Spider-Man: Far From Home

(Movie Review)

The Review
A fun little Superhero movie, but nothing particularly groundbreaking like Endgame.

I suppose it's unfair to compare this movie to Avengers: Endgame.  Not every movie can or should be a huge event movie like Endgame.  You need the ordinary superhero movies in between so that the big event movies can feel special.  But... I can't help but think it, this movie does feel a bit anti-climatic after Endgame.

...anyway,
A good Spider-Man movie needs to focus on Peter Parker's high school angst, and Peter Parker's group of teenage friends.
A Marvel Cinematic Universe movie needs to make connections to the larger world of superheros and reference the big events that happened in previous movies.
This movie does as good a job of balancing the two as can be hoped for.  The decision to send Peter Parker's high school friends on a European field trip allowed the writers to take the story to exotic locations, while still keeping the focus on the group of friends.

The movie is lighthearted and fun.  With a lot of jokes thrown in.
If I was inclined to be critical, I could complain that the movie is not quite as funny as it thinks it is.  (Quite often I thought that a corny joke didn't quite merit all the set-up that the movie gave it).  But why complain about nitpicks? These Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have always done a fairly good job of managing the tone-- keeping their movies fun, but also keeping the stakes real.  (After the complete failure of the DC Cinematic Universe to manage the same act, it's a reminder that we've gotten spoiled by how good the Marvel movies are.)

Other Notes
* I was a little concerned at first that Marvel was throwing away the dramatic weight behind their own storyline by treating the "blip" as just a joke.  But after thinking about it, I think it works.  The opening scenes were just showing how high school students would react to the blip.  Of course from a high school student's perspective, the injustice of having to retake mid-terms would be the most important thing about the blip.
This doesn't preclude a later movie from taking a more serious look at the massive societal disruption the blip must have caused.

Rating:
7 out of 10 Stars.  (Good fun film, but just as easily forgettable).

Marvel Cinematic Universe Reviews Links

1. Iron Man
2. The Incredible Hulk
3. Iron Man 2
4. Thor
5. Captain America: The First Avenger
6. The Avengers
7. Iron Man 3
8. Thor 2: Dark World
9. Captain America 2: Winter Soldier
10. Guardians of the Galaxy
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron
12. Ant-Man
13. Captain America 3: Civil War
14. Doctor Strange--Haven't seen yet
15. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
16. Spider-Man: Homecoming
17. Thor: Ragnarok
18: Black Panther
19. Avengers: Infinity War
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp ,

21. Captain Marvel--Haven't seen yet
22. Avengers: Endgame

Video Review:
Video review HERE and embedded below:



Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - The Relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism (1976)

Isle of Dogs

(Movie Review)

Negatives
* The plot moves a bit slowly at points.
* Too much sentimentality at points.

Positives
* That deadpan Wes Anderson humor is great.
* All actors are good, but especially Bill Murray and Edward Norton are great at delivering the deadpan Wes Anderson humor
* I'm not much of a cinema expert, so I can't talk about this in great depth, but it's obvious that Wes Anderson views every frame as a piece of art.  And it shows in his shot composition.
* Related to the above point, my friend the Cinephile once told me that Wes Anderson is heavily influenced by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, who also was obsessed with creating symmetry in all of his shots.  So, the Japanese setting for this movie is appropriate, and works beautifully.

Other Notes
* I know this is only of interest to me, but... Back when I lived in Japan, and was obsessed with Japanese oldies, I had "Tokyo Shoeshine Boy" in my music collection.  (This is the song that is playing in the background in the izakaya scene.)

Rating:
7 out of 10.  (In the past I've given 10 out of 10 to Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel.  But I didn't enjoy this one quite as much.  It loses a couple of points for the slow moving plot, and the sentimentality.  But... the funny parts were really funny.  (I love that deadpan humor).  So 7 out of 10.

Video Review
Video review HERE and embedded below:



Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on Venezuela

Shazam

(Movie Review)

My History With Captain Marvel
The strange legal history of Captain Marvel, as well as his awkward place in the D.C. Universe, has long been a source of fascination for me.  I've mentioned it before several times on this blog--HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE for example.

This is also, incidentally, the first D.C. Universe movie I've seen.  Although I've long been a fan of the comic books, the movies have been getting such horrible reviews that I've just stayed home.

