If you live on planet Earth, you�re aware that today the Marvel machine is rolling out the biggest super hero movie of the year - sorry, ANT-MAN, but, c�mon!
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (from this point on, A:AOU), the sequel to the biggest superhero movie of 2012, THE AVENGERS, and the 11th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise that began with the first IRON MAN back in 2008, is here to officially kick off the summer 2015 movie season - sorry, FURIOUS 7.
But if you�re reading this, you most likely know all that, and just want to know if this highly anticipated, star-studded, and CGI-saturated production lives up to its huge hype.
I�ll say - yeah, it does. I had a tremendous amount of fun watching the reunited team - Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) � working together with lots of wit and energy to defeat the powerful robotic villain Ultron (voiced by James Spader).
This adventure begins with an already-in-progress action sequence, involving the comic book crew storming the castle of Hydra leader Baron von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in the icy terrain of the fictional European nation of Sokovia.
Amid the standard chaos and wisecracks (most of which are pretty funny) we are introduced to a couple of new characters, brother and sister duo Pietro/Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). �He�s fast, she�s weird,� is what SHIELD�s Maria Hill (the also returning Cobie Smulders) says of their powers, which means that Pietro can move at supersonic speeds, while Wanda can manipulate minds with magic.
The Avengers rescue Loki�s scepter, one of the McGuffins of the series, and return to their headquarters at the Stark Tower Complex in Manhattan, where we actually get to hang out with the guys as they party, and engage in a game of taking turns trying to lift Thor�s hammer. Meanwhile, Stark�s Ultron project, which is supposed to be a global peacekeeping program, is co-opted by the scepter and becomes sentient.
That means Spader, who in addition to providing the voice, performed on set in a motion-capture suit, takes over as the movie�s major villain, and sets out to wipe out humanity (�There is only one path to peace... your extinction�).
As if he thinks we don�t have enough characters to keep up with, Whedon keeps piling them on. We meet Barton�s (Renner, in case you forgot) wife (Linda Cardellini of Freaks and Geeks and Mad Men fame) and kids living at a �safe house� farm where the Avengers lay low between battles, geneticist Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) who gets co-opted by Ultron, arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, a motion capture master himself), and the re-occuring role of Stark�s A.I. companion J.A.R.V.I.S. (voiced by Paul Betttany) is expanded via a red and green android body (Bettany in the flesh).
There�s also the many cameos from the MCU including Don Cheadle getting in a few good one-liners again as as James �Rhodey� Rhodes/War Machine and Anthony Mackie getting in a few glaring grins as Sam Wilson/Falcon, along with appearances by Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and of course, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, who no Marvel movie should be without. And yes, there�s a Stan Lee cameo, but, c'mon, you knew there would be.
Yes, A:AOU covers every single fan-pleasing base it can in its 2 hour and 21 minute running time and is a pretty bloated affair because of it, but it swiftly juggles all these strands until they collide in the big climax set on a ginourmous hunk of a Sokovian city land mass that Ultron has lifted from the earth and is planning on crashing down. The Avengers try to save the city's people while warring with the armies of robots that are all forms of Ultron (in a MATRIX sort of way I guess).
The special effects, of course put together by thousands of digital artists, are flawlessly top notch, but it�s the human moments that give a lot of heart, soul, and humor to this enterprise. A romance blooming between Ruffalo�s Banner (another invested portrayal - where's this guy's Hulk movie?) and Johansson�s Romanoff adds a thoughtful touch, and while Downey Jr.�s Stark is still full of snark, there�s an unmistakable conscience behind it. The rest of the gang also have their moments, but Hemsworth's Thor is still my least favorite Avenger.
Spader, even with only a mechanical presence, makes for a powerfully worthy foe, one who gets his share of well delivered quips and takes delight in destruction.
If this is Whedon�s final fling with the super hero franchise, he went out with a multitude of big bangs. Maybe they�re all riffs on the familiar formulaic tropes of the genre we�re all used to, but that doesn�t make them any less effective.
A:AOU is winningly and satisfyingly more of the same; it�s everything a superhero superfan would want out of a Marvel movie. Non fans who haven�t been won over by any of the movies in the series before won�t be converted by it, but I seriously doubt many of them will have read this far into this review anyway.
Are you a big fan of the classic '60s sitcom Gomer Pyle? Well, here's your chance to win a copy of a 24-DVD box set of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.: The Complete Series, which was released last month. All you have to do is write a few sentences about your favorite episode. I want the collection to go to a real fan, so I need some details about a particular ep that proves you really love the show and would really appreciate having the whole series.
The factory-sealed box contains all five seasons (150 episodes) of the iconic comedy that starred Jim Nabors as a hapless Marine Corps private who constantly irritates his immediate superior, Sergeant Carter (Frank Sutton). The show occupies a place in folksy old school pop culture that a lot of folks grew up with, or couldn't avoid because it was from a time when there was only three channels.
Bonus Features include audio intros by Nabors on Select Episodes, audio commentaries by Nabors and actor/comic Ronnie Schell on select episodes, the pilot episode �Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.� from The Andy Griffith Show, a clip from The Lucy Show episode �Lucy Gets Caught In The Draft� in which Nabor made an in character cameo, and a clip from Nabor's variety show The Jim Nabors Hour.
Also included: Jim Nabors' 1972 appearance on The David Frost Show, which is surely as historic and earth shaking as the Frost/Nixon interviews.
Yes, it's quite an extensive collection of Gomer Pyle goodies that should go to a good home. So get to it! Write about an episode and it could be yours.
Send your brief appraisals of your favorite GP ep to:
Can't wait for @the_moviebob to make his triumphant return to @ScrewAttack with The Game OverThinker this Sunday! � ScrewAttack Crew (@ScrewAttack) April 27, 2015
I'm getting to the point where I'm exactly old enough that a necessary (and welcome!) distance from "youth culture" on the whole and regular interactions with the teen-and-under set not really existing for the most part is beginning to make the tail-end of The Millennials look increasingly alien to me - which is a red flag in my business. So I try to keep an open mind when regarding stuff clearly aimed as far away from me as humanly possible.
That having been said, here's the trailer for Disney's ambitious "what if our characters had kids and they all went to school together" TV movie project DESCENDANTS:
To be honest? The main thing jumping out at me here is how little the Disney Channel house-style seems to have changed since I was "that age." The pop-culture cues are different (no way Carlos would've been played quite so outwardly... "fashionable" in the 90s, yes?), the basic energy and attitude are pretty-much the same - which sort of throws into sharp relief just how much what we think of as organically-occurring cultural "vibes" are shaped by media. Disney Channel has effectively staked itself as the driver of late-GenX and Millennial tweenhood, and that's that.
Oh, the movie? Looks cute. The whole thing sort of feels like a DeviantArt project that someone greenlit to series as a joke, but there's potential here and I like that it looks notably different from ONCE UPON A TIME. If nothing else, it's a marvel of how good Disney is at working their iconography machine: Even without the names and most obvious cue(s) present in this trailer, you can pretty easily tell who the King and Queen are supposed to be, so that's amusing, right?
