Critics, before prattling on about how simplistic & messy this film is, look at the excited & inspired kid a few rows over. Then shut up…
Spoiler-free Movie Review of A Wrinkle in Time (2018):
Thursday night (not coincidentally on International Women’s Day) my wife, daughter, and I went to see A Wrinkle in Time. We’ve all been eagerly waiting some time for this adaptation, ever since it was first announced. The trailers and released images looked great, the actors seemed well-chosen, and we were all extremely excited about the amount of representation this project signified. This is the first picture with a nine-digit budget directed by a woman of color. Even if it absolutely stunk, we were going to go see it.
As is my custom, I had avoided the early press, but I did glance quickly at the first few lines of several reviews, just to get some sense of what we were in for. I don’t usually do this, but my girls were really looking forward to the film, and if it was getting absolutely hammered, I’d at least warn them to temper their expectations.
Despite what the early reviews have suggested, it didn’t stink. For my well-read wife it was a solid picture, not equal to the beloved source material, of course, but a good time. For me, who hadn’t read the book since childhood, it was a really fun picture that left me happy and smiling despite its faults. For my daughter – it was AWESOME!
Look, everyone doesn’t have to get the same things out of every film. It’s hard, but you really have to take the goals of the filmmaker, the demographics of the prospective audience, and the film environment into consideration with your criticism.
I get what the critics are harping on:
it’s more visually appealing than truly substantive;
probably overly simplifies the source material in an effort to appeal to all;
there’s too much music and a muddy sound mix;
many of the performances are over the top;
the outlandish costumes and design is polarizing.
But so what? The fact that this film will miss a lot of people does not mean that it will fail to resonate with a whole lot of other people.
For example, as an adult, there was a complete lack of suspense – I never had any doubt where the story was going or if any of the main characters were in any danger. But it would be myopic and limiting for me to assume that everyone would react the same way. In fact, I found a lot of the scenes quite dark and intense for younger viewers. Don’t tell me that those filmgoers would consider the picture uneventful and slow.
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a habit of sticking up for films that are getting panned, but the last to admit it as a character flaw. It’s important to stick up for pictures that might miss their chance to be seen in the face of overwhelming criticism.
And I must clarify here that I’m not just sticking up for the underdog here – I truly enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time.
I smiled from ear to ear through the whole film. It was genuinely fun.
I loved the child actors, led by a very promising Storm Reid as Meg Murry, a heroine I wish my daughter had been exposed to at an even earlier age.
I enjoyed all the adult performances, even if I could have done with much more screen-time for the charming Gugu Mbatha-Raw (and a lot less Reese Witherspoon).
Despite the rather short run-time, there were several scenes where emotional moments were really allowed to breathe. Too often in tentpole films, when the heroes have actually come face to face with their objective – the raison d’être – it’s just another scene. They don’t take time to actually reflect on what has been accomplished. The actors and characters in A Wrinkle in Time are given the space to actually slow down the pace and experience these moments. It’s lovely, and a credit to director Ava DuVernay.
The project was greenlit by Disney in the wake of Tim Burton’s dreadful but ginormously profitable Alice in Wonderland, and while it shares a few of that movie’s criticisms (over-reliance on CGI and lack of subtlety), it is worlds more grounded.
Because at its heart, A Wrinkle in Time has one – a heart, that is. The film contains a ton of empowering, hopeful, positive messages aimed at an audience that desperately needs power, hope, and positivity. I was proud to sit alongside my wife and daughter and watch a beautiful film filled with representation, diversity, body positivity, hope, respect, and appreciation for intelligence and uniqueness.
[schema type=”movie” url=”http://movies.disney.com/a-wrinkle-in-time” name=”A Wrinkle in Time” description=”After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him.” director=”Ava DuVernay” ]
If you think you’re not going to enjoy this, you’re almost certainly right. It’s not made for you. That’s ok: watch how your kids eat it up.
