Massive film roundup, Part II

I have let my blog sit silent for months now for various reasons, mainly life got busy, I busted my right, dominant hand (resulting in a surgery, with more to come), and my main means of seeing new, independent films has escaped me, or rather, I’m not able to go anymore. Not every film I saw these past months is covered, but quite enough…

In Ex Machina (2015),  screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days later, Dredd) makes his directing debut with a near-future sci-fi drama that’s some about AI, robotics, privacy, and the power of corporate geniuses, but much about the objectification of women. Domhnall Gleeson is a coder for a mega-corp Google clone that gets an invite by its founder (Oscar Issac) to visit the latter’s home for a product test. The product? A stunningly realistic AI robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander, amazing). The geek is told by the boss to test the robot, Turing style. But that’s the film seen in trailers. What it’s really about is how men -– rich/poor, brilliant/average, nerd/geek –- see women only through the gaze of body and ourselves, our desire to be the hero. Garland’s stunning, scary, smart thriller may make his fan-boy audience squirm. Early on, Ava tells Gleeson’s employee not to trust the boss, but she well knows on instinct: Nearly no man can be trusted. A

After a rocky opening battle that fumbles with a painful mash-up of must-have glory action shots that seem studio-mandated, Joss Whedon’s massive franchise sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) finds its grove and far surpasses the 2012installment that broke box office records worldwide. Again bringing back Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffallo in human form) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johannsson), “Ultron” pits out heroes against nothing alien, but something manmade. Specifically, Tony Stark made: A wildly sarcastic and egotistical AI robot named Ultron, as evilly crooked as Stark is coolly jagged, and voiced by a purring James Spader. As required in every comic book movie, entire cities must be laid to waste as heroes battle villains, and there are many close calls. Whedon knocks a homerun on two fronts: A lead character dies, another goes into exile, and yet another hero turns out to have a secret life on a farm, and in those quiet moments, Whedon’s writing, our actors, and our heroes are allowed to breathe. Kudos to the Iron Man vs. Hulk scene. It does a comic book nerd proud. B+

At some point Russell Crowe as a haunted father and widower in The Water Diviner (2015) makes a faux pas against a woman, pouring on bullshit macho bravado. He begs forgiveness for laying it on thick. Which is funny as “Diviner” marks Crowe’s directorial debut and, despite many a stunning scene here and there, and great camera work by the late Andrew Lesnie, the man sure pours on the emotion thick and heavy. Here, tragic deaths play out in super slow motion and big music because Crowe doesn’t want us to miss a single moment. Later, Crowe and an unsure romantic interest (Olga Kurylenko) just have to eat dinner by candlelight, about 1,111 candles. Syrup. The plot has Crowe’s Australian farmer traveling to Gallipoli to claim the bodies of his three sons, killed in the infamous 1915 battle. Now that’s harsh. But fascinating. Crowe can sell it as an actor. But as director? When his WASP farmer runs into battle with Turks against Greeks… Really? C

On a 007 kick, I caught Sean Connery’s You Only Live Twice (1969)​ and Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only (1981), both with the actors past caring. Connery looks bored as James Bond investigates a series of space capsule disappearances, in the process literally going Japanese to track down master villain Blofeld (Donald Pleasance). Now, I dig all the 007 trappings (volcano headquarters!) but this entry makes me cringe. First: Ninjas? Really? Second: When Connery as Bond gets shaved and dons –- I can’t say it any other way -- “Yellow Man” makeup to look Japanese, I walked away. The shit is shamefully racist. And the filmmakers know it. Just as I couldn’t stand another second, Connery is Bond again, brogue and hairy as a Sasquatch. Someone must have looked the dailies. Now, Moore in “Eyes,” what can I say, he’s looking at 60 and catching the eyes of girls 18. Moore knows it’s bad. The plot is very “Thunderball”: Race the bad guys for an underwater McGuffin that can do … something important. The whole thing is so dull, I can only suggest the radio friendly theme song. Twice: C- Eyes: C