Whatever. You can pretty much tell this thing is going to be absolutely huge, and a decade from now we'll be reading thinkpieces from now-35-year-old Millennials explaining why it actually wasn't as disposable as it was judged to be in it's day. So, look forward to that I guess?
There may come a day when there's no more need for (by now) tired, cheap-shot references to how effortlessly satisfying the Marvel movies have been versus the endless cycle of self-inflicted stumbles Warner Bros. DC Cinematic Universe has undergone.
A day when we can actually look forward to the JUSTICE LEAGUE-adjacent features with "I hope it's good" anticipation and not "I wonder what *type* of trainwreck" anticipation.
A day when it's no longer appropriate to point out the disparity between a studio dithering over whether or not a woman can carry a feature film versus another putting a talking raccoon on a marquee.
A day when you can assume that at least *some* ideas are too stupid to not make it into the post-MAN OF STEEL DC movieverse.
This fascinating documentary focusing on the original managers of The Who arrives in a timely fashion to Raleigh as the iconic British rock band just played a show in town at the PNC Center earlier this week.
I was among the thousands at the sports arena to see the remaining founding members, singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend, joined by a tight backing band including Ringo�s son Zak Starkey on drums, bash out over 20 of their classics for their �The Who Hits 50!� tour. The Who was an obsession of my youth so songs like �I Can�t Explain,� �Baba O�Riley,� and �I Can See For Miles� (among many, many others) are in my blood. Despite their advancing age and some flubs here and there, The Two, as many fans call them, really brought it.
Over the years there�s been countless docs, books, interviews, and profiles in major music magazines that have told and retold the history of The Who, but a crucial part of their back story, the intracacies of their origin story if you will, usually gets glossed over.
And that�s the story of how Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two best friend aspiring filmmakers who, despite no management experience, managed, mentored, and helped make famous four blokes who, when they discovered them, went by the name The High Numbers.
Lambert, the son of acclaimed classical composer Constant Lambert, died in 1981, but the 70-year old, still dapper Stamp sat down for extensive interviews for first-time documentarian James D. Cooper, relaying anecdotes about the duo�s schemes and dreams that involved making a movie about a pop band that would establish them as first class filmmakers.
After months of searching through candidates they thought were �too clean,� Lambert and Stamp came across the High Numbers at a small London club in the summer of 1964, and were immediately taken by them. Then Lambert and Stamp�s plan to make a film was put on the back burner as they became the band�s managers and went about reshaping their image. This included changing their name to The Who, billed on posters with the tagline: �Maximum R & B.�
Flashy black and white footage, some of the first ever shot of The Who, capture the Mod movement in full swing, while fleeting bits of live shows display how the band�s abrasive energy connected with their small but growing audience. However, one not well versed in the British rock legends, could be forgiven for watching much of this and thinking that the Who�s entire early act consisted of making loud feedbacky noise then smashing their instruments.
Daltrey and Townshend are on hand to give insights from the band�s side, particularly Pete, always a great interview subject, who passionately speaks about long-gone Who members, bassist John Entwistle (�he was a fuckin� genius!�) and drummer Keith Moon (�he wasn�t a drummer�he did something else�), and laments about overhearing that the two were considering leaving The Who to form Led Zeppelin with Jimmy Page (�I felt like a real outsider�).
One of the film�s musical highlights is footage of the young, lanky, slightly nervous Townshend playing a solo acoustic version of a new song, �Glittering Girl,� which would go on to be a beloved outtake from the 1967 album �The Who Sell Out,� in person for the adoring managers. �I do feel like they treated me differently,� Townshend recalls now about their relationship.
After The Who starting hitting it big, Lambert and Stamp went on to manage Jimi Hendrix, Thunderclap Newman, Arthur Brown, and Golden Earring. But a falling out, seeming fueled by booze and drugs, with Townshend over the sessions for �Who�s Next� in 1971 led to the band firing the pair in �75. Stamp seems still a bit upset about this, and the fact that he didn�t get to direct TOMMY, the film version of The Who�s 1969 rock opera, when making a movie featuring the band was the whole idea in the first place.
Who biographer Richard Barnes, Daltrey�s second wife Heather, original Mod Irish Jack (considered to be the inspiration for The Who�s �Quadrophenia�), and actor Terence Stamp, Chris� older brother, are also on hand to flesh out the film with sometimes witty, sometimes sad anecdotes about the bombastic band and their two eccentric managers.
Folks interested in the music scene of the �60s and �70s, and the mechanics of making a band in that era should enjoy LAMBERT & STAMP, but really it�s a doc that the millions of people that cheer and pump their fists to the band�s 50th Anniversary tour should really seek out. Both casual and hardcore fans alike owe it to themselves to learn about who really made The Who happen.
For a change, "Frenemy" provides an opportunity to properly/honestly appraise an AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D episode up front without dropping spoilers (since Season 2's entire second half is now a big-deal Marvel Universe mythology-reveal) and incurring the wrath of binge watchers.
So, then. Short version: This is the season's stupidest title, but possibly it's best episode. Want more than that (with SPOILERS?) keep reading after the jump... One thing (among many) that Season 2 of AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D has done better than Season 1 is to "answer" the justifiable criticism of the series failing to measure up to its (implicit) promise of staying fresh and vibrant by flitting between the various worlds of the Marvel Universe by quietly building a fairly substantial "sub-universe" of its own: As this second season winds down, AGENTS now has enough levels, strata and moving parts between Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D, "Real S.H.I.E.L.D," The Inhumans, the attention they draw from The Kree and Asgard (well, okay, just Lady Sif for now but still) the adjacent machinations of rogue supervillain Calvin "Mister Hyde" Johnson, rogue vanilla-villain Grant Ward and HYDRA that it's that much easier to "forgive" Coulson and Company for not bumping into Iron Man or The Hulk more often (or, y'know, ever.)
On the down side, in recent episodes those moving parts had begun to move a little too far apart from one another - to the point where there wasn't much connecting (in the most obvious examples) the S.H.I.E.L.D vs S.H.I.E.L.D story with Agent Skye's discovery that she's actually one of the (still unnamed) Inhumans beyond the prior relationships between the characters. "Frenemy" sets about bringing these (and other) divergent plot-threads back to one place and (shockingly!) manages to feel almost organic while doing so.
The setup(s): May and Simmons are pretending to help Superhuman-phobic "Real S.H.I.E.L.D" look for Fitz and Coulson, who've absconded with Nick Fury's "Toolbox" and its index of... everything, basically. Coulson, Hunter, Deathlok and Fitz meanwhile have scooped up Ward and Agent 33 to help them find the two surviving HYDRA bigwigs, Dr. List and Baron Strucker (this appears to be our big tie-in to AGE OF ULTRON) on the logic that they've been abducting/experimenting on "powered people" (we're still not calling them Inhumans, I guess) and thus might be behind Skye's disappearance or at least know about it. Skye, of course, has actually been hanging out at The Inhumans' (or, more likely, a smaller community thereof) secret retreat, getting to know her surprisingly still-living Inhuman mother Jaiying and less-surprisingly still-insane science-enhanced father Cal/Mr. Hyde.