The Review  ***SPOILERS***
Having long had a bizarre fascination with Captain Marvel (see the links above), I was predisposed to be interested in this movie.
And I liked it.
There are some weak points.  The plot is a bit too contrived.  The bully characters are a bit too cliche.  And the movie is not as funny as it thinks it is.  Asher Angel--the actor who plays Billy Batson--is good, but a lot of the banter at the beginning of this movie between Billy Batson and Freddy Freeman was not funny and just groan worthy.
But Zachary Levi, the actor who plays Captain Marvel, redeems the whole movie.  He is great.  Not only is he really funny, and does great in all the comedic parts, but he also does such a good job of really selling the idea of a kid in a grown man's body.
I liked the fact that the whole Marvel family was involved.  When all the kids went through the magic door together to fight the bad guy, the movie had a Goonies type vibe of this gang of kids together on an adventure.
And then (**SPOILERS***) I was really very pleasantly surprised when they all got super powers in the final scene.  I mean, since I was familiar with the comics, I knew that Freddy and Mary were obviously being set up to be Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr.  But I thought it was just an Easter Egg they weren't really going to pay off.  Or if they did, it would be in some sequel down the road.  I didn't think this movie would embrace the zaniness of the original comic book source material by bringing in the full Marvel family, but I'm so glad it did.

More Nitpicks
* I realize at this point it's not really sporting anymore to point out how much the DC Cinematic Universe is failing compared to Marvel, but... what was up with that Superman cameo at the end in which they couldn't even get the Superman actor to appear?  Could you imagine a Marvel movie doing that? Could you imagine Marvel not being able to negotiate a cameo appearance, and so having to hide the character's face out of frame?

Rating :
7 out of 10 Stars.  A flawed movie, but still a fun movie.

Video Review
Video Review HERE and embedded below



Link of the Day
Chomsky: Arrest of Assange Is “Scandalous” and Highlights Shocking Extraterritorial Reach of U.S.

Logan

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
I've been a fan of these X-Men movies all along.  See my reviews of X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and X-Men: 3.  (X-Men 1 and X-Men 2 came out before I started this blog.)
Plus, I think we can all agree that the previews for this movie just looked really cool. I knew I would be seeing this movie sooner or later.

Currently, I'm living and working in Vietnam, which makes it hard to find an uncensored cut of this movie.
It turns out communist regimes are remarkably similar to the religious right back in America.  They really hate all the sex and violence in Hollywood moves, and the Vietnamese censors are not shy about editing that stuff right out.
A co-worker of mine went to see this movie and the theater in Saigon, and was outraged to find the entire climax of the movie had just been brutally cut out of the movie.

I ended up seeing it on cable TV last night (Fox Movies Asia--W).  I'm fairly sure it was somewhat censored.  (The version I saw did not quite match up with all the descriptions of graphic violence I've been reading about online).  But at least there were no glaring gaps.

Because I never saw the unedited version of this movie, feel free to discount my opinion accordingly.

The Review  ***SPOILERS***
The coolest thing about this movie is that it exists in the first place.
You remember when the trailers for this thing first started coming out?  And we were all like: "Oh, wow! They're actually doing this!"
An X-men movie made with the aesthetic of No Country for Old Men !  And with a hard "R" rating!  How did the studios ever let this happen?!

Although the movie is marketed as a Wolverine movie, I'm counting it as the 7th X-men movie in my mind.  It co-stars Patrick Stewart, and he does such a wonderful job in this movie that I think the movie is as much Professor Xavier's movie as it is Logan's.
The X-men continuity gets more and more tortured with each movie, but with a little bit of creative thinking you could easily position this as X-men 7.  It's a possible, albeit a very dark, future for the X-men universe.  Logan and Professor Xavier still survive, and the movie hints (strongly) that the other X-men were killed off by one of Professor Xavier's seizures.
It's amazing that a movie like this ever got made at all, and that's the most wonderful thing about it.

But... I feel like all there was to know about the new gritty tone and direction of this movie, I already got from the trailers.
Once you get your mind around the general concept, seeing the actual movie didn't quite blow me away as much as I thought it would.
After all, when it comes down to it, this is just another stupid super-hero movie.

I remember the moment when I was watching this movie, and I realized it wasn't going to be some deep plot, but that it was just going to be about how the good mutant fights the bad mutant again.  And then I thought to myself, "Well, of course it is.  For all its new gritty aesthetic, this is still just another superhero movie."
The more fool I for expecting anything different.
I've gotten into the bad habit lately of watching a lot of dumb superhero action movies, and then complaining that they're dumb superhero action movies.  I really should just stop watching them, or stop complaining.

...and yet...and yet, there are some moments of brilliance in this movie.
Most movies don't address the problems of aging (even though it's a non-negotiable part of the human experience).  But this movie at times took a very hard look at the problems of elder care for Professor Xavier.  At one time he was the most brilliant mind in the world, now he is just a feeble old man who can't go to the bathroom by himself.  And he's loosing control of his most valuable asset, his brain.  And everyone knows that this isn't going to get any better as time goes on.

