What’s on at the Tropic
by Phil Mann
Well, it’s here. Terrence Malick’s much discussed THE TREE OF LIFE, winner of the grand prize (Palm D’Or) at Cannes and the unofficial huff-and-puff trophy of the season, given by me to the film that has provoked the most critical chatter. Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) is a man who grew up in West Texas, but went to Harvard and then to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He has translated Heidegger. So we have a guy with down home roots but worldly knowledge, and the movie draws on both.
A brief summary. Cinema convention calls for three acts in a movie: setup the story, develop an issue or conflict, and resolve it. Tree of Life adheres to this convention, but since it’s “attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives” (Roger Ebert), the first act is creation and the last is end-of-days, both told through images which will blow the minds of the right-brained among you, but puzzle left-brain literalists. The middle act, however, is a wonderful coming of age window on a family in Waco in the 1950’s. The father (Brad Pitt) is as you would expect given the time and place – stern, cold and strict. The mother (Jessica Chastain) is loving and tolerant, an angelic, ethereal beauty. The two sides of God? The children – three boys – lead an idyllic life in a town with no locked doors and woods to explore, sullied only by the harsh reality of the father, whom they careen between loving and wishing dead.
What can I say? Is it “an eruption of a movie, something to live with, think, and talk about afterward” (Nick Pinkerton - Village Voice). Is it “pretty much nuts overall, a manic hybrid folly with flashes of brilliance” (Andrew O’Hehir - Salon.com). Or is it “ridiculously sublime or sublimely ridiculous? Don’t be afraid to find it both” (David Edelstein – New York Magazine).
Guess you’ll have to see for yourself. That’s why the Tropic is here; to give us that opportunity.
Too serious for you? How about KUNG FU PANDA 2. That’s a bit more popular. To give you an idea, it opened the same week as Tree of Life, but has since grossed twenty times as much ($563 million compared to $29 million). In the battle for animation championship between Dreamworks (whic has the Kung Fu franchise) and Pixar (Cars, Toy Story), the real winner is the kids. They’ll love these further adventures of Po and the Furious Five, with voices from Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen and Dustin Hoffman, among others.
Or how about X-MEN:FIRST CLASS ($344 million, but it’s a week behind). Shift genres to action adventure, not animated, but it’s so CGI laden that it might as well be. The X-Men in case you don’t know it, are mutants with supernatural powers recruited by Professor X (James McAvoy) to save the world while battling another group of mutants under the control of Kevin Bacon. Did I mention that it’s based on a comic book? Now you get it.
The Monday Night Summer of Fun Classic is THE GOONIES (1985), a Steven Spielberg concoction directed by action man Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon). The favorite film of everyone who grew up in the 80ties.
Comments, please, to pmann99@gmail.com
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Tree of Life redux (Rhoades)
Further Comments On “Tree of Life”
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
My movie bud Michael Shields and I saw “Tree of Life” last weekend. Being an admirer of director Terrence Malick (“Days of Heaven,” “The Thin Red Line”), I was very eager to catch the film, but admittedly had trepidations.
My instincts were right.
Predictably, Michael loved “The Tree of Life.” He’s a guy who appreciates esoteric expositions.
Me, I applauded its ambitions, but didn’t consider the film a successful execution due to its hard-to-follow non-lineal presentation moving from architect Jack O’Brien’s boyhood in 1950s Waco, Texas, to a fearful Parasaurolophus facing predators in the Late Cretaceous Era, and back again.
Sean Penn as Jack, and Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as his parents, do a credible job of delivering Malick’s autobiographical ruminations, but the side trips that take us soaring into deep space and wallowing among the primeval ooze are distracting.
Michael Shields termed the film “enigmatic” and described it as a “visual poem.”
My opinion? Brilliant, but not fare that average audiences will find satisfying. “The Tree of Life” is a highly personal film, as if Terry Malick has opened up his brain with a can opener and let all the impressionistic shards of his boyhood memories come spewing out.
Yes, this is Malick’s attempt to come to terms with his family – stern father, passive mother, the loss of a brother – but perhaps like that Parasaurolophus he’s bitten off more than he can chew.
srhoades@aol.com
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
My movie bud Michael Shields and I saw “Tree of Life” last weekend. Being an admirer of director Terrence Malick (“Days of Heaven,” “The Thin Red Line”), I was very eager to catch the film, but admittedly had trepidations.
My instincts were right.
Predictably, Michael loved “The Tree of Life.” He’s a guy who appreciates esoteric expositions.
Me, I applauded its ambitions, but didn’t consider the film a successful execution due to its hard-to-follow non-lineal presentation moving from architect Jack O’Brien’s boyhood in 1950s Waco, Texas, to a fearful Parasaurolophus facing predators in the Late Cretaceous Era, and back again.