Dystopian youth sci-fi thriller and official franchise sequel Insurgent (2015) fails to do what 2014’s “Divergent” barely succeeded at: Covering the stench of its DOA premise. In near-future, blown-up Chicago, all people are divided up into camps dependent on their dominant feature: Giving, loyal, honest, brainy, aggressive, etc. To carry two traits is a crime. Our hero (Shailene Woodley) has them all because, well, doesn’t every fuckin’ person have multiple traits?!? The actors try hard, especially Miles Teller as a weasel who trades sides because, well, he also is a regular person. Woodley deserves a better series.
D+

Rollerball (2002) takes the dull James Caan-starring 1975 sci-fi film of the same name and turns it into a film so disastrously bad, I can’t stomach the thought of it again. Block of wood Chris Klein – hey, he looks like a nice guy, but he’s still a block of wood – is a jock who flees the U.S. over a skateboard crime (!?!?!) and ends up in some backwater Third World country, playing an uber-violent form of football on wheels for money. When Klein’s blockhead realizes violent sports actually result in violence, he flees with best pal LL Cool J into a strange world where everything is in night vision. Or something. F

Melissa McCarthy does a John Belushi lovable slob bit in Tammy (2014) and she pulls it off, especially with huge doses of help from Susan Sarandon and Kathy Bates. But, damn it, enough with big life lessons and family hugs. I don’t need “After School Special.” C

Seth McFarlane tries for Mel Brooks territory with cowboy spoof A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014). Brooks was a master of self-deprecation. McFarlane is just a painfully smug bastard in love with his own jokes. C-

Neighbors (2014) puts a nice spin on “Animal House.” What about the poor bastards who had to live near all that shit? Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are thirtysomethings and new parents loving their hip college town until the empty house next door gets bought up by a fraternity. Run by Zac Efron. Hijinks (and high jinks) ensue. The movie is far funnier than it has any right to be, if not quite overlong. B

Rogen also stars in The Interview (2014) with James Franco. Y’know the one. North Korea threatened war over it. Cyber-terrorists threatened cinemas. Sony was hacked. The FBI got involved. Obama, too. All over a comedy satire that is so … not worth it. The plot: Rogen produces and Franco stars in a trash TV talk show. When NK dictator Kim Jung-Un’s minions suggest an interview, our lads jump at the chance. Ratings and glory. The CIA has different plans. The agency wants the duo to kill Kim. Oh, yeah, North Korea got pissed. But really they need not worry. Rogen and Franco flagellate themselves with so many corny, vulgar “we love each other, but not that way!” jokes, maybe all those hacks and threats came from the gay community. Watch “The Great Dictator” instead. B-

Franco appears in Homefront (2013) as a Louisiana meth dealer against Jason Statham, who plays a single dad with a past that involves three letters and a U.S. federal agency. I can’t recall which one. Who cares? I mean, Statham versus Franco? OK, I laughed my ass off. But the film –- written by Sylvester Stallone –- scores points with solid characters and motives. Franco’s villain is not evil, but he is desperate. That’s far interesting turf. B

Did we need an Annie (2014) remake? I have no idea. This at least shakes up the game: The setting is present day. The main cast is African American. Quvenzhané Wallis plays Annie. Jamie Foxx is Will Stacks (ne Warbucks.) Cameron Diaz is Hannigan, but a shrieking, overacting mess at it. The story is mostly the same, but the music has a harder time. Wallis and her kid pals beautifully sing “The Sun Will Come Out.” But when Foxx tackles crap R&B Auto-Tune, the end can’t come soon enough. That’s no slam against Foxx. Just the music choices. C+

Karen Gillan and some guy I can’t recall play estranged sister and brother in Oculus (2013), one of those haunted family/house suspense thrillers. Poor Gillan -– I loved her in “Doctor Who” –- spends more time explaining the story than playing out the story. C+