I also thought the movie briefly flirted with a developing an allegory for the human search for meaning in life.  It didn't develop this fully, but hints of it where there.
The entire story is about a journey to a place called "Eden".  Laura (X-23) believes in it because she read it out of a book.
Logan knows that the book is just a story created by writers, and so doesn't think that Eden exists, and thinks the whole journey is a waste of time
Professor Xavier tells Logan that it doesn't matter whether or not the place exists in reality, because "it's real to her."

Other Notes
* Stephan Merchant was really good as "Caliban".  The fact that he was almost unrecognizable under the make-up just increased the fun.  The whole time I was watching this movie, I was like, "Who is that actor?  I know I've seen him in something before."  (I've long been a fan of Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais's collaborations).

* It's tempting to classify this movie as a post-apocalyptic future movie.  But one reviewer I read somewhere pointed out that there was nothing explicitly post-apocalyptic at all.  Rather the movie just looked post apocalyptic because all of the scenes took place in the desolateness of the American West.  It is actually a "Western".  (And I guess to drive home this point, the movie keeps emphasizing comparisons to Shane).

Rating
7 out of 10 stars.  (Border-line 8.  There are some moments of brilliance in this film.)

Video Review
Video Review HERE and embedded below:



Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky, Best Speech In 2017

Sausage Party

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
This movie was not even on my radar until it came out a couple weeks ago, and then I started seeing reviews for it pop up all over the Internet.   (See here, here, here and here, for example). And the reviews made it sound like the movie might just be bizarre and twisted enough to be kind of interesting.

To the best of my knowledge, this movie is not hitting cinemas in Vietnam (where I'm currently living), but a pirated copy was uploaded to Kisscartoon, and I watched it there.

[The link is HERE, for anyone else who's interested.  The quality of the video isn't great--it's a video camera in a cinema type deal--but it's adequate for at least getting the idea of what this movie is about.]

I know, I'm a bad person for watching an illegal copy.  But since seeing it in the cinema wasn't an option over here, I'm giving myself a pass.
Plus, when I read that Sausage Party had created terrible conditions for their workers, and forced them to work unpaid overtime, I felt even less guilty about it.
See Washington Post Article: The working conditions for some ‘Sausage Party’ animators were pretty terrible
  (Seriously, if Hollywood is not going to pay the workers who actually work on their movies, then why should we consumers feel guilty about not paying to watch it?  If all that money is just going to the CEO's pocket anyway, and not to the actual workers, I feel zero guilt.)

That being said, I am able to separate my feelings about the conditions on the production of the film from the review of the actual merits of the film itself.  And on the whole, I liked this film

Positives
* A brilliant parody of the Pixar movies.
When watching a Pixar movie, I'm sure I'm not the only person who has thought: "Actually, if these inanimate objects really were sentient, in reality they would have a very hellish existence".  Of course to acknowledge this would be to ruin the whole Pixar film, so we have to constantly fight to keep that thought out of our brain when enjoying something like Toy Story.
Which is all the more reason why it feels very liberating to have a film openly acknowledge this fact, and take it as its main premise.

* The philosophy of this film is clever.
Like The Invention of Lying before it, this film does a very good job of dramatizing how much of religious "truth" appears to be based on wish fulfillment rather than a rational examination of the evidence.

* The humor is dark, and sick, and twisted.  I know that probably should be a negative, but it's also what makes this film so interesting.
Stories like this are unpredictable.  You never know what sick twisted plot twists the film makers are going to throw in next.  No character is safe.  And therein lies the interest of the film.

Negatives
* Ever since South Park and Family Guy, it's been fashionable for hip comedians to try to offend everyone.  And this is true in this movie as well.  There's things in here designed to offend both the religious right, and also to offend the left.
Since this is the intent, it seems counterproductive to complain about it.  The moment I've admitted I'm offended, it's a victory for the film makers.
But that being said, I don't understand what constructive purpose is served by the continued use of ethnic stereotypes.
It just seems to be perpetrating the myth that the human race is divided into us and them--that there are normal people, like ourselves, and then there are all the strange foreigners.

* A lot of comedy writers seem to think that sex is inherently funny, but it's often not as funny as Hollywood thinks it is.
There's a certain shock value associated with breaking taboos, which can make sexual humor seem funny for a little bit.  But once that shock value wears off, then the joke has to earn its laugh on its own merits.  Sexual innuendos are, in-and-of-themselves, not enough to earn a laugh just by existing.
Unfortunately, the jokes in this movie get lazy by assuming sexual innuendos are inherently funny.

The Review
A bizarre little story that easily held my interest just by being so bizarre.
In a world where Hollywood movies are getting increasingly predictable, this movie was anything but.  (No one could have predicted the bizarre plot twists and turns that this movie would take).
The humor in this film was good in the broad strokes as a genre parody, but at an individual level, most of the jokes failed to make me laugh.
Still, it held my interest for the 90 minutes.