Since this is AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D, all of these huge interests and powerful characters ultimately converge on... a relatively-inexpensive shooting location - in this case Cal's abandoned Milwaukee doctor's office, where Skye is supposed to be letting him down gently about not being allowed to hang around Afterlife (The Inhuman's refuge) any more because of the whole evil/not-Inhuman thing. Misunderstandings abound, mostly because people keep first glimpsing Coulson either in the company of "complicated" individuals like Ward or Deathlok. Things wrap up (so to speak) with Skye and Cal vanished again (List was actually chasing Gordon's teleportation energy signature around) and Coulson seemingly pretending to hand himself over to Real S.H.I.E.L.D; setting up what's being promoted as an action-heavy episode next week.
PARTING THOUGHTS
We now know that the Bobbi and Hunter are getting a spin-off, so... I guess that sort of spoils whether or not they'll A.) survive the season or B.) still be good guys (unless it's a prequel?)
Unless I'm forgetting, this is the first time Skye has referred to herself as "Daisy Johnson." Did Calvin not mention his last name previously?
Raina (not actually appearing in the episode) is suggested to be the first known precognition-powered person (Inhuman or otherwise?) documented on Earth. The idea that precognition is the big red-flag "not real yet" superpower has been repeatedly brought up back to Season 1, but at this point I'm at a loss as to what this is building to.
We've been told a few times now that we've not seen Cal at his worst - is it too much to hope that there's a shape/form to him that's closer to how Mr. Hyde is typically portrayed in the comics, then?
Sidebar: Is it just me, or has Cal/Hyde very gradually evolved into one of the more compelling MCU villains? It's easy to forget that McLachlan is a really great actor in the right part, and that he's been able to find (and convey) relatable humanity in such an over-the-top character (he's basically playing a Hulk who doesn't transform - so far). The business with him and Skye wandering around his old city, which has changed to a degree he can hardly cope with in the decades he's been living in a supervillain rage-haze, is genuinely moving stuff.
NEXT WEEK:
"The Dirty Half Dozen" purportedly finds the two S.H.I.E.L.Ds working together for an attack on what looks like it could well be the same facility Baron Strucker was hanging out in during the post-credit scene of WINTER SOLDIER and is (assumed to be) occupying during whatever point he turns up in AGE OF ULTRON. I wonder if they'll be brazen enough to suggest that this is taking place in the same relative time-frame, i.e. "Oh wow, The Avengers just got here! I mean, it's too bad we were just leaving so we can't meet or in any way interact with them, but hey it's cool they're here, huh?"
Fairly or not (spoiler: it's not), it's becoming increasingly clear that the ongoing Marvel Studios success story is basically ruining the prospects of many fans (myself included) to have any kind of proper "anticipation factor" for Marvel Comics adaptations made by anybody else. It's one thing to have a vague sense that this or that film might be better off in other hands, but another to know (in the case of an adaptation) that A.) you're not getting a version remotely close to what you might've hoped to see and B.) that you all but certainly would be getting that version if not for circumstance of contracts and rights issues.
Case in point: This new most-recent trailer for FANTASTIC FOUR, which has me struggling to figure out if I'm underwhelmed and irritated that it looks like a drab, dreary misuse of The Fantastic Four or that it looks like a drab, dreary movie - period:
I dunno.
The previous trailers weren't wonderful either, but at least there was enough vagueness at play to make it a legit question whether this looked like an outright bad movie or a movie I'd otherwise be more into if it weren't trying to convince me it's a FANTASTIC FOUR movie.
Thus far, what they've been selling has looked more like Josh Trank's obligatory "bigger-budget version of the low-budget movie you just broke big on" entry with FF trappings awkwardly stuck to it; and while this still looks like that it's also clearly meant to be the "Yup, it's Fantastic Four!" trailer: Everyone is onscreen using their powers, reveal of The Thing, shot of Doctor(?) Doom while someone says "doom," etc. For good measure, they've even thrown in the "hard open on city-skyline over loud bass sting" thing, so you know it's a superhero movie.
And it mostly looks just... bad.
I like some of this. The general look is dreary and glum, which is about as tonally opposite the property as you can get... but it's a well-shot, handsome looking version of dreary and glum, like someone working to imitate David Fincher's preferred aesthetic. The cast seems to have chemistry, I like Reed not knowing how a fist-bump works, Michael B. Jordan continues to impress, etc.
The downside? Everything else. I dig the shot of Reed's arm-muscles shifting around, but at the same time it makes me worry that they're going to "nerf" his power-set away from "guy made of rubber" to "has stretchy limbs." Kate Mara doesn't seem to be registering as either Sue Storm or as a general presence. The Thing looks like he'd make a decent rock-monster minion in a fantasy feature of some sort, but he's just not Ben Grimm and I always hate versions of The Thing that go the easy "made of rocks" route rather than the more alien, interesting classic designs.
Doom? Egh... it's only one shot (and then another from the back), but you can already tell they're going with him being another "altered" person like the heroes (the mask looks semi-transparent, maybe containing some kind of energy or for life-support) and... like I said, egh. I'm all for reinterpretation, but when it comes to Doctor Doom you're not just talking about another piece of Marvel/FF mythos - you're talking about one of the greatest villains in popular fiction of all time. Is it seriously too much to ask that we get a proper version of him onscreen before all the revisionism?
Wanted to put this up yesterday, but I'm having an... interesting few weeks, scheduling and lifewise. Ah well. Anyway, here's the trailer Warner Bros. wanted people to trek out to IMAX theaters for on Monday but we forced to release online after someone leaked it hoping that a clean version would make the reactions not be so negative. It didn't seem to help much, but judge for yourself:
So, the blowback on this has been pretty negative. Understandably yet still unfairly, a lot of the geek blogosphere really, really wants the new DC Cinematic Universe to essentially look/feel like the DC Animated Universe (Batman: The Animated Series to Justice League Unlimited) as-produced by Marvel Studios; and while I get why (that sounds great!) it's crystal clear that that's not what they're making and this stuff needs to be judged on it's own terms - good or bad.
It feels more than ever like no one working on these can really "square" how to make Superman work in the kind of movies they want to make (how do you use a character who can end any real threat instantly and generally works to prevent destruction "work" in the Transformers-esque extended-destruction style WB clearly wants these movies to be?) and so the plot becomes about making everyone else not "get" Superman either. I know more than I should about how the plot of this supposedly goes down, but suffice it to say these things seem to start from the premise of "which trades are still bestsellers for us?" and go forward, so if this is looking like Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS smooshed together with a bunch of 90s event crossovers... yeah, that seems to be the case.
