Film Flash: Trainwreck

15 words or less film review (full review to follow soon)

Raunchy comedy that strangely idealizes traditional family/married life while trashing it.  Could've been funnier.

2 and 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Film Review: Terminator Genisys

I remember when I was young I thought film critics were snobs.  I loved movies like Flash Gordon and The Goonies.  And I remembered movie critics on TV trashing movies like these because of the bad acting.  I was so angry once that I ranted to my brother, "Acting?  Who cares about acting?  If the story is good and it looks cool, what does acting matter?"  I believed critics were just nit-picking good movies on irrelevant trivialities.

But writing this review feels like traveling back in time to the 1980's and revealing to my younger self that I have become the monster I used to hate.  I have become that snob.

Because it is the acting that sinks Terminator: Genisys.

The plot revolves around Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) who is a loyal soldier to John Conner (Jason Clarke), the leader of the last human resistance against the evil machines of Skynet.  As is part of the Terminator lore, John must send Kyle back in time to protect his mother Sarah (in this movie played by Emilia Clarke) and become John's father, even though he knows it will cost Kyle his life.  In this film we get to see the events that lead up to the time travel, but something goes wrong.  Kyle is sent back to 1984, but there is a liquid metal T-1000 (Byung-Hun Lee) waiting for him as well as a leather-clad Sarah with her guardian Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) whom she calls "Pops."

I don't want to get into all the twists and turns of the movie, because that is the most enjoyable part.  I admire the attempt to jump start the franchise by doing something new with the mythology.  And some of the action sequences are fairly well done.

But I couldn't care about any of it because the actors were awful.

The chief sinner is Courtney as Kyle.  I'm not sure that it is even really his fault.  He is just horribly cast.  He has nothing of what made the original version of Kyle so good.  If you remember from the first Terminator, Kyle is haunted, hunted solider.  There is an intense desperation in his eyes.  His body is sinewy but not bulky.  You believed he grew up desperate and starving.  Michael Biehn deserves more credit than I think I have given him the past.

Courtney's Kyle is a thick-necked brute.  He is way out of his depth.  I couldn't find anything compelling about him in this role.  The script doesn't help him either.  Biehn's Kyle would get injured and could barely walk at times.  Courtney's Kyle gets full on slammed by a car on a highway while naked, is sent flying several feet in the air… and he comes off with barely a scratch.  How can I feel any fear for him or his danger?

And Emilia Clarke is not much better.  She feels like a little girl play dress up.  Linda Hamilton was Clarke's age when she originally played Sarah.  But I defy anyone to tell me that Clarke matches the maturity and power of Hamilton as Sarah (and we are talking about Sarah before she became a psychopath in T2).

On top of this, Courtney and Clarke have zero chemistry.  They talk about how they are supposed to fall in love, but it feels like parents from 2 different families telling their kids that they should get married.  It is all artificial.  If I had never seen the original movies, I may be less harsh.  But this is a franchise film that leans heavily on nostalgia for the originals.  All of that raw energy of the original two has been smoothed-out and dipped in suffocating shiny plastic.  I feel the rage many felt at how Darth Vader could be cast with Hayden Christiansen.

Schwarzenegger is serviceable once again as the Terminator.  He is often imitated and derided as an actor but he actually has a great deal of charisma and skill.  Unfortunately, director Alan Taylor failed to get a James Cameron-level performance out of him.  But Schwarzenegger does a decent job.  And they are able to work out his age issue fairly well.

There are other plot holes that I won't get into detail here including a needless change in setting from 1984 to 2015.  The movie tries to bring up traditional Terminator ideas like fate vs. free will, but there is little that resonates because the characters as presented in the script and the acting are so flat.  Different actors may have helped make this movie better; it wouldn't be great, but it would be decent.

But the horrible casting is the hydraulic press crushing the life out of it.

It is clear from the end that this movie is set up to be the beginning of new trilogy.  But if the follow up films are going to be done with the same cast, then I make the filmmakers this plea:

Don't come back.

1 and 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Emmy Nominations 2015: My Thoughts

photo by Alan Light

The nominees for this year's Emmys have just been announced.

For those who don't care about award shows and what they mean, feel free to skip this post.  But I think that there is actually insight that can be gained from these things.  The pushers of pop culture are telling us here what they think is important.  And we can understand how they will try to influences us better.

But for me, I just enjoy award shows.

