I've been reviewing the biggest box office blockbusters recently, mostly because I feel like I have something to say about them, and also because they're fairly accessible. With an AMC A-list subscription and three AMC theaters readily in my area, many films require little to no effort to get to.
But what about independent cinema? What about those little films that don't get exposure, that aren't on the top of a lot of peoples' list of films to see in theaters? I've seen my fair share of lesser known films, from Midsommar, Booksmart, The Farewell, and The Art of Self-Defense. But the film I really recommend people see, and one that may be a little tough to access, is Maiden, a documentary about the first all-female crew to sail in the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989.
There's nothing particularly innovative about the way the film is made; plentiful talking head interviews intercut with footage of the race does a serviceable enough job of telling the story. Luckily, these women are expert storytellers, and their interviews are woven together to tell the fascinating tale of how they came together, and especially about their skipper and navigator, Tracy Edwards.
Of course the female crew is met with the usual challenges women face when trying to prove they can equal men. They are ridiculed, they are written off as not being able to even accomplish one leg of the race, and they face challenges including finding the sponsorship to even enter the race. What fragile egos men have; when our masculinity is threatened, we lash out at the very idea that we could be beaten by a gender perceived as weaker, less able.
Times are thankfully changing in that regard, yet witnessing Edwards and her crew's struggles and triumphs is inspiring and moving. It's an incredible story, one that would make one hell of a feature film (or miniseries for that matter), and I highly recommend and encourage everyone to seek out this incredible story for themselves.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
The last time I saw one of these Fast and Furious movies, they still had "the" in the title. The Fast and the Furious (2001) now seems like a laborious title, and thank goodness they stripped unnecessary articles out or else this would've been called The Fast and the Furious Presents: The Hobbs and the Shaw. That first film, one of the most unlikely franchise starters, was about a simple street racing crew, the crimes they committed, and the LAPD officer who infiltrated them and became enamored with their lifestyle.
Now these films have exploded into James Bond-level action thrillers, with globe trotting, sexy women, and of course, fast cars. Hobbs & Shaw combines two characters who, as far as I understand, were introduced into the franchise as antagonists but have since evolved past that point to be heroes in their own spinoff franchise. There's Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a bald hot head who works alone, and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), a bald hothead who works alone. Shaw's mum (a wasted Helen Mirren) is in the slammer, and Hobbs is estranged from his Samoan family, as he carefully outlines for his daughter early on, just so we know there will be some family reconciliation later on.
The plot kicks into gear when Hattie (Vanessa Kirby, playing Shaw's sister despite being 21 years younger than Statham) injects herself with a virus to prevent it from falling into the hands of Brixton (Idris Elba), a superhuman modified by robot parts whose eyes glow orange whenever people attack him to signal his robot brain is detecting the incoming attacks (he describes himself as Black Superman).
Hobbs & Shaw are called onto the case when it appears Hattie has murdered her whole team for the virus, a silly accusation that I feel could've been cleared up if she had reached out for help. She works for MI6 after all. And later Hobbs & Shaw are framed for an attack on CIA agents, although they stand out in the open watching their faces displayed on giant screens to no consequence (not one passersby seems to notice them, despite Hobbs being as incognito as herpes).
Events more or less unfold in a predictable pattern of loud, over the top action scenes followed by character moments that mainly consist of Hobbs & Shaw measuring their dicks (the size of their dicks and balls are mentioned quite endlessly in this film). You see, they don't like each other very much, and spend the majority of their screen time bickering. This is meant to be endearing, the way an old married couple might bicker, but the dialogue is never clever or varied enough to make these scenes funny past the first encounter they have.
The film is directed by David Leitch, who helmed Deadpool 2 (which explains Ryan Reynolds' cameo appearance) and Atomic Blonde, as well as co-directing the first John Wick. As far as action scenes go, he's fairly proficient at staging mayhem to a degree that you can follow what is going on, although just barely. The action scenes are quite unimaginative, and despite having the resources to dream up whatever they want, the film recycles the sports car drifting under a semi-truck stunt I've seen in other Fast and Furious trailers. It isn't until the final action sequence, when four cars latch onto each other to prevent themselves being lifted up by a helicopter, that the film achieves the imaginative lunacy I was hoping for throughout the rest of the film.
Because, let's face it, this is not a subtle movie. When Elba's villain first appears in the film, a character asks who he is, to which he responds, "Don't you know? I'm the bad guy." Kirby's character has a virus in her system that will release itself into her bloodstream in 72 hours, and I'm pretty sure the film spans more than that amount of time. Probably the most egregious error is when the final confrontation starts: at dawn the characters say, yet it's pitch black out. One edit later and suddenly it's so bright out you would think it's midday. "Maybe they are communicating the passage of time and that they've been fighting awhile," I thought but no, a ticking clock element reveals only 9 minutes have passed in the movie's time.
