Podcast Episode 55: We Assemble For AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

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!

PODCAST: Screening Episode 50 - FURIOUS 7 Brings Flying Cars And Teary Eyes

 

I will admit it.  I totally shed a single tear at the end of Furious 7.

Is this the best entry in the unlikeliest of all blockbuster franchises?  No way.  Not by a long shot. Fast Five is still the best single film in the franchise in terms of quality storytelling and character work.  At the same time, Furious 6 is definitely the most entertaining movie overall, due mostly to a healthy dose of the The Rock playing an ally as opposed to an enemy.  Also, The Battle On The Infinite Runway at the end is the best action sequence of this or most any other franchise.  But what Furious 7 lacks in sharp storytelling or non-stop action, it makes up for with steady entertainment value and an emotionally devastating coda.

This franchise has been incredibly nimble, striving to redefine itself with each entry.  The latter half of the series has effortlessly transitioned from cops & robbers to a heist flick to a comic book story and now, with part seven, we are solidly in globe-trotting secret agent mode.  Amazingly, this feels like the franchise's destiny all along, particularly with the always great Kurt Russell playing the team's jovial yet badass handler.  The story feels a bit half-baked ("Let's give them a MacGuffin to chase and be done with it.") but each component of the story works fine on its own.  The entire mountain chase scene, featuring cars parachuting out of a cargo plane, is an absolute franchise all-timer.  Seriously, it's incredible.  But it happens pretty early on in the proceedings and none of the set pieces that follow ever really surpass that scene in terms of action or pure excitement.  Dom and Brian driving a rare and expensive sports car mid-air across three different skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi does come pretty close though.

I was really looking forward to Jason Statham stepping in and lending some real weight and menace to the villain role, something a lot of these movies tend to lack.  And while Statham's silent force-of-nature routine is pretty effective, it somehow pales in comparison to Luke Evans' turn as the younger Shaw brother, mostly because his impassive "Everyone is a cog in my machine" approach feels like a more direct counter point to Dominic Torretto and his fierce family loyalty.  Also, the revelation in the opening scene that Evans somehow managed to survive the last film really deflates Statham's need for vengeance.

But all of these issues (along with a Michelle Rodriguez subplot that falls flat and a significant squandering of Djimon Hounsou) feel totally minor and didn't really start to bother me until long after I'd left the theater.  For most of the film's running time I was having WAY too much fun to get bogged down by any of this stuff.  And by the final scene, I guarantee that you just won't care.  Credit must be paid to director James Wan (who brings his own visual flourishes without alienating the film from the rest of the series) and writer Chris Morgan for pulling off the impossible in the wake of Paul Walker's death.  It would appear that Walker had already finished filming the vast majority of his scenes before his passing and most of the body doubling/digital face-swapping absolutely works on screen.  That's not to say you don't notice it, but it still feels mostly organic to the story and the effects work is not so jarring as to grind the movie to a halt.  And that final scene...man that final scene.  It's just a killer.

We ended up taking an accidental two month hiatus from podcasting but the snow has melted and we're officially back in business. For our first episode after the break we've got a great five-person round table of returning guests, all of whom have varying levels of affection for the Fast & Furious franchise as a whole. Also, at different points we inadvertently confuse Jason Statham with Jason Segal and Eugene Levy with Elliott Gould. True story.

As always, make sure to subscribe on iTunes and/or SoundCloud!

Next week: Ex Machina!

Podcast Episode 46: SELMA Is Too Good For The Oscars

I must admit to being largely underwhelmed by the majority of this year's Oscar nominees.  That's not to say I think 2014 was a bad year for movies, simply that the Academy's choices don't accurately reflect some of the stunning cinematic achievements of the last 365 days.  This is hardly a new phenomenon and it's the reason I gave up really caring about award shows long ago.  This year's crop of nominees are particularly egregious in that they're movies that are not actually about anything other than trying to win awards.

That's why the snubbing of Selma feels all the more frustrating.  Not only is it a timely story which speaks directly to the events of the day, but it is also a breathtaking dramatic and artistic achievement. The Imitation Game and The Theory Of Everything are decent, surface level films which totally vacate your consciousness immediately upon exiting the theater.  They have all the intellectual trappings of "important movies" but with subtext that is trite at best and non-existent at worst.  Selma is transformative.  It hits the audience like a ton of bricks, seizing their attention from the very beginning with the most artful depiction of an explosion I've ever witnessed and then refusing to let go until the credits finally roll.  Selma is emotionally exhausting in the best possible way, a film that demands to be seen and that will challenge and haunt you long after it's over.

Bart and I team up with our better halves Jenna and Jamie to talk about Ava Duvernay's remarkable film as well as how it relates to the current crop of protests taking place all over the country and the stupefying neglect paid to it by Academy voters.  We also chat about a weird series of trailers we saw in which Kevin Costner attempts to single-handedly solve racism.

Next Week: Inherent Vice.  For real this time.

Podcast Episode 37: BIRDMAN Or The Virtue Of Artistic Douchery

First things first: Birdman is a film whose technical beauty is irrefutable.  The cinematic prowess on display by director Alejandro Inarritu is nothing short of breathtaking and his "all-in-one-shot" aesthetic not only creates a tremendous sense of tension and momentum, but it recreates the breathless frenzy of being backstage at a major theatrical production with deft perfection.  On top of that, you've got some great work from stars the likes of Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan, Naomi Watts and the single greatest performance from Michael Keaton in a decade.  With all those things working in its favor, Birdman is an easy film to praise.