Here are some of the major nominees (my thoughts below):

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
“Better Call Saul”
“Downton Abbey”
“Game of Thrones”
“Homeland”
“House of Cards”
“Mad Men”
“Orange is the New Black”

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
“Louie”
“Modern Family”
“Parks and Recreation”
“Silicon Valley”
“Transparent”
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
“Veep”

LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA

Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”
Kyle Chandler, “Bloodline”
Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”
Jon Hamm, “Mad Men”
Jeff Daniels, “The Newsroom”
Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”

LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA

Taraji P. Henson, “Empire”
Claire Danes, “Homeland”
Viola Davis, “How to Get Away with Murder”
Tatiana Maslany, “Orphan Black”
Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”

LEAD ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Timothy Hutton, “American Crime”
Ricky Gervais, “Derek Special”
Adrien Brody, “Houdini”
David Oyelowo, “Nightingale”
Richard Jenkins, “Olive Kitteridge”
Mark Rylance, “Wolf Hall”

LEAD ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Felicity Huffman, “American Crime”
Jessica Lange, “American Horror Story”
Queen Latifah, “Bessie”
Maggie Gyllenhaal, “The Honorable Woman”
Frances McDormand, “Olive Kitteridge”
Emma Thompson, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street”

LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY

Anthony Anderson, “black-ish”
Matt LeBlanc, “Episodes”
Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”
Will Forte, “The Last Man On Earth”
Louis C.K., “Louie”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent”

LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY

Lisa Kudrow, “The Comeback”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace And Frankie”
Amy Schumer, “Inside Amy Schumer”
Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie”
Amy Poehler, “Parks And Recreation”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep”

REALITY-COMPETITION SERIES

“The Amazing Race”
“Dancing With The Stars”
“Project Runway”
“So You Think You Can Dance”
“Top Chef”
“The Voice”

VARIETY SERIES

“The Colbert Report”
“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
“Late Show With David Letterman”
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”

LIMITED SERIES

“American Crime”
“American Horror Story: Freak Show”
“The Honorable Woman”
“Olive Kitteridge”
“Wolf Hall”

VARIETY SKETCH SERIES

“Drunk History”
“Inside Amy Schumer”
“Key & Peele”
“Portlandia”
“Saturday Night Live”

TELEVISION MOVIE

“Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Curtain, Poirot’s Last Case”
“Bessie”
“Grace of Monaco”
“Hello Ladies: The Movie”
“Killing Jesus”
“Nightingale”

SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA

Jonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”
Ben Mendelsohn, “Bloodline”
Jim Carter, “Downton Abbey”
Peter Dinklage, “Game Of Thrones”
Alan Cumming, “The Good Wife”
Michael Kelly, “House Of Cards”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA

Joanne Froggatt, “Downton Abbey”
Lena Headey, “Game Of Thrones”
Emilia Clarke, “Game Of Thrones”
Christine Baranski, “The Good Wife”
Christina Hendricks, “Man Men”
Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is The New Black”

GUEST ACTOR, DRAMA

Alan Alda, “The Blacklist”
Michael J. Fox, “The Good Wife”
F. Murray Abraham, “Homeland”
Reg E. Cathey, “House of Cards”
Beau Bridges, “Masters Of Sex”
Pablo Schreiber, “Orange Is The New Black”

GUEST ACTRESS, DRAMA

Margo Martindale, “The Americans”
Diana Rigg, “Game of Thrones”
Rachel Brosnahan, “House Of Cards”
Cicely Tyson, “How To Get Away With Murder”
Allison Janney, “Masters Of Sex”
Khandi Alexander, “Scandal”

SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY

Andre Braugher, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”
Adam Driver, “Girls”
Keegan-Michael Key, “Key & Peele”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Tony Hale, “Veep”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY

Mayim Bialik, “The Big Bang Theory”
Niecy Nash, “Getting On”
Julie Bowen, “Modern Family”
Allison Janney, “Mom”
Kate McKinnon “Saturday Night Live”
Gaby Hoffmann, “Transparent”
Jane Krakowski, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Anna Chlumsky, “Veep”

GUEST ACTOR, COMEDY

Mel Brooks, “The Comedians”
Paul Giamatti, “Inside Amy Schumer”
Bill Hader, “Saturday Night Live”
Louis C.K., “Saturday Night Live”
Bradley Whitford, “Transparent”
Jon Hamm, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

