Time for some GoT season 8 speculation :p. At least we now know the ‘Last Battle’ with the armies of the dead will be at Winterfell, aptly named like Hodor, which again shows GRRM knew what he was doing when he started publishing the whole shebang 27 years ago.
As to my speculative bona fides (and some of you may remember this 😉 ) … After book 5’s release in 2011 (and then when Jon Snow’s stabbing was filmed in season 5 (2015)), I predicted he’d be back, unlike Ned and Robb before him, which would be GRRM’s signal that Act 3 was underway …
So, without further ado, how might GoT end?
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Tags: A Song of Ice and Fire, Arya, Benioff, Bran, Cersei, Daenerys, Game of Thrones, George RR Martin, GRRM, Jaime, Jon Snow, Lord of the Rings, Night King, Sansa, Season 8, Tolkien, Tyrion, Weiss, Westeros
Virtuoso debut performances from Lady Gaga (in her first feature film role) and Bradley Cooper (writer-director as well as actor) lift this remake beyond the humdrum into, well, star-making territory. Cooper is a surprisingly competent singer, but it’s Gaga who powers the 3 showstoppers “Shallow”, “Always Remember Us This Way”, and “I’ll Never Love Again”. Expect multiple Oscar nominations.
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Tags: A Star Is Born, Academy Awards, Ally Maine, Always Remember Us This Way, Bradley Cooper, I'll Never Love Again, Jackson Maine, Lady Gaga, musical, Oscar, romance, Shallow, Stefani Germanotta
The biggest challenges facing JJ Abrams with Ep9 are the same as he’s faced for the entire Sequel Trilogy, to whit: (1) satisfying fans of the Original Trilogy, and (2) creating the next generation of fans with the new cast/direction. By ‘fan’ I don’t mean someone who just goes and watches each movie dutifully once (like say a typical ‘fan’ of the Mission Impossible franchise might), but someone who watches all the movies multiple times, gets their friends and kids and parents to watch it, and buys into all the merchandise for years or even decades: toys, Halloween costumes, books, comics, TV spin-offs, games, theme park tickets, etc. Ideally Disney/Kennedy/Abrams would want to fulfill both (1) AND (2), but if it comes down to it, they could give up some of (1) if they get more of (2) in return. The worse case scenario would be if they whiffed on both …
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Tags: A New Hope, character, characterization, Disney, Elsa, Frozen, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Hunger Games, Jedi, JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Kylo Ren, Lucasfilm, Luke Skywalker, Marvel, Pixar, Return of the Jedi, Rey, Rian Johnson, Rose Tico, Star Wars, story, story arc, storytelling, The Avengers, The Empire Strikes Back, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Transformers
I gave it a week to percolate, so here’s my take on Ep8 THE LAST JEDI (2017): if you like Star Wars, or tentpole blockbusters, then go see it, if you haven’t already! It’s better than Ep7 THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015) – primarily because director Rian Johnson takes the creative risks which JJ Abram’s didn’t/couldn’t in what boiled down to his mega-budgeted fanfic remake of Ep4 A NEW HOPE (1977). But marked blemishes keep Ep8 from surpassing Ep4 or Ep5 THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) – mostly since the narration and characters still have to fit the defective straitjacket established by Kathleen Kennedy/Abrams in Ep7. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: A New Hope, Asian American, character, characterization, Disney, Elsa, Frozen, George Lucas, Han Solo, Jedi, JJ Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, Kylo Ren, Leia Organa, Lucasfilm, Luke Skywalker, plot, Return of the Jedi, Rey, Rian Johnson, Ring Theory, Rose Tico, Star Wars, story, story arc, The Empire Strikes Back, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi
Tom Cruise has still ‘got it’ as the smirking action hero, in an intelligent sci-fi thriller which is this year’s Inception (2010) or Looper (2012). Like the earlier films, it’s fun, well-acted with an intriguing intellectual premise which requires some concentration to follow; but also like them they aren’t ultimately deep or meaningful. In other words, an excellent summer blockbuster.