Sean Penn as Jack, and Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as his parents, do a credible job of delivering Malick’s autobiographical ruminations, but the side trips that take us soaring into deep space and wallowing among the primeval ooze are distracting.
Michael Shields termed the film “enigmatic” and described it as a “visual poem.”
My opinion? Brilliant, but not fare that average audiences will find satisfying. “The Tree of Life” is a highly personal film, as if Terry Malick has opened up his brain with a can opener and let all the impressionistic shards of his boyhood memories come spewing out.
Yes, this is Malick’s attempt to come to terms with his family – stern father, passive mother, the loss of a brother – but perhaps like that Parasaurolophus he’s bitten off more than he can chew.
srhoades@aol.com
Saturday, July 16, 2011
X-Men: First Class (Brockway)
Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway
X-Men:First Class
Just when you thought Marvel film projects were running out of ink or radiated cameras here comes an X-Men installment that might have had Ayn Rand yearning to change her cell structure. Or at least fortify it. "X-Men: First Class" is a colorful, benzedrine-paced prequel that has the instantaneous zip and texture of an actual comic book.
At the start, Erik Lensherr (played as an adult by Michael Fassbender) is a young boy in Nazi-dominated Poland. Erik apparently has the ability to bend metal. But faced with seeing his mother held at gunpoint by the once again evil Kevin Bacon. A Sebastian Shaw.(Yes, Kevin Bacon is playing a villain once more, as he did in the film "Super" he's not a drug dealer, but a mutant doctor this time) Shaw counts to three and shoots Erik's mother. A rage commences. The boy reduces the room to an empty shell.
Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is a semi-arrogant hot-shot at Oxford. He talks in poetic speech about the wonders of manipulating genes and cell structures. In a comic-book way he is a bit like the poet Shelley, with all the talk of a new science emerging with the improvement of Man. And he has a trio of sexy mutant girlfriends that wear the most fashionable of contact lenses even though the action takes place in the 1960s before the trend. There is so much interest in the sexy irises that the beginning could be a commercial for Bausch and Lomb.
Erik, needless to say becomes a kind of Nazi-hunter, wanting to avenge his mother's death. The evil Shaw is a megalomaniac playing Russia against the U.S. in the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Marvelized version of history.
We see all the heroes and villains here: Raven, Banshee, Darwin, Beast, Frost and Angel (who might be the first stripper super-villain) she is part dragonfly and spits fire. What emerges is kind of a Fab Four story of the X-Men as kids.
"X-Men: First Class" presents the origins of their characters as a bunch of idealistic Libertarians. The U.S. Government is powerless. Only the mutants seem to know what's right. The choice to act or not act is theirs alone. Part of the fun is wondering which mutant will turn to Erik's sinister side and who will remain true to Xavier's benevolent path.
The crisp retro cinematography gives a sort of "Barbarella" like attitude to the film without any rated R risqué romps or robe tosses. No reason to be camera shy, this film is safe for any mini mutant that may be among us. And I know you're out there.
Watching the debt ceiling talks on television, I am reminded of Charles Xavier's words: "true focus comes from the point of rage and serenity."
If only Stan Lee could ink Professor X into The Capitol to read minds. Yes...if only.
Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com
Sent from my iPhone
X-Men:First Class
Just when you thought Marvel film projects were running out of ink or radiated cameras here comes an X-Men installment that might have had Ayn Rand yearning to change her cell structure. Or at least fortify it. "X-Men: First Class" is a colorful, benzedrine-paced prequel that has the instantaneous zip and texture of an actual comic book.
At the start, Erik Lensherr (played as an adult by Michael Fassbender) is a young boy in Nazi-dominated Poland. Erik apparently has the ability to bend metal. But faced with seeing his mother held at gunpoint by the once again evil Kevin Bacon. A Sebastian Shaw.(Yes, Kevin Bacon is playing a villain once more, as he did in the film "Super" he's not a drug dealer, but a mutant doctor this time) Shaw counts to three and shoots Erik's mother. A rage commences. The boy reduces the room to an empty shell.
Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is a semi-arrogant hot-shot at Oxford. He talks in poetic speech about the wonders of manipulating genes and cell structures. In a comic-book way he is a bit like the poet Shelley, with all the talk of a new science emerging with the improvement of Man. And he has a trio of sexy mutant girlfriends that wear the most fashionable of contact lenses even though the action takes place in the 1960s before the trend. There is so much interest in the sexy irises that the beginning could be a commercial for Bausch and Lomb.
Erik, needless to say becomes a kind of Nazi-hunter, wanting to avenge his mother's death. The evil Shaw is a megalomaniac playing Russia against the U.S. in the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Marvelized version of history.
We see all the heroes and villains here: Raven, Banshee, Darwin, Beast, Frost and Angel (who might be the first stripper super-villain) she is part dragonfly and spits fire. What emerges is kind of a Fab Four story of the X-Men as kids.
