had some lowlights (see the summer) and it had some just plain old lights (fall into winter), and as a whole it came out worse than average, but not too far off average.
The Best Movie of 2016?
A quick way to compare the general quality of a movie year compared to another year is to take the top ten box office movies and the films nominated for best picture and compare. Since we can’t do the best picture thing with 2016 let’s compare we will use critics top 10 lists (there’s a website the here). Here is 2016 versus 2015: aggregates all of the major critics top 10 lists and comes up with a master top 10 list, check it out
Critics Top 10
2015
2016
Mad Max: Fury Road
Moonlight
Spotlight
Manchester by the Sea
Inside Out
La La Land
Carol
O.J.: Made in America
Ex Machina
Toni Erdman
Brooklyn
Hell of High Water
The Martian
Elle
Room
Arrival
Creed
Paterson
Sicario
Happy Hour
Box Office
2015
2016
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Finding Dory
Jurassic World
Captain America: Civil War
Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Secret Life of Pets
Inside Out
The Jungle Book
Furious 7
Deadpool
Minions
Zootopia
The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay – Part 2
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
The Martian
Suicide Squad
Cinderella
Doctor Strange
Spectre
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
As Box Office champs go this is pretty close (bearing in mind that Rogue One will land atop this list). I’d take Civil War over Ultron. Zootopia is much better than Minions. Deadpool is probably the most entertaining movie on either list and Inside Out is the best movie on either list. All in all, while I’d give the edge to 2015, 2016 isn’t that far off. I would end up at roughly the same conclusion on the critics choice list, 2015 wins but 2016 isn’t that far behind. You want to see a bad Box Office year check out 2005:
2005
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
War of the Worlds
King Kong
Wedding Crashers
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Batman Begins
Madagascar
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
And the truth is you could go back and look at lists from the 80’s and they would be even worse. The point is, say WORST EVER is hard, except…
2) The Summer of 2016 was the WORST Summer Ever
Here is the complete list of films that “won” weekends last summer: Captain America: Civil War (x2), Angry Birds, X-Men Apocalypse (x2), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Conjuring 2, Finding Dory (x4), The Secret Life of Pets (x2), Star Trek Beyond, Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad (x4). That is bad, really, really bad. The 6th or 7th best Marvel movie, the 6th best X-Men movie, the 13th or 14th best Pixar movie, the 5th best Bourne movie, and those are the highlights! And there isn’t much below the weekend winners to get excited about either. Nice Guys was probably the best movie released in the summer of 2016. I liked Nice Guys a lot, but it is still the worst best movie in summer movie history. Ticket price inflation and the late success of Suicide Squad make the numbers not look as dire but make no mistake, the summer of 2016 was really, really, bad.
Speaking of Suicide Squad…
3. If You All Hate DC SO Much Why Do You Go To The Movies
Marvel (MCU): 2 Movies = $1.8 billion
DC (Warner Brothers): 2 Movies = $1.6 billion
X-Men (Fox): 2 Movies = $1.3 billion
I have been talking about this for a while, can we please put an end to the false narrative that DC movies are massive disappointments while Marvel can do no wrong. All you hear is what a failure Batman v Superman was, or how everyone hated Suicide Squad and then you look at the world-wide box office numbers and wouldn’t you know it they are doing nearly as well as the Marvel movies did this year. And, by the way, this has been true for years (in no small part because BATMAN IS IN THE DC UNIVERSE!). Look, in general I like the Marvel movies better too, but let’s stop acting like the gap between the two is the Grand Canyon. And, by the way, neither of these studios made the best comic book movie of 2016, that honor belong to Deadpool (now Golden Globe nominated Deadpool). And, neither DC or Marvel made the worst comic book movie of 2016, that honor belongs to the slog that was X-Men Apocalypse.
Speaking of Deadpool and Batman v Superman …
4) The First Four Months of 2016 Were Amazing
Deadpool, The Jungle Book, Zootopia and Batman v Superman all grossed over $300 million domestically. How crazy is that? Well, in 2014 only 3 movies grossed $300 million all year. In fact, only 2012 and 2015 can boast more $300 million movies than the first half of 2016 ever. Some will argue that January-April of 2016 is missing a great movie (I would say both Deadpool and Zootopia are great and 10 Cloverfield Lane was really good) but many, that is a crazy impressive amount of box office.
