Movie News

Humanity Rises and Falls

Shocked and dismayed over the Aurora Massacre

By: Lawrence Napoli

 

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I must acknowledge the senseless tragedy that occurred today (7/20/12) in the US city of Aurora, Colorado.  According to TheGuardian.co.uk as well as a plethora of coverage from CNN and various other media entities, a masked gunman [now identified as James Holmes] opened fire on a crowd of people attending the premier of The Dark Knight Rises at a local mall, killing 12 and injuring 38.  Details of the investigation are developing, but I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the wounded and families of the victims of this horrible evil.  My thoughts and prayers are with you all.  This film represents a lot of what’s good in humanity.  But when insanity like this shooting occurs, it makes me ashamed to admit that I am man.  Real world tragedy is linked to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and when considering this incident in light of Heath Ledger’s death prior to the release of The Dark Knight, the rest of us are left stunned and simply wondering “why?” 

This article began as a simple film review, but reading and hearing the news coverage of this incident has made it impossible for me to focus on the absolute, cinematic gold that The Dark Knight Rises is.  The shear confusion I feel as a result of trying reconcile the inspiration of the film with the horror of the shooting has left me beside myself with only one thought in mind: What can an idea do?  The themes that are passionately at work in Rises as well as its previous installments feature ideas that could easily inspire great evil as well as good.  I WILL NOT speculate that ANY idea from Nolan’s trilogy directly inspired James Holmes, but it is impossible to ignore the proximity of the incident to the film considering no connection to organized terror or antisocial groups has been established.  That being said, it must be noted that an individual empowering him or herself to affect social change is the key theme to the entire Batman mythos.  Misinterpreted; an individual who departs from reality, consumed by despair or indoctrinated by extremism, may find any ends justifying any means.  Batman himself confronted this issue specifically in The Dark Knight when he stated that he meant to inspire people for the better, not to glorify vigilantism.  Dramatic, symbolic events are rarely (if ever) without negative effects and the evidence of this is the entirety of human history.

People are angry and saddened by this event and we instantly want to know how tragedies like this can be allowed to happen.  News networks immediately got into the issue regarding access to guns, tactical gear and rudimentary explosives: a popular springboard for gun lobbyists to debate with control advocates.  This country has witnessed more than enough of these public shootings to prove that if someone wants a gun (ANY type of gun) that individual is going to get it, background checks or not.  This leads us to consider the question regarding security, specifically how much is enough.  I am by no means an expert, nor do I have any statistics to back up a worthy opinion as to an appropriate officer to overall crowd ratio, but I can tell you what I observed when I attended the 3:30 AM premier at my local Regal Cinemas.  There was one armed (and portly) officer on duty and there were hundreds of patrons in attendance. 

I applaud Warner Bros. for making an immediate response to this incident and for cancelling tonight’s Paris premier in addition to press interviews out of respect to the victims.  Yes, life goes on, but to draw ritzy attention to this film is inappropriate at this time.  I am certain the world will be interested in what Christopher Nolan and his entire cast have to say about this, but hopefully the media will not push for this until at least next week.

As for the media, the sad truth is that coverage of this incident will dominate the entire weekend and most of the following weeks.  This inflates the ego and following of the sociopath.  Eventually, he will have his say either in court and/or in front of the cameras and the networks will milk that event for all it’s worth.  As a society, we must get away from the constant news regurgitation of tragedies like this because doing so places evil people further up on the pedestal.  How many times do we need to see the same cell phone video clips?  Perhaps I am no better in fueling the issue further by writing this, but unlike my TV based brethren, this will be my one and only say.  Also, I love the fact that it didn’t take long before CNN had its criminal profiler, Pat Brown, making reference to violent video games and movies for this teenage psychopath who accomplished (in her words) “the most important thing he will ever do with his life.”  In my opinion, any expert that leads with this kind of information should have their “expert” status revoked.  I don’t dismiss the relevance of violent video games and movies, but if the connection to violent behavior were incontrovertible, we’d have millions of mass murderers walking the streets.    

While watching the news coverage, I noticed Sanjay Gupta’s commercial promoting his new show “The Human Factor,” featuring individuals who “beat the odds” and have done great things to inspire.  Life and irony run hand in hand.  Where’s “the human factor” in situations such as this?  I find no humanity in slaughtering innocents, but that’s because I still hold on to hope for our species to one day discard the selfishness, the greed and the rage and if that makes me a resident of Fantasy Land, then so be it.  The very word, “humanity” carries a positive connotation, almost altruistic, that simply cannot be justified in situations such as the Aurora massacre.  However, when people have been singled out for doing the wrong thing, we have been described as being “only human.”  So which is it?  Are we enlightened or are we wild? 