CGI should enhance scenes instead of overpower them. Much of the action is deflated because it's weightless, the characters don't feel the impact of the action, and most of it would be improbable. Compare that to last summer's Mission: Impossible - Fallout which doesn't have the greatest plot, but constructs some thrilling as hell action scenes to hold up its very weighty runtime. It certainly helps that a lot of what you're seeing is also being done.
I guess I wouldn't mind Hobbs & Shaw so much if it were a little shorter. At 135 minutes it is a very long film, and wears you down by the time it's over. What happened to nice, tight films that fell under 100 minutes? Rewatching Men in Black recently in preparation for its sequel I was impressed how economical the film is at setting up its characters and universe, a conflict, and resolving it all. If Hobbs & Shaw could've met a similar time threshold, I think it would've been a hell of a lot more fun.
Now these films have exploded into James Bond-level action thrillers, with globe trotting, sexy women, and of course, fast cars. Hobbs & Shaw combines two characters who, as far as I understand, were introduced into the franchise as antagonists but have since evolved past that point to be heroes in their own spinoff franchise. There's Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a bald hot head who works alone, and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), a bald hothead who works alone. Shaw's mum (a wasted Helen Mirren) is in the slammer, and Hobbs is estranged from his Samoan family, as he carefully outlines for his daughter early on, just so we know there will be some family reconciliation later on.
The plot kicks into gear when Hattie (Vanessa Kirby, playing Shaw's sister despite being 21 years younger than Statham) injects herself with a virus to prevent it from falling into the hands of Brixton (Idris Elba), a superhuman modified by robot parts whose eyes glow orange whenever people attack him to signal his robot brain is detecting the incoming attacks (he describes himself as Black Superman).
Hobbs & Shaw are called onto the case when it appears Hattie has murdered her whole team for the virus, a silly accusation that I feel could've been cleared up if she had reached out for help. She works for MI6 after all. And later Hobbs & Shaw are framed for an attack on CIA agents, although they stand out in the open watching their faces displayed on giant screens to no consequence (not one passersby seems to notice them, despite Hobbs being as incognito as herpes).
Events more or less unfold in a predictable pattern of loud, over the top action scenes followed by character moments that mainly consist of Hobbs & Shaw measuring their dicks (the size of their dicks and balls are mentioned quite endlessly in this film). You see, they don't like each other very much, and spend the majority of their screen time bickering. This is meant to be endearing, the way an old married couple might bicker, but the dialogue is never clever or varied enough to make these scenes funny past the first encounter they have.
The film is directed by David Leitch, who helmed Deadpool 2 (which explains Ryan Reynolds' cameo appearance) and Atomic Blonde, as well as co-directing the first John Wick. As far as action scenes go, he's fairly proficient at staging mayhem to a degree that you can follow what is going on, although just barely. The action scenes are quite unimaginative, and despite having the resources to dream up whatever they want, the film recycles the sports car drifting under a semi-truck stunt I've seen in other Fast and Furious trailers. It isn't until the final action sequence, when four cars latch onto each other to prevent themselves being lifted up by a helicopter, that the film achieves the imaginative lunacy I was hoping for throughout the rest of the film.
Because, let's face it, this is not a subtle movie. When Elba's villain first appears in the film, a character asks who he is, to which he responds, "Don't you know? I'm the bad guy." Kirby's character has a virus in her system that will release itself into her bloodstream in 72 hours, and I'm pretty sure the film spans more than that amount of time. Probably the most egregious error is when the final confrontation starts: at dawn the characters say, yet it's pitch black out. One edit later and suddenly it's so bright out you would think it's midday. "Maybe they are communicating the passage of time and that they've been fighting awhile," I thought but no, a ticking clock element reveals only 9 minutes have passed in the movie's time.
CGI should enhance scenes instead of overpower them. Much of the action is deflated because it's weightless, the characters don't feel the impact of the action, and most of it would be improbable. Compare that to last summer's Mission: Impossible - Fallout which doesn't have the greatest plot, but constructs some thrilling as hell action scenes to hold up its very weighty runtime. It certainly helps that a lot of what you're seeing is also being done.
I guess I wouldn't mind Hobbs & Shaw so much if it were a little shorter. At 135 minutes it is a very long film, and wears you down by the time it's over. What happened to nice, tight films that fell under 100 minutes? Rewatching Men in Black recently in preparation for its sequel I was impressed how economical the film is at setting up its characters and universe, a conflict, and resolving it all. If Hobbs & Shaw could've met a similar time threshold, I think it would've been a hell of a lot more fun.
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