Speaking of the lack of great movies …
5) 2016 Is The New Normal, So Get Used To It
You know how you hear old movie snobs talk about hollywood and how they don’t make movies the way they used to? Here is what they are talking about. This is the top 10 box offices movies from 1987:
1987
Three Men and a Baby
Fatal Attraction
Beverly Hills Cop II
Good Morning, Vietnam
Moonstruck
The Untouchables
The Secret of My Success
Stakeout
Lethal Weapon
The Witches of Eastwick
One sequel. No animated movies. This was normal in the 1980’s. Blockbusters, when they happened, happened organically, not by plan. Hollywood went for singles and doubles and almost never swung for the fences. It meant a remake of a french farce starring a bunch of TV actors could be the biggest movie of the year. It was a different time.
So, was the normal of 1987 better than the normal of 2016?
The Best Movie of 2016?
The truth is I don’t know. Hollywood didn’t swing for the box office fences because they couldn’t swing for the fences. The improvements in CGI and animation are allowing movies to be made that simply could not have been made 30 years ago. And the numbers are so obscene that you can’t fault an industry for chasing them. I mean, look at those box office totals for Marvel, DC and Fox. Collectively 6 movies = $4.7 billion, 509 movies were released in 1987 and they totaled $4.2 billion. Yes, that is an apples to oranges comparison, but even if you factor in inflation and the relative buying power of the dollar and all of that good stuff and you say that $4.2 billion is really closer to $8.4 billion today it still took you 509 movies to get to that $8.2 billion as opposed to 6 movies getting you to $4.7 billion. International markets (another reason why the comparison was apples to oranges), secondary market sales, all of these factors simply drive too much potential income to tentpole movies, so much so that the studios are chasing tentpoles where tentpoles don’t exist. The new normal of 2016 should be as defined by the failures (Alice through the Looking Glass, Now You See Me 2, Warcraft, etc.) as the successes. Now most o the great dramas are arthouse fare. Every year hundreds of movies are made on micro-budgets, sent to film festivals and only appear if critics create the kind of buzz that gets studios to push for awards or as filler for Netflix and Amazon. Big budget dramas with real star power are HBO shows airing on Sunday nights. The new normal.
Of course, in all likelihood 30 years from now my son will be complaining to his kids about how hollywood has gone down hill artistically and they just don’t make movies like they used to. The next new normal.
Maybe that’s not true because maybe it doesn’t sound that easy, but making lists, particularly movie lists, can be kind of tricky. If you don’t believe me try to do something easy. Pick your favorite genre of film, I’ll give you a moment…
Okay, now make a top ten list of that genre.
I’ll give you a few minutes…
Okay, now hop on Netflix and look at all the movies they have available in that genre.
I swear, I’ll be patient while you look…
Great, how many times did you say “oh crap, I forgot about that one”?
Alright, now go ahead and redo your top 10 adding the movies you forgot and dropping some others.
Let me say this as an aside to those of you who are claiming you didn’t forget any… LIAR!
And guess what? I haven’t even told you to go to AFIand check out their list, you’ll see some you forgot their too. And then do a simple search “greatest action movies of all time” or whatever genre you chose. A whole bunch of lists will come up done by a whole bunch of different people and you will find a few more movies your forgot. Before you know it “top 10” seems impossible because you have too many, but I promise you, doing 25 or 50 isn’t any easier. Look, if you’ve seen enough movies to care about making a “best of” list (and believing you have a comprehensive enough knowledge that you can say best of with any authority) you’ve seen so many movies that whittling down those films into a list is hard for a lot of little reasons and three big reasons.
