Reviews

Despite probably having the most interesting antagonist, "Creed III" is still certainly the least of both franchises. It has everything to do with what the Adonis character and his actor (now director) lack to make them endearing - Humility, Doubt, and Heart.

The humility to recognize your limitations. The doubt that you unto yourself, are enough. And the heart to dig down deeper for the sake of others you feel an obligation to provide resolution for. Not to mention the wit and wisdom that comes from someone who doesn't think he's owed dominance. Difficult to uplift when perpetually looking (and punching) down.

In front of or behind the camera now, Michael B Jordan is just a flat out vapid and ultimately boring talent who overcompensates on that trait by doubling down on aesthetic garnish. Whether that be by boasting about his bolstered body to make up for lack of charisma - or cynically designing a surrealist Kafka-esque climactic boxing match with bizarro anime-inspired fetishization flourishes - in lieu of what Stallone always achieved with a satisfying narrative rhythm of ebb and flow character dynamics within a structured storytelling momentum which exhaustively earned its stakes by taking the audience into a peak state of anticipatory engagement with the outcome. No, Michael B Jordan seems to prefer stagnation by arbitrary style instead.

Tessa Thompson's Bianca is now a multi gold record selling musician and producer, but still as obnoxiously bland as always. This time equaled by Phylicia Rashad's wallpaper presence as the benevolent adoptive mother Mary Ann Creed who always knows what's best even when she doesn't know much and seems to care nothing for anyone outside her immediate circle. Such a sweet and saged matriarch though. See I know so, because the movie is adamant that she be revered no matter what.

Sylvester Stallone's deft storytelling touch and magnanimous embodiment of Rocky Balboa is sorely missed. What he brought to the table was just a rightly iconic magic which can't be replicated in a solo protegé outing. Then there's the fact that this entire endeavour constitutes a brazen slap in Stallone's face by all participants. But that's industry politics which one doesn't need to be privy to, to still notice that something seems decayed at the core here.

Credit due however for keeping past franchise rivals still relevant to its cinematic world this time - that is one aspect of address which prior Rocky and Creed films would too often oddly neglect. So it was good to know that opponents Ricky Conlan and Viktor Drago from the respective first two installments are indeed still alive and kicking around the sporting scene.

But by far the standout of the film is in the Diamond Damien Anderson portrayal by Jonathan Majors. As written, Dame was like a long lost brother to Adonis growing up in and out of group homes for delinquent minors, and Dame continued that trend of being under state custodianship for the remainder of his young adulthood due in no small part to one significant domino which fell by young Adonis' instigation - and exclusively at Dame's hard expense. So that's got some solid pathos to build on, and Jonathan Major's doesn't slag on putting hammer to nail. I'm not so sure I would credit the writing for much of what the actor just brings to the character by way of subtle nuances in demeanor which causes him to emphatically be a far more compelling and relatable presence on screen than Michael B Jordan's Adonis can reasonably muster, let alone compete with. Jonathan Major's is just a sublime actor who imbues magnificent flashes of recognizable human vulnerability to what would otherwise not necessarily be near that enthralling. So kudos to the resume he keeps building his career up with. Majors' performing talent is one of the few great gifts to cinema of recent years and should be so for many fruitful years to come.

But now another question though, is where in the world are Apollo Creed's legitimate children at? Y'know from the Rocky cannon? Those kids he scolds, hopping around his mansion in the second film? Where are they? Were they at Mama Creed's ((Spoiler Event))? That would be an interesting relationship avenue to explore, but in three movies they've never even been mentioned as far as I can recall. Shouldn't they be closer to their own biological mother?

Then there's Adonis and Bianca's token deaf daughter who early on assaults another deaf (and decidedly white) classmate after the bully girl rips up little lady Creed's drawing of daddy Creed standing over another man beat to a bloody pulp (nice - maybe the blonde bully was just a Drago fan?). Adonis never does notion that it may well be an untenable and potentially detrimental habit to try to resolve every challenge with brutality, no he thinks it's admirable to lash out in violence whenever anything or anyone hinders your impunity - instead his (and his film's) genuine conclusion is to advise learning how to hit other girls with more impactful carnage in the wake I guess. Great fathering for your deaf daughter there, really superb wisdom relayed. Totally opposite to what Rocky Balboa would recommend, I think.

Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau returns from Creed II and again does a decent job lensing. The IMAX gimmick seems more like a marketing ploy, but it's accomplished with enough flare. Although Jordan's direction wants to ambition for some sort of mythic telling, for the most part it is kept viscerally grounded in good work from the camera department. Nothing extraordinary, but still crafted with competence.