But I don't think it's an easy film to love.  Actors will love it.  Theater people will love it.  And having been both of those things in my life, I'm probably a little more forgiving of the movie than many.  But I suspect most of middle America is going to have more than a bit of trouble identifying with any of these characters.  I'd hardly blame you for walking out of the theater hating all actors, or at the very least feeling like you just spent two hours watching an indulgent circle-jerk about artists doing "important work."  After all, this is a movie in which the protagonist stalks around the theater treating his self-scripted, self-directed attempt to remain socially relevant like it was a matter of actual life or death while completely ignoring pain and injury of a fellow actor who had a stage light fall on his head during rehearsals for seemingly no other reason than "he was a terrible actor."

Then again, it's also a movie in which my favorite Batman screeches like a bird and levitates in his tighty whities.  Suffice it to say, I'm more than a little conflicted.

Bart and I discuss all things Birdman with my wife Jamie and his girlfriend Jenna Gabriel.  We also address Marvel's finalized Phase 3 slate, whether or not Gotham is actually a sneaky comedy, and the disheartening first look at Terminator Genisys.

Next Week: We take to the stars with Chris Nolan's Interstellar.

Podcast Episode 28: SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR vs MACHETE KILLS! Robert Rodriguez Double Feature!

If you'd like to become completely disenchanted with Eva Green's breasts and the female form in general, boy have I got a movie for you.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is an ugly film from top to bottom.  Soulless and lacking any of the thrills of its predecessor, it strands too many talented actors on screen with hackneyed dialogue and plots that go absolutely nowhere.  There's no joy to be found anywhere in the movie.  At least in the original film, you could tell that folks like Clive Owen and Brittany Murphy were really digging in and having a ball.  Here, Josh Brolin and Jessica Alba feel completely lost in the wilderness.  Not even a heroin-addicted Christopher Lloyd or Stacey Keach as a potato mutant (!) can save this grim, disgusting retread.

Bart and I were so depressed walking out of the theater that we decided to pair it with another movie for podcasting purposes.  We landed on the opposite end of the Robert Rodriguez spectrum with Machete Kills, which is easily the director's best movie since the first Sin City.  It starts out fairly straightforward, with Danny Trejo's ex-Federale character Machete getting drafted by President Charlie Sheen to track down a madman with a nuclear missile, but it eventually winds its way into a completely insane sci-fi revenge flick chock full of the kind of Itchy And Scratchy-level cartoon violence that I can't help but fall in love with.  I found the first Machete film more than a little disappointing, but Machete Kills actually left me hungry-bordering-on-desperate for the promised third entry.  This is a movie that demands to be seen with lots of friends and lots of beers.

Episode 28 of the podcast finds Bart comparing Eva Green's Sin City performance to the water level in Sonic The Hedgehog and hatching a scheme to bring Danny Trejo into the Expendables universe while I somehow end up lamenting the lack of full frontal penis shots.  We also talk about Ant-Man finally starting production, The Rock as a possible Shazam and some potentially spoilery rumors regarding Star Wars: Episode VII.  The news remains at the top of the episode for those of you who are still waiting to see the movie(s) in question, but at least when it comes to A Dame To Kill For I feel like our 30 minute discussion is probably more entertaining than the actual film.

Next Week: Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Re-Release and another movie TBD.

Podcast Episode 25: The GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Are Here To Save The Summer

To quote a certain blaster-toting raccoon, "Oh...YEAH."

This summer has been pretty fucking grim.  With the exception of 22 Jump Street, it's been a a steady stream of mediocre box office filler like Hercules or outright trainwrecks like Transformers: Age Of Extinction.  That's not to say that the summer's been a complete waste, but even the few bright spots like Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, Snowpiercer and X-Men: Days Of Future Past have been largely dark and serious affairs - all three movies center around global apocalypse!  Where's the humor?  Where's the rollicking adventure?  WHERE'S THE GODDAMN FUN?

Turns out the fun lies with a sentient tree on the far side of the galaxy.

Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy, by far the company's biggest gamble to date, is an outright cinematic miracle.  On paper this, this movie simply should not exist.  Seriously, the very idea of a studio giving the Troma-raised James Gunn $170 million to make an outer space movie starring That Guy From Parks & Rec, a professional wrestler, a green-skinned assassin, a walking tree who only speaks three words and a smart-ass cyborg raccoon is absolutely preposterous.  The fact that it not only exists but has the same pound for pound entertainment value as The Avengers, a movie that needed five other films to set the stage before it could even happen, is mind boggling.

And yet, all these things are true.

Guardians Of The Galaxy finally sends the Marvel universe rocketing out into space and it's a fascinating place packed with oddball characters with whom you can't help but fall in love.  Sure, each character has their own particular set of quirks (Drax doesn't understand metaphors, Star-Lord is a font of 80's pop-culture references) that are essentially appealing on their own but it's the performances that truly elevate the material.  Chris Pratt cements himself as legit movie star (surely a relief to the Jurassic World producers) and Dave Bautista is an absolute joy on-screen, while Bradley Cooper brings a both acerbic wit and a wounded vulnerability to Rocket.  And for all the jokes about Vin Diesel playing a tree who only has one line, you'd be surprised just how much context and emotion can be conveyed solely in the phrase "I am Groot."  Special recognition should also be paid to Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan as Gamora and Nebula, the daughters of Thanos.  Both characters are a tad clunky on the page, constantly tasked with delivering necessary exposition and explanation.  Yet each of these actresses just ooze so much charm and personality on screen that they're almost able to trick the audience into walking away thinking their characters are more substantial.  Still, they're each total badasses, and while their characters feel a bit thin I expect both will be much better served in their second outing.