That said, I like the way it looks. We're a long way from MAN OF STEEL here, with Snyder once again working with his favorite DP Larry Fong. Visually we're very much in WATCHMEN territory, and it compliments Snyder's aggressively macho approach to the genre. It looks pumped-up, ridiculous, slick and showy - like a mid-90s foil cover come to life - and since that seems to be where they're aiming it might as well look like the best version possible.
Also: that first shot of Affleck in the "normal" bat-suit is probably as good as Batman's getup has ever looked in live-action, but I really want to know how much of those muscles are Affleck and how much is the suit because holy shit - if that's Affleck he must be on Ryback's regimen. On the other hand, the "big reveal" of the TDKR "bat-armor" look (which you know is meant to be a huge deal here) manages to fall completely flat because now it makes him look like Lego Batman. I'm getting a sense that LEGO MOVIE's send-up of dark-dark-dark Batman-performances may have rendered a good chunk of audience no longer able to take them as seriously, and the helmet isn't helping:
Maybe the tag-line for this film should be �James Franco and Jonah Hill together again, but this time you won�t be laughing.�
In this adaptation of Michael Finkel�s 2006 bestseller �True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa,� Franco and Hill ditch the stoner shenanigans (and their stoner buddy ensemble) of their previous movie, THIS IS THE END, and play it dead serious.
Hill steps into the shoes of Finkel, who we first meet as a star New York Times reporter working on a story in Africa about the modern-day slave trade. In short order we are also introduced to Franco as fugitive Christian Longo on the lam in Canc�n, Mexico using Finkel�s name as an alias.
In short order, Finkel is fired by the Times for fabricating large portions of his article, while Longo is apprehended by the FBI for the murder of his wife and three children in Oregon. After learning that Longo used his name, the disgraced and desperate Finkel arranges to meet with him in prison.
Longo, graced with Franco charm, tells Finkel that he�s a big fan, and before you know it, they�re collaborating on a book about the murders together. Longo agrees to give Finkel exclusive access on the condition that the journalist teaches the suspected killer how to write.
So it�s got a SHATTERED GLASS meets CAPOTE vibe, with Hill�s Finkel and Franco�s Longo developing a creepy relationship as Longo�s trial looms closer. It�s obvious that Longo is manipulating Finkel from their initial encounter, but the film trudges onward continuously trying to make a point that it had already made in the first 10 minutes.
That point is that these two guys are alike. They are both characters with deplorable moral ethics; every action they make can be seen as self serving. And, of course, they�re both using each other � we get it.
The rest of the cast seems to know this. Felicity Jones, as Finkel�s girlfriend Jill (the archetypal worrying woman on the side), even goes to confront Longo to tell him she�s got his number in one of the film�s most contrived scenes. Even if this really happened, and I bet it didn�t, it�s a horribly handled plot point that adds nothing. Well, except that it gives Jones something to do.
Scripted by first time filmmaker Rupert Goold and suspense scribe David Kajganich (THE INVASION, BLOOD CREEK), TRUE STORY has neither the depth nor thrills (or even attempts at thrills) required to be considered a psychological thriller. It�s more a tense drama with transparently artsy ambition.
The storytelling, whether true or not, gets pretty muddled and strained towards the end. I got annoyed at Finkel for falling for Longo�s shtick, which at times reminded me of Franco�s breakout Freaks and Geeks role, Daniel Desario, but with a brain.
This whole overly calculated, and bleedingly obvious, exercise will most likely be jokingly dismissed by Franco and Hill someday in another meta-minded project with their fellow graduates of Apatow University. Probably like this: �Remember when we did that TRUE STORY shit? We were all so serious �n shit? Remember that? Yeah, me either.�
Robert Kenner�s follow-up to FOOD, INC., the new documentary MERCHANTS OF DOUBT opening today at an indie art house near me, opens aptly with an illusionist displaying his impeccable slight-of-hand card trick skills to a rapt audience.
The master magician is Jamy Ian Swiss, an associate of Penn & Teller, who identifies himself as an �honest liar.� Swiss gets the theme of the film�s ball rolling when he explains that �it offends me when someone takes the skills of my honest living, if you will, and uses it to twist, and distort, and manipulate people and their sense of realist, and how the world works.�
From there we jump right into a credit sequence montage, set to Frank Sinatra�s �That Old Black Magic,� and decorated with sound bites like �Global Warming is a hoax,� �there is no consensus - this is a myth,� �asbestos is designed to last forever,� and �it is not known whether cigarette smoking causes cancer.�
Inspired by the 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Keller and co-writer Kim Roberts take us into the world of phony punditry, in which a small group of so-called experts can have an enormous impact on public opinion.
The roots of what Oreskes and Conway called a �history of manufactured ignorance� can be traced to the 1950s when the tobacco companies, aware of undeniable evidence that smoking was hazardous and highly addictive, hired a public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton, to cast doubt on the scientific facts.
Anti-smoking activist Stanton Glantz lays out that �the playbook that they developed to attack science worked for them for 50 years,� and �so other businesses that were faced with regulatory challenges had to look at this and say �boy, if this worked for tobacco, we ought to be able to use that playbook too.��
This is confirmed by the next segment on the Chicago Tribune�s investigation on flame retardants involving journalists Patricia Callahan and Sam Roe, who appear as interviewees; but this is just a prelude to the film�s central focus, the fossil fuel industry�s war on climate science and scientists.
Old cold warriors/climate change deniers Fred Seitz, S. Fred Singer, and William Nierenberg join the growing cast of collected con artist characters the film profiles, as does the slick, slimy Marc Morano, a frequent Fox News regular, and a former Rush Limbaugh producer. Morano casually discusses going after scientists via underground newsletter take-down pieces (later on his blog Climate Depot), and sending vulgar, death threat emails to them.
On the good guy side of the debate, the film gives us prominent climate scientist James Hansen, Skeptic Society Director Michael Shermer (key quote: �Data trumps politics�), earnest environmentalist (his words, not mine) John Passacantando, and the aforementioned co-author of the book, Oreskes, identified here only as �Science Historian,� whose commentary is certainly the most insightful.
However, despite all these fascinating factors, the film peters out roughly an hour into its 96 minute running time as all the major points have been made and what�s left gets pretty tedious in its repetition.
In addition to that grievance - a lengthy ending thread involving former Republican South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis going on a right-wing talk radio show feels tacked on, interviewees throughout are indentified so fleetingly that it�s easy to forget their credentials, and, as much as I love them, the film really doesn�t need pop song punctuation like David Bowie�s �Changes,� and Big Star�s �Don�t Lie To Me.�
Also, the magician stuff is fine in the intro, but, as charismatic as Swiss is, it�s a weak linking device that made me wince every time they return to it.
With a little more time in the editing bay, MERCHANTS OF DOUBT could�ve been the year�s first must-see documentary. As it stands, it�s only two thirds of that.
