Monday, November 30, 2015

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.25 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: The Hunger Games - Part 4: Mockingjay - Part 2 is the last installment in The Hunger Games trilogy for real this time. Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as Katnip Evergreen in her personal quest to kill President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and bring balance to Panem.


Nick: I have to admit I am so happy this series is finally over with until of course they remake it in 10 years. Though I must admit I’m waiting for this whole YA franchise-into-movies thing to end even more. The Hunger Games is easily the best out of all the genre, but it still tries so hard to evoke drama that it feels more like a soap or Lifetime film rather than a drama on the silver screen.

Dustin: I’m getting tired of these YA movies too. Admittedly, I’ve only seen this series, the first Divergent movie, and The Host. They all pretty much follow the same formula, and I mentally check off each item as I sit through them. Pretty girl with bland personality who turns out to be somehow more specialer than everyone (check), some kind of training montage (check), two hunky male love interests (check, check). The best thing I’d say about the Hunger Games movies is that they do the formula better than the others.

Nick: I’m in agreement for the most part but there are so many grandstands and speeches in this film meant to give hope or drive a character forward that it becomes an even more diluted version of the drama it’s trying to create. As well every time there was a character telling another “Don’t worry everything is going to be alright,” I turned to my mom and said, “So, that character is going to die!” and they sure enough did. Also whenever there is a wedding between two tertiary characters one of them will surely end up dead. (R.I.P. Remus and Tonks)

Dustin: That’s a pretty famous trope.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 should have been combined into one film called The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Both movies had long spells that just dragged. I remember spending a lot of time during this one with my head resting on my hand just waiting for the movie to get to the point.

Nick: Though Harry Potter did the same thing with more of a reason (700 pages), it also stalled in its first Part 1 (my least favorite in that series) and the same happened with Hunger Games. The first part was such a drag with no uptempo, while this film drags a lot between its interesting action sequences. The best thing about this series is the casting of brilliant, established actors like Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Philip Seymour Hoffman and of course Lawrence while mixing with lesser known brilliant actors like Jena Malone, Elden Henson, Robert Knepper and Elizabeth Banks. They all do a good job, but their dialogue (which isn’t their fault) sometimes made me laugh for the wrong reason and kept me from EVER being truly instilled in the drama. Though Sutherland truly is remarkable as Snow.

Dustin: The all-star cast certainly lends these films some street-cred. I hated President Snow, and that is a testament to Sutherland’s performance. I couldn’t even recognize the smartalek character I loved in MASH (granted, that film is 45-years-old).

It’s interesting you compared this to the last Harry Potter, because like Harry Potter, this movie also had a pointless epilogue, which I will go ahead and spoil because it was truly pointless. Does the audience really care Katnip will go on to get married and have two kids?

Nick: It should have ended right before that with her in bed with the man she loves, but I think it went on to do that to end the film on a happier note, which I’m assuming the only thing the writer could think of was “Let's give her kids! Everyone is happier with kids! Especially two people with extreme PTSD.”
Dustin: I also thought when it cut to black right before the epilogue that was a perfect ending point. I groaned when the sunny meadow came up. The scene right before that was tender, but also had an ellipsis. The tweenage girls who are the most devoted fans of the series might wanted a happy note to end on, but I didn’t find the epilogue convincing, and it was pointless to boot. I could imagine if Stanley Kubrick had directed these, the epilogue would have been Katnip and Peeta in some kind of couples counseling for PTSD.

Nick: The most jarring concept to me was the character of Tygress. I only assume that’s how it’s spelled considering what series we are watching. Why couldn’t it have just been a normal (for Hunger Games) looking person instead of a seemingly spliced half-tiger, half-human character, which I had not seen any character look like throughout the series. Maybe I missed the spliced characters from before, but it sure didn’t stick out like Tygress (Taigriss).

Dustin: Well, there are people with body modifications in the real world too, and it’s jarring to see them at the mall, liquor stores, job interviews. But that is a funny point. Right after they take shelter with Tigris (thank you, Hunger Games wikia), Katnip and Gale put on a disguise to slip into the crowd taking shelter at President Snow’s mansion. Their disguise is a large black hooded jacket. I’m sorry, but I think the Storm Troopers, I mean, Peace Keepers, would be well within their rights to shoot them and ask questions later. In a city where outlandish makeup and hairstyles are the norm, they go with the most suspicious-looking cover ever. Were the writers lazy or just stupid?