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Ghostbusters (2016):
Since this will likely be a long review, let’s just get the basics down first: Ghostbusters, the 1984 film is a near perfect movie and in no way needed to be remade/rebooted. But it was always going to happen, so let’s just accept that fact and judge the movie that got made. Judgment: it is great fun and you’ll have a good time if you let yourself.
The amount that has been written about this film even before cameras began rolling would lead you to believe this is a cultural touchstone of great, even historic importance. It isn’t. It’s a movie. If you like it, great. If you don’t, great. Let’s not get carried away here, people…
Like many, I find the bile spewed by misogynistic internet trolls deeply disturbing. The fact that “people” would have such a blinding hatred for a movie – any movie – that they’d actually try to tank reviews and ratings in order to alter perception and make a picture fail is so bizarre and unsettling that it says a great deal about the nature of our “culture”. Look at that, two uses of quotes in one sentence – see what we’ve been reduced to…
Rather than enter into a long piece about the outright misogyny that I truly believe lies at the heart of much of the outrage over the 2016 Ghostbusters (they quietly renamed the picture Ghostbusters: Answer the Call recently, but since no one else seems to be calling it that I don’t see why I should), I’m going to take the haters at their word that this isn’t about sexism and focus strictly on their non-gender-based complaints. In effect, I’m ignoring the he-man woman haters and acknowledging that there are genuine good reasons to oppose the reboot of Ghostbusters.
Because you’re not wrong if you think this movie didn’t need to exist – it really doesn’t. In my reviews of Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), I practically pleaded with the rights holders to let the franchise stay dormant. As you will have swiftly realized if you’ve read more than one of my reviews, I am disheartened by the whole remake/reboot modus operandi of Hollywood. So I didn’t really want them to make this picture.
The simple fact is that it was going to be made, however. Too many people, executives and creative talent alike wanted to keep the franchise going. Sure, not all of them, which is why Ghostbusters II was such a mixed bag and why it took 27 years to get some version of Ghostbusters back on screen, but the original picture was such a beloved hit that there really was no chance whatsoever that it wasn’t going to be <drumroll> resurrected. </rimshot>
So there’s no use whining that they shouldn’t have remade the film – they did. Get on board or stay away. Personally, I’m pulling on the proton pack. If it had to happen, I’m glad that this current team was at the helm. Because the idea of reimagining the modern team as female and populating it with some of the funniest women alive was inspired and almost entirely the reason I am behind the picture.
We made sure to go to see the film on opening night; it’s really important to vote with your wallet – if filmmakers can point to a strong opening for a film it helps convince the suits that there’s an audience and a financial reason to make movies that don’t insult half of the human race. Think about that the next time you consider waiting to see a picture at home.
My daughter was incredibly excited about the film. She even gave herself a haircut inspired by Kate McKinnon’s character earlier in the day (looks awesome). We got there early, picked up our complimentary Ghostbusters pins, took a picture by the ginormous cardboard standee and proceeded to have a great time. Everyone in the theater was howling and having a blast, even applauding at the end.
And I came to the important realization that the picture isn’t for me – it’s for the current generation. There’s really no purpose in comparing the new Ghostbusters with the old – this is something new.
<soapbox>
Everyone goes through this at some point, but those of us who lived through the greatest years of cinema (the 1980’s don’cha know) with a historic run of franchises are probably among the guiltiest. We got to experience Star Wars and Star Trek and Indiana Jones and Terminator and Aliens and we think we have some ownership over these things because they were so integral to our coming of age. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it’s great to be passionate about things you love. But we’re greedy about it. We want our memories to remain sacrosanct and turn positively feral when anyone tries to update “our” properties.
I think it’s telling that whether new Bond films please or disappoint, no one complains that their childhood is being violated. Perhaps it’s partly because the pictures are aimed at an older audience and so they didn’t get hard-wired into our formative years. But I think it has more to do with the fact that the franchise is so long-running that it doesn’t belong to any one generation. Same with Doctor Who. So why can’t we take the same view with our 80’s franchises? You can enjoy one version, one series, and another might miss you. So what?
We all have to be grown-ups about these things and, well, grow up. Our childhood was our childhood; we got to have one. Let someone else take a turn.