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Having now introduced somewhere just under a dozen new yet-to-be-solved mysteries in it's second season (what's "Real S.H.I.E.L.D's" real agenda, what's really going on at Afterlife, what's in The Iliad's super-secret cargo hold, what exactly is Cal using to gain his strength to name just a few), "Melinda" finds AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D doubling back to explain a leftover from Season 1: What really happened to earn Agent May the nickname "The Cavalry" (official story: She singlehandedly took down a superhuman villain and their entire army of henchmen) and why is she so cold and mysterious about it?
The answer and more (SPOILERS!) after the jump... So, the idea that something a lot darker than "just" a rescue went down with May in Bahrain has been a given since they decided not to reveal it right away; but the actual reveal (she actually only took out two henchmen, the rest were killed by their own master - a pre-teen girl Inhuman who'd transformed without authorization from... whoever is making that call - that May was forced to kill) was a lot darker than AGENTS is usually prepared to go, so that's interesting in itself.
Interesting enough, in fact, that it probably could've stood to be it's own story. Weaving it into Skye bonding with Jaioying works narratively, but it also ends up giving away the twist too easily: "Gee, I wonder if May's story will somehow pay off in a way the ties-in with the 'not every Inhuman should transition' infodump?" On the other hand, it feels wrong to criticize the show for wasting no time getting Skye to her "learning its your mother" moment so quickly when the lack of padding had been so praiseworthy all season - especially since I've also been watching through DAREDEVIL this week, which (while overall a solid series - review likely pending) is padded and stretched-out to the point of near absurdity at times.
Meanwhile, our new big piece of information is that Coulson actually does seem to have been secretly assembling what sounds like a personal army of superhumans, as part of something called "Theta Protocol." This is, apparently, where a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D 2.0's money has gone, and the majority of the actual data is in the toolbox that just walked out the door with Fitz last week. Oh, and if you were guessing that Raina's complaint of constant nightmares was foreshadowing an Inhuman power for future-telling? Congratulations - you've seen a superhero show before.
Still, the "showpiece" for this episode was seeing Ming-Na Wen stretch her acting chops alongside her action work, and it delivered on that front - she turns in a hell of a performance that momentarily turns so "real" it almost feels out of place with all the broader genre-series business going on. There's only about 4 - 5 more of these left, and there's a lot of plot to tie up, so this might have been our last shot at a "character piece" episode before a sprint to the finish like last season. If so, it's a good note to transition on.
PARTING THOUGHTS:
I missed it myself the first time, but Coulson has mentioned Theta Protocol once before - to the Koenigs, as an "if we don't come back" measure. So there's that.
So what is Theta? At this point it could be anything, but it would be a weird coincidence for a S.H.I.E.L.D spin-off to be announced the same week we start hearing "our main character might be building a training-camp for superhumans" as a plot point. SECRET AVENGERS?
Piggy-backing on that: Remember, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR *is* apparently going to still be about the government trying to regulate powered persons, so it'd be convenient to have a whole bunch of them ready to go.
An exchange between Gordon and Lincoln suggests that there's some tension between the human-looking and non-human-looking Inhumans. Seems a bit late to bring that up.
NEXT WEEK: The ads are acting like "Frenemy of My Enemy" is an AGE OF ULTRON tie-in, but I'm a bit skeptical - there's at least one more episode between this and the film's U.S. release, and other than the still sought-after Dr. List the prospect of a WINTER SOLDIER-level tie-in seems unlikely from a logistical perspective.
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This poll decided which hypothetical movie adaptations of... things I'd take a swing at pitching as movie treatments. Just a creative-writing exercise to keep things sharp. By decision of you the readers, first up is MEGA MAN - which I'm assuming anyone reading this recognizes as a series of video games from Capcom. Reminder: If you enjoy this sort of feature on this blog, please consider becoming part of The MovieBob Patreon.
Let's get into this: Open in extended montage, intercutting childhoods and teen years of two young boys: THOMAS LIGHT and ALBERT WILY. Light is a happy child of priviledge, the only son of two wealthy scientists (a lineage of doctors, professors, etc in fact) whose interests in science, technology and art are nurtured and encouraged from the start. Wily, on the other hand, is born into harsh working-class poverty - a middle child whose natural genius for science/engineering mostly get him bullied by his peers, abused by his siblings (his inventions broken, ideas mocked) and ignored by his parents.
The two become friends at an Ivy League college, where their complimentary talents make them a potent force in the emerging field of robotics and artificial-intelligence, which has just begun to fully explode (think the advent of home computers) into the mainstream. Soon, robotics and A.I. are ubiquitous, and L&W ROBOTICS SOLUTIONS is at the popular and technological forefront of the industry.
Virtually everyone agrees that L&W robots are the industry standard, but their most popularly-touted innovation (culturally, at least) is Light's solution to circumventing The Uncanny Valley by embracing the use of humanoid/animal shapes subtly-exaggerated to cartoon proportions. This means that the robots look exactly like they do in the NES Mega Man games - bulgy, smooth and "chibi-like," with humanoid models commonly featuring oversized heads/feet/hands and expressive doll-like faces (alternately, imagine a more expensive version of this nonsense.) Privately, Wily resents that "The Light Touch" (and Light's more public-friendly, Walt Disney-like persona) is so talked-about, as he feels his pure engineering contributions are the true source of their success.
The plot-proper finally finds Wily & Light as white-haired older men, 40 years after college, making a huge press presentation of their new products for the year. They are joined onstage by ROCK and ROLL, a male/female "sibling" pair of humanoid robots with super-advanced artificial-intelligence (most "work bots" are not as "smart" as virtual-only A.I. for technical reasons) who largely serve as crowd-pleasing mascots for the company.
The centerpiece presentation is six prototype industrial robots with unprecedented fusion of physical-dexterity and artificial-intelligence (not nearly at Rock & Roll's level, but impressive) built to work in harsh conditions - yes, CUTMAN, GUTSMAN (mining/clearing/etc, a team) ICEMAN (arctic industries) FIREMAN (high-temperature) ELECMAN (energy) and BOMBMAN (demolition).
The presentation goes well, and Light announces that Wily will be presenting a "concept robot" whose design he personally spearheaded: This is PROTO MAN, a demonstration robot meant to show off Wily's still-in-development "smart circuit" technology that theoretically allows a robot to "rewrite" it's own schematics almost as rapidly as software, in order to not only use any tool within it's ability and programming but absorb new functions and physical parts rapidly (he uses, to Light's obvious chagrin, a less than friendly metaphor of a military robot being able to repurpose the onboard weaponry of it's fallen comrades and enemies).
Someone in the crowd asks the obvious question about robots with universal function replacing human manual laborers. Wily treats the concern flippantly, while Light hurriedly interjects that those concerns are why Proto Man is only a research concept - they have no interest in putting humans out of jobs. There has clearly been internal disagreement on this, and the two men begin to argue - first by passive aggression, but ending with Wily blurting out an insult about "Giving the world the steam engine and being harraugned about the fate of mules!" This goes over bad, leading Light to usher his friend offstage and start-up the introduction of another product, RUSH the robot dog - a toy/companion for children.
