We're passing what feels like the halfway mark of the Marvel's grand cinematic plan and I'm happy to report that the state of the MCU is strong.
I'm a big fan of the first Avengers. It's one of those movies that my wife and I can pretty much watch at the drop of a hat, whether it be for 20 minutes for the full running time. It's light and it's fun and it's full of of these incredible moments of unbridled joy. I would caution you not to expect quite the same experience from Age Of Ultron, which isn't to say it's not an expertly crafted summer blockbuster or that it somehow lacks in entertainment value. It's just a different kind of beast. In a way, Ultron is a collection of contradictions; compared to the first Avengers, the latest entry is both darker and more exhilarating, more epic in scope yet also far more intimate in dealing with its characters.
All your favorite Avengers are back and in fine form, but we’ve also got a host of new additions to the cast. Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are fine as “the twins” Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (the accents are pretty hit-or-miss) but the real standouts are Paul Bettany, who absolutely kills it with only a few scenes as The Vision, and James Spader as the titular Ultron. Spader is such a natural fit for Whedon’s trademark quippy dialogue that I can’t believe the pairing never occurred to me earlier. It seems so obvious in retrospect.
I just wish that, while Ultron does actually threaten to cause a global extinction level event, the action wasn't quite so contained. With a title like Age Of Ultron, I was expecting, well, an age. Something that redefines civilization, the kind of singular event that is spoken about in hushed tones from generation to generation, not just a week of individual battles where it feels like the villain is largely operating in the shadows. I wanted Ultron to truly fuck up the world for a while, crashing communications networks or global finance or something. Ultron drones descending upon major cities all across the globe. Chaos on an epic fucking scale. Granted this movie is certainly very globe-trotting, with major set pieces in Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, New York and South Korea, but each incident is pretty isolated and somewhat small scale. The new status quo at the end also feels a bit too easy. Sure, Hulk has sent himself into mysterious exile, but Thor has just gone back to Asgard while Hawkeye has retired to his family farm and Tony Stark has very politely and amicably gone into semi-retirement. It basically feels like, while most everyone has left the Avengers, they can all come back whenever they get bored. If you're gonna break up the band and replace them with the B-team, I'd like there to be some real dramatic obstacles to bringing everyone together again.
Since we’re dealing with a team of superheroes, it seemed only appropriate that I assemble a team of my own for this week’s podcast. Believe it or not, our conversation actually went much, MUCH longer but, at Jamie's suggestion, I'm trying to keep the podcasts shorter than the running time of the movies we're talking about. We tackle Joss Whedon’s propensity for killing beloved characters, the film’s tricky onscreen romance and even answer some listener questions!
As always, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and/or on SoundCloud.
Next Week: We get classy and celebrate Orson Welles' 100th birthday with Citizen Kane!
If nothing else, the Marvel films will be remembered for instilling in audiences a compulsive need to stay through all of the credits of most any blockbuster franchise film with the expectation that they'll be treated to a short post-credit stinger scene. I actually kind of love this side effect, as the industry-saturated audiences of Los Angeles typically stick around as a sign of respect for the many crew members who work on any given film. I can't help but wonder how long this phenomenon will persist, as more often than not the credits simply roll to black and whoever's still in the theater lets out a groan and feels like a sucker.
Director Joss Whedon seems to recognize the danger of disappointment, which is why he recently told Entertainment Weekly that there will be nothing at the end of the credits for Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Kevin Feige pointed out that there will be the expected mid-credits tag, but according to Whedon, they just couldn't come up with anything that lived up to the legacy of the first Avengers's infamous schwarma scene. And really, what could? Tip of the hat for not attempting to bottle lightning twice.
Now it's worth noting that the schwarma scene wasn't actually filmed until after the LA premiere, so if you had asked Whedon about a post-credit stinger at this point before the first film, he would have told you the exact same thing. I find it hard to believe that Whedon would specifically tell people not to stick around just to fuck with fans, but it doesn't preclude him (or the Russos for that matter) getting the band back together at the eleventh hour if inspiration strikes. In other words, yeah I'll probably stick around but there probably won't be anything after all.