</soapbox>
Soooo….how was the movie, pal?
For me it was a solid good. I enjoyed it very much. For my daughter it was nearly perfect – a mammoth hit. For my wife and I, it was a very funny and solid picture. It wasn’t amazing, but it was quite good.
Paul Feig, who rescued the picture from development hell, is a great fit for the story. He gets the tone right, which is the most important thing by far. Written by Feig and Katie Dippold (of Parks and Recreation & The Heat), the story is fine but not overwhelming – it’s a bit slight. So was the original.
The villain, played by Neil Casey is weak and lacking an interesting backstory. So was the original. See where I’m going with this? These films are greater than the sum of their parts. The mood, the feel, the commitment to entertain – this is what you need to aim for. And Ghostbusters does exactly that.
The story follows broadly the same rough structure as the first film, and if not horribly original, you can understand the split directive that comes with any remake/reboot; “make it like the original but not too like the original”.
Interestingly, in some ways this film is a little too wedded to the original picture. There’s a self-awareness and the inclusion of all the cameos and references pads what is already a long run-time. The movie comes in just under the two hour barrier, and there’s new content during the credits, mid-credits and in a post credit stinger. This film is just stuffed – there’s not a lot of room to breathe.
So I can understand why Feig went with the more is more approach. The other big reason he may have been tempted to cram everything in is that there’s so much good in there:
the effects are really good
despite Sony’s usual hallmarks (blatant product placement, antiseptic picture), the Boston for New York production looks pretty good
right balance of scary/funny
the new Ecto-1 is bangin’
the new gear is pretty fun
Most importantly, the comedy is rock solid. These are some great comic actors. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones are all riotous with great chemistry. Chris Hemsworth totally goes for it as dim-witted receptionist Kevin.
But the picture belongs to Kate McKinnon; as Dr. Jillian Holtzmann she damn near steals the whole show. I could watch another two-hour movie of the team just doing routine jobs if it meant getting to watch more Holtzmann shenanigans…
Ghostbusters is a fun movie. It’s not a masterpiece, it’s not an abomination – it’s a very good summer movie and likely to be one of the more fun pictures I see this season. If you don’t have a bone to pick with the very existence of this picture and just want a good time, then you know who to call…
[schema type=”movie” url=”www.ghostbusters.com” name=”Ghostbusters” description=”Erin Gilbert and Abby Bergman are a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real. A few years later, Gilbert lands a prestigious teaching position at Columbia University, but her book resurfaces and she is laughed out of academia. Gilbert reunites with Bergman and others when ghosts invade Manhattan and try to save the world.” director=”Paul Feig” producer=”Ivan Reitman” actor_1=”Melissa McCarthy” ]
Following a ghost invasion of Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan band together to stop the otherworldly threat.
No surprise that House of Mouse would give fans EXACTLY what they clamored for. Careful what you wish for. Equal parts great & derivative…
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens:
I saw The Force Awakens Thursday night it’s now Tuesday morning. It’s taken me this long to put together my review frankly because I’ve never felt so completely conflicted about a Star Wars film; seldom about any film at all.
This is going to be a long review, so let me start off with a short breakaway piece that will let you know if you want to read the whole thing:
The Force Awakens is a fun, good looking and sounding movie that tries to give the people what they want and mostly succeeds, launching a new era of Star Wars films. I enjoyed myself.
The Force Awakens is also a derivative, unnecessary and possibly cynical launch of a new series of cash cows films that fails to give the people what they need, creating more questions than it answered. I felt frustrated by it.
Chapter 1: The Questionable Motivation
I really don’t want to seem down on Episode VII, but I’ve been struck with the same feeling since the moment they announced it – I wish they weren’t doing this.
Not that I didn’t want more Star Wars movies, I just didn’t see why they had to go back to the cast of the original films and try to pick up where they left off. You can’t recapture lightning in a bottle. That starship had sailed 30 years ago. The continuing stories of Leia, Luke, Han, Chewie and the droids were covered extensively in the pages of countless books. Some were brilliant, some were dreadful, most were great for what they were.