GUEST ACTRESS, COMEDY

Christine Baranski, “The Big Bang Theory”
Gaby Hoffmann, “Girls”
Pamela Adlon, “Louie”
Elizabeth Banks, “Modern Family”
Joan Cusack, “Shameless”
Tina Fey, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

SUPPORTING ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Richard Cabral, “American Crime”
Denis O’Hare, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
Finn Wittrock, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
Michael Kenneth Williams, “Bessie”
Bill Murray, “Olive Kitteridge”
Damian Lewis, “Wolf Hall”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Regina King, “American Crime”
Sarah Paulson, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
Angela Bassett, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
Kathy Bates, “American Horror Story: Freak Show”
Mo’Nique, “Bessie”
Zoe Kazan, “Olive Kitteridge”

Here are my thoughts:

1.  Amy Schumer is the new Lena Dunham.
-I noted that Girls did not get nominated for best comedy and Dunham did not get a nomination for best actress.  I guess falsely accusing people of rape while admitting to molesting your baby sister is not the best way to boost your career.  But fear not, we have another foul-mouthed supposed "funny girl" to take her place.  I used to like Amy Schumer until she was on a panel show deriding a man for advocating saving yourself for marriage.  She just did a vulgar photo shoot for GQ and has a raunchy comedy coming out.  The media is pushing her hard.  We will see if she takes.  Based on anecdotal responses from some of my students, they love her.

2.  Ellie Kemper is snubbed.
-The Unbreakable Kimmi Schmidt is only tolerable because Ellie Kemper is fantastic in the lead role.  Everyone else is awful.  But nominations were given to other people that should never have been given, especially Tina Fey.  I'm not saying that Fey is a bad actress, but her character and performance on the show was simply awful.  But all of this fanfare for the worst parts of the show is like saying the best part of childbirth is the labor pain.

3.  Critic/audience divide.
The top 10 highest rated scripted shows of the year are these:
-The Big Bang Theory
-NCIS
-The Walking Dead
-NCIS: New Orleans
-Empire
-Scorpion
-Blue Bloods
-The Blacklist
-How to Get Away With Murder
-Criminal Minds

And none of these were nominated for best comedy or drama.

Now I have never said that popularity is necessarily an indicator of quality.  But it is strange that NONE of these shows were nominated for the best.  Maybe I am out of touch too, because I only watch 2 of the shows on this list: The Big Bang Theory and The Walking Dead.  But I would acknowledge that they deserve nominations over some of the ones up there.

4.  Edgy vs. Timeless.
-Honestly, will anybody be watching most of these shows in 10 years?  Besides Parks and Recreation, there are no shows nominated that I continue to watch regularly after the shows first air.  I might go back to Better Call Saul and perhaps if it improves House of Cards as well.  But will any of these other shows hold up?  Maybe, but I don't see it.

Thoughts?

Trailer Time: Suicide Squad Comic Con Trailer

My thoughts:

1.  Viola Davis is awesome as Amanda Waller.  I love the way she delivers the line "Getting people to act against their own self interest is what I do."

2.  I was surprised at how little they emphasized either Will Smith or Tom Hardy in this trailer.

3.  As cool as it looks, I want to see more of the characters personalities and how they play off of each other.

4.  Loved the bad guy wearing the Batman mask as he shoots up the place.

5.  I really liked Jared Leto's Joker so far.  He is scary.

6.  The slow child singing feels like a rip-off from the "Got No Strings" in the Age of Ultron trailer.

7.  I know that it's Margot Robbie playing Harley Quinn.  But I can't help but see Britta (Gillian Jacobs) from Community when I look at her.  Is it me?

Thoughts?

X-Blasphemy: The X-Men-Apocalypse Comic Con Teaser

I was able to see a cut of the X-Men Apocalypse teaser from Comic Con.  I wanted to be incredibly excited about it, but there was a big problem.

The main villain is Apocalypse.  He is an ancient mutant who has gone through history like a god.  But in the trailer he says this:

"I've been called many things over many lifetimes: Ra, Krishna, Yahweh…"

So, this comic book movie is saying that the God of Abraham, the One revealed by Scripture, the Maker and Redeemer of all, is actually an evil blue mutant.

Now, for those who are saying that this is fiction and we should just lighten up, keep in mind what is being said: Judaism, Christianity (and actually Hinduism), are religions with ideologies that are compatible with a genocidal megalomaniac.