"X-Men: First Class" presents the origins of their characters as a bunch of idealistic Libertarians. The U.S. Government is powerless. Only the mutants seem to know what's right. The choice to act or not act is theirs alone. Part of the fun is wondering which mutant will turn to Erik's sinister side and who will remain true to Xavier's benevolent path.
The crisp retro cinematography gives a sort of "Barbarella" like attitude to the film without any rated R risqué romps or robe tosses. No reason to be camera shy, this film is safe for any mini mutant that may be among us. And I know you're out there.
Watching the debt ceiling talks on television, I am reminded of Charles Xavier's words: "true focus comes from the point of rage and serenity."
If only Stan Lee could ink Professor X into The Capitol to read minds. Yes...if only.
Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com
Sent from my iPhone
The Tree of Life (Brockway)
Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway
The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick is a unique director. His film "Badlands" (1973) with wide expanses of Western earth and sky together with the deadpan and sly acting of Martin Sheen was a classic of its time not least for its neutral attitude, neither moral or amoral. In Malick's films, the land itself is just as much of a character as any other role, if not more so.
In his latest film "The Tree of Life", Malick strives to orchestrate a vast drama, giving a bird's eye view--- or is is an angel's?--- of the interplay between our human selves and amoral nature, mainly sky and the reaches of space.
Right off, this film has some of the most eye-grabbing images of nature that I've ever seen. Huge jellyfish are shot in deep closeup as to appear abstract, along with shots of swarming bees or some type of winged pestilence that seems about to collide into a skyscraper. The towering edifice looks like an imperial icicle thrusting into the sky. This is one of the more arresting images in the film. Haunts, I feel, that recall the Trade Center.
The opening scenes in the film are singularly provocative and owe a debt to the non-narrative filmmaker Stan Brakhage whose quick cutting and in-camera editing put him on par with many Surrealists.
But when Malick introduces a dinosaur drama into the mix, as novel as this may appear, he stumbles. The scene appears kitschy and anthropomorphic--a theme park mix of Darwin ala Disney.
The human portion of the film focuses on a suburban American family. Brad Pitt plays the somewhat scary, somewhat sensitive dad: a modest inventor with a military mindset. Jessica Chastain plays the long suffering mother. If she's not suffering she's running and you half expect her to go around chasing butterflies. Pitt does a good job at forgetting his good looks and sly smile. He becomes caring or violent to his kids in the blink of an eye and this, to Malick's credit is done without melodrama, in the same lens that made the director a legend.
The film deftly illustrates the supernaturalness of childhood, the savagery at play equal to the tone of The Lord of the Flies or the photography of Sally Mann. The image of children with their shadows projected on the sidewalk has an extra terrestrial eeriness to it. And the shot of children getting ready for Halloween might make you think of strange rituals, Satanic or otherwise. Malick is not one to conceal his camera. And its a good thing that he didn't pull back. The film's strength is in its ability to illustrate a vivid childhood. If it had just stopped there, "Tree of Life" could have made Ray Bradbury proud.
Yet, when the film goes on and plunges into the realm of the cosmic and The Far Out, it loses its potency, and becomes a spaced out "happening" film for the new century as well-crafted as it is.
Sean Penn makes an appearance as an over-tired architect, the grown up son. He only has one line and a few mumbles. For the life of me, (or for the life of the film) I'm not sure what on earth he is doing in this movie. Should I ask Yahweh?
The film has some startling imagery, mostly when focusing on the children. The film is at its best, I'll say, when it is impressionistic and silent with an objective mysticism.
I was tripping with Malick's poetry all well and groovy. But then the clouds opened up and the seas parted. The whole cast of the film arrives on a heavenly beach with photographic quotations that seem directly taken from a United Methodist Church commercial. (Open hearts. Open minds) What gives Malick, man? Such a heavy handed bummer.
Should I wait for your Second Coming?
Wite Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com
The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick is a unique director. His film "Badlands" (1973) with wide expanses of Western earth and sky together with the deadpan and sly acting of Martin Sheen was a classic of its time not least for its neutral attitude, neither moral or amoral. In Malick's films, the land itself is just as much of a character as any other role, if not more so.
In his latest film "The Tree of Life", Malick strives to orchestrate a vast drama, giving a bird's eye view--- or is is an angel's?--- of the interplay between our human selves and amoral nature, mainly sky and the reaches of space.
Right off, this film has some of the most eye-grabbing images of nature that I've ever seen. Huge jellyfish are shot in deep closeup as to appear abstract, along with shots of swarming bees or some type of winged pestilence that seems about to collide into a skyscraper. The towering edifice looks like an imperial icicle thrusting into the sky. This is one of the more arresting images in the film. Haunts, I feel, that recall the Trade Center.