Rating :
7 out of 10 stars--I'd recommend this movie with caution--there are a lot of sick jokes in this movie--but if you're cool with that, it's worth seeing.

Links
Movie Bob's review of this movie was one of the factors that made me interested to see this movie in the first place, and his commentary on the movie is a lot more intelligent than mine.



Link of the Day
noam chomsky and varoufankis

X-Men: Apocalypse

(Movie Review)

Negatives
* I truly think that Magneto has been one of the most interesting and complex villains in movie history.  But after 6 movies, his story arc is just done.  There's only so many times we can see his fall and redemption on screen before we start to lose interest.  If I have to hear that "I know there's still good in you, Eric" speech one more time, I'm going to give up on these X-Men movies completely.

* Related to the above point, in order to get Magneto's fall-and-redemption arc into motion again, the screenwriters were just brutal to this character.
You can get away with killing off Magneto's whole family maybe once in the series, but you can't start doing it at the beginning of every movie.

* I've been a long time comic book fan ever since I was a kid.  But even as a kid, I've always preferred low-powered superheros (like Batman) to the near-omnipotent mind-controlling telepaths.
The problem with having too many near-omnipotent mind-controlling telepaths in one movie is that it leads to a loss of suspense because these characters have too much power.  It also leads to a lot of inconsistencies in how these powers are used.  And then there are those telepath mind battles, which I always thought got a bit weird, and which don't particularly lend themselves to dramatic presentation on the big screen.  This movie is a prime example.

* For a movie series that's supposed to be an allegory about racism and discrimination, this movie sure had a white-washed cast.
This is especially noticeable given how many characters this movie is juggling--such a big cast, and pretty much all of them are white.  (There were, by my count, three people of color, all of whom were either background characters or villains).

* The ending of the movie went on just a couple beats too long.  It should have ended with the rescue of Xavier.  That final battle against Apocalypse just felt too long and unnecessary.  (They should have combined Apocalypse's defeat with Xavier's rescue).

* I don't mind product placement as long as it's not too obvious...but that prominently featured coca-cola bottle that Storm opened--that was pushing things a bit.  (Ditto for the can of Tabs later in the movie).

Positives
* Although the script of this movie had severe problems, the acting and the directing were all top notch.
I mean, Wow!  What a sense of presentation this director has!  That opening scene, for example, was such an awesome spectacle of Hollywood special effects mixed with over-the-top drama.
And that sense of awesome spectacle stayed through the whole movie.

* Related to the above point--the musical score for this movie really complemented the drama on screen very nicely.

* The acting was very good.

* That Quicksilver scene was really cool.

The Review
There's some indication here that the folks behind the X-Men franchise have run out of ideas--the Magneto character arc re-hash has been done to death by now.
And yet, it was all told with such style and spectacle and drama that I largely enjoyed this movie.
And I'm still on board for seeing one more movie in this franchise.

Rating :
7 out of 10 Stars  (A flawed script, but great directing)

Links
I'm largely in agreement with Vince Mancini over at Uproxx.com.  Or at least, I'm in agreement with him as far as X-Men: Apocalypse is concerned.  (His point of comparison, Captain America: Civil War ,I actually liked a lot more than he did.)

My Past Reviews of X-Men movies

My review of X-Men: First Class here.
My review of X-Men: Days of Future Past here.

My mini review of X-Men 3  here 

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky Generalized Rage

The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Part 1

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
Following Richard II, this is the next movie in the BBC's adaptation (W) of Shakespeare's Henriad (W).

My History with this Play
This was assigned reading in one of my college literature courses.  It made an impression on me, so I remember it well.  More recently, I also used to have this play on audio book  and (before my ipod erased it) became more familiar with this play by listening and re-listening to it numerous times.  It's the Shakespeare play I know the best.

Positives and Negative
* Positive: This is one of Shakespeare's best plays, so any adaptation of it has a lot going for it right off the bat just from the original source material.

* Positive: Related to the above point, as compared to it's predecessor Richard II, this play is generally a lot more watchable-- a lot more action, comedy and fast dialogue

* Negative For some reason I'm not sure about, they didn't keep the actors consistent between this movie and Richard II--I would have thought the whole point of doing Shakespeare's Henriad as one coherent project would have been to keep the actors consistent from movie to movie.

* Positive Although I'm somewhat disappointed they didn't keep the actor for Henry Bolingbroke consistent, Jeremy Irons does a great job in this.

* Negative One of the disadvantages of watching a Shakespeare play you're already familiar with is that you tend to be disappointed with the delivery of lines you already know--some of the lines which I remember as having a lot of dramatic force or humor on the audio book recording, got under-delivered in this movie--either mumbled, or stepped on.