But before going any further, we have to finally address the elephant in the room - that soundtrack! Now... on one hand I was for the most part pleasantly surprised by composing newcomer Joseph Shirley's original score and new themes, however it seems misguided to switch gears three-movies-deep into all but totally abandoning the titular character's established signature theme motif as composed by Ludwig Goransson for the first two movies. So that's off-putting, even though I like much of the new score sounding like Kanye West took up a composing pseudonym. The other thing is the overbearing use of outright hip-hop tracks. I didn't like its prevalence in the prior entries and here it's only gotten more egregious. Also, with just the profanity laced lyrics heard alone in the sourced songs, I am baffled as to how the film retains a family friendly rating. Sure the Rocky films used popular music tracks too, I just don't recall Frank Stallone, John Cafferty and Survivor being vulgarly vile in their ditties about burning hearts and tiger eyes. My mistake for assuming the dreaded 'N' word was taboo. But speaking of adorning negative stereotypes...

And now, I'm gonna state what no one else wants to - if black men hadn't created this, it would be undoubtedly more controversial for so demonstratively exhibiting grievous racially motivated stereotypes about young black men being unconscionably vain, recklessly aggressive, and prone to criminality. "Once a thug always a thug" is among the movie's prime morales.

Apparently in the naive mind of bubble encumbered former child actor Michael B Jordan, every other black male out in the wild must be brandishing a gun at the ready in their saggy waistband. But merely to superficially flash. Since, with all these firearms floating around to equalize everything, Adonis still hits a guy presumably unconscious at a beach party for not much more reason than that the guy had tried to slow Adonis' roll for all of half a second. And yet Adonis somehow receives zero repercussions from all the homies? Hmm... must be because Diamond Dame controlled the fury of his boyz with a flick of his wrist like a street sultan... or was it because Adonis is just soooo "hawrd, run dat, gnome sane?!" After all, Adonis will still floss in the hood, and grub out at the greasy spoon diner - like a boss - 'cause he's "REAL" (Michael B Jordan is obviously and obnoxiously so full of feeling himself and his alpha prowess, it's just kinda embarrassing to watch). It's like watching a two hour cliché of every hip-hop music video tableau featuring flaahy vignettes of ghetto fabulous life, interspersed with a shirtless sweaty rapper in a "drippy" neckchain and on an endless ego trip. The filmmakers seem to have no clue why or how the original character of Rocky Balboa inspired hope in the commom schlub eking through life's mundane burdains.

Adonis publicly gloats and pounds his chest in the afterglow of his final victory (duh, no spoiler there), when it's really time to show class and example sportsmanship to his beaten opponent (and childhood friend). Which he then does do after, but only in a private locker room intimacy which really wouldn't even be possible, what with all the media melee after having just regained the championship of the world and the inevitable ensuing pundit convergence of attention hungry vultures chomping at the bit for press conferences and exclusive sound bites. Highly improbable scene shoehorned into the chronology of events.

As is how the Creed nuclear family all appear fresh as a daisy directly after that climactic grueling 12 round championship bout of amplified physical and emotional exhaustion - to then collectively go back out into the abandoned arena and play around the pristine ring with no evidence of the bodily fluids which spilled and saturated its canvas mere moments prior? What a trite epilogue after an unsatisfying crescendo. And why would you have your impressionable and impaired young daughter at a raucous gladiatorial grudge fest anyway? Last time I checked his father Apollo was tragically and traumatically killed in just such a contest.

Ultimately there's something missing here. His name is Rocky. As personified by his creator, Sly Stallone.

Following fine genre efforts such as "Disturbia", "Taking Lives" and "The Saltom Sea" - D. J. Caruso has directed a taught contained psychological thriller of enthralling rising tension and refreshingly streamlined machanics about the fierce sacredness of motherhood. Featuring an interesting lead character arriving on the scene with plenty of existential baggage as brought to nuanced life by the stunning Rainey Qualley who reveals a true screen presence. Competently proving her place in a family of accomplished actresses (her mother is Andie MacDowell or "Greystoke", "Green Card" and "Groundhog Day" fame, while her sister is Margaret Qualley most notable for her memorable appearance in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood").

