Man of Steel/World War Z

Going in my interest in seeing both of these could be described as moderate at best.  I just don't find Superman to be that interesting of a character, and as for World War Z, do we really need more zombies (given the box office success probably yes)? But, I found myself out of town for the weekend with some time to kill in a city that was 100 degrees, so here we are.

As for Man of Steel, Vince over a Filmdrunk had a pretty good review of this most recent entry to the Superman series, and I think he hits most of the big issues with it.  I agree with people who say the first half has some interesting ideas but the second half just degenerates into a pretty generic action thriller with some glaring, to say the least, plot holes.  I even like Zach Snyder (an opinion that seems to be in the minority, at least among 'serious' film fans). I thought 300 had a manic energy to it that was a lot of fun, and had be able to infuse some of that energy into Man of Steel then the film could have avoided turning into slog most of the last hour plus ends up being.  But whatever, its a solid C film. Not horrible,but nothing I feel any desire to watch again.

A couple of other random thoughts:

-This is probably a spoiler but the way Pa Kent dies is just idiotic. Basically he goes back to save the dog and waves off Clark so he can keep his abilities secret. I like dogs as much as the next guy (editors note: That is a lie, Eric's interest in dogs could be described as ambivalent at best), but when a tornado is bearing down I think its time to let little Sparky try to make it out himself. He had a good run.
-Its an old comment that these superhero films (or action films in general) just ignore the collateral damage that our ostensible protagonist unleashes in the name of 'justice' but Man of Steel turns it up to 11. Easily millions of people die while superman is doing his thing, and nobody really seems to notice. If the film exhibited any sense of humor I would almost think they were making a commentary about action films, but it shows no indication of self-awareness at all.
-Michael shannon just isn't that good as General Zod, but since he's usually excellent I'm going to assume  a lot of that has to do with how dumb the plot surrounding him is.

Now the one big advantage World War Z has over Superman is that its a half an hour shorter. I mean that as  a compliment. Besides the relative brevity Z is a compentently paced action film with a few interesting ideas interspersed with a lot of A-B-C action. Its not boring,but its also not all that compelling. Really the best way to describe it is that I entered indifferent, and left indifferent. Not bored, just kind of 'meh.' Basically its not worth seeking out, but if you run across it on cable one day you could do worse.

Now you See Me

So yeah, magicians as bank robbers, but not really. Whatever, I liked the cast and after a day of reading labor migration research I didn't want to watch anything that caused me to have to think too much. And it definitely met that bar. Its watchable, mainly because of the cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fischer, the Franco bother who was on Scrubs, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo), but also needlessly complicated (not in a you can't follow way, but in a 'if you think about what's actually happening for more than a second the plot doesn't hold up at all' way) and takes itself a little too seriously for what should have been a pretty light heist movie (it needlessly revolves around this idea of what 'true' magic is).

But whatever, the most fascinating part of the experience was this guy about three rows back. He could not have been more entertained. He was busting up at the film's couple of half-hearted attempts at a one-liners, and at the big 'twist' ending he about lost his, pardon the vernacular, shit all over the theatre. I worry  if he saw a film that was actually clever and surprising, like say The Usual Suspects, he may actually have a heart attack.  So I guess its good that middle of the road, immediately forgettable, films like this exist. There's a certain segment of the population who wouldn't be able to go to the cinema and come out alive otherwise.

Before Midnight

Before Midnight represents the third film in a series (after Before Sunrise and Before Sunset) that periodically  (every nine years)checks in with two lovers played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy.  Its kind of a fictionalized version of the 7-up series, and sets out to show the progression of a relationship over time and, in particular, how messy and complicated things can become.  Like the previous films, Before Midnight is ambitious, interesting, and contain a lot of truth, but I'm not sure that I really enjoy watching it that much.