I saw A Fish Called Wanda (1988) at age 14 and I’m sure I didn’t get half the jokes. Now I’m older and the jokes only get better. Nearly a Monty Python reunion, John Cleese and Michael Palin are just two of a very odd bunch involved in a jewelry store robbery, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline rounding out the cast. Amazing, wonderfully vulgar and a bit mean, this is comedy. No punches pulled. No fish spared. A

John Wick (2014) is a shocking surprise. From out of nowhere. The plot is amazingly simply on its face: You killed my puppy, prepare to die. Yes, puppy. Puppy belonged to John Wick (Keanu Reeves), an ex-hitman who left the job after marrying, only to lose his wife to cancer. Her last gift: You got it, right? So when Russian thug Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones”) kills the baby pooch in a misguided home invasion, Wick goes full Neo Plus 10 and starts a massacre one must see to believe. I truly loved this film. It’s simplicity. And wit, with assassins meeting up in a Manhattan bar. And the action is all eye-popping, wide-eyed long shots of Reeves -– miles better than he has been in years -– going ballistic. A-

Action/comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) is so gloriously offensive and violent, one has to see it to describe it. And it is not for all tastes. I can’t think of a more shocking -– gleefully so -– film in many a year. How often can I say that? Plot: Colin Firth is part of a secret Brit spy club known as the Kingsmen, the top of the top and all that 007 nonsense. Getting on to his 50s, Firth recruits a kid punk (Taron Egerton) to take his place. This kid steals cars for fun. Meanwhile, Blofeld-meets-Steve-Jobs madman Samuel L. Jackson is planning a leftist worldwide attack to kill off humanity in order to save the Earth. They’ll all meet up, but never how you expect. Nothing in this film will hit you as expected. Sure it’s a Brit spy spoof, but nothing like that was ever made. Until Matthew Vaughn came around. In full “Kick Ass” mode and again using a comic book source, we see a heinous massacre in a right-wing church and a literal chorus of exploding heads at 1600 … I’ll stop. Truly, madly, deeply, I wish more films were like this. I left gasping. A

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) is of course better than any film on this list. Just its opening credits are better than any film on this list. Harper Lee’s story of pre-Civil Rights Alabama is heartbreakingly and lovingly told with stark black-and-white cinematography. Gregory Peck makes you believe in God. A+

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

(EDITED 20 May 2015. A second viewing has me even more enthralled with this movie. But some a huge correction to the below: It is without doubt the same Max Rockatansky in this film as Mel Gibson played. That's clear up front, and elsewhere. Which makes the lead of Charlize Theron's road Warrior Trucker all the more amazing. And the first appearance of The Wives is one of the great rug pulls of modern cinema. The first shot seems contrived and sexist, wet ladies in the desert, wearing gauze, maybe. College guys next to me whistled. Within moments they cringed and winced at the rage these ladies held. That's powerful film-making. I never touched on the wild religious implications of the film, the sick promise of Immortan Joe to his followers that if they die for him, Valhalla (heaven) awaits. Massive part of the story. It hits current wars of this day. Just epic. I don't know George Miller, only a few months younger my father, pulled this off. He has just crushed every young filmmaker working today. Epic. That certain Jedi film coming out later this year has a huge mountain to climb. A sequel.reboot has just set a new standard for action films, and how woman are to be seen on screen. Forever. And the energy on screen -- the feeling that anything can happen -- i just have to applaud.)


Days on, I’m still pumped with awe. I don’t know where to begin or if I’ll ever get everything I feel right now. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the most daring, subversive summer action film to hit cinemas in years. God love George Miller. 

This is THE film we need now. In its jaw-dropping spectacle. Its energy. Its anger.

From trailers and posters galore, we expect rising Hollywood star Tom Hardy (“The DarkKnight Rises”) to take on the iconic Australian role of ex-cop Max Rockatansky played frighteningly wild-eyed, fierece by Mel Gibson 40 odd years ago and run with it. 