From a renowned "blacklist" script by Melanie Toast, the premise is rather simple: Jessica is a recovering drug addict and struggling single mother of a pre-school age daughter Lainey and infant son Mason. The film opens on a bucolic scene of small Lainey frolicking through orchids collecting apples to gift to her mother who is scrambling inside a two-story country home to multitask attending to her infant son Mason while on the phone assuring that she is clean and sober to begin a prospective employment opportunity in Texas and also diligently preparing to vacate the rustic address of her recently passed Nanna (who had apparently been helping Jessica with a homebase to reclaim her sobriety). Cleaning up and packing what little she has into her small vehicle parked on the dirt driveway outside, Jessica gets accidently locked inside the kitchen pantry when the brick she is using as a stop slides under the door elevation. Young Lainey being unable to turn the outside latch to free Jessica, she is most aggrivatingly stuck inside the small space - surrounded mostly by her late Nanna's homemade Apple Butter preservatives. Having evidently had some troubles in the past (likely regarding custodianship issues), Jessica hesitates to call 911 for assistance on her cellphone, whilst Lainey suddenly informs her someone has arrived outside. It's her estranged junkie ex-boyfriend Rob (Jake Horowitz) showing up unannounced. Through the door, Jessica instructs Lainey to lock herself in the upstairs bedroom with Mason, already fretting how unhinged Rob might be. To her initial relief, Rob releases Jessica from the preserve pantry. But she soon observes Rob is clearly tweaking and is further disturbed to find he is accompanied by fellow junkie and kiddie diddler Sammy (Vincent Gallo). Jessica attempts to discreetly ask Rob why he would bring a child molester like Sammy anywhere near their children, but Sammy intercepts, intercedes, and interjects with a counter accusation to insidiously stir up Rob's violent insecurities at being seemingly undermined and dismissed by the newly sober Jessica. Rob wanting to pathetically prove his dominace in front of Sammy, strikes Jessica - slapping her cellphone to the ground - and shoves her back into the pantry, shutting her in. He tosses a small baggie of dope under the door and proclaims he will return once she's back to being the user partner he wants her to be for him. Assuring she cannot simply call upon Lainey to achieve turning the outside latch and releasing her, Rob nails a couple of boards onto the outside frame of the door - the first point of which pierces Jessica's palm as her hand beared against the inside pleading for release. Injured and alone, she must search for a way to escape before the unhinged duo of Rob and (especially) Sammy return, while also verbally instructing Lainey how to feed and take car of herself and Mason until she can get free. As frustration mounts, so too does the temptation to relapse and use again linger and grow.

Featuring very believable yet judicial characterizations of children - both perfunctory and in peril. The two villianous junkie friends are dimensional enough, and it's particularly welcome to see Vincent Gallo return to effective character work after having eshewed the movie making business for some years. Cinematographer Akis Konstantakopolous is a new name to me, but his lighting and lensing here are evocative and depict a dramtically dynamic adherance to subjective point-of-view. The compositional duo whom comprise the Mondo Boys moniker are another new name to me, but their music score here is appropriately tense and atmospheric. The editing is crisp and crescendos nicely into a decently plausible climax. With subtle religious invocations, the story ultimately resolves on a pertinent yet subtle moral theme of resilience and redemption.

Oh, and some commotion exist regarding the fact that the movie also happens to be the first official production of the upstart politically conservative news outlet Daily Wire - whose ambitions here appears to simply be an earnest desire to create quality content which doesn't insult or subvert the conservative perspective - rather than proselytize any sort of overt ideological skew as a priority over dramatic weight.

Overall, "Shut In" is a very credible effort to which I give a most respectable 7/10 rating and recommend with nearly no reservation.

Director Adrian Lyne's sublime adaptation of Lolita is exceptionally poised on every conceivable level. Astoundingly faithful to the Nabokov literary masterpiece and vastly superior to Kubrick's strictly comedic innuendo attempt. Lyne perfectly captures the calamitous first-person perspective wit of the novel - and its surprising lack of unseemily vulgarity (considering the subject matter), yet charges it with an apropos erotic sense of wistfulness and regret that Kubrick could not have dared include at the time of his version.

Tonally, aesthetically, and performance-wise - Lyne's Lolita is among the best cinematic translations of an essential reading novel that's every been realized. Lyne elicits pitch perfect performances from the entire cast framed within renouned cinematographer Jeffrey L Kimball immutable lensing, to craft a lushly shot and ravishingly detailed travelog inversion of Norman Rockwell's post WWII nostalgia drenched Americana by way of underbelly lingering just out of plain view on the fringe of postcard idealism. Featuring one of composer Ennio Morricone's most achingly haunting and melancholic music scores, brilliantly lacing a subtle out-of-tune piano in broken note to psychologically effect the delicate melody of its lithely luscious romantic theme's stirring strings - infecting it with a fractured key to evoke the off-kilter sense of dread and discord of the protagonist's torment at teetering between tragic tenderness torn from taboo torridness and the trepidation of impending doom such an incursion upon innocence will inevitably invite and incur.