This wonderfully endearing collection of misfits is what sets Guardians apart not just from the rest of 2014's summer movies, but all other Marvel movies as well.  The Avengers is probably the closest analog here, but even they are just a bunch of folks who fight together out of a sense of duty and honor.  They feel more like a group of friendly coworkers who do a job and then go home to their respective lives.  By the time the end credits roll, the Guardians are already so much more than that.  They're not just friends, they're family.  That's a dynamic that we haven't really seen in Marvel's previous films and it's so simple and affecting that I didn't even realize it was something I had been missing.

And that music!  THAT MUSIC!  Holy hell.  I really dig the score by Tyler Bates, particularly his main theme, but I defy you to walk out of this movie without humming any of the ridiculously catchy tunes that create the rich musical tapestry which seems happily omnipresent throughout the film's running time.  My only gripe is that Guardians didn't come out in June.  If it had, Peter Quill's Awesome Mix Volume 1 (available for download, naturally) would have absolutely been everyone's soundtrack of the summer.

Episode 25 of the podcast, featuring the return of my brother Tim, sees us breaking the film down character by character, along with lots of speculation as to how the Guardians might fit into Marvel's bigger picture heading into Phase 3.  Jamie reveals her own master plan for how Captain/Ms. Marvel should be woven into the MCU and, in light of Simon West's stated desire to see a space-based Con-Air 2, we all list off movies that deserve a crazy sequel set in outer space.  Also, I'm an idiot for not only saying there are five Infinity Stones (there are six) but also for referring to Yondu as Yondo through the entire podcast.  What can I say?  It was late and I still had to pack for an early flight.

Next Week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with special guests!

Podcast Episode 24: HERCULES and LUCY Raise The Bar For Stupid

If you like dumb action, then have I got a podcast for you.

This week Bart and I tackled not one, but TWO action movies that sound great on paper but ultimately fall short of their own massive potential.  I had very high hopes for each of these movies to clear a very low bar.  Instead they both managed to trip over it.

First you've got Lucy, the latest film from Luc Besson starring Scarlet Johansson as a party girl who gets accidentally dosed with a new synthetic drug that gives her superpowers.  In fact, the entire premise is built upon the patently untrue assertion that humans only use 10% of their brains, so as the drugs activate more and more of Lucy's mental capacity (illustrated by towering percentage title cards interspersed throughout the film) her ability to control matter, energy, time and space all increase exponentially.  Now that sounds pretty fucking stupid, but it's the kind of stupid that I kind of adore.  And Johansson's flat, emotionless persona (this makes her performance in Under The Skin look downright bubbly) only makes her delivery of such dialogue as "I can feel my brain" all the more entertaining.  Throw in scene after scene of Morgan Freeman either soliloquizing idiocy in the guise of hard science or staring at Johansson in abject befuddlement and we could have had an all-time classic on our hands.  If only Besson had used all that brain percentage nonsense as the starting point for any kind of compelling story or character trajectory.  Instead the movie wanders aimlessly while Lucy does and says non-specific cosmic shit and Korean gangsters, led by a criminally underutilized Choi Min-sik, shoot up French hospital seemingly just because.  That's what's most frustrating about Lucy: while there's plenty of entertaining action and slick special effects, it's all completely unmotivated by anything at all.  Shit just occurs.  It's exhausting.

On the other hand there's Hercules, starring The Rock wearing a lion for a hat.  Actually, it's more of a hoodie, since he literally flips the lion head back and forth depending on his particular mood.  At one point he tosses a horse across a battlefield.  Yes, that's right, HE THROWS A GODDAMN HORSE.  How is this not the best movie of all time?  Part of the fault lies in the script and part of it lies in the marketing.  None of it lies in The Rock.*

I'm honestly not sure if Paramount's marketing department was trying to do some kind of cute subversion-of-expectations thing or if they just didn't know how to sell the movie they had and settled on a deceptive bait & switch routine instead.  Seriously, just watch this trailer:

That looks like an epic tale of a Greek demi-god battling a host of weird creatures while defending an oppressed people from an army of demons sent from the underworld, right?  That is not the case.  In fact, not only is Hercules not that kind of movie, it actively mocks and berates those movies.  This Hercules is just a really strong dude with a mind for military tactics.  He's not even really a soldier, he's the leader of a band of mercenaries.  They play into Hercules' own mythology and even employ his nephew as a storyteller who bolsters his allies' confidence or weakens his enemies' resolve, depending on the situation.  Herc, along with his merry band of badasses, wanders the countryside from job to job, hoping to retire and live out his days in solitude after maybe causing the death of his wife and children.  And here's the thing: that doesn't sound bad!  A grizzled, guilt-ridden Hercules who outsmarts his enemies a travels with a group of hired guns?  Sign me up!