Heroes in entertainment began as incorruptible symbols, but as the times change, the need to produce stories that are edgy, dark and “real” have somewhat tarnished that appeal.  The Dark Knight Rises has been criticized by some for being “too real” which should only be an issue for human beings that have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, i.e. psychopaths.  This film is incredibly intense in terms of drama and suspense and very high minded when it comes to social and political commentary.  These are the signatures of master filmmaker, Christopher Nolan and perhaps a person is intelligent and mature enough to digest the issues raised by TDKR, but people in general may not be ready to handle this.  Make no mistake.  This film does not incite violence or anarchy, but merely presents an extreme scenario that puts the individual’s character to the test if luxury, status quo and civilization go up in smoke.  If pushed to the limit, would I die a hero or live long enough to see myself become the villain?  Would you?

The First Ever Fantasy Hollywood Draft

 

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:1906:]]Every entertainment website has fun with “casting calls” for movies we’d all like to see get made by Hollywood.  But what if we turned this process into a bit of a competition by placing limitations on who could be chosen and then compared each respective production based on the strength of the general idea, vision and cast alone?  Well, ladies and gentlemen, what you get is the first ever, Fantasy Hollywood Draft, and the principles of this game operate along the same lines as fantasy sport leagues. 

Seven of CosmicBookNews.com’s contributors got together to put our unique perspectives to the test to see if any and/or all of us have what it takes (more likely, more than what it takes) to lay the groundwork for true Hollywood magic in lieu of the drivel it seems more concerned with outputting in general, year after year.  Our EIC, Matt McGloin, Chris Bushley, Brian Amey, Kevin Faltisco, Casey Gordon, John Tripi and yours truly, Lawrence Napoli conducted a round by round drafting of Hollywood talent to build our fantasy productions. 

As for the rules, we each drafted one director and seven featured actors with the stipulation that no individual talent that was chosen with a draft pick could be used simultaneously with another person’s production.  This reproduces the effect of an actor’s availability provided all of these productions would get made around the same time frame.  Of course, few casts are comprised of just seven actors, and so each theoretical production was allowed any number of supplemental cast members that could be drawn from the remaining talent pool.  For instance, if nobody drafted William Shatner â€” and every one of us figured he’d be a great addition after the draft, we could all include him in our casts.

None of us knew what kind of film any of the others were individually drafting for.  That information will only be revealed when each of us write an article presenting our fantasy films to the online community.  Then we leave it to you, the readers, to determine who constructed the best “fantasy film” and if any one of them could/should be something Hollywood ought to look into.  Everyone seems to have clear ideas for their films as some interesting choices were made that are atypical of “who’s hot right now.”  Greater risk taking in casting is something Hollywood has clearly lost touch with, so perhaps some of our selections will be eye-opening if given a moment or two to percolate.    

Draft order was determined by names drawn from a hat, and what follows is the round by round, overall order of our actual draft picks. 

 

[Round 1]

1) Kevin – Tom Hiddleston

2) Chris – Frank Daranbont (director) 

3) Lawrence – Christopher Nolan (director)

4) Matt – Joss Whedon (director)

5) Brian – Quentin Tarantino (director)

6) Casey – James Cameron (director)

7) John – George Lucas (director)

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[Round 2]

8) John – Karl Urban

9) Casey – Patrick Stewart

10) Brian – John Malkovich

11) Matt – Robert Pattison

12) Lawrence – Liam Neeson

13) Chris – Zach Mills

14) Kevin – Jonathan Liebesman (director)

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[Round 3]

15) Kevin – Cillian Murphy

16) Chris – Rhys Ifans

17) Lawrence – Gary Oldman

18) Matt – Viggo Mortenson

19) Brian – Jospeh Parsons

20) Casey – Chris Hemsworth

21) John – Jeffrey Combs

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[Round 4]

22) John – Chuck Norris

23) Casey – Sean Connery

24) Brian – Anthony Hopkins

25) Matt – Steven Strait                                  

26) Lawrence – James McAvoy

27) Chris – Willow Shields

28) Kevin – “Dane” Judi Dench

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[Round 5]

29) Kevin – Jeremy Renner

30) Chris – Gene Hackman

31) Lawrence – Michael Fassbender

32) Matt – Christina Ricci

33) Brian – John Goodman

34) Casey – Jack Nicholson

35) John – Gina Torres                                

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[Round 6]