Also, feel free to start speculating as to what future Marvel film the mid-credit scene will set up. Ant-Man is next on the docket but Captain America: Civil War will have already started filming. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if Black Panther or Captain Marvel made an appearance...
On Tuesday they announced that the first trailer for Avengers: Age Of Ultron would premiere during next week's episode of Agents Of SHIELD. Then on Wednesday, a low res copy leaked on Vimeo and started getting passed around the internet by assholes with no sense of propriety or patience. Most studios would have started throwing down cease and desist orders in an attempt to get every copy of the trailer pulled offline, but Marvel is smart enough to know when the genie is out of the bottle. So, after a cheeky tweet blaming Hydra for the leak, they leaned into the skid and simply released an HD version of the trailer themselves, thus undercutting the shithead leakers and once again commandeering the superhero movie conversation everywhere. What's that DC? You finally figured out a game plan? That's adorable.
Check this shit out:
DAMN.
The first film fairly reveled in the pure joy of seeing all the heroes finally come together for the first time, and while I'm sure there will still be plenty of humor and fun in this second outing (it is Joss Whedon after all) it's also clear that Earth's Mightiest Heroes are going to end up in some pretty dark places. That Hulkbuster armor has me virtually vibrating with excitement and James Spader sounds appropriately menacing as the big bad.
Plus there's still nary a sign of The Vision! He's the character I'm easily most excited to see, as I'm incredibly curious to see exactly how his creation and his relationship with Stark and Ultron will play out. I also appreciate the small tastes we're getting of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, particularly the sort of vapor-trail approach to the latter which easily differentiates him from Fox's iteration of the same character in Singer's X-Men films.
And that creepy-as-fuck Pinocchio song? As my wife said upon watching it for the first time (and then once again immediately afterwards), that's just so Joss it hurts.
Last week was a doozy in terms of superhero movie news, with Marvel announcing that Robert Downey Jr. will be appearing in Captain America 3 to kick off their infamous Civil War story while DC finally announced their full slate of films through the end of the decade. Along with the expected individual entries for characters like Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern, WB also revealed the casting of Ezra Miller as The Flash, two Justice League movies filmed back-to-back, (but released two years apart) and a Suicide Squad movie to be helmed by David Ayer. Due to a number of factors I didn't get a chance to write about any of this last week, so Bart and I decided to tackle all of these topics plus a few tangents (Might Will Smith actually play a DC villain? Who's a better director, Zack Snyder or Joss Whedon?) in Episode 35 of the podcast. As a result, this week's episode is a wee bit long and somewhat lopsided, but I think the conversation flows naturally so I didn't want to trim sections of it wholesale.
Eventually we get to talking about David Ayer's current film Fury, in which Brad Pitt plays a World War II tank commander fighting deep inside Germany at the tail end of the war. Despite Pitt's star power, it's really an ensemble film and I think the work of Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal and yes even Shia LaBeouf really elevates the proceedings, as each character is extremely compelling in their own particular way. There's also plenty of smartly staged tank combat, a style of warfare that seems well suited for cinema and yet feels largely underutilized by Hollywood. But the action scenes, while intense, serve almost like release valves for the ratcheting tension that accumulates in the time between battles. It's here where we see the true psychological horrors of war, which feel just as devastating as the physical toll wreaked upon the American GIs.
Suicide Squad was easily the most surprising title on DC's docket, but it's little wonder that the announcement was made just days before Fury hit theaters. It's only too easy to connect the dots between this war film depicting some not-so-nice men on a mission and a movie in which comic book villains are enlisted by the government to go on suicide missions for the promise of amnesty if they somehow manage to survive. In fact, it almost feels like Jon Bernthal's whole performance in Fury is an audition for that Suicide Squad. We should be so lucky. Still, with names like Will Smith, Tom Hardy, Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie all circling the film it seems all but certain that DC's first follow-up to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is not going to tread lightly.