But you lied to me, Paramount.  You got me all hot and bothered to see The Rock fight mythological monsters and then five minutes into the movie you basically spat in my face.  All that business with the Hydra and Nimean Lion and Cerberus the three-headed dog?  It's all bullshit.  What's in that trailer is essentially the sum total of what's in the movie and none of it turns out to be real.  That cool fire whip that grabs Hercules by the neck?  In the actual movie that's a whip made of bones and those fire effects are nowhere to be seen.  All John Hurt's talk of "an army descended from Hades"?  I don't even think that line is ever spoken.  That's some trailer-only ADR right there.  It's such a shame.  When it comes right down to it, what I really want is to watch a Hercules movie where The Rock kills a guy with one punch to the face, not one where he sneakily hides arrowheads in his fist to make himself look cooler.  Still, I probably would've enjoyed this movie so much more if only I didn't feel like I had been tricked into seeing it.

Bart and I cover all this and plenty more in Episode 24 of the podcast before delving into some of the news that came out of San Diego Comic Con and then drooling over that Mad Max: Fury Road footage.  I'm happy to say that this is easily the best sounding episode of the podcast to date thanks to some newly  acquired microphones.  (Thanks, eBay!)  Also, there's a silly little easter egg for those of you who listen all the way to the end.

Next week we're talking Guardians Of The Motherfucking Galaxy.  I can't wait.


*How do you know when to refer to him as Dwayne Johnson and when to refer to him as The Rock?  I've chosen to employ Justice Potter Stewart's approach to pornography: I know it when I see it.

Podcast Episode 23: THE RAID 2: BERANDAL Is The GODFATHER II Of Action Movies

The Raid: Redemption is an incredibly tight little action flick, delivering a streamlined and compact story about a squad of cops forced to fight their way out of a tenement slum after a bust gone bad.  It's punctuated by loads of intense, brutal action sequences that propel the film forward at breakneck speed and will have you screaming at your television in horror and delight.  Its economy and intelligence make it easily one of the best action movies of the past ten years, and the idea of a sequel seems instantly foolish.

And then The Raid 2: Berandal happened.

Holy.  Fucking.  Shit.

The Raid 2 isn't an great action movie.  It's just a straight up incredible film.  End of line.  The fact that it also contains some of the most astounding action scenes I've ever witnessed almost feels like icing on the cake as opposed to the meat of the dish.  Director Gareth Evans (not to be confused with Godzilla director Gareth Edwards) performs numerous feats of what Bart refers to as "camera magic" here, managing to shoot from seemingly impossible positions and giving the audience a sense of immersion during combat without depending solely on the use of quick cuts and shaky cam.  And when he's not shooting action, the shot composition is still captivating, giving way to scope and beauty that feels all too rare in today's cinema regardless of genre.

Everything in The Raid 2 is cranked up to eleven.  As opposed to a simple premise in a single location spanning an afternoon, we've got an intricate crimeland drama that bounces all over Jakarta and unfolds over years.  Rama, our hero and the only element tying the two films together, undergoes a dark and serious evolution, transforming from idealistic rookie cop to tortured and weary undercover operative.  You could argue that the fights in The Raid start to feel repetitive after a while.  (You'd be wrong, but you can argue it.)  The Raid 2 offers a wide variety of violence.  There are executions, betrayals, subway attacks, prison riots and a full-on brawl in a single toilet stall.  You like car chases?  Oh mama, does The Raid 2 have a car chase for you.  You've got a wild-haired hitman who takes on a night club full of attackers.  You've got a goon who kills guys with a baseball bat and a ball.  You've got a hot deaf lady whose weapon of choice is a pair of hammers.  And through it all you've got star Iko Uwais performing inhuman feats of strength and agility.  Most importantly, all this insane action works in service of a smart and expertly told organized crime story that ranks right up there with all your American favorites of the genre.  It's The Godfather meets The Departed, but overflowing with more blood and brutality than both of those films combined.

Bart and I saw a double feature of both Raid films over the weekend and we chat about each film in Episode 23 of the podcast while also expressing cautious optimism over a proposed set of Universal Monster remakes under the banner of a shared universe.  We also speculate on what we can expect to hear from Marvel at San Diego Comic Con as they begin to roll out Phase 3 and introduce a whole new set of increasingly weird heroes.

If all the stars align, next week's podcast will cover both Luc Besson's female-centric actioner Lucy as well as Brett Ratner's hopefully hilarious Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson with a lion for a hat.

Podcast Episode 22: Bow Down Before Your Ape Overlords At The DAWN OFTHE PLANET OF THE APES

Sometimes you sit in the theater, the lights go down, and within moments you're acutely aware that you're seeing something special.  That the next two hours are going to hit you on many different levels and that you're witnessing the birth of a new classic.  There's a visceral connection.  It's electric.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is just such a movie.