36) John – Andrew Lincoln

37) Casey – Tom Felton

38) Brian – Leonard Nimoy                                   

39) Matt – John Cho                                        

40) Lawrence – Joseph Gordon Levitt                                         

41) Chris – Rachael McAdams                                          

42) Kevin – Kate Beckinsale                                                

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[Round 7]

43) Kevin – Charles Dance                                             

44) Chris – Julie Andrews                                      

45) Lawrence – Olivia Wilde                                         

46) Matt – Carlie Casey                                                  

47) Brian – Sean Penn                                              

48) Casey – Cate Blanchett                                          

49) John – Amy Adams                                                  

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[Round 8]

50) John – George Takei                                               

51) Casey – Josh Hutcherson                                       

52) Brian – Robin Williams                         

53) Matt – Christoph Waltz                                       

54) Lawrence – Tim Roth                                   

55) Chris – Riley Griffiths                                        

56) Kevin – Joseph D. Kucan

 

Kratos Would Have Smoked Them All!

A film review of Wrath of the Titans

By: Lawrence Napoli

 

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:1379:]]So the reboot of The Clash of the Titans was apparently worthy of Worthington once again because Perseus returns to face the fire in the Wrath of the Titans.  Theoretically, any film can have a sequel made of it so long as Hollywood makes lots of cash.  However, examining the numbers for this franchise doesn’t make the strongest case for resulting in a big pay day.  Clash had a budget of $125 million, but only grossed $163 million at domestic theatres.  Its sequel has poor timing to deal with seeing how the pre-summer juggernaut, The Hunger Games out earned Wrath during its debut week.  This isn’t particularly good news for Warner Bros. because they coughed up a cool $150 million to get Wrath made.   I guess this just means that The Dark Knight Rises is simply going to have to sell that many more tickets in late July (which it will have no problem doing).  Still, I was intrigued to see if this film could do a little more than its predecessor because the cast was still solid, no screen time had to be dedicated to origin stories or establishing characters, so theoretically, the audience can just roll right into the action and everything would be good.  Well, that was most certainly NOT the case.

Problem #1 was that the general storyline of Wrath has literally been done just a few months ago in November of 2011 for Immortals.  That film also centered around “releasing the Titans” as the major catastrophe that was to be thwarted by the heroics of mankind.  Granted, Wrath’s scale, budget and cast are on a much higher level than Immortals, but there’s no denying the sensation of déjà vu in this film.  Once again ladies and gentlemen, you want the reason for a movie sucking?  You go to the reason a movie sucks: BAD WRITING!  Dan Mazeau, David Johnson and Greg Berlanti apparently had to combine their powers to produce this most heinously generic fiction of fantasy — and guess what boys and girls?  None of them had anything to do with 2010’s Clash of the Titans.  Mazeau is a novice writer in this industry (but has somehow been hired to pen the screenplay for The Flash adaptation), but Johnson and Berlanti have no excuse considering their experience.  Johnson wrote the Chupacabra and Triggerfinger episodes of The Walking Dead TV show in addition to Orphan (2009) and Red Riding Hood (2011).  Berlanti has written for lots of TV as well including Dawson’s Creek, Everwood and Eli Stone, but also was responsible for Green Lantern  and is going to be a producer for Green Lantern 2 (the search for even worse writing).  The only thing interesting about the script of Wrath of the Titans is picking out every single scene, set piece and action sequence that was low-jacked from the God of War video game series.  Otherwise, the story is a jigsaw of inconsequential activity outside of what Perseus does himself.  Every other character could literally have stayed home, chilling out in their loincloths, to ride out the “Titanic” hostilities because their presence made no difference.

Problem #2 was that the action was neither dynamic nor compelling.  I know what you might be thinking: “What about those double torso golems that hacked and slashed their way through the human army that we all saw in the trailers?”  Sorry, but what you’ve already seen is all that you will get in this film.  Generally speaking, all of the “godly” activity at work in Wrath seemed somewhat neutered because they were all lesser substitutes for EVERY action sequence that was created for Clash.  Giant scorpions get subbed with Chimera, Medusa gets subbed with Ares, and (the big bad) Kraken gets subbed with Kronos.  The setup, circumstances and execution of these three major sequences in both films are virtually identical which inevitably lessens the impact of the sequel.  The rest of the action in Wrath is placed on the shoulders of Sam Worthington’s fisticuffs requiring him to wrangle monsters, and go toe to toe with gods.  The one on one combat was choreographed well enough, but again, there was nothing particularly unique about it.  I honestly preferred the 300 stylized violence of Immortals.  Simply put, I felt that more needed to happen than “monster appears, Perseus kills it, rinse and repeat.”  Every physical altercation is extremely brief with the exception of the climactic battle of which Perseus’ participation involves riding his Pegasus the whole time.  Ho hum.