The opening scenes in the film are singularly provocative and owe a debt to the non-narrative filmmaker Stan Brakhage whose quick cutting and in-camera editing put him on par with many Surrealists.
But when Malick introduces a dinosaur drama into the mix, as novel as this may appear, he stumbles. The scene appears kitschy and anthropomorphic--a theme park mix of Darwin ala Disney.
The human portion of the film focuses on a suburban American family. Brad Pitt plays the somewhat scary, somewhat sensitive dad: a modest inventor with a military mindset. Jessica Chastain plays the long suffering mother. If she's not suffering she's running and you half expect her to go around chasing butterflies. Pitt does a good job at forgetting his good looks and sly smile. He becomes caring or violent to his kids in the blink of an eye and this, to Malick's credit is done without melodrama, in the same lens that made the director a legend.
The film deftly illustrates the supernaturalness of childhood, the savagery at play equal to the tone of The Lord of the Flies or the photography of Sally Mann. The image of children with their shadows projected on the sidewalk has an extra terrestrial eeriness to it. And the shot of children getting ready for Halloween might make you think of strange rituals, Satanic or otherwise. Malick is not one to conceal his camera. And its a good thing that he didn't pull back. The film's strength is in its ability to illustrate a vivid childhood. If it had just stopped there, "Tree of Life" could have made Ray Bradbury proud.
Yet, when the film goes on and plunges into the realm of the cosmic and The Far Out, it loses its potency, and becomes a spaced out "happening" film for the new century as well-crafted as it is.
Sean Penn makes an appearance as an over-tired architect, the grown up son. He only has one line and a few mumbles. For the life of me, (or for the life of the film) I'm not sure what on earth he is doing in this movie. Should I ask Yahweh?
The film has some startling imagery, mostly when focusing on the children. The film is at its best, I'll say, when it is impressionistic and silent with an objective mysticism.
I was tripping with Malick's poetry all well and groovy. But then the clouds opened up and the seas parted. The whole cast of the film arrives on a heavenly beach with photographic quotations that seem directly taken from a United Methodist Church commercial. (Open hearts. Open minds) What gives Malick, man? Such a heavy handed bummer.
Should I wait for your Second Coming?
Wite Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Tree of Life (Rhoades)
“Tree of Life” Sinks Roots at Tropic
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Okay, let me tell you right upfront that I couldn’t get a screener DVD for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” So I will come back to you with a more critical appraisal after I’ve actually seen it. My friends who have caught the film in other cities are giving me mixed feedback.
Nonetheless, I’m eager to catch the current showing at the Tropic Cinema, for Malick is a director whose work I’ve long admired.
Malick isn’t very prolific, only five feature films in 40 years. After “Days of Heaven” (1978)” he waited twenty years to do his next film, “The Thin Red Line” (1998). He has been described as “one of the great enigmas of contemporary filmmaking, a shadowy figure whose towering reputation rests largely on a very small body of work.”
A thinking man’s director, he studied philosophy at Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (but left without earning a doctorate). He did a noted translation of Heidegger’s “Vom Wesen des Grundes” (“The Essence of Reasons”). Malick taught philosophy at MIT. Later he wrote think pieces for Newsweek and The New Yorker.
Then he earned a MFA at the American Film Institute Conservatory and became a filmmaker.
With the help of Jack Nicholson, he got work doing script rewrites. Though not used, he banged out early drafts of “Dirty Harry” and “Great Balls of Fire!” The movie “Deadhead Miles” based on his script was scraped, considered unreleasable by the studio.
In 1973, he wrote and directed “Badlands,” a minor masterpiece based on the murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend.
His next film was “Days of Heaven,” a lyrical love triangle set among turn-of-the-century farm workers of the Texas Panhandle. Visually stunning, it won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. And Malick picked up the prize for Best Director at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
Following that thundering success, Malick began working on a screenplay titled “Q,” a concept that explored the origins of life on earth. However, during the film’s pre-production, he suddenly moved to Paris to live in seclusion. Vanity Fair referred to him as “The Runaway Genius.”
His disappearance was attributed to the studio’s objections to “Q” – seen as a “long, rambling, almost incoherent look at the beginning of the world that was little more than just images.”
Reemerging two decades later, he directed “The Thin Red Line,” a loose adaptation of James Jones’s World War II novel. Although not ultimately a winner, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
That was followed by “The New World,” his retelling of the Pocahontas story.
Malick’s films are typically period pieces with a voice over by one of the main characters. “The Tree of Life” is true to form. As for going back to earlier times, one of my friends commented, “I was following the movie pretty well until the dinosaurs appeared.”
Much of the criticism is aimed at the film’s fragmented and non-linear narrative style. “The Tree of Life” gives us a middle-aged man’s childhood memories of his family life in 1950s Texas. Yet it takes side trips into space and time, exploring the meaning of life on earth.
Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) is an architect who begins to think back to the death of his 19-year-old brother as he observes a tree being planted outside his office. He reminisces about growing up with his strict father and permissive mother (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) in Waco, Texas.
This existential exercise in filmmaking may in fact be a psychological autobiography. The son of an oil company geologist, Malick was raised in Oklahoma and Texas, where he worked on farms and oil fields as a young man. His father Emil Malick was a stern figure of Lebanese descent. His brother Chris was badly burned in a car accident. His younger brother Larry committed suicide.
The genesis for the film was that earlier treatment titled “Q” that he walked away from thirty years ago. When more recently pitched to River Road Entertainment chief Bill Pohlad he called it “crazy,” but wound up backing it.
“The Tree of Life” was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival. Yet it drew boos as well as applause at its Cannes premiere.
Some reviews have called it “dazzling” and “a transcendent achievement.” Others have termed it “pretentious” and “sanctimonious mopey male egotism disguised as a search for meaning.” Based on all this, I would probably call it “polarizing,” a love-it-or-hate-it film experience.
Let me know where you come out … and I’ll share my observations with you next week.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Okay, let me tell you right upfront that I couldn’t get a screener DVD for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” So I will come back to you with a more critical appraisal after I’ve actually seen it. My friends who have caught the film in other cities are giving me mixed feedback.
Nonetheless, I’m eager to catch the current showing at the Tropic Cinema, for Malick is a director whose work I’ve long admired.
Malick isn’t very prolific, only five feature films in 40 years. After “Days of Heaven” (1978)” he waited twenty years to do his next film, “The Thin Red Line” (1998). He has been described as “one of the great enigmas of contemporary filmmaking, a shadowy figure whose towering reputation rests largely on a very small body of work.”
A thinking man’s director, he studied philosophy at Harvard and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (but left without earning a doctorate). He did a noted translation of Heidegger’s “Vom Wesen des Grundes” (“The Essence of Reasons”). Malick taught philosophy at MIT. Later he wrote think pieces for Newsweek and The New Yorker.
Then he earned a MFA at the American Film Institute Conservatory and became a filmmaker.
With the help of Jack Nicholson, he got work doing script rewrites. Though not used, he banged out early drafts of “Dirty Harry” and “Great Balls of Fire!” The movie “Deadhead Miles” based on his script was scraped, considered unreleasable by the studio.
In 1973, he wrote and directed “Badlands,” a minor masterpiece based on the murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend.
His next film was “Days of Heaven,” a lyrical love triangle set among turn-of-the-century farm workers of the Texas Panhandle. Visually stunning, it won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. And Malick picked up the prize for Best Director at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
Following that thundering success, Malick began working on a screenplay titled “Q,” a concept that explored the origins of life on earth. However, during the film’s pre-production, he suddenly moved to Paris to live in seclusion. Vanity Fair referred to him as “The Runaway Genius.”
His disappearance was attributed to the studio’s objections to “Q” – seen as a “long, rambling, almost incoherent look at the beginning of the world that was little more than just images.”
Reemerging two decades later, he directed “The Thin Red Line,” a loose adaptation of James Jones’s World War II novel. Although not ultimately a winner, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
That was followed by “The New World,” his retelling of the Pocahontas story.
Malick’s films are typically period pieces with a voice over by one of the main characters. “The Tree of Life” is true to form. As for going back to earlier times, one of my friends commented, “I was following the movie pretty well until the dinosaurs appeared.”
Much of the criticism is aimed at the film’s fragmented and non-linear narrative style. “The Tree of Life” gives us a middle-aged man’s childhood memories of his family life in 1950s Texas. Yet it takes side trips into space and time, exploring the meaning of life on earth.
Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn) is an architect who begins to think back to the death of his 19-year-old brother as he observes a tree being planted outside his office. He reminisces about growing up with his strict father and permissive mother (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) in Waco, Texas.
This existential exercise in filmmaking may in fact be a psychological autobiography. The son of an oil company geologist, Malick was raised in Oklahoma and Texas, where he worked on farms and oil fields as a young man. His father Emil Malick was a stern figure of Lebanese descent. His brother Chris was badly burned in a car accident. His younger brother Larry committed suicide.
The genesis for the film was that earlier treatment titled “Q” that he walked away from thirty years ago. When more recently pitched to River Road Entertainment chief Bill Pohlad he called it “crazy,” but wound up backing it.
“The Tree of Life” was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes International Film Festival. Yet it drew boos as well as applause at its Cannes premiere.
Some reviews have called it “dazzling” and “a transcendent achievement.” Others have termed it “pretentious” and “sanctimonious mopey male egotism disguised as a search for meaning.” Based on all this, I would probably call it “polarizing,” a love-it-or-hate-it film experience.