* Negative: Related to the above point, the tavern scenes weren't quite as funny as they should have been, as a result of some of the punchlines being missed or under-delivered.

* Negative Related to the two above points: Falstaff was played a bit subdued in this adaptation, and didn't come out as the fully larger than life character I was hoping for.

* Positive But on the other hand, it's probably unfair to compare individual line readings from different adaptations--any adaptation will have to pick and choose which lines get the most dramatic force, and although this adaptation under-played some memorable lines, it did a good job with others.

* Positive Considering this was a made-for-TV movie with a made-for-TV budget, the battle scenes came off looking decently impressive.

* Negative Still, at the risk of being greedy, you can't help but wish that these battle scenes hadn't been on a made-for-TV budget, and had gotten the fully Hollywood movie treatment--alas!

The Review
There were a few missed opportunities in this adaptation--the tavern scenes weren't as rich or as funny as they could have been.  But there were some successes as well.  Jeremy Irons was brilliant as Henry IV, and the film's versions of his big confrontation with Prince Hal came through with full force.

Rating :
7 out of 10 Stars.  (The original source material gets a solid 9, but I'm taking a couple points off for some missed opportunities in the adaptation.)

Links
For my take on other plays in the Shakespeare history saga, see my college paper on Henry IV part 2 here, and book review of Richard III here.  Many of the same themes of Henry IV are in Oliver Stone's movie W. and (although I can't find the article now) I once saw an interview with Oliver Stone in which he claimed he deliberately modeled the beginning of W. on  Henry IV , so here is my review of W.

External Links
The AVclub's review here.  I agree with them on some points, and disagree with them on some points, but the folks at the avclub can always be counted on to put in a good thoughtful review.

Link of the Day
Education: For Whom and For What?

The Hollow Crown: Richard II

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
Ever since I was in college, and found out about Shakespeare's Henriad (W)--a series of Shakespeare plays that form one long interconnected history saga--I thought: "Wouldn't it be cool if someone did all these plays as one series of films," and then I came one day to find that the BBC actually was doing exactly this project (W).

My History With This Play
* The memory is regrettably not so sharp on this point, but at least some of these scenes and dialogue is familiar--I may have read this in college.  (At any rate, I definitely remember reading the sequel Henry IV Part 1 in college.)

Positives
* For us history geeks, there is the historical interest of Shakespeare's history sagas.
* As always when watching Shakespeare, the constant: "Oh, so that's where that quote comes from" moments.
* Something like this might be mostly broccoli [SEE HERE], but broccoli movies have their uses--we all have these classics we're meaning to get around to someday, and it's good to knock another one off your list
* Any Shakespeare adaptation by definition has  to be a broccoli movie--you'll never get a popcorn movie out of Shakespeare--but that caveat aside, the directing, acting, and production values of this film are about as good as you could possibly hope for.

Negatives
* Oh man, I had forgotten how talky Shakespeare is--for those of us interested in this story primarily because of the history, it takes forever to get to its point!
* Long

The Review
So, there's no getting around it, the expectations of the Elizabethan stage audiences are different than the expectations of modern movie audiences.  Back in Shakespeare's day, characters were supposed to go off on long poetic monologues--it was how you filled time on the stage in the days before special effects.  So be forewarned.
But the acting, directing, and general production values of this film are great.  Even if it did drag a little bit into the long side.
Also for us history geeks, there is interest in seeing a key moment of England's history dramatized.

External Links
The avclub does a good job of reviewing this film:
Among other things that caught my eye in their review:  this play is not only a prequel to the first history tetralogy, but also a prologue to the relationship and rule of the Henrys Bolingbroke and Monmouth.If you’ll allow for a ridiculous analogy, the other prequel that flashed into my mind when watching this production of Richard II was The Phantom Menace. Not because of quality—this is so much better than trade federation squabbling that ruins compelling mythology. But the pressure on Richard II is to set in motion the dominoes that fall across seven subsequent plays.
Agreed.  If memory serves, the story gets more interesting as the plays go on, and we get to better characters like Prince Hal and Falstaff.  But tetralogy needs this play to set up the whole thing first.
The avclub also did a good job of hitting the film's faults:
The martyrdom imagery isn’t just thick. It’s oppressively omnipresent. A few minor suggestions of Richard’s belief in divine right to rule and his willingness to die for that line of thought would have sufficed, but instead the Jesus parallelism hits hard and fast once the usurpation plan has been stated. The callback to the painting Richard admires in the first act during his unfortunate and brutal assassination in prison doesn’t carry the same weight after the audience is numb from biblical imagery.