First, you are going to forget movies. Do the math, how many movies do you think you have seen? I’m not just talking about in the theaters, I mean at home, on Netflix or AppleTV or Amazon or Hulu or RedBox. How many movies do you catch while you’re channel surfing at night or on a Saturday afternoon when you feel like being lazy? One a week? Two a week? Let’s low ball it, let’s say you see 50 a year. That’s 1,000 movies every 20 years. And that number started accumulating when you were young. If you are in your 40’s it is a pretty safe bet you are sniffing 2,000 movies at least. Can you remember 2,000 of anything off the top of your head? I know I can’t. The point is you are going to forget some movies, even some really great movies.
Second, however many films you have seen you can be sure it is a minuscule fraction of the movies that have been made. In 2014 Box Office Mojo recorded box office information on 698 movies. SIX-HUNDRED-NINETY-EIGHT! That is nearly 700 movies that were produced and released into at least one theater last year. It is just past the halfway point of 2015 and they have 323, so things have apparently slowed down slightly. In the last 10 years over 6,000 movies have been released. Are a huge percentage of those arthouse movies or basically direct to video releases? Sure, obviously most of them would fit that category but who doesn’t have at least one favorite film that would also fit under those categorizations? Birdman, last year’s best picture winner, is the 70th highest grossing film released in the last 365 days. The point is there are a lot of movies, a lot of crappy movies, even more so-so movies, quite a few good movies and a fair number of great movies, and I will guarantee you’ve missed a lot a films that fall into each of those categories. I don’t know the exact number, but as close as I can estimate I have seen around 7,000 movies in my life. I mean, movies are one of my great passions, obviously, I have a blog devoted to them. Here are some of the movies I have missed (or never seen all the way through):
If I added up all the times I have seen parts of Schindler’s List and Sunset Blvd. I’ve probably seen them all, ditto for Nashville, but I have never sat through any of those films from beginning to end. What do those movies have in common, other than my not having seen them? They are all on the American Film Institutes list of 100 greatest movies ever made. A few years ago I gave a book, The 501 Movies Everyone Should See, to a bunch of people for Christmas. In talking to many of those people they would ask how many of the 501 I had seen, I had seen 411 of them. It became a bit of a contest to see who was closest to my number. The book got passed through family members, movie fans one and all, and no one else made it to 200. My point is simply we all have holes, big holes in our movie knowledge and if you are making a list you have to ask yourself if your holes are too big.
Third and finally film is just really subjective. If I do a top 10 baseball players list I can have statistical arguments that back my claims, the arguments may not be irrefutable but they can’t be entirely dismissed either. Art doesn’t work that way and film really doesn’t work that way. You can try to use box office numbers and while I am not one who believes box office means nothing in regards to quality, it certainly doesn’t mean everything. Good movies struggle to find an audience, pedestrian movies can hit it big, there is enough randomness to it that those numbers don’t make compelling arguments. The same can be said for awards and critics reviews and Rotten Tomato scores. In the end all any of those tell you is how a group of people feel about a movie, but it doesn’t tell you how you feel about a movie and how you feel about a movie can be impacted by so many things that the subjectivity of film is on steroids. Just consider these two examples of good/great movies; The Fugitive at home versus in a crowded theater in August of 1993, Star Wars at age 11 in 2004 when you have seen innumerable CGI based films versus Star Wars at age 11 in 1977 when you had never seen anything like Star Wars. Believe me those are entirely different experiences and that is not even adding things like the emotional resonance that can be attached to watching a film at a certain time with certain people. I can’t watch The Lego Movie without picturing my son’s raptured stare as he consumed that film. Too many factors go into how much you like a movie (by design), so how do you make a list with any kind of objectivity if the medium itself encourages you not to be objective?