The only major change from the bona fide classic novel is a compressed time period for its primary relationship narrative of more like one year rather than perhaps three - which clearly was done to start the actress portraying Deloris Hayes (Dominique Swan) off at a less disturbingly mid-pubescence for Professor Humbert's (Jeremy Irons) amorous attentions.

1997 was one of the strongest years for cinema - but Lolita being cowardly discarded to debut on a second rate premium cable channel without any fanfair was a travesty - as it's among that amazing year's finest films.

1990's "REVENGE" starring Kevin Costner, Madeline Stowe & Anthony Quinn. Directed by the late great Tony Scott as a cooly riviting and romantic erotic crime thriller. Based on a 1979 novella by author Jim Harrison ("Legends of the Fall") who here shares screenwriting credit with Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, from a premise no doubt influenced by the classic 1946 film noir "Gilda".

Costner plays recently retired U.S. Navy hotshot pilot Michael J. "Jay" Cochran, who upon his decommision is gifted a pair of antique shotguns with an invitation attatched to spend some new found leisure traveling south of the border to visit the sprawling hacienda of an old tennis acquaintance whose life he once saved on a hunting trip. The seasoned host is wealthy Mexico business statesman Tiburon "Tibey" Mendez - portrayed as an avaricious lothario by the monumental talent of Anthony Quinn who infuses the role with much gusto and gravitas. Tibey's bountiful property is not only opulently ornate but seemingly a fortress compound with heavily armed guards on constant patrol. Unbenounced to Cochran, his elder friend Tibey is in fact a powerful crime boss with high political ties in the corrupt Mexican government, and he has acquired a rapturously alluring young trophy bride in the raven-haired Miryea. An intoxicatingly nubile presence, Madeline Stowe plays Miryea as a bit of a thorned rose in a vase - undeniably beautiful petals surely delicate and sweetly scented, yet cut off and closed up, withering for lack of connection and the warm light of passion a burgeoning woman yearns to blossom under. An unscrupulous man of appetite, Tibey has ruthlessly forged a life were he gets exactly what he wants - and what (or who) he wants - he owns. Miryea may be surrounded by luxurious things, but she is merely another pretty possession for her much senior husband Tibey to tyrannically use at his singular whim and disposal. And thus when the fortified stone around Miryea's discontent makes contact with the flint of Jay's attuned search for more out of life than regiment - it sparks a dangerously forbidden attraction which risks only ending destructively for all parties involved.

The movie is titled "Revenge", so without spoilers, infer that these illicit combustible desires carry equally primal consequences and repercussions. And that's basically the triangle trigger for all the dominos to trip in cascading topple toward grievous results. Ample intimately charged liaisons and vindictive rampages may ensue. The performances are uniformely convicted, with excellent support from character actors James Gammon, Miguel Ferrer, Sally Kirkland, Joe Santos, Tomas Milian, and a fresh on the scene John Leguizamo. The gluttonous ambition within Quinn's menacing portrayal of Tibey, palpably unravels to all consuming volatility once spurned. Costner's flyboy Jay has just the right stripe of swagger on his straight arrow stoicism to convincingly be brooding to the point of reckless, but also driven to the zenith of zealous. And Stowe's ability to convey in just a few subtle scenes an enveloping surge of desperate white heat from within her vulnerable center to melt away and eventually shatter the ice queen facade of formidablity forged in the confines of Miryea's traumatically repressed subjugation is positively epiphanous in electrified pulse.

Masterfully lensed on anamorphic 35mm, frequent cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball does justice to director Tony Scott's sleekly atmospheric shooting style. Equally envisioning the Mexican palatial estates, peasant villages, cabins, cottages, flop houses, brothels, barrios, mountainous vistas, searing deserts, orchard groves, high plains pastures, and coastal retreats with sumptuous aplomb. The costume and set design are simulateously crisp and authentic. This is a gorgeous film, even when its events get ugly.

Producers Stanley Rubin and Hunt Lowry allegedly asserted their aim to subvert the sordid genre tropes of the dime-store narrative and see it played out more sumptuously. As it was shot with a consistantly intriguing granduer and performed with a level of nuance that transcended mere pulp. Apparently this conflicted with what director Tony Scott would have perferred (or come to prefer anyway). Perhaps becoming overly familar to the threshold of masochistic in exhaustion or indifference, Tony wanted to gut and discard much of his finely shot material in the editing phase. In this rare instance I fully support the producers justified interventions to actually protect the great work which Tony had captured and realized with so much time, effort, and skill. Their theatrical cut is a very satisfying meal of a movie. Scott seemed to regard it as needing to be more of greasy spoon affair.