Agreed.
The avclub review also highlights some of the stuff that got cut out of this film.
As per usual with the histories, the limited female characters get short shrift. Clémence Poésy as the Queen—a composite of Richard’s two wives, one of which was a child at the time of his death—has her part significantly reduced in the edited script, which already runs well over two hours

and  This production also skips over the parts of the text that closely examine the nature of Bolingbroke and Mowbrays squabble. It involves the sudden death of another man, and it’s strongly suggested that Bolingbroke was the culprit, which sours his supposedly rightful claim to the throne in order to better serve the people.

I know I've already complained about the movie being too long, but I confess being a little bit conflicted on this on--the completeist in me is upset that stuff got cut out of this adaptation, but the short attention span addled 21st century guy in me thought the movie was too long already.  (This is a contradiction, but since most of us are just masses of contradictory thoughts and emotions anyway, I'm going to allow myself this.)  I guess the best of both worlds would be for a complete unabridged film version of Richard II, but one which I didn't have to watch all in one sitting, and could break up over a couple nights.

Links

Ben Whishaw is perfectly cast as Richard II in this movie--I had previously enjoyed him as Q in Skyfall and Freddie Lyon from The Hour.

Watching Richard II, I was reminded of comments I had made reviewing the book Rubicon.  To quote myself: "the ancient Romans put such great faith in their republican traditions, institutions and laws that many of them never seemed to realize that laws and constitutions do not enforce themselves. The Roman Senate never realized that whoever controls the largest army ultimately gets to decide the law. As long as the army’s leaders agreed to play by the republic’s rules, the republic could exist. But as soon as someone at the head of a powerful army decided they didn’t want to play by the rules anymore, then there was little the Senate could do about it."
Flip the politics from Republican government to Monarchical government, and this is exactly the tragedy of Richard II.  Richard II had such faith in the system of monarchy that he never really realized that power does not necessarily go to the King, but to whoever has the largest army.
Ironically enough, even after Shakespeare's time, English kings continued to make this mistake.  This was also the exact same mistake that got Charles I beheaded.  (You have to wonder if Charles I ever read Richard II, and what he would have made of it.)

The BBC radio show This Sceptred Isle mentions this play as as performing a role in British history at one point.  Supporters of the Earl of Essex (including Shakespeare's patron) paid to have this play performed during the Earl of Essex's planned revolt.
And actually, speaking of that same show, the very name, This Sceptred Isle, comes from a line in Shakespeare's Richard II.  

Lastly, for my review of the Shakespeare play at the exact end of the history saga, see Richard III here.

Rating :

7 out of 10.  (I suppose whenever you attempt to rate Shakespeare, you're rating yourself more than you're rating the play--if I were a more intelligent person I'd give it 10 stars, but as a philistine I found it hard to sit through the whole thing, so I'm knocking 3 stars off on the "watchability" factor.)

Link of the Day
The Concepts of Language

Hot Fuzz

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie
After I saw and enjoyed World's End, I had several people tell me that this was the superior movie by the same team.  (This movie, together with World's End, and Shaun of the Dead make up what is referred to as the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (W)--this was the only movie from that trilogy I had yet to see.)

The Review
I'm going to part company with many of my friends, and argue that World's End, was actually the superior comedy.  Nevertheless, some great moments here.  The same quirky comedy is on full display.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are once again great working with each other.  And although the film wasn't quite as funny as the other two films in the trilogy, it was very clever how seemingly throw away lines and scenes from early in the film would always come back later.

Rating :
7 out of 10 stars

Links
The avclub review highlights the film's strengths: Once Frost starts talking about all the cool shit people traditionally do in action movies, it's inevitable that everything he's gushing about will pop up in the film's climax, but there's enormous fun in seeing how Pegg and the boys get there.

Also, for a good run down of a lot of the film's more subtle jokes (many of which I confess to missing on first viewing) here is Nostalgia Critic: What You Never Knew About Hot Fuzz



Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky Explains Libertarian Socialism

X-Men: Days of Future Past

(Movie Review)

Positives

* A decently complicated and ambitious plot (that is—for a superhero movie)

* As with all the films in this series, the film does a good job of creating ambiguity between heroes and villains, and giving complicated character motivations to its antagonists

* Does a good job of uniting most of the cast members from all of the previous movies, and not screwing up the continuity too much

* Although it was superficial, the history geek in me loved all the references to historic events throughout the movie

* Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I caught some anachronisms, the early 1970s setting was a neat retro-environment for the film.

Negatives

* I found this film hard to sit through—it felt a lot longer than it actually was.

* The story lost focus at about the halfway point, after the first initial climax scene, and the film lost its sense of forward momentum.

The Review

          In a world where super-hero movies are becoming increasingly formulaic and predictable, you’ve got to give these X-Men movies credit for some very ambitious stories.  Unfortunately, this is a very clever idea that suffers somewhat in its execution.  The plotting lacks forward momentum, the story lags in the middle, and the climax is not as exciting as it should be.