As an eternal fan of smart and cerebral science fiction, I'm almost astounded that I'm fortunate enough to be able to see Dawn just one week after having my world rocked by Snowpiercer - even amidst an avalanche of calculated bullshit like Transformers and Ninja Turtles, there's still truly earth-shattering cinema happening all around us, stuff that doesn't sacrifice intellect on the altar of commercial appeal.  With Dawn we may not have wall-to-wall action beats, but the action we get is truly thrilling and it all works in service of compelling and fully developed characters who each act according to their own tragic yet totally emotionally valid worldview.  The final showdown between apes feels incredibly raw and personal, while an ape siege on the human city is shot with both energy and precision.  You won't be left wanting for action and yet this is a movie in which the first 20 minutes pass in near silence while apes communicate in subtitled sign language.  And while the apes are certainly the heroes, there are plenty of characters to love and hate within each species.  Even the villains, human and ape alike, aren't really villains so much as they're emotionally scarred or misinformed individuals trying to do what they feel is just and necessary to ensure their respective society's survival on a hostile, disease-ravaged planet that sits perched on the brink of total collapse.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was surprise hit, succeeding largely because of the incredible performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar in collaboration with the groundbreaking digital artistry of the folks at WETA.  Both sides of that equation have taken a huge leap forward here.  Serkis continues to amaze as the strong, yet thoughtful and soft-spoken leader of an near utopian ape civilization.  His physicality is fantastic, whether he's scrapping with rival Koba, swinging from tree to tree or hunting a herd of deer.  But it's the quiet moments, when he first holds his newborn baby, tries to connect to his adolescent son or rediscovers an old video tape of James Franco's Will Rodman where Serkis's performance truly astounds.  And while it goes without saying, it simply MUST be said that WETA's work here is simply jaw-dropping.  People will marvel about how "photo-real" the apes all look and they're right to do so; at some point you will forget that you're not actually looking at real creatures or practical effects.  But it's the deep and soulful translation of the actor's emotions that really bring the characters to life and WETA should be commended for using digital effects to appropriately enhance and reinforce the on set performances instead of simply burying them under impressive CG monkey hair.

If nothing else, I am most grateful that this blog has helped to instill in me a lifelong love of the Apes franchise (sans Burton).  I started this site with the original Planet Of The Apes and re-watching all five of the original films plus Rise in preparation for this newest entry reminded me of just why these movies are so special.  On the surface you've got all manner of simian fun and adventure, be it rubber-suited or computer generated, and you can enjoy the films on a purely surface level.  But even in the less successful entries (I'm looking at you, Conquest and Battle) there are still Big Ideas at play and enough social commentary to fuel a dozen thesis papers.  Dawn continues this proud tradition, commenting on everything from gun control and animal cruelty to xenophobia and false flags.  At a time when even Star Trek, the eternal flame of intellectual science fiction, has largely submitted to deafening explosions, needless chase scenes and inexplicable MacGuffins, it's comforting to know that the fire of smart sci-fi will contine to burn bright so long as there are long and awesomely/awkwardly titled Apes movies out there.

Bart, Jamie and I welcome newcomer Jess Hilbun and returning favorite Jeff Schwartz to discuss all this and more in Episode 22 of the podcast.  The girls advance the theory that Caesar is secretly modeled after Harry Potter (he has a scar!) while the guys revel in the dark camp of the original five films.  We also debate the awards worthiness of performance capture (I think Andy Serkis is fully deserving of an Oscar and hope it's just a matter of time) and we ponder whether the kids of today can still appreciate an animated classic like Dumbo.  Also, our dog poops while we're recording.

The summer blockbuster season has officially peaked, and I'm ready for Guardians Of The Galaxy to carry me into the fall.

Podcast Episode 20: TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION Falls Down Like A Fat Ballerina

"Some things should never be invented."

Sunday morning I was cleaning up around the house and I found The Sting playing on TV.  It's one of my all time favorite movies and the best Newman/Redford pairing - Butch and Sundance are fine, but they're no Hooker and Gondorff.  It's also got one of the single greatest scripts in the history of movies, full of smart narrative twists and clever dialogue.  ("Relax kid, we had him ten years ago when decided to be somebody.")

So it was probably unfair to follow that up by going to see Transformers: Age Of Extinction, a movie that is aggressive in its lack of plot or character development.  It's almost three hours long and the overwhelming majority of it consists of car chases, fight scenes and action sequences that are completely untethered from any semblance of storytelling.  Characters both human and robotic all run around blowing stuff up with absolutely no motivation for any of their actions.  Shit just happens, and it keeps happening until it stops happening and then something else happens while the audience is completely overwhelmed by sensory overload.  You almost don't have time to realize that nothing you're seeing makes any damn sense and it isn't until the two hour mark, when Tiny Negro Transformer sits everybody down and describes the plot that's apparently been happening entirely off screen, that you full appreciate the full measure of insanity to which you've subjected yourself.

But Bay doesn't give a shit about things like "story" or "character development."  He cares only about awesome things being awesome and in that regard he does not disappoint.  Age Of Extinction brings new meaning to the phrase, "sit in the theater and turn off your brain."  This is three hours of pure, uncut id, outright pummeling the animalistic pleasure-centers of the human brain through spectacle and imagery devoid of any context or meaning.  The fact that this is (and continues to be) one of the most profitable franchises of all time only proves that Bay is satisfying some kind of carnal craving by theater-goers worldwide.  But from an intellectual standpoint the whole thing is endlessly fascinating and from a cinematic standpoint, doubly so.  You simply can't argue that Bay is incompetent.  He knows exactly what he's doing and what he's doing defies all logic and reason.  You need only look at the IMAX presentation, in which he constantly changes the aspect ratio not just from scene to scene, but from shot to shot.  A single exchange of dialogue will haphazardly swap from full frame to widescreen so many times it will make you dizzy.  But each individual shot is composed with such care and precision it's absolutely remarkable.