Tony Scott would finally end up getting his way though. And unfortunately his much truncated 2007 attention-deficit-disorder "Director's Cut" is the only prestine version now readily availible on the market for seeking out and viewing. Not really Scott's original vision in as much as a total reapproach inspired by the "acid filmmaking" method he went on to hone for projects such as "Man On Fire" and "Domino" (which deliberately eshewed the compositionally polished commercial expressionism Scott had helped usher in decades prior along with fellow contemporary brit-slick pioneers in brother Ridley Scott, Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker, and Hugh Hudson). While Tony's revamp did expand certain scenes and add back deletions which give the film a welcomed harder bite, it also runs 20 minutes less than the theatrical version meaning that when accounting for additions even more content was extracted. Primary appreciators of the original release were crestfallen to find many vital story and character elements retroactively eliminated in the director's re-tinkering which fundamentally changed the intent of its telling from lushly tragic into luridly torrid.

Ideally, Sony Pictures or a boutique distributor could newly remaster a producer/enthusiasts' extended "kitchen-sink" assembly to encompass the full theatrical depth along with the additional more seedy viscerality of Tony Scott's leaner tweaking. And restore music composer Jack Nitsche's sultry synth score to editorially fit the restructured scenes rather than use the somewhat cliche replacement needle-drop cues present in the director's revision.

This shamefully overlooked gem is too finely crafted to not be represented at its potential best for subsequent cinephile discovery within the oeuvres of legenday aestheticist Tony Scott, laconic leading everyman Kevin Costner, ravishing ingenue-cum-coquette starlet Madeline Stowe, and classic method acting icon Anthony Quinn.

"Revenge" is a dish best served BOLD.

Nevermind plot discription (you'll likely learn more reading a paragraph long historical synoposis), let me just cut to the chase like this film supposes to do, and affirm what's ineffecient in Chrostopher Nolan's otherwise superficially handsom WWII production.

Dunkirk is non-linear in shifting between three totally different time-spans which converge at its climax. Unfortunately that non-linear shifting is crafted haphazardly to play as randomly spliced discombobulating vignettes of pretty cinematography and authentic costume design in incoherent juxtaposition with nearly no character distinction, plot progression, sense of geography, or composed shot choreography for situational bearings in edit. It's entire narrative momentum comes exclusively from its sound design and most specifically from Hans Zimmer's musical drive and orientation.

Nolan's whole gimmick here is to present an arbitrary mystery to confuse the audience with lack of narrative structure instead of tell a compelling human story. The screenplay must have been about twenty-five pages randomely shuffled, then ripped into quarters, and then taped back together in total disregard for even sentence sequencing. If the on screen stand-ins for characters are supposed to know where they're at in relation to every given circumstance, and what goal they're moving toward, then so too should the audience without constantly questioning such superfluous allignment in perplexed detection for half the run time of the film.

Ultimately, Dunkirk is like 1 minute 45 seconds worth of plot for a perfectly beautiful IMAX shot commercial, presented in its ten-fold raw footage assembly cut of 1 hour 45 minutes, and then tasking Hans Zimmer to "make it work" as a feature (which he miraculously kinda does). So basically props to Hans, and an eye roll to Christopher Nolan.

Still a pleasure to blankly look at and listen to though. So credit due there.

The point of this 2019 virtually photo realistic remake of the classic 1994 Disney traditional animation was to faithfully adapt that beloved original version's cartooned caricaturing into naturalistic physics as if the same exact story and characters could have been performed by real animals through precisely directed staging in front of a camera lens on location in the African Savanna - oh, and somehow articulate sophisticated angst and language sentiment as if fully conscious of sentient morality plights.

It accomplished that task astonishingly well. I have no idea what anyone has to complain about, it's not as if the cartoon version suddenly ceased to exist, so if the original animated movie's more vivid and broad anthropomorphized expressionism is what you prefer then you're in luck because it's a classic that ain't going anywhere.

The virturealistic version's fan service to replicate the original animation's iconography and signature beats is precisely why it exist and what makes it intriguing. That's not creatively lazy it's meticulously devout - as it was always intended to be. Also, in the first place The Lion King was never exactly the pinnacle of originality (Hamlet + Kimba The White Lion).