I have no problem believing that X-Men would make a direct attack on religion.  Col Stryker from 3 of the X-Men films got his start in the comics not as a military man but as a Christian preacher who advocated mass murder of mutants, including children.

And in the the 25 cent issue sold a few years ago, the first line of the story was, "More people have died in the name of religion than have ever died of cancer… and we try to cure cancer."

I am open-minded and am willing to entertain the idea this line was just Apocalypse trying to aggrandize himself and shake the faith of his enemies.  But the makers of the film are going to have to prove this to me.

As of now, I am resolved to not see this movie.  And I might be the only one who noticed.  I can't find anyone else writing about this cinematic blasphemy.  This is a shame because I love the X-Men franchise.

I think 20th Century Fox is making a huge mistake.

Thoughts?

Sunday Best: Top 25 TV Dramas of All Time - The Critera

As someone who has written and directed both comedies and dramas, I can tell you easily that comedy is more difficult.

Comedy and drama are two very different animals.  It is rare for anyone to master either.  Last year we went through the Best 25 Sitcoms of All Time.

So now, I decided to go through and rank the best dramas.

(I know I already started the best actresses list, but as I was going through, it occured to me that there are a number of films I need to see before I can write more intelligently about some of the people on the list.)

What makes a good drama?

Here are a few ground rules.

1.  Greatness is determined mostly by transcendance.
You can plot out any series of events.  But as Shakespeare said, the purpose of acting and drama is to "hold a mirror up to nature."  The best shows touch on something deep and universal.  This can be something high and spiritual or something gut-wrenching and visceral.  But it should strike that special chord that goes beyond mere observation.


2.  Series length is not a determination of greatness.
There are some shows that are very popular and run for years, but stick around way too long.  (I'm looking at you, ER).  But there are some that are great but are not appreciated enough in their time (Freaks and Geeks).   So the number of episodes will not be a determining factor (though it may be brought up).  This was a controversial point.  Particularly Rick O. took me to task for putting the short-running Clerks: The Animated Series on my Sitcom list.  Something tells me that there will be one or two on this list that will also find similar ire for their brevity.

3.  Comedy does not make the show a great drama.
The mixture of drama into comedy can be incredibly powerful.  Juxtaposing laughter with tears can be an incredibly cathartic experience.  But that mixture, in and of itself, does not make a great drama.  I am thinking of the show Chuck, which had some truly great moments.  But they had a terrible incorportation some of their comedy elements.

4.  "Shark Jumping" does not make a show bad.
Unlike the tight narrative of a film feature, most TV shows are filled with dozens of hours of content.  The course of years can dull the sharp edge of wit.  This is a common phenomenon.  But for the purposes of this list, we will focus on when the show was working at its best and not how it limped past its prime.  This does not mean that bad episodes do not have an effect.  It is possible that a series can diverge so badly that it ruins all that has come before.  But unless that is the case, we will accept that some shows will eventually recede in quality.

5.  The list is based on current television.
I am taking each series as it is now.  It is much easier to make a determination of a series after their run is complete.  But some of the series on this list are very new and are only getting started.  Currently, 9 of the 25 on the list are shows that are still producing new content.  I will take them as they are now.  They may, in the end, turn out to be terrible.  But I can only work with what I have seen.



Tune in next week for the list to begin.

Trailer Time: Batman v. Superman Comic Con Trailer

Here it is:

There are a lot of things that hit me about the trailer:

-Superman's isolation, even in crowds.
-Of course they would save Zod's body!
-The Joker's presence is very strongly felt, especially with Robin
-Kryptonite!
-I still don't like Eisenberg as Luthor, but I can see him now as an extension of his Zuckerberg performance in The Social Network.
-Wonder Woman looks awesome.
-Batman has been doing his thing for 20 YEARS!
-The world's reaction makes complete sense.

But for me, the most powerful part was seeing the events of Man of Steel from Bruce Wayne's persepective. This film is meant to be Batman's introduction to the DC Cinematic Universe and this is the perfect way to do it.  It is visceral and emotional.  Visually its stunning to see the two Kryptonians fight from "street level."  This perfectly captures the difference between the heroes: Superman looks from above and Batman sees things from below.

And that long shot of Bruce running to the danger in the beginning...
Director Zach Snyder captured the look and emotion of 9/11.  And in the midst of that, while everyone else is running away, we see Bruce running head-long into the danger.

That gave me chills.

Thoughts?