Is Transformers: Age Of Extinction a good movie?  No.  Not at all.  Not by any appreciable metric of filmmaking.  But is it an entertaining experience?  Weirdly, yes.  This isn't a case of "so bad it's good."  This is a case of "so wrong it's right."

The 20th (!) episode of the podcast goes into all this and a lot more.  This week we welcome certified film scholar Jason Michelitch to the show and we try to wrap our heads around just what sort of madness Bay hath wrought.  We also introduce our new Trailer Of The Week feature (because The Rock as a lion-hatted Hercules simply demanded it) and discuss the future fate of Predator, Pacific Rim 2 and Harrison Ford's legs.

Next week we'll be talking about Snowpiercer and I cannot wait.

Podcast Episode 17: Dangling From The EDGE OF TOMORROW

Against all odds, Tom Cruise seems to have found himself as the underdog of the summer.

I almost feel sorry for Cruise at this point.  The guy's personal life could be generously described as "suspect," and more bluntly described as "nine kinds of crazy."  He's certainly toned down his behavior since famously jumping up and down on Oprah's couch and subsequently arguing with Matt Lauer about the evils of psychiatry, but that shit stays with people and makes it hard to distinguish his on screen performance from his off screen antics.  I get it but I don't agree with it, mostly because I couldn't give less of a shit what an actor does in his personal life short of committing a crime.  Cruise can believe in all the Thetans and Xenus he wants and I'll still go see him in the theater so long as he keeps giving layered and compelling performances.  And rest assured that despite his advancing years, Tom Cruise has not lost a step.  Sure he might not disappear into a role like some of his peers, but the guy still has undeniable charisma and is the living embodiment of sheer, blunt-force entertainment.

In truth, it's been a while since he had a resounding box office success outside of the Mission: Impossible franchise.  But he hasn't been solely responsible for any huge bombs either, leaving him as one of the few stars left whose mere presence can bring just about any movie he wants a guaranteed green light.  (Will Smith is still being dragged kicking and screaming out of this club.)  Personally, I love that Cruise is utilizing his star power to make interesting, thought-provoking sci-fi spectacles.  It's like we can see his inner nerd showing, and that's incredibly endearing to me.  Last summer Cruise starred in Oblivion, a visual feast that proved to be mostly empty calories.  But I at least appreciated the effort.  Based on the somewhat lackluster marketing, you'd be forgiven for writing off this summer's unfortunately titled Edge Of Tomorrow as simply more of the same.  You would, however, be wrong.

Edge Of Tomorrow, which can essentially be boiled down to "Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers" is a surprising amount of fun.  Cruise brings a lot of depth to the role of William Cage, a military PR shill who's been drafted into service against an alien horde and gains the ability to relive the day of an epic D-Day-esque battle over and over again.  But he's nothing without Emily Blunt's Rita Vrataski, a.k.a. The Angel Of Verdun, a.k.a. The Full Metal Bitch.  How big of a badass is she?  She carries a sword made out of a helicopter blade.  Yeah.   Cruise is good, but it's Blunt who really elevates the proceedings, crafting a character whose hardened exterior protects a bruised psyche and a shattered history.  We learn very few real facts about her, but every glimpse we get is utterly fascinating and leaves the audience wanting more.  The same can be said of the film's setting.  Much like Vrataski, we don't get to see a whole lot of life outside the embattled beaches of France, but director Doug Liman has managed to craft a world that feels lived in and left me curious about the events happening off screen.  What would be going on in the States during the collapse of Europe?  I imagine there would be more than a few refugees taking up residence...

Most importantly, the time loops are extremely well executed, utilizing repetition to great effect both in terms of action and humor.  Much like Bryan Singer in Days Of Future Past, Liman is able to mine a lot of fun out of the ability to keep killing his characters in violent and surprising ways and then resetting the clock to bring them back for more.  Many have been quick (and correct) to praise the film for perfectly capturing the feeling of playing a video game in which you have to learn the enemy's movements by rote memory, frequently fucking it all up and committing suicide in order to start over.  You might think that would grow dull after a while, but the script by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez & John-Henry Butterworth keeps the audience smartly off balance, never allowing us to be sure whether we're seeing Cage perform some task for the first time or the 37th time.

I've seen a lot of criticism for the film's ending, and while I think it's a fairly big miscalculation, it's not enough to completely derail the film.  The word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, and yet Edge Of Tomorrow finished a distant third in its opening weekend behind YA sensation The Fault In Our Stars and Disney's Maleficent.  Those target audiences are certainly very different demographics, and yet with 22 Jump Street and Transformers looming on the horizon, it seems all but certain that Tom Cruise's latest will at most be regarded a minor success.  That's a shame.  It deserves much better.

Episode 17 of the podcast features myself, Bart and Jamie chatting about all things Edge Of Tomorrow, including Tom Cruise fatigue, Emily Blunt badassery, fully realized action hero homo-eroticism and the film's somewhat nonsensical ending.  We also discuss the apparent conclusion of the Ant-Man director drama, Josh Trank joining the Star Wars universe, the merits of the Wachowskis and the feminist failings of Stripes.

SMASHED Beautifully Navigates The Pitfalls Of Sobriety and Self-Improvement

"Love is the easy part, did you know that?  It's the rest of this shit that's hard."