So, making a movie list seems easy, but its not, at least it isn’t if you really love movies and you take the task semi-seriously. It’s not hard, necessarily, but it is tricky, until you figure out the tricks. I’ve been writing movie lists for years and I’ve learned the tricks, so if you want to do it here is a step by step guide to walk you through (then, after you do one, you’ll throw my guide out and do it your own way. It’s okay, I wont be offended)
Step One: What’s Your List
There are two parts to this. First is the general genre. Best Movies, Best Action Movies, Best Critically Acclaimed Romantic Comedies on Netflix, Best Movies Ever Released in April. Understand that the more specific is often the easier to do. Best Movies is the Mount Everest of movie lists because you are putting every film you’ve ever seen in play and you are having to judge between apple, oranges and passion fruit. Taking one of Netflix’s oddly specific genre sub-directories and ranking those, that’s pretty easy. The second part to this is the number you choose. Obviously there is a direct correlation between the specificity of your list and the number you choose (more specific = smaller number). I learned this lesson a number of years ago. I had always done either top 50 or top 100 lists, then I tried to do the top 50 pirate movies until I realized there were not 50 good pirate movies. The Top 25 Pirate Movies is still one of my most read lists and frankly it was hard to get to 25.
Step Two: Assemble A List Of Candidate
Don’t try to rank them, just start listing all of the movies that you can think (and have seen) that fit into your title. I do this in generally two steps. First, I just jot down the ones I was thinking of and then I go on line, look at other people who have made similar lists, see if I have forgotten some (like I said up top, you always forget some).
Step Three: Remind Yourself It Is YOUR List
This is the single most important part. There is no right answer with this stuff, there is only your answer. If you want to say that Star Wars is a pirate movie because Han Solo is a pirate and in some ways it is as much his movie as it is Luke’s, go for it. All you have to do (at most) is explain why you feel like it belongs, and if that explanation is simply because I like it, well, it is a subjective medium. If someone is looking for some objective list that tries to definitively answer the question of “best” they can go toRotten Tomatoes and look at the aggregate critic reviews or AFI who conducts polls of their members or look at the IMDB Top 250 ratings which aggregate the consensus of all of their users. If you are authoring a list you need to own that list. So if you are a Transformers fan and Revenge of the Fallen is your favorite science fiction movie then Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen better be on your list or your list is a fraud.
Step Four: Split You Movies Into Tiers
Here’s where things can stall out, you get hung up on what movie should be #1 or #10 or whatever and you can’t move on because you can’t decide. If you are going to start with #1 and go forward I can almost guarantee that will happen more than once before you get to your magic number. It is better to break it into to tiers so you can debate order with yourself in smaller groups. Generally my tiers are; 1) Legitimate contenders for the top spot; 2) List wouldn’t be complete without them; 3) Definitely in the top (whatever your number is); 4) Pretty sure they are going to make it; 5) Whatever is left. Obviously if I am doing a top 10 I may not use all 5 tiers, but for 25, 50 and definitely for 100 I use them all.
Step Five: Figure Out Which Tier Is The Last Tier
This is pretty simple. Start with tier #1 and count. So, let’s say I am doing a top 50 romantic comedies. I’ve got say 6 in tier #1, I have another 11 in tier #2, Tier #3 has 30, so I know in my first three tiers I am at 47, which means only the top 3 films in tier #4 are going to make it. I can throw out tier #5 and worry about tier 1-3 later.
Step Six: Rank The Last Tier
Now, to use the rom com example from above, I know I just have room for my top 3 from tier #4. Since ranking only really works if you start from #1 and work backwards, you find the best film in tier #4 and that becomes #48 in your top 50. The #2 becomes #49 and #3 becomes #50 and you throw the rest away.
Step Seven: Rank The Remaining Tiers In Order
Next I go to tier #3 and put them in order. Whatever order they are they get transplanted into the top 50 as #47-#17. Then I follow suit with tier #2 and finally tier #1. I’ve found a side benefit to this method is that by the time I get to ranking the last tier I have kind of gotten into the groove of saying “this movie goes above that movie”. That’s really helpful when I get to the top handful, I find making those decisions is faster if not easier after doing it a few times before.