I would have been much happier if they had left well enough alone with those characters. If they wanted to make new films, go far into the future or into the past. Or if you absolutely must set this in the timeline where they did, use the Expanded Universe material as a jumping off point.
I’ve gone on at length about my disapproval of the decision to discard decades of Expanded Universe stories, relegating them to “Legends” so that the new filmmaking team would have room to work in. It was a cynical, short-sighted and lazy move that was disrespectful to the fans and creators of hundreds of authorized stories. I’m not going to bore you with it here (I’ll bore you with it here and here). I will merely say this: when you cavalierly chose to ignore everything that came before in favor of the stuff you are creating now, you really set a bar for yourself. Everything you create has to be better than what you discarded. It has to. It may not be a fair standard to be held to, but you set it. Every time you invent a planet instead of using one of the meticulously created ones created and then crafted by a number of different writers, it needs to be special. Because otherwise, why didn’t you just use what was already there? Similarly and much more importantly, if you decide what the characters went on to do after Return of the Jedi, it had better be damn good.
Chapter 2: The Maker Strikes Back
I’ve often blathered on throughout this site about the perils of creating something solely to satisfy what you think the audience wants. Seeing what has worked before and then trying it again, being reactionary and trying to distance yourself from past (perceived) failures; that’s how companies work, it shouldn’t be how art works.
The whole feel of the picture, the entire conceit, is and has always been – “capture the feel of the originals”. With a very closely attached – “don’t make this like the prequels”. I have a problem with both statements. In the first, the Original Trilogy didn’t have one “feel” – each of the installments was decidedly unique. The perception is that they all had a “fun” sensibility, and it’s true up to a point, but the reason they worked so well is that there was a lot going on under the hood – a full range of styles and themes. So copying the “feel” of something is tricky. (My issue with the second aim is simply that you shouldn’t set out with a negative imperative – defining yourself by what you’re not.)
George Lucas had a fairly damning quote about the movie, which was misinterpreted as praise. “I think the fans are going to love it. It’s very much the kind of movie they’ve been looking for.” Ouch. That’s some backhanded compliment. Looks like the Notorious GL knows how to throw some shade…
Lucas was clearly badly burned by public backlash to his prequel films to the extent that he wanted nothing to do with making more films to be criticized for. In the years since Revenge of the Sith, he groomed Dave Filoni and his creative team to continue the saga through projects like The Clone Wars in the manner Lucas envisioned. He often stated that he was “teaching them how to make Star Wars”. It’s just my personal opinion, but I imagine that Lucas would have considered Filoni a worthy successor had the desire to make new feature films returned.
When Lucas retired and wanted to ensure the future of his legacy, he chose an executive in Kathleen Kennedy who was more than capable of overseeing the type of film he and contemporary Steven Spielberg mastered. But he also then sold Lucasfilm to Disney, and in so doing gave up the reins to his saga once and for all.
At the time of the sale, Lucas turned over his story treatments for Episodes VII-IX, believing that there was no one more qualified to come up with the future of the franchise. He initially acted as creative consultant on the picture and reportedly hand-picked Abrams and screenwriter Michael Arndt. But Lucas’ plans weren’t what Disney had in mind, so they dismissed Arndt (who rightly still receives a credit on the film) and went in a new direction. I believe Lucas was genuinely shocked that his ideas would be cast aside. I think he truly believed that he would still be a part of his franchise even after passing it on to the next generation, and the rejection of his input has him feeling a bit jilted and possibly bitter. Which is all completely understandable.
I mention all of this by way of saying that I understand the context for his comment, yet maintain that it is a valid criticism. Lucas knew that the filmmakers were lobbing a softball to fans and that it would be a hit. But he studiously avoided being pinned down on saying if it was a good movie. He knew it wasn’t.
Chapter 3: Always Two There Are…
The Force Awakens is really two movies, only one of which I actually liked.