Backstage, they have it out: Wily feels that Light only cares for the labor-class because in his life of priviledge he never actually had to "know" them; whereas Wily grew up in that world and became obsessed with robots partially because of a personal revenge-fantasy of seeing mechanized-labor drive the human working-class (whom he associates entirely with the "ignorant brutes" who tormented him in his youth) into extinction - ultimately creating a utopia where robots manage all menial tasks and scientists like him and Light are left unbothered to think and create.
Wily's rant is captured by a young Japanese hacker and technology blogger, MAYL SAKURAI (yes, Battle Network references - there aren't a lot of humans in this mythos) and goes viral - a P.R. disaster for the company that is "damage controlled" by an announcement to "gift" Cutman, Gutsman, Iceman, Fireman, Elecman and Bombman to specific operations of of "global interest"
Light is forced to dismiss Wily, who turns down a severance package "large enough to found your own new company" in exchange for taking PROTO MAN (and his patents for Smart Circuity) with him. Six months later, the rebranded LIGHT ROBOTICS remains on top of the market; with "sightings" of Dr. Wily in public (and the odd fact that no competing firm has been able to "poach" him despite trying) are the only real lasting memory of his "meltdown."
Where Wily actually is? A rocky island off the coast of Japan (L&W was located in San Fransisco, incidentally) where has has secretly maintained a whole "workshop" of "borrowed" company equipment in an abandonned underground military installation.
Light meets with a teen-aged girl who sneaks away from field-trip tour to show him "her invention." This is TRON BONNE, a young robotics wunderkind (she's actually already skipped ahead to college, used the tour for cover), and her invention is an affordable mass-production house-robot called a SERVBOT. Light is impressed, buys production rights to the Servbots and hires her on the spot as a "consulting intern" for the engineering department, which needs fresh ideas after Wily's departure.
Tron Bonne learns, along with the audience, Light's most closely-guarded secret: Rock and Roll are even more advanced than the public realizes: They have full personalities and even rudimentary, child-like emotions.
Sakurai investigates reports of famous hackers, mostly from Japan and Korea, disappearing after being contacted by a "Mr. X" (yes, Dr. Wily, who is also selling illegal "SNIPER JOE" combat robots to international terrorists and organized crime, using the money to grow his "workshop" and continue experimenting with Proto Man and... "other" projects.)
Bonne (whom was also learn is a big fan of Mayl's online presence) comes to Light with a new proposal: She believes that she's managed to reverse-engineer a non-infringing answer to Wily's "smart circuits," but needs his help to implement it. Light agrees, and they decide that they will first try adding the feature to the extra-durable Rock.
The rebuild of Rock is successful: He can incorporate almost any tools or programming into his body (and also does the color-changing thing when changing tools, because.) Wily, having hacked into Light's security systems to spy, discovers that they've (sort of) trumped his tech and becomes enraged, telling Proto Man "we're moving things up."
Light Robotics prepares for the launch of a major firmware update for around 20-30% of their most popular models, which will be downloaded automatically during a brief "power down" that the company treats like a mock-"event." But when the robots power back on, the they've been infected with a virus that causes them to go berzerk causing damage and mass-hysteria! The same protocol also causes Cutman, Gutsman etc to being operating "independently," taking control of the areas they've been dispatched to violently with backup from also-refigured Sniper Joes and other machines.
Light's tech-support finds the source of the infection immediately: Mayl Sakurai, whose home is raided and is arrested. But the virus has actually come from Wily, the creation of the hackers he's abducted.
After some web digging, Bonne theorizes that Wily pinned the initial hack on Mayl - and not just for revenge to take her away from computers, as she may be among those capable of reversing the virus. Light opts to retrofit Rock with combat equipment and hope he can use his new smart-circuit adaptability to fight his way to rescuing her from prison in Japan (the country has been hit especially hard, and she hasn't even been arraigned yet) and bringing her their (to Light's) to help stop the machine riots.
As MEGA MAN (and using Rush's transforming vehicle modes) Rock flies to Japan and fights through out of control robots to extract Mayl. He also encounters Proto Man (now looking like he does in the games, whistle and all) confirming that Wily is behind things. They fight, but Proto Man is ordered to withdraw.
Instead, it's Bomb Man (previously stationed at a Korean demolition project) who arrives for a showdown. He and Mega Man tear apart part of a city, until Mega draws the fight away to nearby cliffs. After defeating his enemy, Mega Man incorporates the bomb weaponry into his system - maybe if he can do this to the rest of them, there's a chance.
Proto Man returns to Wily, confused as to why he was recalled. Wily says there is more work to be done on his upgrades.
MM brings Mayl to Light's, then announces his plan to take down the other "Robot Masters" while they work on the virus.
GutsMan and CutMan are stationed at a geoengineering project in the Pacific Northwest, so they're first on the schedule. GutsMan falls easily to bombs, but doesn't fully shut down - his "living" head is taken away by HARD-HATS. CutMan is more of a hand-to-hand martial-arts foe, defeated but after a much harsher fight.
ElecMan falls next, fight taking place at a solar energy storage facility.
Robots bring Wily the remains of GutsMan, he orders them taken to "reengineering," with Proto Man continuing to grouse about not being allowed to face Mega Man again yet.
IceMan falls next (arctic weather-research station).
Mega Man arrives at a geothermal power-plant adjacent to an active volcano in Hawaii to battle Fire Man, but Proto Man is waiting for him.
At Light's, Sniper Joe robots attack the faciltiy but are repelled by Bonne's Servbots (and Roll, who repurposes "household" tools into weapons to beat them.)
Proto Man and Fire Man double-team Mega Man, subduing him. Proto Man then destroys Fire Man himself, intending to absorb the flame-thrower weapon and prove himself equal (and then superior) to Mega Man - who protests that they shouldn't fight because they're "brothers" built together.
The flamethrower weapon malfunctions, shocking Proto Man and badly damaging him. He departs, leaving Mega Man to claim the final weapon.
Light, Bonne and Mayl crack the virus code and stop the rioting robots. In response, Wily causes SKULL CASTLE to rise out of the island and announces his terms to the world: Bigger and more unstoppable robot uprisings, unless he is allowed to found his own mechanized nation on any plot of land he chooses.
Mega Man arrives at Skull Castle amid a battle between Wily's robots and an easily-outmatched human naval fleet, who are almost making headway until the ROBOT DRAGON from (Mega Man 2) appears to engage them.
MM enters the castle and begins fighting his way to Wily's inner sanctum. The way is guarded by (separate) encounters with two big-scale robots: The shape-changing YELLOW DEVIL and GutsMan rebuilt as the massive GUTS DOZER.
On the final approach to Wily, MM finds himself in a huge chamber where an unknown number of "figures" are being contained in opaque glass tubes. Wily's voice comes up, welcoming the hero to the "prototypes divison." The tubes open, and out of them come between 40-50 "fan favorite" Robot Masters (some not finished) from the entire Mega Man game series. An absolutely massive brawl ensues.