Rating :

7 out of 10 stars.  (I wanted to give this a 9 out of 10 for the cool concept, but it only gets a 7 for the execution of the idea).

Other Things I Would Talk About If I Wasn’t Limiting Myself to 100 Words

* Musings about continuity at this point in the series—What they’ve done well on, and what they’ve screwed up on.

Links

            My review of X-Men First Class here.

            My mini review of X-Men 3  here 

Link of the Day 

Noam Chomsky: "The Emerging World Order: its roots, our legacy"

浮草 / Floating Weeds

(Movie Review)

Why I Saw This Movie:

This is the 3rd film by legendary Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (W) that my friend the Cinephile has gotten me to see, following Good Morning and Late Autumn.

The Review

          As Ozu has a highly stylized technique, much of the style of his movies is the same from film to film.  Film lovers gush over his techniques and you can find plenty of reviews on the Internet by people more intelligent than me. 

            I’m a bit of a philistine.  But I enjoyed this film nonetheless.

            Unlike the previous Ozu film’s I’ve seen, this film had much more of a plot, which caused me to get engaged in the story a lot more. 

            The film also was a lot more bittersweet, and it was hard to be unemotional while watching it.

Ratings :

7 out of 10 stars.  (I gave the two previous Ozu films 6 stars, but this one gets a small bump up because it has much more of a story, that makes it more accessible to the ordinary philistine like myself.)

Links

Roger Ebert’s review of the film here.

And from my own Grand Rapids Michigan, here’s Dave Blakeslee’s review of the film here. 

Link of the Day 

Chomsky: How America's Great University System Is Getting Destroyed 

Floating Weeds: Movie Review

Robocop [1987]

(Movie Review)

My History With This Movie

            I was 9 years old when this movie came out, and although it was one of many ultraviolent movies in the 1980s I was forbidden to see, the Robocop franchise (W) became a cultural phenomenon that was impossible to be unaware of: the 2 sequels (W , W), and the usual publicity campaigns which accompanied their release, the toys and the merchandizing, the various cartoon spin offs (W, W), and the TV shows (W, W)…and of course all the schoolyard talk from my classmates who had seen it.

Why I Saw This Movie

          Once the hype from the franchise had died away, the adult me used to just dismiss this movie as another dumb 1980s action flick, and one not particularly worth seeing, but a couple of things recently put this movie back on my radar:

* I gained respect for the director Paul Verhoeven after listening to his director’s commentary on Starship Troopers, and listening to him talk about the nature of fascism in society, and Chomsky’s theories of media control, which made me think it was not so easy to dismiss him as just another dumb action movie director.

* My respect for Paul Verhoeven increased more after seeing Black Book.

* A Scottish friend of mine is a huge fan of this movie, and, while he was ranting about how it was sacrilege to remake Robocop (W) he was telling me about all the themes and political satire in the original Robocop, and he increased my interest.

* That same friend, when I confessed that I had never seen the original, was appalled, and insisted that I come over and watch it with him.

            And so, here I am reviewing it…

Positives

* Not your standard predictable action movie—there are a lot of unpredictable elements in the screenplay that keep you guessing as to where the writers are going with this story.

* Lots of political satire—much of which is arguably just as relevant now as it was in the 1980s: urban decay, crime, the desire for law-and-order leading to fascism, the corporatization of the military and police, the military industrial complex, the role of the media in creating a militaristic society, the parallels between crime syndicates and corporations, and the thin line between capitalists operating in legal markets and capitalists operating in illegal markets, and more.

* Lots of black humor.

* Great acting by a talented cast (Kurtwood Smith (W) is particularly brilliant.)

Negatives

* A bit dated—special effects and action sequences which must have seemed incredible in the 1980s are now unimpressive.

* The first two acts of this film are brilliant, but the 3rd act throws away all of this potential and just degenerates into a typical, boring, action film.

The Review

          Not at all what I thought this film would be—I had thought Robocop (based on my knowledge from the cartoon series) would be a generic action hero.

            Instead, he’s merely a pawn in the schemes of others.  And when he starts following his own agendas instead of his pre-programmed commands, there are hints of Frankenstein’s  monster.

            It’s a very interesting idea which, combined with the political satire, black humor, and corporate intrigue of this film, make for an interesting premise.

            Unfortunately, the 3rd act abandons all of this potential and degenerates into a typical action film.

           

Rating :

7 out of 10 Stars (If the last third of the film had maintained the promise of the first two acts, I would have been tempted to give this film 8 or 9 stars, but alas….)

Links

Roger Ebert’s review of this film is spot-on.