It feels odd to actually have such disappointment over a franchise that has been so reliably my favorite for so long and I think the delay in finishing and publishing this review is because oddly enough I felt a little guilty about writing anything so negative about it.
The fact remains that The Force Awakens is the least effective and most disappointing Star Wars film of all time. That’s quite a comment I know, and yes, I’m including the prequels in there. I can honestly say that I felt more disappointed and less satisfied walking out of Episode VII than with any of the prequel films.
By the standards of trying to create a single film, The Force Awakens is a spectacular failure. That sounds really bad; the truth is it’s nowhere near that bad. I really enjoyed the movie mostly.
The core problem is trying to serve two masters; the film is attempting to create engaging new characters, situations and settings and launch a new brand (a relaunch, really), while simultaneously trying to cater to older fans of the original trilogy. That’s hard to do, and it doesn’t.
The first part of that mission succeeds; the new characters of Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren are fantastic – really interesting. I absolutely adored the first 40 minutes or so of the film and was completely spellbound. After that, the power coupling came off the alluvial dampers, with the focus on the whole nostalgia factor.
Chapter 4: Return of the Grump
I get it – no, I do. I’m generally very favorable to that sort of thing, but just as with that other Star franchise, the split mission created a little bit of a problem. The Force Awakens reminded me of nothing so much as Star Trek: Generations, that awkward attempt to turn the nineties television program Star Trek: The Next Generation into a feature film while shoehorning James Tiberius Kirk in there somehow and for pretty much the same reason. They wanted people to stick with the character they love you so much in Kirk and knew that there was a large group of filmgoers who would not go to go see any Star Trek film that did not have Bill Shatner. See, that right there is the problem – not that they needed to have Kirk in there, that they needed to have Shatner in there.
This is true with The Force Awakens as well and echoes a problem I’ve talked about ad nauseum on this site: adjusting your film around an actor instead of changing the actor to suit the film. Because they were able to talk perpetual grump Harrison Ford into being in the film, he is completely over-used; not because he’s Han Solo but because he’s Harrison Ford. The actor/character’s screen time is completely out of proportion to his story importance and it leads to this really bizarre conflicted film in which you have the better instincts of story creation saddled with previous installments and previous characters.
Almost the moment that Ford appears on screen the entire pace of the movie gets thrown way out of whack. The first part of the film has wonderful pacing to it as you learned about these characters Finn, Rey, Poe and to a lesser degree Kylo Ren. It is exactly as you would want it to be it; the film has a wonderful feel to it – there’s a spark of excitement and energy but there’s also some mystery and a general Star Wars feel. But then pace of the film gets really fast in a real big hurry and it completely changes the mood of the piece. Everything towards the back half just starts to speed up incredibly.
Now that might be considered an editing problem, but it’s not – it’s a story problem and I’ll tell you why. The principal fault with Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is that it creates more questions than it answers.
Chapter 5: The Phantom, well, everything…
I actually experienced the unusual feeling of walking out of a movie with more questions than I walked in with. This should never happen. Forget that it’s a Star Wars film, this shouldn’t occur in any picture. Movies have to stand on their own feet, despite whatever connective tissue there is with other installments. No Star Wars movie has ever failed so completely to stand alone on its own merits than Episode VII, which is pretty amazing when you consider that it’s the first film in a trilogy. The middle film in a trilogy is by definition reliant on the movie they came before it and the movie following it up. Think Episode II, Episode V or the upcoming Episode VIII. So it’s even less sensible for this to happen with the first film of the new series. Not only do I not know more about where they’re going with this franchise after seeing the film, I think I know less. This is completely unacceptable.
For those of you who are rejecting this concept let’s put it into a little bit of perspective; think about The Phantom Menace. Yes, I’m going to make you think about The Phantom Menace – for some of you this will be unfairly unpleasant memory (not myself – see my review). Before The Phantom Menace came out everyone had a lot of speculation based on the early glimpses we saw. After all, we were going far into the past into areas of Star Wars myth we had not yet seen.
What was the story with multiple Jedi? We’ve never seen multiple Jedi before.