Hero. Savior. Bad ass driver and gunslinger. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

During a frenzied pre-credits opening salvo, hero Max is taken hostage, bound and masked, and in drops the true lead of this film -- the new Road Warrior for our time -- Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. One-armed, armed, and driving a steam-punk tractor trailer straight out of hell and into freedom. Or hope. Or any place, but from where she came. 

This is an action film with women at the core. Not since “Alien” have we seen such a display. Theron makes Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley seem tame. Here, strong, blood, divisive, kick-ass women in a near-future world take back control of their lives and their world -- killed by men -- with ferocious force. Max has to keep up. This could have been called “Mad Women.” (Unlike “Alien,” Miller uses scant clothing to again burn genre.)

And the action -– the entire film is one chase with so little dialogue, you begin to forget to question if anyone can talk – has no peer. In an age where whole hours of something like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is wall-to-wall CGI and impersonal robots and immortal heroes, Miller drops in real vehicles and teams of stuntmen and women and smashes everything together decadent glee. He smashes trucks through cars. Drops bikes off mountains. Throws tanks into a tornado, and lets them fall. He kills characters we have instantly fallen in love with minutes ago. 

Every frame of “Fury” is madness, glorious madness that feels as alive and pulsing as the first “Mad Max” in 1979, a film that plays like it had to be made or its director –- Miller –- might lose his f’n mind. 

(This also recalls the gonzo mad independent Australian films of the 1970s, such as “The Cars that Ate Paris,” where narrative coherence is slain by glorious visual chaos. And, yes, John Seale’s digital, handheld cinematography is Oscar worthy, inches from bloodied cheeks and oil-spewing motors. Also Oscar worthy: Nicholas Holt, breaking out from boring X-Men and childish movie star roles to play a crazed man riddled with tumors and a desire to die horrifically, so he can be reborn whole.) 

Before I get ahead of myself: We are back in the post-nuclear apocalypse desert of the “Road Warrior” and “Thunderdome,” although I don’t think “Fury” is exactly a sequel or a reboot from the previous films. It’s never specifically said that this Max is the same Max of the previous trilogy. His flashbacks -– violent, haunted acid trips of a man long past sanity -– match nothing told before. Miller has us work for info. He drops us in the middle of the action and makes us chase down the back stories, the detailed horrors of this world. 

One viewing is not enough. Furiosa’s task at the start of the film is to steal gasoline for her master, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the villain in “Mad Max,” but a fully different character). Joe is an obese tumor-stricken old man wearing a plastic muscle suit that bulks him to Hulk-size, with a horrifying oxygen mask of plastic, rubber, and animal teeth for a face. He is the leader of a desert cult that worships him as a god, and as he controls all water, food, fuel, and the blood supply, he will not be questioned. 

He also keeps five young women as sex slaves to breed his children. It is they who are Furiosa’s cargo as the film opens, she defying the order to steal petro as she carries these women to the “green place” of her lost youth. Within Joe’s tower cave, his “wives” have scrawled defiant phrases: “We are not your property!” 

The chase is set when Joe decides otherwise and sets out to get his “women” back, no matter who he has to kill to do so. (Even his underlings question his sanity.) That the “wives” are introduced as one-note barely-dressed supermodels is a tantalizing FU from Miller and his writers. In the sands, away from men, finding more women warriors and mentors, these young “hotties” explode in murderous revolt. Max can barely keep up. 

Oscar winner Theron rules the film with quiet intensity. Our action star for 2015. Hardy is her acting equal as a man lost and in desperate need of saving by these women before he loses his last thread of humanity. Epic does not do “Fury” justice. It is vital viewing as action spectacle and comment on our sexist age. 

I can’t think of another Hollywood summer film that has so upended my expectations to glorious effect. Miller has just writ the end of our male-dominated Marvel and D.C. summer era. Those films are made by business. This was made by burning need. A+