Black Mass: or I still can't stand Boston Accents

I went into Black Mass having seen no Trailers. I'd seen posters and heard a little hype from friends and NPR, so I knew it was the "Whitey Bulger" story. Not knowing very much about the Bulger story, the historian part of me was pretty engaged.

The acting was just as good as you'd imagine from that cast list. Johnny Depp gave an amazing performance, breaking out of the Jack Sparrow rut he's been in since 2003. Benedict Cumberbatch does a Boston accent that's very nearly believable, and he does a great job in a supporting role, never stealing the screen as he often dies. It's neat to watch Adam Scott hold his own amongst so many accomplished dramatic actors, however he doesn't get enough screen time to truly cut his teeth.

That said, none of the characters are deeply explored. They're barely shallowly explored. No one has a character arc. No one changes. The movie suffers from classic biopic syndrome, presenting a series of factual events and failing to present them within properly structured plot arc. You find yourself watching a brief history lesson rather than a story. Like most biopics, the film cuts off with little resolution.

While Depp's performance and the history aspect were enough to keep me engaged for the duration, overall I found the movie entirely forgettable. If I want a compelling, "true-life" crime movie, I'll watch Goodfellas again.

The movie was also a constant reminder of why and how much I dislike Boston. Their accent, their culture, their arrogant, xenophobic, exclusionary sense of self-entitlement: Sorry, Boston, but you have yet to win any affection from me.

My one sentence review:
"Black Mass" is two hours of great actors playing disappointingly-written characters in little snippets of some of a plot.

"Live Blogging" Movies You've Probably Already Seen: Unbreakable

So in the first scene I'm already finding a few things unbelievable in this movie about "superheroes."

1) Why would two people talk to each other through a mirror in that way?  Unless both of them were thinking, "Gee, this would sure be a cool shot.  I sure wish/hope someone was filming this."

2) If movies have taught me anything, it's that there is probably not nearly enough racism happening in this scene involving black people and white people in the 1960's.

I like the character development of Bruce Willis figuring out he's "unbreakable," but he's supposed to be, what? 40? minimum.  You're telling me a man has gone at least 40 years and never found it odd that he hasn't been sick or hurt?  What was that childhood like?  Boys do dumb shit. They get hurt.  This is asking for some major suspension of disbelief.

Oh my God. Within the same scene M. Night says "F--- You" to his audience..
1) The Action Comics issue's price of "still 25 cents" just rubs in the price of comics today. Ha ha.  Because inflation is funny.
2) Sam Jackson's mom says, "This one has a twist ending."  Ha ha, M. Night.  Wink wink, nudge nudge.  Here's a twisting ending: the "next Spielberg's" IMDB list after this movie.

Also, I'm just going based on what I've heard about this movie, and what I've seen in the first 15-20min, but did we really cast a white hero and a black villain?  Heavy-handed good-guy/bad-guy casting is heavy-handed.  Oh, there's the racism they left out of the 1960's scene; it got misplaced into the casting department. . . in real life.

So, believe it or not, this is the first Shymalan movie I've ever seen.  Yes, I know, Bruce Willis is a ghost, and his weakness is water, and it was the trees that killed him.  That said, I'm surprised to find how much dialogue is actually just exposition.  Seriously, it's like half the movie so far.  AND, I'm pretty sure if you break down the scene formula, each scene might end with it's own twist.  It's like this script is a series of little twists within twists within one big twist.  Jeeze, watching M. Night write must be like watching a teen girl braid her hair on prom night.

Gotta say, though, I am really enjoying the performances from Willis and Jackson.  They're pretty solid and fairly divergent from their typical on-screen personalities.  And Robin Wright; I might actually like her better here than in House of Cards.  One thing I'll give Shymalan, he knows how to get great performances.

"These are mediocre times.  People are starting to loose hope."  And this movie came out BEFORE the recession.

Did Bruce Willis just racially profile Shymalan in a pre-9/11 world?

There are so many things wrong with the scene where the kid tries to shoot Bruce Willis, but I know better than to try to tell people how to raise their own kids, so. . . skip!