Let me know where you come out … and I’ll share my observations with you next week.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Rhoades)
“Kung Fu Panda 2” Has the Right Moves
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Actor Jack Black looks like a chubby, cuddly Panda Bear – at least in “Kung Fu Panda 2.” Sure, it’s animated, but squint your eyes and you’d have a hard time telling the panda’s rounded profile from Black’s.
For those of you who didn’t see the original movie, Master Po (voiced by Black) is a Panda who (as the title suggests) knows kung fu, that chop-socky martial arts fighting style invented in China. This time around, Po and his pals – The Furious Five – are content to protect the Valley of Peace.
That is, until a new villain comes on the scene with a secret weapon that can defeat kung fu.
The Furious Five are a Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. These voices are reprised by the same actors from the original film: Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, and Jackie Chan. Plus Dustin Hoffman, Michele Yeoh, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Oldman, and Danny McBride lend their voices too.
“Kung Fu Panda 2” – currently playing at the Tropic Cinema – was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, herself of Asian ethnicity. It was filmed in poke-you-eye-out stereoscopic 3-D.
“I actually wanted to start off from the original and not lose anything good about it,” says Jennifer Yuh Nelson. “But also keep building on what we learned in the first one. In the first ‘Panda,’ Po got to be the Dragon Warrior. And he reached a certain level of happiness. In the second one we get to go to a larger scale adventure.”
“Po is like a big kid,” says Jack Black. “He has an awe and wonderment for his kung fu master heroes. He’s still sort of wide-eyed and innocent.”
Watching Jack Black talk about the movie, you’ll note his awe and wonderment. And wide-eyed innocence as he describes Po’s new adventures. Yep, Jack’s just a big, cuddly Panda in human form.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Actor Jack Black looks like a chubby, cuddly Panda Bear – at least in “Kung Fu Panda 2.” Sure, it’s animated, but squint your eyes and you’d have a hard time telling the panda’s rounded profile from Black’s.
For those of you who didn’t see the original movie, Master Po (voiced by Black) is a Panda who (as the title suggests) knows kung fu, that chop-socky martial arts fighting style invented in China. This time around, Po and his pals – The Furious Five – are content to protect the Valley of Peace.
That is, until a new villain comes on the scene with a secret weapon that can defeat kung fu.
The Furious Five are a Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey. These voices are reprised by the same actors from the original film: Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, and Jackie Chan. Plus Dustin Hoffman, Michele Yeoh, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Oldman, and Danny McBride lend their voices too.
“Kung Fu Panda 2” – currently playing at the Tropic Cinema – was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, herself of Asian ethnicity. It was filmed in poke-you-eye-out stereoscopic 3-D.
“I actually wanted to start off from the original and not lose anything good about it,” says Jennifer Yuh Nelson. “But also keep building on what we learned in the first one. In the first ‘Panda,’ Po got to be the Dragon Warrior. And he reached a certain level of happiness. In the second one we get to go to a larger scale adventure.”
“Po is like a big kid,” says Jack Black. “He has an awe and wonderment for his kung fu master heroes. He’s still sort of wide-eyed and innocent.”
Watching Jack Black talk about the movie, you’ll note his awe and wonderment. And wide-eyed innocence as he describes Po’s new adventures. Yep, Jack’s just a big, cuddly Panda in human form.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
X-Men: First Class (Rhoades)
Is “X-Men: First Class” Really First Class?
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
By now, fanboys have probably caught onto what Marvel is doing: Treating movies like comic books.
Sure, they are bringing their famous superhero characters to the big screen amidst plenty of CGI special effects. But there’s a bigger scheme afoot.
Marvel isn’t treating movies as stand-alone entertainments the way we usually think of cinema. Rather, it’s releasing them the way comic books are published – as a series of entertainments that are linked.
Y’see, fanboys don’t just buy the #1 issue of a comic book, they buy the entire series. And the stories are continued from one to the next. Back when I was publisher of Marvel Comics, we used to compare comic books to soap operas, using “Days of Our Lives” scripts to teach our young writers how to tell sequential art stories with greater skill.
Look at the Marvel superhero movies of the past decade: “Spider-Man” was followed by “Spider-Man 2” and “Spider-Man 3,” just like a comic book series. And now it’s being rebooted, just as we used to do with comic books, retelling the story in a new way.
The “X-Men” films have worked the same way. “X-Men” followed by “X-Men 2” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”. And that was followed by the “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” spin-off. At Marvel we always had a half dozen or so different “X-Men” titles being published simultaneously. With a Wolverine spin-off.
Now we have “X-Men: First Class,” a prequel to the other X-Men movies. (Prequels? Heck, at Marvel we even published a title called “X-Babies,” about the mutants as tiny tots.) This new story about Professor X and Magneto as young men is currently playing at the Tropic Cinema.