Next Week: Keanu Reeves enacts puppy-vengeance in John Wick!
I have a serious problem when it comes to Amazon Blu-ray deals. It seems like every day I stumble upon another one of my favorite movies on sale for a ludicrously low price. Think I'm joking? At the moment you can get Skyfall, Office Space, Reservoir Dogs, 3:10 To Yuma, The Way Way Back and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels all for $5 a pop. Also, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which is a shockingly accurate value assessment of that movie.*
Well today you can snag the box set of all four Alien films with a side order of Prometheus all for a mere twenty bones. I'm not trying to be a shill for Amazon here, but that's just too good of a deal to pass up if you don't already own these movies. And you really should. I went years operating under the mistaken belief that these were simply monster movies set in outer space as opposed to the sci-fi masterpieces that they (mostly) are. Twenty bucks would be a bargain if it was only for Alien and Aliens, easily the best of the bunch. But Alien 3 is pretty interesting, Alien Resurrection is entertaining in that it contains a proto-version of Joss Whedon's Firefly crew, and Prometheus is absolutely beautiful if completely brain dead. Either way it's only costing you $4.
On top of all that, the Blu-ray transfers of all five films are simply stunning to behold. You'd never know Alien was 35 years old by looking at it. Here's the link. Don't think, just click.
*Not entirely a criticism. I enjoy that movie thoroughly, I just wouldn't pay more than $5 for it.
"You need attitude. Edge. And a hell of a lot more confidence."
I like Kickstarter. In the past three years I've backed a total of 19 different projects including about a dozen films, two albums, a web series, a music video and two different movie theater fundraisers/restorations. It's a great opportunity for independent filmmakers to not only raise the funds for a passion project, but also to directly build and engage a fanbase by fostering a sense of personal involvement. People take pride in the projects they back, just ask any Veronica Mars fan.
Mars is the cautious success story; Rob Thomas was able to mobilize the show's fan base to shatter almost every fundraising record in the history of Kickstarter on his way to raising a staggering $5 million dollars to fund the big screen adaptation of his cult TV show, but since most of those backers received a digital copy of the film on opening day for their troubles, it remains to be seen exactly how all that fundraising success will translate into tangible box office dollars. (The film has made a total of about $2.2 million which isn't bad considering it's only playing in 291 theaters. The studio has not released any VOD or digital copy sales numbers.)
But Veronica Mars is also a pretty atypical model in terms of film Kickstarters, in that it was an adaptation of a TV series with a pre-established and rabid fanbase. There are other popular creatives like Dan Harmon and Spike Lee who have found crowdfunding success because people want to support their favorite artists, even if the final product is kind of niche and doesn't make much in the way of profit. Mars is also unique in that it's a relatively low-budget affair - it'd be much harder to use Kickstarter to bring back a beloved property on the scale of, say, Firefly because you'd never raise enough money for something that effects heavy. You can make the argument that a popular crowdfunding campaign demonstrates viability and audience desire to a hesitant studio, but even Veronica Mars only had 91,585 backers and if a studio is gonna spend serious money, then ideally they want a bigger guaranteed audience.
Plenty of people are ready and willing to hate on Zach Braff for using Kickstarter over traditional funding simply because money from those financiers comes with strings and he wants to make the movie on his own terms. As an artist, that's not a totally invalid wish or argument, but on the other hand just about every film ever made has been executed with those same strings attached and sometimes compromise can breed inspiration. There's a larger argument to be had about profit sharing and whatnot, but Braff isn't making an independent dramedy just for the money and getting your funding in smaller increments from a few thousand people as opposed to a handful of guys with deep pockets doesn't feel any less valid just because it's a new idea. Besides, if Braff is able to attract new users to the Kickstarter platform who then go on to help fund other projects, then obviously that's better for everyone in the long run. I actually think the most interesting use of Kickstarter is with projects like Obvious Child or Kung Fury, where a film is already shot but needs additional support for post-production, basic marketing, and festival submissions in order to secure distribution. That's the part of filmmaking that's largely overlooked by the public but is no less crucial then getting cameras and actors on set. Either way, I like the idea of pitching in to help smaller scale projects and if I can support artists like Jenny Slate or Emily Hagins in the process, all the better.