The biggest problem with all three, and this one in particular, is that they're almost too literary. The entire film is almost entirely monologues, which I'm sure plays well on the page, but end up just becoming exhausting by the end of the film. Really each conversation ends up feeling like a one act play with lots of grand statements and truths being compressed into a short amount of time. I don't deny that people often have conversations like this, but all at once was a bit much for me. Also the amount of vitriol that was spilled had me wondering how Hawke and Delphy were still together. I get that point of the film was the relationship they built in the previous two entries is what pulls them through the conflict, and I like how everything is still a bit ambiguous at the end, but I still ended up feeling restless as it played out.

That said these are still bold films and I appreciate how they endeavor to portray a real relationship. There are certainly moments that capture real truth in each film, but I do feel like the execution falls short of the ambition.

A whole bunch of stuff

I saw a fair amount of stuff around/during a recent international trip. I'm sure at one point I had a coherent narrative about all of them, but I'm too lazy to write more than a few disjointed notes.

Iron Man 3

At this point I just enjoy hanging out with the Tony Stark character so much that the action is actually something I just sort of put up with while waiting to get back to the smack talk. The film dealt with the problem of why the other Avengers/S.H.I.E.L.D. never show up to help out by just ignoring their existence, which I guess is the best possible approach. As a result this ended up being the most standalone Marvel Film since the first Iron Man. In fact writer/director Shane Black kind of turned it into a superhero equivalent of an 80's cop film, with one of the few non-annoying kid characters in film history, and Jarvis the computer, playing the role of Downey's partners.  The film also has some nice moments of humor (particularly how it treats the Mandarin character and a great cameo by Max from Happy Endings (RIP)) and manages to keep the tone relatively light until the obligatory massive final fight. I don't know if this is the best Marvel film, but it was generally entertaining.

Star Trek Into Darkness

I actually saw this twice. While Into Darkness is a nice continuation of its predecessor, it spends a little to much time referencing the earlier incarnations of the series. The last half an hour or so in particular gets really goofy as they pretty much take the ending of Star trek 2: Wrath of Khan and just flip the roles of the two main characters, culminating in a moment that had me laughing out loud in the theater (both times).  I think the comedy in this case was completely intentional (I hope), but I think the makers of these films have played out just re-imagining the original films and need to start taking the characters in a new direction.  Otherwise the series runs the risk of becoming a series of in jokes and fan-service, as opposed to something bigger.

Also, the ending is essentially the same as Iron Man 3 which was interesting (or not).

6 fast 6 furious

I found the whole Fast and Furious franchise (which in my case consisted of just watching the first film) to be completely completely tedious until Fast 5. In that film the filmmakers decided to embrace the inherent cheesiness of the premise and turned out the closest thing to an over the top 80’s action comedy (in a good way) that I’d seen in a while.  6 fast continues in this tradition, but with less narrative coherence (something I never thought I’d attribute to Fast 5).  Other than The Rock, the acting is really bad and the two leads (Vin Diesal and Paul Walker) actually seem to think they’re participating in a real bad-ass action film.  The fact that they take it so seriously of course adds to my enjoyment (and also explains my love for One Tree Hill).

Like any great unintentionally comedic movie,  the intentionally comedic elements of the film (meant to be embodied by the Minstrel Show that is Tyrese and Ludacris) are laugh free, and in this case borderline racist. All the fun comes from the over the top action (At one point Vin knocks out three bad guys with a flying head butt), groan inducing dialogue (too many to mention) and the constant effort to make it look like Vin Diesel is as tall as The Rock.  The film is definitely too long, but I still laughed out loud a lot, which is more than I can say for a lot of mainstream comedies.

This is the End

I don't have a lot to say about this other than its actually pretty funny, if a bit long and maybe a little too insular. The actors have a nice chemistry, and it made me really want a sequel to the criminally underrated Your Highness. I'm not sure how broad the appeal of something like this is, but its certainly worth seeing if you enjoy the idea of James Fanco, Seth Rogen, Danny McBride and company basically just spending $20 million to sit around and talk trash to each other for a couple of hours.