Nick: I think the writer(s) were constantly lazy. When the twin sisters were left in the building of the rebels’ last known location they could have carried the wounded sister to the building across the street with them and left her there, which would have been at least a logical move. Also the most combat-ready character with the most experience is the one who runs head-first into a possibly mined area and dies. Also when the character who has been brainwashed and is hitting his head against his own gun you might want to put him in handcuffs. Also when Gale tells Peeta I’ll take you out if that time ever comes, so you mean the guy in your squad that he just killed wasn’t enough? I feel like I could go on and on and I don’t know who to blame, the writer of the book or of the movie? I get it, it’s nitpicking, but when the entire film can be nitpicked it’s kind of a problem.

Dustin: I have a feeling the problem stems from the books. I doubt these movies strayed too far from the source material given the fanbase they had to please. I think a lot of the writing had to come from the hack mind of Suzanne Collins. Men simply don’t talk like the characters in this movie. Two male rivals don’t sit down and talk about their feelings, or ask others what they’re thinking. Especially when they come from a dystopian future where you have to play everything close to the chest as your true thoughts can get you killed.

Nick: Long Live the End of The Hunger Games! Both the game and the book and movie series. Another part I found amusing was when Coin was afraid of the support Katniss had and was hoping she would die, yet she gave her the honor of killing Snow in front of all the unified forces. Would that not make her even more popular?! Also, the fact Coin stood on a ridge right above Snow with her hands outraised made that scene so ridiculous. It would have been better if she was standing far far behind Katniss on a ridge over-looking the scene and Katniss turns around and lets the arrow go quickly. Instead of a close up on Katniss, her obvious lifting of the arrow and letting that arrow go towards Coin. It was a very bland moment that should have been huge! It might have been bland because it was so obviously going to happen with everyone talking shit on Coin while later in the film she became a tyrant like Snow. I also love the way people die in films like this so beautiful and gracefully. Julianne Moore falls from the high-up ridge after being shot with the arrow and falls on a thin piece of cut stone laying there as if she had died of a heart attack.

Dustin: There was one set piece I loved in this movie, and that was the one regarding the lizard mutts chasing Katnip and the gang through the sewers. It was an intense, nightmarish scene that got my heart racing. It was like something out of a different movie.

Nick: It was a very well filmed and intense scene, but also had many obvious moments. When the new leader was the only character left on the other side of the stone wall while not a single other character aiming their gun through the hole to protect her! (These are all trained in combat people, besides Peeta). And also the death of the character who was married early on in the film. The way it was filmed kept telling me this is the scene where he would die. Maybe only film students would notice that, but it kept showing him more and more isolated. While it’s also a thing that a tertiary character who is kicking a lot of ass in a battle will more than likely end up getting hurt or dead and he of course was the only one kicking ass!

Dustin: I also liked the twist at the end. I won’t spoil it, but I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise Julianne Moore’s character (Hillary Clinton) turned out to be a duplicitous politico. Or that the rebels would turn into Robespierres as soon as they took over. I guess I did spoil it…

Nick: I already spoiled it! But not really! From early on the film sets up Coin as the real enemy who needs to be defeated by end. And she is, but in a very bland scene that lacks any true emotional weight.

Dustin: Suzanne Collins spoiled it when she consciously ripped off Battle Royale.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

SPECTRE

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.25 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Dustin: SPECTRE finds Daniel Craig starring in a Sean Connery film. The plot, I guess, is about Bond closing in on a shadowy organization for reasons that take forever to understand, while his employer, MI6, is being shaken up at the administrative level. It’s all an excuse to bring Bond face-to-face with his mortal enemy, Blofeld (oh, was that a spoiler? I guess you’ve never seen a Bond film before/or don’t remember Blofeld has always been the head of SPECTRE).


Nick: So very disappointing is the first thing that comes to mind. Everything I loved about Skyfall is either missing or overdone. The “overdone” would be all the winks and nods to former Bond films. I read something the other day there is at least one reference to every previous Bond film in SPECTRE. The missing is engaging drama, a memorable villain, and a somewhat unique story for the Bond series. Skyfall will live long in my memory, while SPECTRE might not last the week.