The very first project I ever backed was Lust For Love, a romantic comedy mostly consisting of supporting cast members from Joss Whedon's short-lived series Dollhouse including Fran Kranz, Dichen Lachman, Enver Gjokaj and Miracle Laurie. Kranz was one of my favorite parts of Dollhouse (I'm a total sucker for Topher-esque characters) and Dichen Lachman is someone I had a friendly professional relationship with in L.A. so I was pleased and excited to help give them a chance to showcase their talents with a passion project of their own. The project went through a lengthy post-production process which delayed the arrival of the final product over a year from their estimated completion date, but I didn't mind waiting if it meant I'd get a better film in the end. And while the production value is strong and the leads do an admirable job at engaging the audience, the script is a bit of a mess. It starts out abruptly in the middle of the story, thus relying too much on a series of prolonged and oddly structured flashbacks that eventually start to undermine the action in the present. The chemistry between Kranz and Lachman is strong, but the chemistry between Kranz and Beau Garrett as his ex-love is practically non-existent. There are also a few narrative dead ends that feel like writer/director Anton King is just running in circles to pad out the running time.
But I don't really want to shit all over the film. It's a slight but entertaining diversion filled with talent that I love, and King proves himself to be a more than capable director. With a stronger script he could actually produce something pretty special, so even if this ends up becoming an uneven early step in a more successful career, it was certainly worth the $25 dollars I pledged to Kickstarter to help make it happen.
Who cares if the final film isn't Citizen Kane? I still like feeling involved, and in the end I feel like that's what Kickstarter is all about.
--------------------------------------- Title: Lust For Love Director: Anton King Starring: Fran Kranz, Dichen Lachman, Beau Garrett, Enver Gjokaj, Karim Saleh, Miracle Laurie, Caitlin Stasey, Felicia Day Year Of Release: 2014 Viewing Method: Digital Copy - TV
"When I said I would die a bachelor, I never thought I would live to be married."
During my freshman year of college, I had a required non-credit course called Playreading Aloud in which a a bunch of hungover theater majors (the class was held Friday mornings and for most of us it was the only class of the day) were gathered together to simply read classic plays out loud with no preparation. I think the idea was to get us comfortable with the cold readings while simultaneously making sure we were all familiar with a basic theater curriculum. Nobody took the class very seriously since there were no grades and no homework and while it certainly made for some entertaining moments here and there, the "performances" never went beyond the basic words on the page. It wasn't really the kind of thing I'd make an audience sit through.
That basically sums up Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing.
Full disclosure: I love me some Whedon. I discovered Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the seventh grade and while I admit that I was lured in because Sarah Michelle Gellar is really hot, I stuck around because the writing totally blew me away. Whedon's ultra-clever patter falls squarely in my wheelhouse along with the likes of Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet.. And as maddening as it can be at times (coughSERENITYcough) I have to respect the guy's penchant for abruptly killing off beloved main characters. It's a ballsy maneuver that most writers/showrunners rightly approach with great trepidation, but the feeling that no one is safe creates an atmosphere of real danger that most films/TV shows lack. I know there are those that find his directing style to be flat and uninspired, but it's never really bothered me one way or another. I heard plenty of complaints that Serenity looked "cheap", but The Avengers certainly proved that the guy can handle scope. The battle of New York is a fight for the fate of the entire world that's confined to a few city blocks and yet it feels like one of the most epic sequences in any comic book film to date.
Back to Much Ado. The whole movie was essentially a lark for Whedon. He filmed it in his own home over the course of 12 days while he was in post for The Avengers. It seems that Whedon frequently holds informal readings with some of his favorite actor friends, similar to my ill-scheduled college class, and Much Ado was conceived directly from these get togethers. Thusly, the cast is made up almost entirely of familiar faces from Whedon's myriad of past television and film projects, save for newcomer Jillian Morgese who Whedon apparently "discovered" while she was doing Avengers background work. Morgese and her onscreen love interest Fran Kranz were both in attendance at the IFFB screening and in the Q&A afterwards Kranz admitted that the low-key production was so fast that they never really got the chance for any full blown rehearsals.