Who is this mysterious Darth? We always thought that there was one Darth – Vader. Obi-Wan even called him Darth like it was his first name. Now there’s this new bizarre, horned character Darth Maul – pretty badass-looking but what’s up with the “Darth”? Is this in fact a title?
So we knew nothing about this character; they rightly kept it all very well hidden so we wouldn’t know what was going on; but at the end of Episode I you knew everything about it. Now there was a lot of entirely justified grumbling that for somebody who was hyped up so much he was barely in the damn thing, but you did have your questions answered.
Now contrast that with anything about The Force Awakens:
Who is this mysterious Kylo Ren? He’s got this weird lightsaber, is he a Sith? His name doesn’t say “Darth” in front of it. Is that meaningful?
Who is this Captain Phasma played by Gwendoline Christie? She looks so cool with this chrome armor thing going on – what’s that about? What is she captain of – what’s her role in this hierarchy? Ditto with Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux.
What about say any of the other characters that they’re creating?
Why does the trailer talk about the role of the Jedi passing into myth?
How did the Empire get back on top? Doesn’t that mean there needs to be an Emperor?
Why are they now called the First Order? I’m sure that’s some kind of Third Reich parallel, but how could they possibly be first of anything if they look exactly like the Empire?
The guys in X-wings are part of the Resistance; resisting what? Is the Republic back in power or not?
These are all questions you will not have answered. That’s not really a spoiler. In point of fact, I actually found it easier to do a spoiler-free review of the movie than I ever would have expected – because you don’t learn anything. You will walk out of the movie knowing less about the new direction of Star Wars than if you had not gone in at all.
Chapter 6: A New Hope Awakens
The picture really is deja vu all over again. It’s clear that they’re trying to invoke the spirit of the previous films, A New Hope especially, and as far as it goes that’s a good goal. The problem is that it doesn’t play anything like A New Hope in terms of clarity, simple storytelling, or really just about anything else. The MacGuffin in this film is truly ridiculous.
In all Star Wars films a lot of pressure is put on the opening crawl, particularly when there’s been a sizable period of time in between pictures. Really one of the reasons The Phantom Menace got off to such a bad start was by talking about trade routes in those floating yellow letters. You immediately were nervous and put on the defensive.
As I say, this is a spoiler-free review so I won’t be getting into detail, but I will say that the opening crawl for The Force Awakens isn’t very satisfactory. In fact it’s one of the real problem right at the gate – you’re expecting a lot in terms of backstory considering that 32 years has passed since the last film both in actual time and screen time. You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do. But they don’t; there is really almost nothing added to help explain what’s been going on for the past three decades.
I’d been putting a lot of hope on this one, given that there were going to be questions that needed answering, but I didn’t let a vague opening crawl ruin anything for me and still remained incredibly optimistic.
I had the time of my life for the first part of the film. I really cannot overstate how good of a job was done with the casting and writing of these new characters. Daisy Ridley as Rey is fantastic – an instant star. Rey is a long overdue female protagonist who is almost certain to be as iconic and important as Princess Leia herself. John Boyega, who I previously had seen only in the immensely enjoyable Attack the Block, is equally perfect in his role as Finn. This is an incredibly charismatic actor who’s got a very good role to match and is totally suitable for him. Rounding out the new big three, Oscar Isaac is fun as Poe Dameron. Isaac has already proven his bona fides so I suppose that makes him the Harrison Ford of this bunch, although I don’t really want to settle anyone with that legacy. Both the character and the actor acquit themselves marvelously; this is someone I want to spend more time with, which is why it’s such a damn shame that I’m not going to – because instead I’m going to be saddled with the grumpy Ford for most of the rest of the picture.
This is what I mean – you created great new characters but then I don’t get to spend enough time with them because you’ve loaded the story down with characters who have already gotten their time. It’s like tossing Leonard Nimoy into the similarly J.J. Abrams-helmed Star Trek reboots. I really enjoyed those films, but Nimoy still felt strangely out of place.