Step Eight: Make Sure The List Feels Right/Honest
I had a statistic professor in college who used to say that a good statistic wont shock you, it should feel right even if it isn’t what you expected. You see this with the whole advanced metrics in sports all the time, they may be new ideas but they make sense (like their being value to a guy who takes a lot of pitches in baseball because he wears out the pitcher among other benefits, it feels logical). The same basic principal applies here, except you are really looking to see if your list feels honest. Is your #1 movie really your favorite, or is it #1 because most people think of it as #1? Do you really like Citizen Kane or are you putting it on your list because everyone puts Citizen Kane on their list because it is the most influential film ever made? From my experience here is a general guideline of what your list should look like:
It shouldn’t have any movies you haven’t seen from beginning to end on it It should have a few films that almost no one else would have on their list It should have a number of classics (they are classics for a reason) It should have a lot of similar movies (if you like Tarantino your list should have a lot of Tarantino) It should be a list that most people would argue with
That last one is really the telling one. You can’t make your list to illicit argument, but when it is done if your list doesn’t illicit argument or at least disagreement then your list probably isn’t honest. This all goes back to the subjectivity thing. My dad’s two favorite movies were The Sound of Music and The God’s Must Be Crazy. No one would put those #1 and #2, no one except my dad. Now, I don’t know why he loved The God’s Must Be Crazy, maybe he saw it on just the right day, with just the right people and it struck his funny bone. We all have movies like that and those are the movies that should be on your list, that’s what makes your list interesting. And, those are the kinds of things that other people will argue about, which is great. I don’t want everyone to read my list, nod and say “yup, those are the best ones”, I want people to say “you can’t call Star Wars a pirate movie” or “The Fisher King? One of the best movies ever? Are you nuts?”. That’s what makes doing the lists fun and that’s when you know you’ve done it right.
There is one last thing you should know about your list, you will want to change it. I don’t think there is a list I have made that I haven’t looked at sometime later and thought “boy, that’s a bit too high for that movie” and “I really should have put that one in” and “I’m an idiot”. What are you going to do, our opinions change. Writing about movies, particularly when you write a review, you say things that aren’t literally accurate, because they can’t be. A reviewer will say a movie is boring, but since boring isn’t something that is a definitive thing what he or she is really saying is the I was bored. So when I say I have created the list of the Top 100 Movies of All-Time, what I’m really saying is this is my list of my top 100 movies of all time today. That is the best any of us can do.
By the way, I really did just finish the Mount Everest of lists, my Top 100. I have avoided it for years but my son finally convinced me to go for it. I’m going to start to unveil the list a movie at a time starting next week so check back if you are interested and create your own top 100 so you can compare it to mine and see how wrong I am.
I am not a hater of sequels. I think this narrative of “all hollywood makes are sequels and comic book movies and those aren’t art” is stupid. But the announcement this week that Dennis Villeneuve is set to direct Harrison Ford in a Blade Runner sequel is, well it’s just wrong. Let me explain.
First, great sequels flow organically from movies that end with a beginning. The end of The Godfather is the beginning of Michael Corleone excepting his destiny as the head of the family. Iron Man ends with Tony Stark telling the world he is the man behind the mask. Star Wars ends with a victory at the beginning of a war and the start of Luke’s journey to being a Jedi. All the great sequels are set up by the original, not just from a world building stand point but from a plotting standpoint. Blade Runner is not that kind of a movie. The movie, a meditation on what it means to be human, to have a soul, ends purposely without an answer. What happens to Deckard and Rachel as they drive off isn’t the point, the point is that they are driving off without knowing what will happen or when or even what they really are. To answer any of those questions is to undermine the entire point of the original.
I enjoyed Prisoners and Enemy very much (Villeneuve’s last movies) and the future that Ridley Scott created will always play well on screen (Blade Runner is one of the few sic fi movies that still holds up visually 30 years later), so maybe they can make a good movie, but they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t because any film they make will lessen the impact of a movie that has stood the test of time, that is truly a work of art and needs to stand alone.
The Academy Awards are over, now we can all complain about the Academy Awards
The Oscar postmortem, it is as much a part of the movie landscape as Marvel Studios. It is talked about and picked apart more thoroughly than a Hobbit movie. Best and worst dressed lists, people complaining about the length of the telecast, people complaining about the host, people complaining about who won and who lost. It is all picked and prodded and it always sounds the same … or does it?