Unfortunately it shows. Alexis Denisof's Benedick is shallowness personified - not the character, but the performance itself. He's all awkward posturing and cartoonish facial expressions. It reeks of someone who's being asked to perform Shakespeare's rich language on the fly and therefore never gets beyond the simplest surface reading of the text. It certainly doesn't help that he's tragically over-matched by Amy Acker's complex and engaging Beatrice. Unlike Denisof, she's able to convey heaps of emotion with the slightest of glances. Beatrice feels like a real person, while Benedick is a caricature at best, which makes their eventual pairing all the more baffling. The trio of villains played by Sean Maher, Riki Lindhome and Spencer Treat Clark (a.k.a. Bruce Willis's kid from Unbreakable) simply don't work and make next to no sense, arriving in handcuffs and immediately being allowed to roam Leonato's house unaccompanied for no particular reason. Reed Diamond and Clark Gregg each have some excellent moments between them while Kranz and Morgese make the best of their anachronistic love story. (It's hard at times not to feel like Leonato is essentially selling off his daughter to a friend of a friend and it's more than a little off-putting in the modern setting.) From a comedy perspective, Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk unsurprisingly kill as constables Dogberry and Verges. Their completely inept attempts at interrogation produce some of the film's funniest moments that don't involve people throwing themselves down stairs while attempting to eavesdrop. Extra kudos to Lenk, whose ratio of laughs to lines of dialogue is probably the most lopsided (in a good way) of anyone in the cast.
But despite its modest entertainment value, I walked away from the movie with a bad taste in my mouth, feeling like the whole thing was just a tremendous missed opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I love that Whedon is willing to do down and dirty projects like Dr. Horrible seemingly on a whim, but Much Ado just feels like a bunch of friends half-assing it in Whedon's amazing Santa Monica home. If the script had been a Whedon original, or even his own adaptation of Shakespeare's story, that might fly. But you just can't phone in Shakespeare. The results lack any kind of depth and don't bring anything new to the table, either for the script or for Whedon himself.
At the same time, I wonder if that really matters for this film. Our theater was packed with die-hard Whedonites (including one girl who was inexplicably dressed like Kaylee from Firefly) who would audibly squee with excitement whenever another member of Joss's familiars showed up. The audience was just happy to see one of their favorite faces on the screen and let their brains connect the dots back to whatever Whedon character the actor had previously portrayed. I'm therefore forced to ask: is this movie ever going to be seen by an audience that isn't stacked in Whedon's favor? The film will get a limited release that will expand in the coming weeks, but it almost certainly won't be playing at your local AMC multiplex. It is, after all, a black and white Shakespeare adaptation starring a collection of largely unfamiliar TV actors. The only real star power driving the film is Whedon himself. Granted his fans are the kind that are willing to go out of their way to seek out his latest opus, but will anyone else? And if the answer is no, then maybe it's fine that Whedon is essentially preaching to the converted here. By all accounts, he and his friends had a blast shooting the movie and I'm sure that most of his acolytes will enjoy the movie well enough. I wish I could count myself among them, but this is easily my least favorite of his projects to date. (Season one of Dollhouse is probably a bigger creative misstep, but at least it's redeemed by a top notch second season.)
That's not to say Much Ado About Nothing was a wholly unenjoyable experience. I admit that I laughed heartily throughout the movie, but in the end it tragically lives up to its title - a tale told by a decent director, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
--------------------------------------- Title: Much Ado About Nothing Director: Joss Whedon Starring: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Fran Kranz, Jillian Morgese, Reed Diamond, Clark Gregg, Nathan Fillion, Riki Lindhome, Sean Maher, Tom Lenk Year Of Release: 2013 Viewing Method: Independent Film Festival Boston