BB-8, by the way, is exactly as adorable as he seemed in all of the trailers. I love the little guy – he’s fantastic, a new fan favorite.
Chapter 7: Revenge of the Nostalgia
If I’m grousing that the inclusion of the older characters shortchanges the new ones don’t misunderstand – it shortchanges the old ones, too. Other than Ford, who’s in there because he’s Ford, all of the original characters get short shrift. Despite their presence in the trailers in the ads and all of that stuff you barely see them. It’s disrespectful to bring people like Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker and other back but then underuse them.
I really truly mean it when I say that I wish they had just not bother to try to do this in the first place. I wish they had tried to go for a new story entirely, or failing that, if they wanted to have the original characters in there, pick up the story five years after Return of the Jedi or ten years after Return of the Jedi and recast the roles. I know that sounds like sacrilege but it really isn’t. The stubborn insistence on using the actors that everyone knows and loves, myself included, dictated the kind of story you were going to tell. If you weren’t able to do an Episode VII back in the day when these actors could still play it then you should have done something entirely different.
I knew that there was going to be a lot of pressure on the opening film and that by the second one you’d be enjoying it much more. That still remains the case; I went into the movie knowing I was likely to enjoy Episode VIII far more than I likely would VII. I did not expect that I would be going to Episode VIII still wondering where are they going with this new version of the Wars, and that’s unacceptable. I really just can’t get past the fact that they’ve taken no trouble to explain any of the backstory here; it desperately needs explanation. Three decades have passed and we’re still watching stormtroopers and rebels. I don’t get it. If The Force Awakens seems slight, derivative and played strictly for nostalgia that’s because it is.
Chapter 8: Attack of the Mouse
Now I can tell the momentum propelled me to a more negative review than I wanted. In fact, I wasn’t really sure that I could do a review at all when I had such mixed feelings about the film. I didn’t really want to be so negative about it and I still plan on amending this review once I’ve seen the film the second time, which leads me to my final problem; I felt instantly that I had to see the movie again. Now from a corporate marketing standpoint that may be fantastic, learning that your film is the cinematic equivalent of crack cocaine, but for the rest of us that’s not a good thing. Despite the fact that we live in this binge culture and I am a geeky fanboy who likes to watch things over and over and over again, your film shouldn’t actually require that. This is a major design flaw and signals that you have failed to do your job is a filmmaker. If your movie doesn’t make sense the first time and leaves the audience with the feeling that they need to see it again then you have been unclear. Despite the proliferation of fanboys, most people see movies once – they don’t need to see it two and three and four times. If you require them to do so, you’re making a tragic error.
Chapter 9: Staring at the Twin Suns
I wanted to love Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. I may still come to love it. More likely I’ll learn to accept its flaws and enjoy the parts that made me feel like a kid again. Because those moments surely are there. Despite my many criticisms of the film, I remain hopeful for the series. It still has more lightsabers than any other film franchise…
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Never read the books and I’m not the target audience, but I thought it was a great scarefest for kids and funny enough for their parents…
Spoiler-free Movie Review of Goosebumps:
I don’t like being scared. I really don’t. I’m a great big coward about scary movies & books, and if I ever go missing, don’t waste time looking for me at a haunted house because I’d die on the front step before ever entering. But I thought I could probably handle a kids scary movie. At least if my daughter went with me and we could hold hands…
The relationship of kids and fear is fascinating. I remember when the whole Goosebumps phenomenon hit in the 90’s (when I was well outside of the target demographic); I was mystified that kids would willingly read books meant to scare them. I had always assumed that everyone was as much of a wuss as me, despite a childhood full of evidence that I was a grade A wimp.
I’m certain much better read scholars can explain all of the sociological and developmental factors at work better than I. All I know is kids need to learn to face their fears and scary stories are an entirely healthy way to do so. Probably. I’m still not watching The Exorcist to find out if that’s true, though…
I like Jack Black and the trailers looked good, so we headed into the local theater to be scared. (Not in 3D, though. No way…)
The premise for the Goosebumps film is really quite clever; author R.L. Stine came up with all these monsters as a coping mechanism as an unhappy kid. He put so much of himself into it they became real to him, then actually became real. Since then, he’s been keeping the monsters literally locked in the manuscripts of the stories he wrote. Of course they escape, raise heck (it is a kids movie, after all) and people learn valuable life lessons.