Just to remind you (in case you’re not an avid fanboy), the X-Men are mutants – genetic freaks who have superpowers. Humans fear them, but the X-Men don costumes to go save mankind from various threats … even itself.
When legendary Marvel Editor Stan Lee created the X-Men, he saw it as a plea for tolerance, accepting people who are different from us. Now, in college textbooks, they’re labeled as “archetypes,” iconic characters that strike a chord within each of us.
Those of you who saw the previous X-Men movies (or read the comic books) think of Magneto as Professor X’s bitter rival, two mutants who have differing views on how to handle being “different.” But in this prequel, you learn that they started off as best friends.
Some compare them to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, two men seeking the same goal, but via very different paths.
In “X-Men: First Class” we meet these young mutants who are just coming to terms with their powers. Charles Xavier, the stud who grows up to become Professor X, is a high-level telepath who can read and influence human minds. His pal Erik Lehnsherr, who later becomes Magneto, has the ability to control magnetic forces.
You’ll also meet mutants who are shape shifters, can spin at incredibly fast speeds, have high-pitched sonic abilities, shoot blasts of cosmic energy, display insectoid physiology or blue fur, and have retractable claws made of Adamanthium.
James McAvoy (“Atonement,” “Wanted”) gives us the young Professor X, while Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Jayne Eyre”) opts to be the young Magneto.
Kevin Bacon (“Footloose,” “Tremors”) is closer than six degrees as Sebastian Shaw, leader of the nefarious Hellfire Club. Sexy January Jones (TV’s “Mad Men”) plays the villainous Emma Frost. Oliver Platt (“Please Give,” “Frost/Nixon”) is a Man in Black. And Hugh Jackman (the “X-Men” movies, “Sailfish”) does a cameo as Wolverine.
Director Matthew Vaughn has proven he can do action movies with “Layer Cake” and the comic book-y “Kick-Ass.” He says, “I love superhero films. I want more to be made but they need to be taken seriously as a genre and not just comic books.”
Casting was a challenge. “James McAvoy was top of my list when we talked about who would play Professor X. He got pretty annoyed with me because I made him audition with every single actor who came in for Magento, because I was like if we’re trying to do that Butch Cassidy Sundance Kid chemistry I think it was really, really important that you have to see that chemistry beforehand. The poor guy, I’m wheeling him in everyday saying you’ve got to read with this other actor and this other actor. And then when Michael Fassbender came in, after 20 seconds the two of them together, and I’m like OK, I’ve found them.”
Problem was Professor X and Magneto had already been played to perfection by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in those other “X-Men” movies. Vaughn said to his stars, “I think they did a great job but you’ve got to make these characters your own.”
As he pointed out to McAvoy, “When we first meet Charles Xavier he’s not a Professor and we were trying to show that transition. Seeing Magneto becoming a villain, that’s far more interesting than watching a guy sadly becoming a cripple and becoming a teacher ultimately. Charles Xavier, he’s the hardest character to make interesting.”
But he declares, “I think James did a fabulous job.”
The story for “X-Men: First Class” is new. In the comic books, we hinted that Magneto had a history that went back the WWII Holocaust. But in this new take, the story is set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can the young mutants Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr avert a nuclear disaster?
Well, it’s no spoiler to tell you that war is averted. Not only do we know how America’s historic confrontation with Russia and Cuba turned out, we also have those other X-Men movies – the stories that take place after this prequel – to prove they survived.
Oh, and as for my premise that Marvel is treating these movie like comic books, “X-Men: First Class” is envisioned as the first in a prequel trilogy. When I was at Marvel we would have termed that a “limited-edition series.”
And just watch, all those other Marvel movies – “Iron Man,” “Thor,” the upcoming “Captain America” – are really part of a bigger series, leading up to a movie about that grand ol’ Marvel superhero team, “Avengers.”
C’mon, haven’t you moviegoers been staying until the films’ end credits are over in “Iron Man,” “Thor,” et al. to see those snippets of Sgt. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) pulling his Avengers team together for a movie blockbuster? That’s the one fanboys are really waiting for.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
By now, fanboys have probably caught onto what Marvel is doing: Treating movies like comic books.
Sure, they are bringing their famous superhero characters to the big screen amidst plenty of CGI special effects. But there’s a bigger scheme afoot.
Marvel isn’t treating movies as stand-alone entertainments the way we usually think of cinema. Rather, it’s releasing them the way comic books are published – as a series of entertainments that are linked.
Y’see, fanboys don’t just buy the #1 issue of a comic book, they buy the entire series. And the stories are continued from one to the next. Back when I was publisher of Marvel Comics, we used to compare comic books to soap operas, using “Days of Our Lives” scripts to teach our young writers how to tell sequential art stories with greater skill.