The stuff about who wore what and the host not being funny enough and all that stuff, that is consistent. I doubt I have missed more than 3 or 4 Oscars in my life and they were all too long and self-important and the host always feels like they are on a very short leash. Sure, sometimes it works a little better, as much a function of acceptance speeches as any other factor, but the truth is it is an impossible telecast that is trying to do way too many things at once for it ever to truly work. Just as it always has been. But something has changed and in many ways it has changed everything.
In the 1980’s the average best picture winner was the 8th highest grossing movie of the year. In the 1990’s the eventual winner averaged out to be the 9th highest grossing picture. In the 00’s things started to change. In 2003 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King became the last movie to be the highest grossing movie of the year and win best picture (since 1980, which is as far back as Box Office Mojo does yearly box office rankings, that has happened four time, 1988 Rainman, 1994 Forest Gump, 1997 Titanic and 2003), since then the average best picture winner was the 47th highest grossing movie of that year and somehow that number is climbing. In the 2010’s the average is 51st. The 51st highest grossing movie in 1980? Oh God, Book II.
Since I took the time to look up the numbers I’ll throw a few other odd tidbits out. From 1980 to 2003 there was only one year in which one of the top 5 films at the box office wasn’t nominated. 1989 was the outlier, Driving Miss Daisy won and was the 8th highest grossing picture of the year and Dead Poets Society, which was also nominated, was the 10th highest grossing picture. Every other year at least one of the year’s biggest hits was also considered won of the year’s best films.
What does all of this mean? I don’t know. Maybe the Academy has some kind of self-loathing problem or maybe they feel like the money is reward enough for those other movies, but the fact remains that the awards show itself isn’t as fun when no one has seen any of the movies.
It is hard to make definitive statements about inherently subjective things. Wait, that’s not quite right, it should be hard to make definitive statements about subjective things like movies or TV. Obviously it isn’t hard for most people, they do it all the time (myself included) but more often than not they should come with the caveat “in my opinion”. In my opinion Citizen Kane is not the greatest movie ever made, but many film buffs would disagree with me. Having said all of that (about the definitive statements, not the Citizen Kane thing) there are some things that we can say about a movie or TV show with absolute conviction. Here are five such things I can say about one of my favorite TV shows, that began its final season last night, Justified.
1. Season 2 Was Its Best Season
It feels like you can make this kind of statement about most TV shows. Season 6 is the best of the Sopranos. Season 5 of Breaking Bad. Season 4 of the wire. Day 4 of 24. Those are the seasons of those iconic shows that have won various online polls, but I don’t think I agree with any of them (Sopranos Season 1, The Wire Season 5, Breaking Bad Season 3, 24…who can remember, they all bleed together at this point). This goes back to my initial statement, subjective things are hard to definitive.
But…
There is no question or debate that Season 2 of Justified was the best this show has ever been or could ever be. Call it alchemy or magic or the stars simply aligning but Season 2 of Justified took an entertaining procedural about a US Marshall with an itchy trigger finger into an opera of violence and betrayal and family and old wounds that was impossible to take your eyes off of. As a whole Justified might fall short of shows like The Sopranos or The Wire or Breaking Bad but Season 2 can stand toe-to-toe with any season of any show.
2. Justified Would Be On The Mount Rushmore of Elmore Leonard Adaptations
26 of Elmore Leonard’s novels or short-stories have been adapted into movies or TV shows or both. Some have been good, some have been bad, few got it as “right” as Justified. Everything about the show feels like it came from Elmore Leonard, from the main character to the entirety of the supporting cast. Justified, like so much of what Leonard did, is a world where people get drawn into lives they don’t want, become players in plays they didn’t expect and find a way through in ways you don’t see coming and the difference between the good guys and the bad guys can feel thinner than a sheet of paper even when it is as plain as day. Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Justified and then you can quibble about Jackie Brown (my choice) or the original 3:10 to Yuma. That’s it, that is your top 4, your Mount Rushmore, end of story.
