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Movies on My Mind

Week Ending July 9 2016

Box Office

It’s the sure sign of a piss-poor movie summer (not that there’s been much sign of seasonal splendour in the firmament either) when you find yourself casting about for prospective movie offerings and coming up short. I’m clearly not alone, as aside from Finding Dory audiences have been determinedly unpersuaded by the slew of suckage at the US theatres, and internationally the prospects aren’t all that much rosier.

There’s a roster of movies that will have to settle for the $200m+ mark globally, nothing to be sneezed at if you’re reasonably budgeted, but something of a disaster if you’re a costly pic and one following a predecessor that made twice that amount (or more). So Alice Through the Looking Glass, Now You See Me 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Closet, follow The Huntsman: Winter’s War as more than a tad disappointing.

What isn’t so disappointing is that crap originals aren’t tempting cinemagoers to flock obediently to the follow-ups (anyone would think the great unwashed had taste, right?) It’s gratifying to see Seth Rogen’s boorish oaf failing to appeal in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which has barely scraped $100m, and won’t finish up with half the original’s tally. Independence Day: Resurgence may top $300m, but that’s still half a billion less than its two-decades-old predecessor, while X-Men: Apocalypse comes in a good $200m short of Days of Future Past. Of those tarnished jewels, I’ve only seen the latter two, because none of the originals, or the advance word for their follow-ups, remotely enthused me.

And it isn’t just the sequels this summer, with Warcraft managing to provoke column inches over the power of the Chinese dollar (well, yen) but still looking too costly to merit further unexciting adventures in unMiddle Earth ($400m and stalling). Elsewhere, a property that might reasonably have been expected to double its total, given its brand recognition, Angry Birds Movie is only in the $300+ range, a modest result for an animation in the current climate.

Add to those ranks The Legend of Tarzan, the one I was mulling a look at during the last week and elected to refrain. It appears even less captivating than Greystoke, which at least had the unlikely prospect of serious, heritage-minded movie going for it. What Tarzan needed was to have the loin-clothed one fight dinosaurs, or troglodytes or some such. Give him something whacky to do, and pulpy, as that’s what he is, whacky and pulpy.

The BFG has also taken a bath, provoking some to suggest Spielberg has lost his touch. That may partly be it, but he also needs to get with a cinematographer who can provoke a childlike sense of wonder, rather than one who wants to get back to that serious-minded fare.

In weeks to come there’s the femme Ghostbusters, which I can’t get too excited about, although I rather like Kate McKinnon’s general turnout. I’m far from outraged over the gender swap; my nonplussed-ness is entirely down to finding the last one, 33 years ago, a bit of a snooze, and (sacrilegious to say) I didn’t actually LOVE the original. So this one doesn’t necessarily have to do a lot to win me over, other than actually muster me to go see it.

And then there’s Star Trek Beyond. Has a rousingly rejuvenated franchise ever soiled its goodwill so quickly? Simon Pegg (who is suddenly a Trekkie, but I could have sworn Doctor Who was always his bag, when it wasn’t Star Wars; it definitely wasn’t Babylon 5, which as we know was a big pile of shit) seems more fixated on Sulu’s sexual preferences than whether he’s concocted a decent story (interrogating the nature of the Federation may sound like a worthy subject to tackle, but you have to remember this comes from someone whose last writing credit was the underwhelming The World’s End and that the last serious minded Trek was one no one can recall despite having the estimable and Oscar-winning F Murray Abraham as the main villain). So while I’d really like Beyond to be beyond average, I’m not holding my breath.

The only bona fide big hits of the summer are the unstoppable Pixar and The Conjuring 2, and the latter looks to meet the first one for gross rather than turning into a latter-day Exorcist. The biggies (The Jungle Book, Civil War, Zootopia) all came during the spring season, and it rather speaks to a continued crumbling of traditionally carved-up periods where a designated box office sensation could berth.