Outside, Light arrives on the deck of a naval carrier with Mayl and Bonne, explaining that they've developed a reverse version of Wily's virus that could shut down the robots protecting the castle, but it will take time to set up and broadcast.
Wily, in his lab, happily watches MM fight a losing battle against his prototypes - but is caught off guard when Proto Man bursts in demanding "answers" to his malfunctions.
Light and the girls' virus is broadcast and works, de-securing the castle and causing the prototypes to shut down inside. But it doesn't effect Proto-Man, who is still holding Wily at gunpoint when Mega Man bursts in.
Wily takes the opportunity to zap Proto Man with electricity, knocking him out. He explains that he sees Proto Man as a failed test, usable for parts, and that he hasn't been repairing his smart-circuits, he'd been carefully porting them over into a NEW project - Proto-Man has his "head" and memories, but he's basically a glorified Sniper Joe unit now.
Wily then unveils his "new favorite son," the robot who got all of Proto Man's implants: Wily's answer to Mega Man... "X!" (Yup, as in MEGA MAN X in full armor - that's our big final fight.
After a brutal battle and a last-minute assist from Proto-Man, MM defeats MMX only to see Wily get away in an escape pod.
Mega Man returns to Light with Proto Man and remnants of MMX. After repairs, Proto Man announces that he is going looking for Wily, while MM will stay to protect others if he returns for the sequel.
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The 2015 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was, as usual, quite a feast of non-fiction, and after four days I am very stuffed. So before I crash, I'll get right to the docs I attended out of the dozens screened on Saturday, April 11th, and Sunday, April 12th. (Oh, yeah � please visit my recaps of Day 1, and Day 2):
First up, Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson's PEACE OFFICER, the story of former Sheriff William �Dub� Lawrence's investigation into the 2008 homicide of his son-in-law by the SWAT team Lawrence originally created. Other similar cases involving inappropriate uses of force by the police are touched on in this calmly delivered treatise on what many call the militarization of law enforcement. Disturbing crime scene photos, news reports, and raw footage of SWAT raids capture the eye, but it's Lawrence's softly spoken dissection of the matter that is most compelling.
Next, I thoroughly enjoyed MAVIS!, Jessica Edwards� biodoc of gospel/soul singer Mavis Staples. Sure, it's got the expected mix of interviews, concert footage, archival TV appearances, but its warmth and affection for its legendary subject elavates it greatly above the standard music doc formula. Staples dicusses her history with the Staples Singers who had a string of hits in the '60s and '70s, her solo career, her collaboration with Prince, her recent comeback which included winning her first Grammy for her produced 2011 album �You Are Not Alone,� which was produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, and, most importantly her close relationship with her father, gospel R & B icon Pops Staples.
One of many highlights deals with Bob Dylan's marriage proposal to Ms. Staples in the '60s (he ran it by Pops first). She says she �didn't take it to heart,� however �we may have have smooched.� Edwards' exceedingly endearing portrait also offers plenty of powerful live performances. In one clip, Staples promises her audience that she and her band have come to �bring some joy, some happiness, inspiration, and some positive vibrations.� I felt all of those things while watching this wonderful portrait.
Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman's LAST DAY OF FREEDOM moved me more than I thought an animated short doc with starkly spare imagery could. The 30-minute film illustrates the visage and memories of Bill Babbitt, whose Vietnam vet brother Manny was executed in 1999 for the murder of a 78-year old woman in 1980. Babbitt, still shaken after all these years, tells how he feels his brother has been done wrong by the system, which didn't take into account that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I can totally see this emotionally impactful short getting an Oscar nom. *
Now, I�ve heard about the revolutionary nationalist organization, the Black Panther Party my whole life, getting bits and pieces of their story here and there, but I never got the full picture until veteran filmmaker Stanley Nelson (WOUNDED KNEE, JONESTOWN, FREEDOM RIDERS) schooled me, and a full Fletcher Hall house, on the subject Saturday night. It was via Fletcher's newest historical doc, THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION, the third Center Frame screening at the fest this year, a vital, electric, and sadly timely history lesson that everyone should be taught.
With rare archival footage, new interviews with surviving former members, vintage news reports and the like, Nelson takes us through the brief but explosive period in the late �60s, in which the Panthers, headed by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, rose to power in the black community. Fighting against police brutality and for more freedoms for their people, the Panthers made many enemies including FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
In the film�s most striking sequence, one of the movement�s leaders, Fred Thompson (who has a cameo in another film at the fest, HERE COMES THE VIDEOFREEX), is murdered in a raid by Chicago police in conjunction with the FBI. This was mainly because, as the Bureau�s documents later revealed, they wanted �to prevent the rise of a black messiah.�
But this blurb barely scratches the surface of the wealth of information and insight into the world of the Panthers Stanley�s film powerfully provides. THE BLACK PANTHERS is set for limited release in September, so keep an eye out for it.
As I've said before many times, the last slot of the evening on Saturday night at Full Frame is a perfect one for a rock doc, and this year Tom Berninger's MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS really hit the spot. The filmmaker is the brother of Matt Berninger, the frontman for the indie rock band The National, and his film concerns Tom's disastrous stint working as a roadie on the band's 2010-11 European tour.
Sloppily shot, yet infused with an undeniably crude sharm, this project amusingly deals with Tom having to cope with having a famous rock star sibling, while coming to terms that he has to get his life together. It's a funny, shabby, and fussy doc, much like its maker, and I enjoyed the flashy live footage despite its choppiness (i.e. don't go to this film expecting much in the way of full musical performances).
There have been many Brando documentaries before, but Steven Riley�s LISTEN TO ME MARLONdistinguishes itself by being largely narrated by the man himself. With access to hundreds of hours of audio tapes Brando had recorded throughout his career, Riley and co. have taken the most telling excerpts, supplemented them with an engrossing collage of film clips, screen tests, production stills, and many never before seen photos, and constructed the most intimate Brando biodoc to date.
It starts off weirdly with a digitally animated 3D image based on facial scans Brando made not long before his death in 2004, but settles into a thankfully more conventional groove. It�s fascinating to hear Brando discussing his method acting approach (including much praise his acting teacher Stella Adler), his failed marriages, his son Christian�s murder conviction, and resolving his issues with his father.
Of course, film fans will relish hearing him dish on such films as ON THE WATERFRONT, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, CANDY (�worst movie I ever made in my life�), THE GODFATHER (�I wasn�t sure I could play that part either�), and especially APOCALYPSE NOW (�I read the script and it was stupid, it was awful. I told Francis, �you�re making an enormous error��). LISTEN TO ME MARLON should satisfy long-time fans, newbies, and folks who are curious to get a glimpse behind the curtain.
Director Doug Tirola (ALL IN: THE POKER MOVIE, HEY BARTENDER) has done a great job here of depicting the history of how the legendary humor magazine became a comedy institution that produced live shows like �Lemmings� (launching the careers of John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest), classic records like �That�s Not Funny, It�s Sick,� and, most importantly for the masses, smash hit movies like ANIMAL HOUSE and VACATION.