3. Timothy Olyphant Will Never Be This Good Again
That feels like I am taking a shot at the man, I’m not. I think Timothy Olyphant is amazing. Seth Bullock, to me, was every bit as important to making Deadwood a classic as Al Swerengen was. Olyphant did one of my favorite voice guest spots on Archer ever, he was terrific in GO and he made Hitman oddly watchable. I guess what I’m saying is I ride with Tim Olyphant. But much as John McLean was for Bruce Willis or Martin Riggs was for Mel Gibson or Tony Soprano was for James Galdolfini, Raylan Givens suits Olyphant so perfectly and he fits Raylan Givens that it seems impossible to imagine a better version. Raylan plays into all the things that Olyphant naturally has (charisma, good looks, etc.) and all the things he does as an actor (easy charm hiding deep seeded rage) that you literally can’t even see another actor playing the part. It is a rare thing for an actor to get a role this good that is this perfect for him, it is nearly impossible to imagine it happening for the same actor twice … of course, I likely would have written a nearly identical paragraph about Olyphant and Seth Bullock when Deadwood was coming to an end.
4. The Casting Department Had One Of The Highest Batting Averages in TV History
Justified takes place in Eastern Kentucky, it’s filmed outside of LA. You don’t need to have been through Kentucky to know that LA, or any part of California for that matter, looks NOTHING like coal mining country. It makes it all the more remarkable then that Justified feels like it has as defined a sense of location as any show on television. That feeling of being there is driven by a near flawless cavalcade of actors who all fit the world perfectly. Nick Searcy, Walton Goggins, Raymond Berry, Jere Burns, Natalie Zea (always better than she needs to be in the little roles she keeps getting)Damon Herriman, Jeremy Davies, Abby Miller, Patton Oswalt, Steve and Wood Harris, I could literally fill up a page listing the home runs they have hit with small characters and Margo Martindale, the Season 2 big bad, may be the best casting choice made in the last decade. The other secret weapon the casting department has employed is reuniting their star with some of his former Deadwood castmates, all of who have fit right in (I understand they tried to get Ian McShane but could never fit it in). It is actually that impeccable knack for casting that made the enormous miscasting of Michael Rapaport so glaring (note to casting directors, the most New York of New York actors cannot play a Florida swamp rat convincingly). Still, they are batting .900 or better over the course of the series.
5. Justified Will Always Be Remembered For What It Wasn’t More Than What It Was
What if’s scenarios are always fun. What if Justified and The Shield switched places? Justified would have come out in 2002. It would have been viewed as the cutting edge cable drama that benefitted The Shield through its initial run. Justified wouldn’t have lived in the shadow of Deadwood or had to compete with the brilliance of Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Justified would have been the show people pointed to with The Sopranos as the ‘new’ television. I don’t want to take anything away from The Shield, I show I very much liked, but its hard not to imagine Justified doing even more with the good fortune of that timing. Instead Justified came out in 2010. Breaking Bad was just getting its legs, Mad Men was humming, Sons of Anarchy was already an FX hit, the golden age of TV was in full swing and Justified always seemed to be sitting on the cusp of the GREAT shows, perpetually on critics top ten lists but never in there top five. More than anything though Justified seemed to never be able to break free of Deadwood, in part because they kept casting Deadwood actors. David Milch’s iconic western is an unfair measuring stick for any show, but when you have the same star playing a lawman again in what amounts to a modern western, well, I’m guessing Graham Yost (Executive Producer/Creator) and company knew Deadwood was always going to be there. Justified is the early 80’s Philadelphia 76ers, lost in the wake of Magic and Bird and the legend of what Dr. J had once been. Things happen that way sometimes, but those of us who watched Justified and enjoyed the entire ride will always remember it for everything that it was.
Most movie recommendations should come with caveats, “if/then” statements that let people know immediately if they are out. Some are simple like:
“If you like sic-fi you should check out Guardians of the Galaxy.”
Some can be comparative:
“If you like Inglorious Basterds you’re gonna like Django Unchained.”
And in that case really obvious.
And sometimes you can be more overtly exclusionary:
“If you don’t like profanity don’t see The Wolf of Wall Street.”