Dustin: I caught many references. A lot of it was visual. It wasn’t as painful as Die Another Day where they would reuse exact props from earlier films, but in SPECTRE we see similar sets from Dr. No or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. They also reused some situations, such as the train fight (From Russia with Love), the showdown in a funhouse (The Man with the Golden Gun), and Bond splashing a beaker of his own urine in a henchman’s face to disable him (Never Say Never Again).

The movie has actually grown on me a bit since we saw it. I appreciate what they’ve done in bringing back a lot of the fun, flamboyant elements of the original Connery films. If I had to fault this movie with something, it would be they tried too hard to backtrack and make SPECTRE the force behind all of the villains Craig has encountered. I understand for Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, because there was an unnamed, shadowy organization behind the villains in those movies. But Silva had enough motivation on his own in Skyfall that making him an agent of SPECTRE sort of ruined it. I understand Blofeld was the best Bond villain (or a close second to Goldfinger), and the producers have worked forever to get the rights to that character back, which is why they couldn’t kill him off in this film (spoiler). But they didn’t need to backpedal so much. Or, if they wanted to backpedal, they could have made SPECTRE the secret organization behind every Bond film since 1971. The North Korean general who becomes a white person in Die Another Day? SPECTRE.

Nick: He was my favorite villain! Never saw it coming. I think it was the previous Daniel Craig Bond films (minus Quantum) which ruined this new one for me. I was enamored by Casino Royale and in awe of Skyfall. They both move slowly, build characters, have well-developed plotlines and some of my favorite action set pieces in quite some time. So many of the action sequences in this Bond involve a helicopter. So many that it felt like a Michael Bay movie at times. Why does the bad guy in spy movies always try to make a getaway in a helicopter! Even the solid comedy Spy ends with a fight scene in a helicopter. Blofield would have gotten away by car or maybe gotten further considering it’s a Bond film and he is fucking unbelievable!
Dustin: Frankly I’m surprised Blofeld didn’t have an underground monorail already in place.

This movie was good as fan service, and if it had followed Quantum of Solace, I would have seen it as a step in the right direction. As a stand alone movie or a follow-up to Skyfall, it was a bit disappointing.

Nick: Pshaw! Severely disappointing in that regard. Where would you put it on your list?


Nick: Although the action set pieces were perhaps my least favorite thing about SPECTRE, it had one great one in that train fighting sequence. The brutality unleashed by Dave Bautista upon Bond is back breaking, to of course anyone else but Bond. My favorite thing would be the cinematography. There are some very interesting shots throughout this film enough to where I feel as I left with a note of happiness. SPECTRE is truly a beautiful film when focusing on that one aspect.

Dustin: I agree. While this wasn’t a great movie, it had the look of a great one. I also liked some of the touches in the story, like the return of Mr. White, and the way Bond becomes something of a protector of his former enemy’s daughter.

What do you think will be the future of the series? Daniel Craig has hinted he may not be very interested in doing another Bond film, and I almost feel like he has outgrown the character. I kind of liked how this movie ends with Bond walking away as well. Should we leave it at that?

Nick: I think so, this film seems to not try as hard in terms of originality, which is what I was so enjoying about the new Bond era and with the way it is left with the obvious fork in the road I would be happy if they recast. Sam Mendes stated he is definitely not coming back, and Craig said he would rather slit his wrists then make another one at the moment.

Dustin: So now for the fun part of discussing who will be next. If I had to put money in Vegas on who I think will be cast, it would be Henry Cavill. But if I could choose the next Bond, it would be Michael Fassbender, even though he’s from Germany.

Nick: I will gamble with you, my friend. In no terms will they cast Cavill--they tend to cast relatively unknowns, and he has been in many big budget films including two as Superman, be cast as the next James Bond. Fassbender would be an amazing choice, and perhaps Richard Madden (of Game of Thrones) would be another one, but I like the idea of Idris Elba, but only if they call him 007 and not James Bond. Since it’s not an alias, but his actual name.

Dustin: I wouldn’t be surprised if Fassbender was a villain at some point. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Craig’s statement was really his way of holding out for more money, knowing he won’t be able to play the role much longer, trying to get a big payday for his final film.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Best of Bond. James Bond.

Dustin says: In anticipation of the latest Bond film, SPECTRE, opening in American theaters this Friday, I've compiled a slideshow counting down all the Bond films from worst to best. I've thrown in the unofficial movies just for fun. There's room to disagree with me in the comments.
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