The story of National Lampoon is largely the story of co-founder Doug Kenney, considered by many to be the heart of the original publication. Kenney, who you may know as Stork in ANIMAL HOUSE (which he co-wrote), was the charismatic comic genius behind much of the Lampoon�s most popular parodies in the �70s, but he would disappear for long periods of time, and his death in 1980 falling from a cliff in Hawaii has his friends and colleagues still scratching their heads as whether it was suicide or an accident.
Chase has been well documented as being an asshole, but in his interview segments here he�s actually charming and funnier than I�ve seen in years; it�s touching to see him a little choked up when he says Kenney was his best friend. Also worth mentioning is Tirola�s clever linking device of using hundreds, maybe thousands, of images of vintage cartoons, graphics, and art from the magazine with the word bubbles changed to echo the relevant quotes spoken onscreen.
Being a comedy nerd from way back, I really dug DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD. Those in attendance Fletcher Hall that Sunday afternoon appeared to too as they laughed so hard at some bits that it was hard to hear the next thing said onscreen. That�s something I bet Tirola, who told the crowd at the Q & A after, that they were �the best audience,� took as a very good sign.
Okay! So that's another Full Frame. Thanks for reading and stay tuned to this space for more Film Babble Blog Fun.
* LAST DAY OF FREEDOM won The Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short at the Awards Barbecue on Sunday. Click here to see the full list of winners.
"Even our movies that we totally fuck up midway through production and have to scramble to put together in under a year look better than everyone else's movies!" - MARVEL.* *(not really)
NOTE: FOX has made multiple Copyright claims on this video, which I believe to be invalid and have disputed. The video is available for viewing while my dispute is reviewed, but you should watch it ASAP because they could concievably block it again at any time if they choose to reject the dispute. As ever, if you want to show your support this project and others like it, please consider doing so via The MovieBob Patreon.
A week ago, I asked fans to vote on a list of four licensed nostalgia properties I'd been working up hypothetical movie pitches for as a writing exercise. The votes have been tallied, and the lineup (read: order you'll be getting these in by popular demand) looks like this:
1. MEGA MAN 2. CAPTAIN PLANET 3. X-MEN (hypothetical Marvel Cinematic Universe-compliant reboot) 4. CARE BEARS. Look for MEGA MAN this week. Thanks to everyone who voted. This should be fun - looking forward to it.
The second day of this year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was as overcast as the first, but to all of us film fans stuffed into the Carolina Theatre and a few adjoining venues in downtown Durham, N.C. it really didn't matter. As usual, Friday brought a lot more people to the event, all lining up for helpings of primo infotainment. I was happy to be among them to take four fascinating films.
My Friday kicked off with Frederick Gertten'sBIKES VS CARS.
It's really not that much of a spoiler to say that Gertten's film is rooting for bikes. With stunning statistics and factoids like �In Toronto, a pedestrian is hit by a car every three hours, a cyclist is hit by a car every seven hours,� Gertten's globe-trotting doc contrasts how different cities are more bike-friendly than others (Copenhagen and Amsterdam are voted the bike capitals of the world), and examines how traffic congestion is going to get way worse (with 2 billion cars projected to be on the planet by 2020) unless we embrace alternatives.
A few of the threads the film depicts involve bicycle activists fighting for safer bike lanes in S�o Paulo, Brazil, while in Toronto, Canada, Mayor Rob Ford (yeah, that guy) battles what he calls a �war on cars� by having bike lanes removed. BIKES VS CARS is a smart, concerned film that makes a lot of good points, but in the face of taking on the politically powerful auto industry sadly it's gonna make a lot of people say �Yeah, but what are you gonna do?�
Now onto a very different kind of cycling film:
People of a certain age remember how much of a sensation motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel was in the '70s, but the ups and downs of his unique career have mostly been forgotten. Daniel Junge's exciting biopic BEING EVEL puts it all in perspective by sorting all the publicity stunts, rocky relationships, and ego-trips that made the man into a fiery narrative that made the Full Frame audience gasp throughout.
Interviewee Johnny Knoxville, one of the film's producers, seemingly an Evel Knievel expert, breaks down how Knievel's death-defying feats paved the way for his own Jackass, and the whole extreme sports culture, while friends and family add their remembrances. But the best part is the archival footage of the stunts themselves including the Snake River Canyon jump in Idaho, and his unsuccessful attempt to jump 13 buses in London (he followed this up by successfully jumping 14 buses back in Ohio). A beautifully constructed blast from the past (loved seeing those Evel Knievel toy commercials again), BEING EVEL is the most fun of the films I've seen so far at the fest.
A subject I hadn't heard of before is explored in Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin's HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX, a profile of a collective of counter culture artists and activists armed with newly invented portable video cameras, who were intent on providing an alternate history of the late '60s and early '70s to what was being broadcast on the major TV networks. Despite having a pilot rejected by CBS - a program that included interviews with Abbie Hoffman and Black Panther Fred Hampton - the Videofreex went on to launch the first pirate TV station, Lanesville TV, and produce thousands of hours of material.
It can be a bit wearying to make it through all the old grainy black and white clips excerpted here, but the insightful interviews with founding members David Cort, Parry Teasdale, and Mary Curtis Ratcliff keep it from lagging. Neolon and Raskin's portrait of these ragtag pioneers will, with hope, keep their story from being just a footnote in the history of guerilla television.
Ratcliff perhaps sums it up best: �A lot of people said in the early days that the Videofreex could be one of the signposts toward a future in which we all have video cameras. Which at the time meant nothing to me, but now I see it came true. We�re all Videofreex.� We certainly are.
Lastly, I attended the best documentary of the fest so far: Marc Silver's3 AND 1/2 MINUTES. Part procedural, part courtroom thriller, it breaks down what the media labeled the�Loud Music� Trial, in which a black teenager was shot and killed by a middle aged white man over an argument at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida in 2012. Michael Dunn, a 45-year old software developer, had asked 17-year old Jordan Davis and his three friends to turn down their music, and their tense exchange escalated when Dunn pulled out a gun and started shooting at their car. Davis was killed by one of the 10 bullets fired, and Dunn sped away with his fianc�e.
Yes, it's another angering instance of a white man murdering an unarmed black youth, and Silver's extremely well constructed film takes us into the aftermath with compelling clarity. It's a heart-wrenching experience to see Davis's parents, Ron and Lucia, fight for justice and for stricter gun control laws, and it's incredibly angering to hear audio of Dunn's prison phone calls to his fianc�e, in which he claims he's the real victim. After the screening, Jordon's father, Ron Davis spoke (after a huge round of applause) and participated in a Q & A, and had many powerful, and undeniably righteous things to say especially about embracing racial differences. I walked away very moved by the entire experience.
Stay tuned for coverage of days 3 & 4 of Full Frame.
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