I was fairly blown away by director James Ponsoldt's newest film, The Spectacular Now, particularly the smart and subtle ways the film dealt with the idea of alcoholism.  Sutter Keely has an indisputable problem with substance abuse, but it's never played as melodrama - his drinking causes him to make some unfortunate choices, but it isn't ruining his life just yet.  Ponsoldt's deft touch left me curious to check out his previous film Smashed, another drinker's tale whose trailer I could vaguely recall having watched once upon a time.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Kate, a hard-partying elementary school teacher who's beginning to suspect that her drinking might be a serious problem.  More often than not these stories feature a main character whose biggest hurdle is simply admitting that they have a problem, but Ponsoldt eschews this familiar formula in favor of a protagonist who is extremely self aware.  Kate lies to her students and her principal, excusing an unfortunate instance of hangover vomiting as a symptom of pregnancy, and then soon finds herself chilling under a highway overpass and smoking crack with a stranger, all before the film's title card comes on screen.  These incidents set the stage for Kate's realization that it's time to quit drinking, although she has no idea just how difficult that course of action will ultimately prove.

Winstead gives a luminous performance in this fascinating character study, a story which revels in the daily grind of self-improvement as Kate attempts to get her shit together.  It ain't easy.  Smashed demonstrates that overcoming alcoholism is not as easy as simply deciding to stop drinking.  The real challenge lies in the follow through, and sometimes even if you make all the right choices, life can still throw you a curveball that brings everything crashing down around you.  Alcoholism is a disease after all, one whose only known vaccine is pure willpower and that's kind of insane when you think about it.  The only way to overcome a drinking problem is to decide to get better and then reinforce that decision every single day.  Forever.  It's fairly remarkable.  I drink just about every day because I love the taste of beer and whiskey and while I've certainly had some pretty wild nights, I've never considered my drinking to be a real problem.  I consider myself supremely lucky that I'm able to drink in moderation (yes I'm aware I just qualified daily alcohol consumption as "moderation") without it escalating to the point of negatively impacting my job or my relationships.  When I tell people about my decision to watch a movie every day, they're often impressed with that level of commitment, but that's nothing compared to someone who can convince themselves every hour, every minute to not take a drink even though all the cells in their body might be screaming out in desperation for a single sip of their preferred spirit.  Would I have that kind of willpower?  If I'm lucky, I'll never find out.

Kate's husband Charlie (Aaron Paul) supports her efforts in theory but makes no effort to curtail his own heavy alcohol consumption.  In fact, it soon becomes clear that he finds the whole idea of AA to be kind of bullshit and he resents that it seems to be pulling Kate away from him.  It's clear that a major component of their relationship is their mutual tendency to seriously cut loose, and if anything it seems clear that Kate could probably drink Charlie under the table.  But throughout their relationship, they've always operated on the same wavelength.  So when Kate suddenly changes gears, Charlie has trouble seeing it as anything other than alienating.  He doesn't view his own drinking as a problem and therefore likely considers Kate's newfound sobriety to be some kind of phase or experiment as opposed to legitimate self-improvement.  He just wants his fun-loving wife back.  Kate eventually relapses and hits the bottle HARD and it's in this moment of role reversal that Charlie truly sees just how scary and out of control Kate can truly be while under the influence.

As one half of a young married couple, it's impossible to watch the rift that forms in Kate and Charlie's relationship without considering my own.  If one of us decided to make a life-altering change in our lives then I'm sure the other would be extremely supportive, but at what point does that change start to tip the scales and become untenable?  Before we got married, Jamie and I had a conversation about the concept of divorce, which seemed like a fairly practical consideration.  If we were to get married and then years later found that we had simply evolved in different directions and were no longer happy together, would divorce be an option?  While our generation is certainly much more comfortable with the concept than those of the past, both of our parents remain together (respectively) and to be honest the whole idea of divorce doesn't quite sit well with me, like it's an admission of failure.  If you had just worked harder and made better choices, maybe you'd still be together.  At the same time, it seems absurd not to acknowledge that people and circumstances change over time, and while we might be happily married and want the same things at 30, the same simply might not be true at 40 or 50.  Commitment is admirable to be sure, but at that theoretical point what is there to be gained by digging into discontent and stubbornly refusing to admit the truth to each other and/or ourselves?  Obviously I hope that day never comes, but to dismiss it as an impossibility would be foolish.

Smashed clocks in at 81 minutes, and while the movie is punctuated by strong performances from Winstead, Paul, Nick Offerman and Octavia Spencer, that short running time does makes the story feel a bit slight.  But the film really serves as a snapshot, a glimpse into the nitty gritty and the rollercoaster of emotion that comes with deciding to walk a different path.  Making the decision can be hard, but what's harder still is sticking to that path and not veering off into the wilderness when things get tough.  The story doesn't really have a resolution per se, but that feels fitting since neither does sobriety.

You never really reach a destination, you simply keep moving forward one day at a time.  If you're lucky, you'll have someone by your side every step of the way.


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Title: Smashed
Director: James Ponsoldt
Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul, Nick Offerman, Octavia Spencer, Meghan Mullally, Mary Kay Place, Kyle Gallner, Bree Turner
Year Of Release: 2012
Viewing Method: Netflix DVD

PAIN & GAIN And The Redemption Of Michael Bay

"Every man needs to fight for his dignity."

Michael Bay has been making the wrong kinds of movies.