The Secret Life of Pets looks to do reasonably well, but perhaps not as well as it might have if it had been truly inspired (although that hasn’t stopped Illumination before). Ice Age 5 may become another near-billion grosser or a take bit of a dip; I haven’t really familiarised myself with the fatigue factor of the franchise, but since this one has brought in UFOs, it may be that it’s getting into Police Academy desperate straits. And Ben-Hur is going to stink the place out. Pete’s Dragon may yet be the hit BFG wasn’t, but why would one appeal and the other not (everyone has nostalgic memories of the slightly rancid original)?

Which leaves some ifs (Nine Lives, The Founder) and a couple of sure things. Jason Bourne should rule August, unless it’s somehow rubbish. As for Suicide Squad, it has certainly made a dent in terms of public awareness, but David Ayer’s ability with material, tone, and general taste and flair is reliably variable. I’m expecting it to be rather a mess, which won’t necessarily preclude it from becoming a big hit. After that, it could easily be November (Dr Strange, Fantastic Beasts) before anything really tickles the public’s fancy.

Alien 5-ish

Given that Sir Ridley is firmly back in the land of aliens with Covenant, I’d have liked to think he had good sense and taste enough to send young jock Neill Blomkamp packing when he came in suited up in his replica Aliens power loader (he’s been redesigning it every movie he’s made), shouting about how he’s on an express elevator to xenomorph heaven, and mostly intends to make a sequel to Cameron’s not-quite-classic, mostly. Unfortunately, Sir Ridley has been deficit an ability to see a good screenplay for decades, even when it Glaswegian kisses him, and besides, Blomkamp probably had the ear of the same Fox bean counters who greenlit those AvPs.

Because this is a really bad idea. Not only to sweep two sequels under the carpet which, whatever their deficiencies, at least dared not to follow generic courses, in stark contrast to Blomkamp’s desire to do a direct, diligently bereft follow-up to a movie he still wakes up all sweaty about 30 years later. He risks alienating the very fans he’s trying to appeal to, the ones who wrote fanfic (or Dark Horse comics) about canoodling Ripley and Hicks, and grown-up Newt. The whole thing’s quite horrible really. And, while Sigourney’s in good shape, she is also in her mid-60s. As was Harrison when he proved returning to Indy was a bad idea, with a young inheritor who was an even worse one.

Blomkamp got lucky with District 9, basically. He’s a proficient technician but a dreadful scenarist, and Alien 3.1 stands to be as eviscerated as the AvPs and (slightly unjustly) Resurrection as yet another stillborn in the saga. Thank goodness (relatively) we have Scott unaccountably still carrying the torch for the franchise. He must just love Fassbender.

If you’d told me in 1988 that a talented action director would be steering a direct follow up in which Ripley’s new family packed punches against an alien hoard, I’d have been ecstatic. But I was young then, and knew no better. It seems Blomkamp still knows no better, but then that’s self-evident if you’ve seen Elysium or Chappie. We can but hope the audible backlash over this finds its way back to Fox, but they’ve never been a studio with professional pride, at least not since Murdoch’s been running things.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Tippy-toe! Tippy-toe!

Seinfeld 2.7: The Phone Message The Premise George and Jerry both have dates on the same night. Neither goes quite as planned, and in George’s case it results in him leaving an abusive message on his girlfriend’s answerphone. The only solution is to steal the tape before she plays it. Observational Further evidence of the gaping chasm between George and Jerry’s approaches to the world. George neurotically attacks his problems and makes them worse, while Jerry shrugs and lets them go. It’s nice to see the latter’s anal qualities announcing themselves, however; he’s so bothered that his girlfriend likes a terrible TV advert that he’s mostly relieved when she breaks things off (“ To me the dialogue rings true ”). Neither Gretchen German (as Donna, Jerry’s date) nor Tory Polone (as Carol, George’s) make a huge impression, but German has more screen time and better dialogue. The main attraction is Jerry’s reactions, which include trying to impress her with hi

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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