Christmas gift enough for me this holiday season.
Watching good ideas fall in and out of favor is the nature
of the entertainment industry for better or worse.
Ideas are pure, living and dying by their onscreen execution
and the demand of a public to warrant their production, meaning it only takes a
few too many apples with the bad ones hitting at the right time to kill the
viability of a genre in the immediate future. Nowhere is this more evident than
the evolution of the Musical as we know it today, not even in cinema
specifically but simply in general.
Some of them push contemporary music in a capacity most
likely to ensure they’ll be dated within a few years of release, others opt for
a straight-laced execution of morbid and ill fitting subject matter as a means
of using irony as a tool to draw attention, and the less said of jukebox
musicals, the better.
The genre has had to do a lot that it shouldn’t be proud of
to stay in tune with contemporary sensibilities, which makes the sheer extent
of “La La Land’s” utter sincerity so mindboggling that I almost feel obligated
to see it a second time just to experience it without continually waiting for
the rug to swept out from under me the entire time.
Not once across a second of its 2 hour length does the contemporary
jazz infused drama about a Hollywood couple learning that the ultimate acts of
love and passion fulfillment require painful sacrifice shy away from its own
relentlessly optimistic and romantic views that form the backbone of a
completely unironic musical loaded with setpiece staging, lighting based cinematography, rousing songs,
and lavishly choreographed dance numbers.
The musical numbers are so seamlessly interwoven with the
film it becomes incredibly clear immediately that had it not even been there, “La
La Land” still would have worked as a feel good yet unflinchingly realistic
romantic comedy about the ruthlessly oppressive perseverance needed to hold
even an entry level position within artistic fields, remaining hopeful but
never dipping into the trite or saccharine territory of artistic self-righteousness
that lesser musicals like “Rent” would
have you believe the life of an artist would be like.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone additionally give the film a
more modern identity that pays homage to the musicals of the Hollywood Golden
Age, portraying a couple of leads that are young and thirsty for opportunity
but lightly world wearied by living the harsh realities of life.
“La La Land” is one of those one in a million movies that
reminds me of why I love a genre so much while simultaneously reminding me why
I love film equally. It’s such a well rounded blast that the occasional misfire
of the soundtrack and a few extra unnecessary sequence flourishes that could
have trimmed the length a tad don’t drag it down despite being noticeable.
8 Wasted Lovely Nights out of 10
To proclaim any “Star Wars” film to be better than “The
Empire Strikes Back” would not only be blasphemy to any fan of “Star Wars,”
film, and storytelling in general but would be flat out false. What I will say
about “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” however is that it is my personal favorite
“Star Wars” movie of the 8 so far.
The tale of Jyn Erso and her crew’s mission to expose the
blueprints of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance has finally given an organic
flow on the big screen to a franchise 4 decades overdue for a little
experimentation.
The choice to give focus to a minor detail of the original
film may seem an odd choice but the vitality of this team’s endeavor to bring
down a weapon that could unleash a new reign of terror upon the galaxy offers
true stakes to the conflict of the Galactic Civil War that were never heavily
impressed in previous films while also serving as a powerful reminder that even
in fantasy settings, war never has true winners.
Gareth Edwards directs a war story that hammers home the
ugly personal cost of such a massive conflict by taking all of the staples of “Star
Wars” production design and putting them in visceral large scale battles that
could almost make “Saving Private Ryan” blush while depicting the smaller skirmishes
and acts of espionage with allegories to modern warfare that can almost be
awkward to sit through in just how close to home they manage to hit regarding
the US’ very real current military engagements.
Like the best of the fantasy genre, the film’s greatest and
most indelible strength is in its ability to make relatable what once felt
alien by grounding things in a visual language that we immediately understand.
While the tightness of the pacing prevents the characters
from getting into any really complex arcs, the performances grant the characters
layers of definition that defy the bluntness of a screenplay that needed to
plant its focus squarely on the monumental endgame of the plot, allowing
Edwards to insert humanity and scope into the setting on film for what may
possibly be the first time since its conception cinematically.
The flatness of the character dynamics despite a lively and
loveable cast is “Rogue One’s” greatest weakness and one that would have
perhaps sunk it if it were a standard saga entry.
However, while the sheer impact of its presentation and
introduction of firmly gray morality and unflinching depiction of war’s
atrocities is bound to be polarizing to the more lighthearted fans championing “The
Force Awakens’” comfort food approach as a return to form, it’s also a thoroughly
engaging and brilliantly crafted war drama that provides “Star Wars” with the
breath of fresh air that it so desperately needed and is the film that I have
wanted to see for nearly my entire life, ever since I could grasp the concept
of “Star Wars” at the age of 6.
I went in with high expectations and was surprised to find
them immensely surpassed by a “Star Wars” film that I am proud to call one of
my favorite movies of the year.
8 Vader Induced Nightmares out of 10
An hour into this film, Michael Fassbender’s character has a
breakdown, proclaiming in a delirious giggle “What the fuck is going on?” in
response to being confronted by a bunch of strangers speaking nonsense. That just
about summarizes my own reaction by the 20 minute mark.
“Assassin’s Creed” is one of those empty movies that you
find hard to truly hate simply because despite recognizing all of its failings
up front in terms of writing, editing, cinematography and just about everything
that goes into good storytelling, it doesn’t even present itself with much
pretense to get angry over.
The overarching story of the “Assassin’s Creed” video games
revolving around exploring these historical narratives involving the behind the
scenes conflicts of secret societies dueling for control over society from the
near future has been routinely criticized as the weakest aspect of the
franchise thanks to the routine mismanagement of what would become an annual
franchise that clearly had no idea what direction it was going in from the
start.
The film falls victim to this fate almost tenfold as the more
ludicrous sci-fi elements that reared their heads in the later games only to amount
to nonsense, is rolled out right from the start to be the central drive of a
story that it is regularly at odds with.
This sort of nonsense regarding an ancient artifact that is
never well defined as being biblical as its name suggests or extraterrestrial
in origin, both of which are woefully and laughably out of place, lends itself
to dialogue that obsesses over a dry, convoluted and downright boring lore that
hangs almost every one of its incredibly talented cast members out to dry. The
movie is just too in love with its own terrible execution of a messy mythology
that no actor was ever going to be able to inject a decent amount of life into
this particular production.
I’m even willing to meet the film halfway; “Assassin’s Creed”
may not have come from the same place of love as something like “Warcraft,” but
there was clearly an earnest effort on behalf of the filmmakers to make this
work.
Unfortunately, what faithfulness that was acted upon served
as a double edged sword. The future storyline and the political struggle
between the Assassins and the Templars makes no sense because the bounds of how
exaggerated the premise gets is never really defined.
Meanwhile, what should have been the actual meat of the
story, the Animus portion focusing on Assassin activities during the Spanish
Inquisition, takes the worst hit of all. With the framing device of the games
graduating to central narrative status, the actual Assassin portion of “Assassin’s
Creed” is a plotless, character lacking, dry and generic chore that happens at
the whims of the plotline with no rhyme or reason.
I’d almost compare the dullness of this film to watching
cutscenes from the game strung together but I don’t think any of the games, as
bad as the post-3 entries can get, are quite as stupid and nonsensical as this
film despite showing touches of potential that could have worked with a
competent film editor and a few simple rewrites that I could have probably
managed in about a week.
4 Monotonous Jeremy Irons monologues out of 10
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