Oh shit!  I was just making a Signs reference when I said Bruce Willis' weakness was water.  I retract my obnoxious joke.  Touché, movie.  Touché.

However, I'm gonna sin this movie for over use of cross-fades.  Or for cross-fading out of scenes too early multiple times.  For a movie that takes it's time with long, artsy shots, it sure likes to rush us out of scenes with these dissolves.

And this room is an orgy of evidence that Sam Jackson's character is a super-villain.

Seriously? That's how it ends?  No third act?  Are all Shymalan movies like this?  Insert joke about unsatisfying sex due to lack of climax.  And what's with the American Graffiti ending?  We could show you these events, but we feel it's more cinematic to put some text on the screen and let you read it.

I think I'd have liked this movie more if no one had hyped it up for me.  But that's also the only reason I watched it.

Let's have someone write and shoot those last 30 pages.  You know, Sam Jackson is on top of a the Baxter Building, about to evaporate all of Gotham's water into a hallucinogenic drug that, when inhaled, will make audiences think the Avengers movies are good; then all the cranes turn so that Bruce Willis can get there in time to trap Sam Jackson in the sun with Parallax, possibly through the use of air bending (too soon?).

Okay, you're right.  Let's give Unbreakable all the points for subverting the genre and removing all the action and spectacle from a super-hero film.  It's actually pretty clever and deserves some recognition.  I guarantee you won't see a Marvel or DC film attempt anything this ballsy.

Inside Out's Existential Crises

Let me start by saying Inside Out is cute and fun with a lot of clever psychology jokes. However, I felt there were some major holes, unanswered questions, and strange implications that were side effects of the film's premise.

First off, Inside Out could be a great example of the things you're not supposed to do in a screenplay. Like narration. Occasionally narration can be okay, even good, but, far more often, it's either lazy storytelling or clearly added because some idiots in a focus group were confused, so execs added narration to spell things out for lowest-common-denominator Americans. At its best, great filmmaking doesn't even require dialogue to tell the story. Inside Out's narration is completely unnecessary, and is worth a sin.

The other screenwriting no-no that bugged me is something I hate any time I see it: internal conflict. Having characters struggle with internal conflict is fine, even great character development, as long as there is some personified antagonist representing that conflict or drawing it out. But when a film lacks an antagonist, I find it lacks conflict, and becomes boring for me personally. Now, I realize I'm basically faulting the movie for its basic premise, so shame on me, I guess.

And, remember, this is coming from a guy who loves Pixar and typically applauds them for their generally clever writing, emotional storytelling, and overall higher quality than DreamWorks.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into some existential plot holes and paradoxes.

How does the relations between the emotions and Riley work? Joy and friends have a control panel with which they make Riley feel emotions, and they give her ideas. They seem to be controlling her like pilots of a ship. The same is true of all the other humans we see. So are people merely vessels controlled by these emotions? Joy and gang constantly refer to Riley as if she's a separate person. They care about her wellbeing as if it's different from their own. It's not "I" and "me", but "she" and "her." This language suggests that Riley has a separate consciousness from the emotions. Is that part of head not personified? What exactly is the relationship here?

I might be faulting the movie's premise again, but let's talk about the emotions. Each of then seem to experience the full range of emotions. We certainly see Joy experience sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Which is fine. None of them would be able to undergo any sort of character arc if they were completely one-dimensional representations of their respective emotion. However, if they themselves are capable of feeling other emotions, why do Disgust, Fear, and Anger have so much trouble running Riley while Joy and Sadness are adventuring? Shouldn't they operate more like the Faceless Men of Bravos and be able to switch places willy-nilly? Or what's the point of having the five emotions in the first place if they are all capable of having other feelings? Does Joy have a team of emotions piloting her? Is life just an endless paradox of emotions controlling emotions?

Something else that confuses me is the gender assignment of the emotions. Riley has a mix of masculine and feminine personifications of her emotions, which is fine. I just find it odd that every other head we see in the film has all of their emotions match their body's gender. Men have their emotions personified as a being men. Women's emotions are 100% women. Is is some intentional commentary on Riley's character? Is it suggesting that Riley is still discovering who see is and her emotions will change as she becomes an adult and discovers her identity? Is it some commentary on her future sexuality (the film does keep away from the debunked works of Freud)? Or is it just a gag, because having all the females in Mom being annoyed with all the males in Dad is funny; because gender conflict!