One of the things hinted at in Roger Ebert’s review, and confirmed by Wikipedia (W) is that this film had to go through multiple edits to tone down its violence until the MPAA would give it an R rating.  Even as it is though, it’s still a very violent film.  (….Or at least it was for its time.  After Sin City, Tarantino, and other films, I think it’s safe to say standards have changed.  But leaving that aside…)

            In retrospect, it is therefore strange to remember how much this franchise was marketed to children back in the day with tie-in cartoon shows and Robocop toys.  (As mentioned above, the cartoon show and the toys were my only point of contact with this franchise back in the 1980s.)  This youtube video here does a good job of pointing out that absurdity. 

            (The video hints, somewhat tongue in cheek, that the marketing of adult films to children was a cultural phenomenon unique to the time period.  What do you guys think?  True?  Or is this not unique to the 80s?)

           

            And one last link:

            I think its a common experience for people my age to have grown up in the 1980s being aware of these ultra-violent action franchises, but not being able to see them, and then only much later to track down these films as adults, and find out they’re not what we expected at all, and that the original was actually more intelligent and deep than we gave it credit for, and that it was only the sequels and resulting franchise that degenerated into the mindless action we associated with the film.  This has been my experience with Robocop, and it also parallels my experience (and I think the experience of many other people my age) with the original Rambo—another film which I was surprised to find was so completely tonally different from the mindless action franchise it spawned.  An excellent breakdowns of the elements and themes from the first Rambo comes from Whisky - Prajer. 

Link of the Day 

The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News 
And from Tom Tomorrow: The Thin Veil of Rationality 
And on a different note: 10 Reasons to Fall in Love with Cambodia

Django Unchained

(Movie Review)

Positives

* As usual with Quentin Tarantino films, he has great dialogue.

* As usual with Tarantino, he manages to pull off long self-indulgent scenes with meandering dialogue, and yet still keep the tension high.

* As usual with Tarantino, the sound track for this film is awesome.

* As usual with Tarantino, the film has all sorts of clever homages to the 1970s style of filmmaking.

* As usual with Tarantino, he’s managed to pull together yet another all star cast.

* Great performances by the aforementioned all-star cast

Negative

* As usual with Tarantino, he’s being trivial with subject matter he really shouldn’t be trivial with.

* As usual with Tarantino, there seems to be a degree of sadism going on in this film.

* The film starts out strong, but the resolution is just a boring shoot-‘em-up. 

The Review

          At this point in Quentin Tarantino’s career, everybody knows what to expect.  The usual strengths are fully on display, as well as his usual failings. 

            There’s a thorny question about whether it’s appropriate to exploit real historical tragedies for trashy revenge films.  That question is outside of the 100 words I’m giving myself for this review.  But if you put that aside, and focus just on the entertainment value of this film, I’d call it a success.

Rating :

7 out of 10 stars.  (Assuming you focus only on the entertainment value, and ignore questions of appropriacy, I think it gets a solid 7 for entertainment.)

Links

In my review of Black Ajax, I made reference to the controversy surrounding Django Unchained.  Having seen this film, I have to say it’s even closer to Black Ajax than I realized.  Both stories involve a Francophile sadist slave owner who trains his slaves as pugilists and forces them to fight to the death.

Also see my other reviews of Tarantino films:  Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, Kill Bill Further Thoughts,  Kill Bill 2, and True Romance.

External Links

            The AVclub’s review of this film does such a good job of capturing the ambivalence any sane person would feel towards Tarantino, that I want to quote the first paragraph in full:

Quentin Tarantino has devoted the last decade to meticulously crafting enormously satisfying B-movie revenge fantasies for sexy women (Kill Bill, Death Proof), Jews (Inglourious Basterds) and now, with his explosive slavery-themed Western Django Unchained, African-Americans. In the films of Tarantino’s revenge collection, a noble desire to cinematically right (or re-write) historical wrongs mingles with and mutates more problematic impulses toward exhibitionism, sensationalism, voyeurism, fetishism, and exploitation. In film after film, Tarantino combines aggressively combustible elements—racism, sexism, profanity, hard drugs, violence against women, rape, Nazi brutality, slavery—with the deranged delight of a mad scientist, then cackles with glee as he lights a flame and watches the magnificent destruction that ensues. Tarantino remains an entertainer above all else, so his lurid provocations are generally in service of the intense emotions he forcefully, confidently orchestrates. Part of his genius in manipulating audiences lies in creating immersive cinematic experiences so overpowering that they distract from the thorny questions about race, sex, violence, and representation his films pose without answering. For better or worse, Tarantino aspires to an experience more emotional than intellectual, more in line with the giddy, transgressive thrill he experienced devouring B-movies as a young cinephile than the more cerebral, less immediate charms of the arthouse. He straddles the line separating art and trash, but his allegiance clearly lies with trash.

The rest of the article is worth reading as well.

Link of the Day

Noam Chomsky "Globalization and Neoliberalism"