I think what director John Favreau and vfx company MPC accomplished along with Caleb Deschanel's virtual cinematography input is nothing short of masterful and most beautifully reverential to its source inspiration. The character conveyance of emotion through its realistic animation is sublimely subtle and nuanced, I'm sorry if the Snapchat/TikTok generation can no longer process cadence of observable emotive behavior that isn't demonstratively exaggerated, but if that's really a delimma it is certainly a personal one not shared by the fine craft on display in this rendering.

And let there be no debate, upon it's release Favreau & MPC's The Lion King was absolutely the most stunningly perfect computer generated sfx ever rendered in the history of anything to do with the milieu. The fact that a phoney fanatical backlash took any prevalence against such supremely realized work is a most shameful mark against a petulantly petty society that has lost all perspective.

But whatever. As far as I'm concerned the remake's legacy can be as proof of concept - now let's have ThunderCats... ThunderCats... ThunderCats! Hoooooo!!

Oliver Stone's "Final Cut" version of his much maligned Alexander the Great biographical motion picture is simply the most monumentally redeeming subsequent edit from a theatrical debacle ever.

There's actually four different versions available (theatrical, director's cut, final cut, ultimate cut). The rejiggering I'm most staunchly voutching for is the third version, officially titled in full as "ALEXANDER REVISITED: THE FINAL CUT". All the versions are significantly different in narrative context and structural articulation (well the "Ultimate" is just a shorter refinement of the "Final" I guess). However, at an unabashed 3 hours and 34 minutes, The Final Cut is the most poignantly pregnant - some 40 minutes heavier than the theatrical, even while trimming out some content from that initial release. Ironically, whereas the theatrical felt like a hard long bloated slog, this substantially more voluminous revisitation carries itself with so much more deftly assured confidence of momentive purpose that its approprately earned heartiness gives the sense of no time wasted at all. Actually, dissecting all of the various incarnations of the seemingly same production is a truly fascinating excercise if you're really curious to. Especially because of how flat-out awful the theatrical version was. While the Final Cut version does retain some flaws, it approaches something approximating masterpiece level status in its epic resonance.

The things you may have initially hated will all still be present - but this time they're also accounted for!

The Final Cut version adds back much essential scenes and nuances, as well as more brutal edits of battle that actually inform the circumstaces and stakes far more effectively. The situational geography and ingenious war tactics are readdressed with much more clarity. And it returns to the original scripted and shot intention for a non linear narrative with scenes jumping from various time periods to contextually strengthen and impact character dynamics and motivations by contrasting juxtaposition. Plus, it may have legendary greek composer Vangelis' most robustly stirring music score!

It's a complicated subject, from a sprawling script, and an audaciously daring director - but the 3rd time's the charm. Oliver Stone's true vision of Alexander is well worth reassessment. Trust me.

A religiously devout sermon from the church of Quentin Tarantino.

An opportunistic hatchet job of easy target Harvey Weinstein.

And a vanity project for its own self anointed brave female director, who feigns fighting the good fight and sticking it to the man to bring us this exciting exposé pried straight from the fangs of the big bad wolf (Weinstein).

Look, this is a fawning frivilous featurette assembly which had some interesting anecdotes from a few of its interviewees, but basically glosses over any critical analysis of its worshiped subject.

There's no mention at all of the tumultuous and contentious relationship between Tarantino and his Video Archive's colleque (and fellow Academy Award winning "Pulp Fiction" co-writer) Roger Avary who also contributed seeds to "True Romance", "Natural Born Killers", and "From Dusk Till Dawn". Much is said about Tarantino being so "original", but just one snickery quotation screen is all this film devotes to the absolute fact that Tarantino ruthlessly steals from both friends and foreigners with abandon, while deliberately neglecting to be gracious or forthright about their immense contributions to his own pastiche driven tweeks and rifts. So that's a major rock left unturned - it's maybe nudged slightly, but the dark underbelly of Quentin's ambition for validating acclaim at the expense of others is not examined with any vigor whatsoever.

I did especially appreciate that his editor Sally Menken was given due credit here. In my opinion more of such notice should have also gone to his cinemtographers - especially Robert Richardson whom is no mere technician for hire by any stretch.