Screenwriters Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski came up with the great story concept that provides a vehicle for introducing as many characters from the book/tv series as they want and have time for. Makes for a rich movie, if a bit overcrowded. Darren Lemke would write the script that pulled it all together. Not sure who had the idea about providing a backstory for Stine, but while it may sound hokey, it really works very well and provides a great structure for the tale.
The CG effects are ok, but no better than they need to be. One of the five (?!) production companies behind the film is actually Sony Pictures Animation, which should give you some indication of just how heavily they’d be relying on CG.
Some of the Goosebumps monsters are creepy, some are funny; none seem to be terrifying. I can certainly imagine some kids having nightmares. I don’t really need to speculate too much – I saw one parent leading her crying kids out of the picture after the first big bad hit the town. To be fair, I think they were a bit young to be there – most of the kids in the audience seemed to be having a great time. Be advised, though, while as usual your mileage may vary, know your kid – on the big screen some of the characters were definite nightmare fuel, particularly the main baddie, a ventriloquist dummy.
The acting is fun, with Black hamming it up in several roles and affecting an odd but effective accent for his turn as the children’s author. The teens mostly look like believable teenagers, and the lead trio of Dylan Minnette (Zach), Odeya Rush (Hannah) and Ryan Lee (Champ) work very well. The usually enjoyable Ken Marino is in the film for no reason I can detect.
Danny Elfman provided the score, reflecting the film’s obvious aim for a perfect balance of funny and scary. In my opinion they got the balance right, but I’m sure there are those who find Black’s overacting irritating; probably the long-time book fans.
Goosebumps is exactly what it tries to be – a Halloween styled funny movie, scary enough to provide genuine thrills, but not enough to make older kids actually terrified. Their younger siblings may not see much of the film hiding behind the seats, though…Recommended.
Odd facts:
Tim Burton tried to produce a Goosebumps film way back in 1998.
R.L. Stine created the magazine Bananas? I totally forgot about Bananas; we used to order that through school book fairs! He also wrote for Dynamite, another lunchroom fave…
[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.goosebumps-movie.com/” name=”Goosebumps” description=”Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, Hannah, and Zach’s friend Champ (Ryan Lee) to get all of them back in the books where they belong.” director=”Rob Letterman” actor_1=”Jack Black” ]
A teenager teams up with the daughter of young adult horror author R.L. Stine after the writer’s imaginary demons are set free on the town of Greendale, Maryland.
Great documentary spreads Malala’s message, released three years to the day that barbaric cowards tried to silence her with bullets. #malala
Spoiler-free Movie Review of He Named Me Malala:
Review by my daughter, Moira!
Malala is an inspiring story about a girl who was shot fighting for girls right to education. The doctors said she would survive, but be disabled, or not the same. However she comes back just the same, and spreads the word about her story and her goal. I would recommend this for kids 13+ because there are some graphic images although they do not show the attack, they do show the blood in the vehicle she was in and some prep for the surgery she undergoes. It does change your life, and I highly recommend to anyone, not just girls and women.
Poster:
Trailer:
Bechdel Test:
n/a
The Representation Test Score: n/a
[schema type=”movie” url=”http://www.foxsearchlight.com/henamedmemalala/” name=”He Named Me Malala” description=”A look at the events leading up to the Talibans’ attack on the young Pakistani school girl, Malala Yousafzai, for speaking out on girls’ education and the aftermath, including her speech to the United Nations.” director=”Davis Guggenheim” ]
A look at the events leading up to the Talibans’ attack on the young Pakistani school girl, Malala Yousafzai, for speaking out on girls’ education and the aftermath, including her speech to the United Nations.
Poster
Runtime
87
Tagline
One Child, One Teacher, One Book and One Pen Can Change the World