It's easy to take shots at the low-grade dogshit he's been churning out for the last few years.  The Transformers movies are an ongoing exercise in cinematic embarrassment, a tsunami of visual clutter, muddled tone and flat humor with just a pinch of racism and homophobia.  That shit is so overwhelming that it'd be easy to write Bay off entirely as a hollow shell of spectacle and overindulgence.  The man's entire career has become all about making stuff that looks cool and sounds badass with little regard for stuff like storytelling or character development.  Bay is all slick affectation with nothing below the surface.

Which is why Pain & Gain might be his best movie ever.

Based upon the Miami New Times articles by Pete Collins (a very lengthy but totally worth your time read) Pain & Gain tells the horrifying true story of three bodybuilders who (after a few hilariously failed attempts) kidnapped a wealthy gym member, held him hostage for weeks, tortured him and forced him to sign over all his money and assets.  They tried to kill him and unsurprisingly fucked that up, but that didn't stop them from living in their victim's home, pretending to be CIA agents, and eventually trying to pull the whole thing off again only to see it all blow up in their faces.

The ringleader of the gang was Daniel Lugo, played by Mark Wahlberg in a performance strongly reminiscent of his best work with David O. Russell.  (I Heart Huckabees 4-Eva!)  Lugo is a lovable sociopath, a guy who's seen way too many action movies and who possesses just enough knowledge about the business world to be truly dangerous.  He can charm octogenarians and muscleheads alike, with a winning smile and a flawless physique that instills in him a confidence that belies his limited intellect.  Lugo can make his (even dimmer) cohorts believe that he is the man with the plan, totally in control and able to handle any situation with ease, whether that be a home invasion or a complex business deal.  Of course it's all a smokescreen, but what makes Lugo utterly fascinating is that even he buys into his own bullshit.  The guy actually believes himself to be a competent businessman, military tactician and criminal mastermind, when in reality he's all sizzle and no steak.

In other words, he's Michael Bay.

It's impossible to watch Lugo blindly throw around tactical terminology while outlining his various kidnapping plans without thinking of Bay's own military hard-on so prominently displayed in the Transformers movies, to the point that I can help but wonder just how self-aware Bay really is about the whole thing.  This is easily his best looking film in years, eschewing the gritty, palid high-contrast of stuff like Bad Boys and The Island in favor of the bright, saturated neons and pastels of Miami.  I saw this theatrically in 4K and it was absolutely breathtaking.  The whole movie almost plays like a feature length music video, overstuffed with hero shots, extreme closeups and American flags galore.  Bay shoots the movie the way Lugo sees himself: fast, furious and foregoing logic in favor of sheer badassery.  The film is a jigsaw of narrative devices that have no business being in the same room together and yet Bay manages to weave it all into a tapestry of sublime crazy that somehow works in spite of itself, not unlike Lugo himself.  Not only is there a copious amount of voiceover, but the film has a bewildering SIX different narrators and more needle-drops than a Run DMC album.  It's a batshit crazy true story told with rock-star flair, to the point that eventually it becomes hard to say who the real hero of the film is, other than perhaps Bay himself.

What's not difficult is determining the film's breakout star.  While Wahlberg is superb, he is upstaged at every possible turn by Dwayne Johnson, who is nothing short of jaw-dropping.  In fact, he's so damn good that when I recently described the movie to a friend, I refused to refer to Johnson as The Rock because he has unquestionably transcended his pro-wrestling persona here.  Johnson has always been charismatic and entertaining, but his Paul Doyle is nothing short of fascinating on every level.  A recovering coke addict who found Jesus while serving time for home robbery, Paul is earnest and lovable until he's suddenly not and he quickly plummets down the rabbit hole into absolute lunacy.  It's an incredible character journey, the kind of performance that I didn't really know Johnson was capable of delivering.  Of course it helps that he gets all (Every.  Single.  One.) of the funniest lines in the film.  If you still think of Dwayne Johnson as just a wrestler who makes action flicks, this is the movie that will forever change your mind.

We're getting a fourth Transformers movie whether we like it or not.  The fact that Shia LaBeouf has been run out of town is certainly encouraging and Mark Wahlberg seems to be able to key into Bay's particular brand of madness, maybe even enough to elevate the film above the level of utterly dreadful.  If Wahlberg can't do it, maybe giant robot dinosaurs can.  Who knows?  What I can say is that I don't give a shit.  I'm no longer interested in Michael Bay's big-budget franchises.  If nothing else, Pain & Gain proves without a doubt that Michael Bay's biggest enemy is excess.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but Bay needs to navigate away from $200 million dollar tent-poles and instead focus on smaller, weirder character movies that allow his peculiar sense of style to really take focus.  Pain & Gain might be completely ridiculous, but it also feels incredibly personal to Bay.  For the first time in a decade, he actually seems to give a shit about the movie he's making as opposed to simply collecting a massive paycheck and it absolutely shows in the finished results.  Unlike every other film Bay's directed since Bad Boys II, this isn't a chore to sit through.  In fact, it's an absolute pleasure.

Stop playing to the lowest common denominator and let your freak flag fly, Mr Bay.  It's the best thing you've got going for you.

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Title: Pain & Gain
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shaloub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeung, Michael Rispoli
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical 4K  - AMC Boston Common

LUST FOR LOVE: Kickstartering Joss Whedon's B-Team

"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.


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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