But why is Tarantino's other writing and acting film work not given more attention? I'd be intersted to learn more about his relatonships to Tony Scott, Oliver Stone, and Robert Rodriguez. What about his script polishing work for "True Romance" director Tony Scott on that filmmaker's subsuquent "Crimson Tide"? Tarantino disowned and disavowed Oliver Stone's deconstruction of his "Natural Born Killers" script and refused to ever watch it. Has that changed? What about the fact that Quentin went on to commandeer Oliver Stone's long-time cinematographer/collaborator Robert Richardson (who helped much in making NBK an experimental departure from QT's script)? Or that Tarantino later co-starred in his own scripted "From Dusk Till Dawn" with "Natural Born Killers" star Juliette Lewis. For that matter Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk Till Dawn" is barely even cited as existing, even though it is written by and co-starring Tarantino and even has "Tarantino-verse" Big Kahuna Burger/Red Apple Tobacco brands in it! And what about Tarantino's great scene stealing cameo in Rodriguez's "Desperado" - how much original writing did Tarantino contrubute to his big monologue for that scene and did he lend any other additions?

This doc doesn't say anything about Tarantino's adamant stance and ardent leadership in preservation for physical chemically processed Film negative vs digital capture - as a shooting medium (it does glance over his unenthusiastic attitude for the sterility of digital projection, however). I particularly find QT's very vocal distaste for the digital camera revolution in Cinema to be wholly appropriate and his railing against the trend of easy technological inferiority of aesthetics to be inspiring.

So, instead of delving into any of these intersting aspects of Tarantino's Cinematic impact and interplay - we get a trivial and cheesy "E! True Hollywood Story" level display of histrionics with accompanying ominous soundtrack undertones about Harvey Weinstein - who was nothing but a daddy warbucks to Quentin. Yeah, I get it - he was a big fat sweaty odious creep of no redeeming value (except for producing the best autered Cinema of the 90's) who suffered no qualms in taking advantage of the ambitions of ingenue starlets to their sub-advantage (sometimes resulting in their burgeoning careers in return). Wow, news flash - heterosexual men have sexual appetites for young beautiful vivacious women and some of those men will use whatever means at their disposal to satisfy that. It's just shocking to learn the heinous revelation that women whom profit primarily by using the fleeting allure of their ripe supple nubility upon the beguiled male-gaze to fake intimate relations in front of camera lenses for such approval, would be subjected to quid-pro-quo solicitation in exchange for opportunity - that's a totally unnatural progression of their aspirations. I for one just can't fathom why the profession of actors has always been equated with the oldest profession... Hey, but what about Tarantino's questionable liaison with his actress Uma Thurman? Wasn't QT once engaged to Mira Sorvino (who claims to have been abused by QT mentor Harvey)? How exactly does the circle curve anyway? What about QT's degenerate fetish for female feet that he indulges in many of his masterpieces? I mean, since we're going to get tawdry, why not at least stay on target? Reeks of disingenuous opportunism to divert off into an exploitively melodramatic conformation bias of a zeitgeist's preoccupation toward an ancillary's extraneous misdeeds while glossing over the proteged primary's less than always stellar professional etiquette in even equal balance. I merely must mention it here, to say that it wasn't worth more than a mention there, and to illustate the exasperatingly un-nuanced glibness with which it is handled. I think the time consuming tack-on was tact-less.

Then to fill out the feature length running time of this doc we get treated to the epic behind-the-scenes saga of its director as she pretends to have really stormed up that hill and took on the system to regain the rights to complete this lazy puff piece away from the crumbling Weinstein Company by essentially just waiting for it to all collaspe. For my tastes, this sidenote is a little too much self aggrandizing vanity from a mediocre sycophant to insert herself into the narrative and pat herself on the back about it. Whatever, guess she had an ax to grind and figured she'd sandwitch it in here, no matter how inelegantly.

So, in lieu of more interesting and pertinent material, we get unnecessary tangents that are unrelated to the actual contextual content of examining the creative factors that made Quentin Tarantino into the most iconic filmmaker of his generation.

I enjoyed much of what was presented here, I just wish it was deeper and more consistantly focused on its primary subject in earnest.

"Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets" is a 2017 space opera written and directed by Luc Besson, based on the seminal French science fiction comic series "Valerian & Laureline" created by writer Pierre Christin and illustrator Jean-Claude Mézières first published in 1967. Subsequently much of the original comic's art and ideas have been pillaged by various films and filmmakers, in particular George Lucas' original "Star Wars" trilogy as well as "The Fifth Element" (from this film adaptation's own writer/director Luc Besson). In fact, while developing the future world design aesthetic of "The Fifth Element" Besson recruited two of his childhood heroes in longtime close friends and contemporary rival iconic french comic illustrators Jean "Moebuis" Giraud and "Valerian & Laureline" artist Jean-Claude Mézières.