My final existential question is about the opening of the film. Joy comes into existence at Riley's birth. I don't mean to start a religious debate here, but the film is certainly making some statement about a person's perception or lack thereof in the womb vs out. I like to believe Pixar wasn't trying to make such commentary, but, rather were cleverly referencing Lacanian psychology or someone similar with the theory that you don't develop a separate identity from your mother until you've left the womb (and seen yourself in a mirror, according to Lacan).

Sure, I'm a heartless, cold miser for hating on this adorable children's film. But, in my defense, it was also boring and predictable. If it weren't for the clever humor, I probably would've been really disappointed. However, the witty psychology jokes do give Inside Out enough points to earn this one-line review:

"It's still a better movie than Cars."

Why Jurassic World Is Actually Brilliant

The more I reflect on Jurassic World, the more I realize how much I enjoyed it and how brilliant it really is. This review isn't about nitpicking the movie; it has it's fair share of flaws as well as details that I really liked. I also don't want to summarize the film, and I'll try to do this without spoilers.

First off, I was never bored. The action begins early, is really fun, is well shot, and, through very good editing, pacing, and cinematography, the filmmakers effectively created a world of suspense where the dinosaur could be lurking just off-scene at any time. While the plot points were predictable (set up, payoff) like in any Jurassic Park film, the action was not; this suspense kept me guessing and kept me metaphorically on the edge of my seat.

Jurassic Park has always maintained a good track record of making dinosaurs into scary villains that will eat you (Raptors in the kitchen. Need I say more?), but JW is the first entry that has made me actively root against a dinosaur. The movie's hybrid creation Indominus Rex is effectively presented as a homicidal, sociopathic, character, achieving a level of pure hatred among the audience so strong that, when Indominus finally met her demise, a Sunday morning crowd actually cheered. If that's not great character development, I don't know what is.

Also on the well-developed dino list are the raptors. Thanks to Chris Pratt's relationship with them, the raptors are, for the first time in the franchise, truly presented as animals, as opposed to movie monsters. They were scary in the way a trained wolf or tiger is scary; seemingly tamed, but their wild side could come out at any moment. This was something new and refreshing for the JP franchise. While I could offer endless complaints regarding JW's CGI, which doesn't hold a candle to the animatronics of the 1993 original, I will say the raptors looked damn cool when they got to run out in the jungle. Their movement and behavior as they leap over dead trees and scurry along the jungle floor was captured perfectly, adding to the sense that they are animals.

What really made me appreciate Jurassic World was when I realized the movie was an allegory for itself. In the world of the movie, executives order the creation of Indominus Rex to "up the wild factor" and attract an audience who's bored with regular dinosaurs. That's exactly what the movie did! The writers concocted Indominus to attract movie-goers who could be bored with the previous JP films. And all the while, Chris Pratt's voice-of-reason character keeps reminding us, "They're dinosaurs. Wild enough." It's like the whole movie is a big f#@k you to some Universal exec! The film is full of tongue-in-cheek nods to the other films as if to say, "We know we're a cash-in, so we're just going to have fun being  a cash-in." The action is fun and ridiculous, while the humor and nostalgia are well-played and self-aware.

Jurassic World's greatest selling point could possibly be the way it treats its audience. Like this summer's most amazing blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road (seriously, go see it), Jurassic World doesn't treat us all like idiots. JW trusts that we've all seen its predecessors and that we don't need a refresher course. Well all know who John Hammond and InGen are, and the movie knows that. Little details like that make Jurassic World and Mad Max refreshing exceptions in our current, unbearably oversimplified blockbuster climate.

Is Jurassic World a good movie? No, not at all. Is it as good as the original? No, it might not even be as good as The Lost World (but I like Lost World). Is it a fun, awesome thrill ride that can kick the pants off a Marvel or Transformers film? Absolutely. By far the best dinosaur movie you'll see this year.

My one line review: "Jurassic World is the dinosaur movie I've always wanted and never should've existed."