Look at the Marvel superhero movies of the past decade: “Spider-Man” was followed by “Spider-Man 2” and “Spider-Man 3,” just like a comic book series. And now it’s being rebooted, just as we used to do with comic books, retelling the story in a new way.
The “X-Men” films have worked the same way. “X-Men” followed by “X-Men 2” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”. And that was followed by the “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” spin-off. At Marvel we always had a half dozen or so different “X-Men” titles being published simultaneously. With a Wolverine spin-off.
Now we have “X-Men: First Class,” a prequel to the other X-Men movies. (Prequels? Heck, at Marvel we even published a title called “X-Babies,” about the mutants as tiny tots.) This new story about Professor X and Magneto as young men is currently playing at the Tropic Cinema.
Just to remind you (in case you’re not an avid fanboy), the X-Men are mutants – genetic freaks who have superpowers. Humans fear them, but the X-Men don costumes to go save mankind from various threats … even itself.
When legendary Marvel Editor Stan Lee created the X-Men, he saw it as a plea for tolerance, accepting people who are different from us. Now, in college textbooks, they’re labeled as “archetypes,” iconic characters that strike a chord within each of us.
Those of you who saw the previous X-Men movies (or read the comic books) think of Magneto as Professor X’s bitter rival, two mutants who have differing views on how to handle being “different.” But in this prequel, you learn that they started off as best friends.
Some compare them to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, two men seeking the same goal, but via very different paths.
In “X-Men: First Class” we meet these young mutants who are just coming to terms with their powers. Charles Xavier, the stud who grows up to become Professor X, is a high-level telepath who can read and influence human minds. His pal Erik Lehnsherr, who later becomes Magneto, has the ability to control magnetic forces.
You’ll also meet mutants who are shape shifters, can spin at incredibly fast speeds, have high-pitched sonic abilities, shoot blasts of cosmic energy, display insectoid physiology or blue fur, and have retractable claws made of Adamanthium.
James McAvoy (“Atonement,” “Wanted”) gives us the young Professor X, while Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Jayne Eyre”) opts to be the young Magneto.
Kevin Bacon (“Footloose,” “Tremors”) is closer than six degrees as Sebastian Shaw, leader of the nefarious Hellfire Club. Sexy January Jones (TV’s “Mad Men”) plays the villainous Emma Frost. Oliver Platt (“Please Give,” “Frost/Nixon”) is a Man in Black. And Hugh Jackman (the “X-Men” movies, “Sailfish”) does a cameo as Wolverine.
Director Matthew Vaughn has proven he can do action movies with “Layer Cake” and the comic book-y “Kick-Ass.” He says, “I love superhero films. I want more to be made but they need to be taken seriously as a genre and not just comic books.”
Casting was a challenge. “James McAvoy was top of my list when we talked about who would play Professor X. He got pretty annoyed with me because I made him audition with every single actor who came in for Magento, because I was like if we’re trying to do that Butch Cassidy Sundance Kid chemistry I think it was really, really important that you have to see that chemistry beforehand. The poor guy, I’m wheeling him in everyday saying you’ve got to read with this other actor and this other actor. And then when Michael Fassbender came in, after 20 seconds the two of them together, and I’m like OK, I’ve found them.”
Problem was Professor X and Magneto had already been played to perfection by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in those other “X-Men” movies. Vaughn said to his stars, “I think they did a great job but you’ve got to make these characters your own.”
As he pointed out to McAvoy, “When we first meet Charles Xavier he’s not a Professor and we were trying to show that transition. Seeing Magneto becoming a villain, that’s far more interesting than watching a guy sadly becoming a cripple and becoming a teacher ultimately. Charles Xavier, he’s the hardest character to make interesting.”
But he declares, “I think James did a fabulous job.”
The story for “X-Men: First Class” is new. In the comic books, we hinted that Magneto had a history that went back the WWII Holocaust. But in this new take, the story is set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can the young mutants Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr avert a nuclear disaster?
Well, it’s no spoiler to tell you that war is averted. Not only do we know how America’s historic confrontation with Russia and Cuba turned out, we also have those other X-Men movies – the stories that take place after this prequel – to prove they survived.
Oh, and as for my premise that Marvel is treating these movie like comic books, “X-Men: First Class” is envisioned as the first in a prequel trilogy. When I was at Marvel we would have termed that a “limited-edition series.”
And just watch, all those other Marvel movies – “Iron Man,” “Thor,” the upcoming “Captain America” – are really part of a bigger series, leading up to a movie about that grand ol’ Marvel superhero team, “Avengers.”
C’mon, haven’t you moviegoers been staying until the films’ end credits are over in “Iron Man,” “Thor,” et al. to see those snippets of Sgt. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) pulling his Avengers team together for a movie blockbuster? That’s the one fanboys are really waiting for.
srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]
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