The visual effects in Wrath are incredibly inconsistent.  The most impressive visuals were of the Tartarus labyrinth that was planetary in scale, ever-shifting in layout and featured some very detailed backdrops which really showcased some excellent CG talent.  Unfortunately for me, I experienced all of that before in the God of War video game series and although seeing this otherworldly prison on the silver screen with Hollywood caliber graphics was cool, it really isn’t a far cry from PS2 and PS3.  The least impressive visuals were delivered whenever any marquee god makes an appearance.  Remember Zeus’ awesome lightning armor from Clash?  Well, too bad, because it doesn’t exist anymore as it apparently takes an aneurism to spark a thimble’s worth of lightning for the thunder god.  Poseidon doesn’t demonstrate any abilities at all while Hades uses the same old shadow clouds from Clash.  I was really expecting more from Ares, the (technical) god of war, but all he really does is swing a large hammer — the end.  I felt that the character design of all the monsters: Chimera, Cyclops, Kronos, Minotaur and Makhai were excellent.  Their action, powers and abilities felt very restricted as none ever seemed like actual threats to Perseus at any time.  If CG opposition is not showed harming any of the main characters in some graphic way, they must display their relevance through massive collateral damage of the environment and/or extras.  The world was relatively unscathed and the body count not nearly high enough for this mythic, end of the world scenario.

Actors can make or break the best and worst films.  The potential for a performance to forgive plot gaps and nonsensical circumstances is the reason why big budget films haven’t invested more in digitizing the entire cast.  After having seen Wrath of the Titans, I’m fairly certain digital actors would have been an upgrade.  I must immediately mention that the performance of Ray Fiennes as Hades is the worst of his career which is such a disappointment because he is a great actor that has an incredibly diverse collection of performances under his belt.  I couldn’t have imagined a less menacing and evil Hades even if I was having a mescaline induced wet dream.  Rosamund Pike’s performance as Queen Andromeda (warrior princess) was fine as the token love interest for an action/adventure, but her contribution to the plot as a character is irrelevant short of having the need for at least one pretty face.  Toby Kebbell provided some much needed comic relief with his rendition of Agenor, but his opportunities to shine were severely limited.  Liam Neeson redefines “going through the motions” with his reprisal of Zeus.  In many ways, his performance is the polar opposite of what he delivered earlier in the year for The Grey which was simply layered with emotion after emotion.  As for Sam Worthington, well I like him in any role where his thick Australian accent isn’t a distraction, but in a Greek mythology film where everyone else in the cast uses an English accent, Worthington’s “ausie” is far too out of place.  Unfortunately, this aspect of his performance could not be addressed because Perseus spoke this way in the first film thanks to a gutless, visionless or simply dumb (take your pick) decision by director Louis Leterrier to allow his natural accent in the first place.  Regardless, Worthington is solid as the male lead in this kind of film because all it requires is being hard and kicking ass. 

I found myself second guessing the desire to see this film in the first place with every word I typed in this review because it was truly forgettable in every way.  Ultimately this movie is an absolute pass as I suggest to you all to save that $8 and put it towards an IMAX 3D ticket for The Avengers.  What’s interesting to make note of is the affect globalization has had on Hollywood, specifically when it comes to bad movies and the money they make overseas.  As of April 10, 2012 Wrath of the Titans has grossed about $61 million dollars in the US which is less than half of its original budget, but its global returns are estimated at $213 million.  Never before has lowering standards while maximizing profits been more relevant than it is today because it is the dominant, global, economic philosophy that pervades all business.  In 1995, Kevin Costner’s Waterworld set the new standard for sub par filmmaking as it was reviled in the American media primarily for being terrible, but also for its pathetic returns at the box office.  It only grossed $88 million on a budget of $175 million, yet its global returns yielded $264 million so it begs the question if this film ever deserved moniker of “biggest flop of all time” in the first place.  The truth is there is great money in bad filmmaking so long as enough money is fronted in the first place.  Profits in Hollywood may not always be exponential (Green Lantern’s global returns were $219 million on a budget of $200 million), but they can be assured when taking retail and on demand sales into account.  Personally, I’m done with Greek mythology films until Sony gives the thumbs up for the God of War adaptation.