In this case the premise is based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novella “All You Need Is Kill” (2004), and can be described as a mashup of Groundhog Day (1993) and Aliens (1986) – the former of which enables Cruise to burnish some comic relief chops among all the save-the-world seriousness. It’s probably also the best video game movie made so far (despite ironically not being based on a video game IP); the protagonist’s antics feel just like replaying a hard level of a 3D action game again and again until you finally beat it. Perhaps this film’s success, and its Japanese source material, might persuade studio execs to fund a live-action “The Legend of Zelda; Majora’s Mask”? …
** Spoiler alert ** After watching the film, it seemed the ending was a bit too ‘happy’ … sure enough, after some checking, the source material is a bit darker. I think execs made the right revenue-maximizing choice keeping the tone lighter and more accessible, but as a geek it would have been cool if they had made the originally written ending work, as for a double bonus it would have required a beefier role for Emily Blunt 🙂
Tags: action thriller, Aliens, All You Need is Kill, Doug Liman, Edge of Tomorrow, Emily Blunt, Groundhog Day, sci-fi, time travel, Tom Cruise
Back to welcome form for Bryan Singer and the X-men franchise in this ‘reboot’ (though is it a reboot if it has the same director and actors? …) Intelligent action thriller, though if it doesn’t quite hit the mark, it is because:
(1) It has so many characters (and 2x the actors per character due to the dual timelines, 1970s and 2020s) so several of them get short-shrift. E.g. Jennifer Lawrence is wasted by only needing to pout in blue body paint, Peter ‘Tyrion’ Dinklage only has scope to be the token obsessed scientist, and Ian McKellen as the elder Magneto only has time to show us a scowlier Gandalf in futuristic body armor and short hair
(2) There is a little too much fan-service to previous films that confuse the casual viewer and flatten any attempted emotional high notes (e.g. who is that red head again, and why should she matter? etc.)
That being said, the best (and signature X-men) bits are the new super powers that are smartly blended into the action, specifically Blink’s Portal throwing ability (art imitating video games?) and Quicksilver’s lightning reflexes.
For X-men afficiandos, a sequel is already planned, X-Men Apocalypse, which is set in the 1980s of the reset timeline. It hasn’t taken that long, and now comic book movies are just as convoluted as the comic book series inspirations. Don’t know if that’s a good thing …Â
Tags: action thriller, Bryan Singer, Days of Future Past, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, superheroes, X-Men
Witty, charming, original; an old-school Hollywood caper film leavened by Wes Anderson’s quaint sensibility and the faintest hint of social satire. And who would have thought Ralph Fiennes capable of fine comedic timing? Worthwhile viewing.
Tags: caper, comedy, Grand Budapest Hotel, Ralph Fiennes, Wes Anderson
Helmed by Christopher Nolan’s director of photography, TRANSCENDENCE is Nolanesque grand concept sci fi that has a promising premise and high production values, but ultimately falls short. The script doesn’t do justice to the story’s central dilemma, nor to its moral implications. Instead major characters end up doing nonsensical things with unclear motivations, and the ending, instead of being intriguing and – well – transcendent (like Nolan’s better films), is instead confusing and trite. Entertaining, up to a point.
Coda: for sci fi geeks expecting a film that intelligently explores the fun ideas of singularity and transhumanism, unfortunately, you need to look elsewhere
Tags: Christopher Nolan, Johnny Depp, sci-fi, singularity, Transcendence, transhumanism, Wally Pfister
More aptly named “DERIVATIVE”, this YA coming-of-age fantasy faintly echoes what comes before – it makes THE HUNGER GAMES (2012) look almost literary by comparison, via an appealing female lead (though Shailene Woodley is no Jennifer Lawrence), a dystopian society (though not as in-depth or satirical) with a conniving but one-dimensional villain (on this, Kate Winslet ties with Donald Sutherland), and a chaste teen romance a la TWILIGHT (2008). The training sequences are a pale imitation of STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), PACIFIC RIM (2013) or even the the flawed ENDER’S GAME (2013). I even half-expected the film to crack open the tried-and-tested “your world is a nested subroutine” trick from GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995), THE MATRIX (1999) or INCEPTION (2010) – though thankfully, we didn’t have to see a ‘hacked’ version of that … Overall, mildly diverting if you like this sort of thing.
As an aside, I have heard said that the movie is better than the books, in which case I’d like to (1) congratulate the 20-something Ms Roth on being able to rake in so much $$$ with so little effort, and (2) officially warn anyone against reading them ..
Tags: coming of age, Divergent, dystopia, Ender's Game, Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Winslet, Neil Burger, sci-fi, Shailene Woodley, Starship Troopers, Twilight, Veronica Roth, young adult fiction
Primeval story-telling meets latest big budget Hollywood CGI extravaganza in Darren Aronofsky’s NOAH, which recasts the Biblical-Babylonian myth in the mould of Peter Jackson’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS – though adding Aronofsky’s trademark exploration of the psychopathic toll that the experience would have had on the protagonist (played by a grizzledly intense Russell Crowe). Ambitiously dives headlong into themes of good vs. evil, human depravity, environmentalism, family ties, and of course, mass catastrophic extinction by drowning. Seriously entertaining.
Next up: Christian Bale as Moses in Ridley Scott’s EXODUS …
Tags: Black Swan, CGI, Darren Aronofsky, epic, Lord of the Rings, Noah, Peter Jackson, Russell Crowe
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