So what caveats do you add to a recommendation of The Raid 2? Something like this:
“If you like graphically violent martial arts movies with subtitles that run 2 1/2 hours long and has a plot that holds up just enough that’s also a gangster movie and is filmed throughout the slums of Jakarta and shows a number of people beaten to death with hammers, baseball bats and faces to cooking surfaces (I mentioned the graphically violent, right?) that even has a shootout in a disgusting porn studio, then boy, have I got the movie for you.”
Now, for me, my response to that sentence would be “I’m in!” But I know that isn’t true for everyone. Of course, the better caveat would probably be this:
“If you saw The Raid you’ll probably like The Raid 2.”
The Raid became something of a sensation two years ago. The story of an Indonesian SWAT team that stages a raid on an apartment building that is controlled by a drug dealer and find they literally have to fight their way up each floor of the building to get to the man was as filled with action as any movie I have ever seen. It played at a few festivals (Fantastic Fest or SXSW, I can’t recall which) and began getting buzz and ended the year on more than a few Top 10 lists (including my own).
The truth is, my second caveat may not actually be true. The first Raid was action packed and certainly much more graphically brutal than most martial arts films (in truth, neither film should really be in that category, they are action films with a LOT of fighting, but the fighting isn’t about showing off how well an actor or stunt double can do a spinning side-kick, it is about fighting to survive) but The Raid 2 ups the ante. The film starts right after the first movie ends …
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!
… where the lone survivor of the original raid, a rookie cop named Rama (played by Iko Uwais) is told that basically the whole road was for nothing. They use corruption as an excuse to put Rama immediately into an under cover operation (because until they find out who is behind neither Rama or his family will ever be safe!), first in a prison and then in the Indonesian mob. But none of that really matters. It isn’t that the plot is poorly set-up its just that plot is not the reason ANYONE watches this movie. You are watching this movie to see Alice “Hammer Girl” (that is the characters official title) take out a train full of mobsters with, you guessed it, just two hammers (its like the scene from Oldboy on steroids). You watch this movie to watch Baseball Bat Man (again, official title) ask for his ball back and to see what he does when people say no. You watch this movie for a non-stop bombardments of hand to hand combat, shootouts, car chases, mob riots and assassinations. And it is all awesome …
: something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings
There are reasons begin again wasn’t a box office success when it was released last summer. Some obvious reasons (small release, little advertising, stars without big box office track records, summer box office competition, etc.) and some less so. Box office hits are easily definable, which makes them easily marketable and easily digestible and, often, easily translatable for foreign markets. Begin Again is none of those things.
There are reasons Begin Again isn’t an “art house” hit or in discussion for end of year awards. Some of those reasons are obvious (when it was released, they didn’t go the festival route, etc.) and some less so. Critically acclaimed movies push boundaries and explore dangerous places (internally, externally, literally, figuratively), they are ground breaking in style or structure. Begin Again is none of those things.
IMDB’s one sentence of Begin Again’s plot reads as follows:
A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents. That is perfectly accurate and frankly better than any sentence I could come up with and yet it gives you no idea what Begin Again is. Begin Again is a movie about living your life, starting over and mostly about doing something for the sake of doing that thing (in this case music). It is a movie that shows the joy people can find in aspiring to nothing more than an idea and making that idea a reality, with no need for anything else to come of it but that.
Begin Again is also a movie full of charm. Both leads (Mark Ruffalo and Kiera Knightley) ooze it, but so does everyone else in the movie. Even Adam Levine, who plays Knightley’s ex-boyfriend who leaves her to become a famous rock star, is the same charming guy you see on the Voice. It is a movie without villains, without high stakes and every time you think it is going to become something trite it saunters past the obvious plot turn.
Ultimately, Begin Again isn’t ground breaking, it isn’t tear jerking or laugh out loud funny. It is a movie that plays a little like listening to a Nora Jones record, it passes by in the most pleasant and charming way and you appreciate that because its not trying to fit any mold or be anything other than what it is, it feel real and authentic in ways that fiction rarely does.
You can check out Part 1, January-March, here.
The Queen of Shadows 