It was at this time back in the mid-90's while in pre-production on "The Fifth Element" that Mézières himself planted the seed for this film adaptation when he suggested to Besson "why not just make a 'Valerian & Laureline' movie instead?". Some two decades later, after seeing how far James Cameron had pushed technology with "Avatar", Besson knew he could finally realize the breadth of photo real alien and creature animation necessary to adequately do justice to the expansive worlds drawn from Mézières' imagination.

With what is simultaneously the largest budget independently sourced and individually funded film ever as well as being the most expensive European film ever produced - reportedly in the 200 Million dollar range - Besson finally set upon achieving this task. The money is certainly on the screen. This film looks ravishing. Its plot and characters are not exactly ravishing, but it sure does look it. And that's not nothing either!

Hererin lies the delimma - while the somewhat wobbly plot is tolerable - the characters and their clunky overly expositional dialogue are regrettably trite. This film breaks the cardinal cinematic rule "show, don't tell". The central characters blankly state overt sentiment instead of expressing its inevitability through the nuance of their acting quirks, and blatantly explain their own relationship dynamics to each other when the filmmaking craft ought to intuitively represent that obvious conveyance. For that matter all the various ways exposition is dumped is quite inelegant, inorganic, and ungermane to any semblance of natural flow.

In spite of its flaws, Valerian does also have a plethora of virtues to recommend - primarily its sheer aesthetic force and good fun. The premise in a overpacked nutshell; Valerian and Laurline are essentially special agent space/time-cop partners in the 28th Century. The titular City of a Thousand Planets is a conglomerated hodgepodge megaopolis of a space station/united nations called "Alpha" that has for centuries been expanding in size and reach further out into space by the perpetual inclusion of millions of Alien species and their own tacked on crafts from thousands of represented planets around the known universe. It's a hub where every sentient species converges for cultural exchange, deplomatic summit and commercial trade. The drive of the plot is really about a displaced alien race of beautiful statuesque ageless hairless humanoids called "Pearls". These immensely elegant eco harmonious folk of silky milk biolumenscent skin and slightly coned crowns are refugee survivors of the destroyed planet of "Mul". The primary rejuvenating source of their seemingly untopian naturalistic luminscent planetary agriculture are literally fished pearls of energy that one of their indigenous animals reproduces in bucket fulls upon being fed just one. This small sacred replicator animal appears something like a cross between a baby elegator and a rainbow colored puppy - very cute - and serves as a primary coveted "mcguffin" devise for galvanizing the proceeding plot. Upon the total eradication of Mul, after failing to escape and facing the impending doom of a rushing wall of firey destruction one of Mul's Princesses goes zen and lights up emanting in final flash of luminous gory as telepathic mayday distress transmission that travels through time and deep space finding the subconscience of our titular hero Major Valerian (Dane Dehaan) while he is relaxing and casually/creepily flirting with his lithe female partner Sergeant Laureline (Cara Devevingne) on a faux beach side deck chair within their ship's virtual simulator room. This sparks the mystery of what happend to Mul and why, as the surviving Pearls seek their own method for answers and reparations all the way into a standoff at the center of "Alpha".

Major Varerian is the type to insist on selling his undying love for spacecop-partner Sgt. Laureline as she pretends to not buy it. Clive Owen is their bigshot commander. A crazy sprawling enter-deminsional black market mall in the middle of a vaccant desert serves as a highlight sequence setting. Pop star Rhianna is a shape-shifting alien burlesque courtesan who helps infiltrate a mission objective in exchange for Valerian helping her get out from under her sleezy organ-playing pimp played with much gusto by Ethan Hawk. There are big lumbering doofus aliens whose appitites skew toward anything, and whom are a gas to see get duped and dumped. A bunch of side things happen, many imaginative set-pieces, fun action sequences, and various aliens with intersting or humorous oddities. Much of it enjoyable, and some of it even enthralling too. So that's the gist of what the film is offering.

All the content with the Pearl people of Mul is astonishingly realized in design and vfx performance capture by Weta digital. The implied anthropology of their technology, weapons, and ships are quite frankly flatout brilliant. In fact, all the creative alien designs and vfx accomplishment by various companies for this movie - is next level immaculate. The production design is just off the charts. It truly is something to behold and adore. The music by first-time collaborator and fellow Frenchmen Alexander Desplat is quite good, although it doesn't particularly ever takeoff or resonate unforutantely - which does beg the question of why Besson went away from his regular mainstay composer Eric Serra who has shined for Besson on his previous bests ("La Femme Nikita", "Leon: The Professional", "The Fifth Element", "The Messenger", etc). Who Besson did not eshew was his most frequent cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, who again does fine work here - although I personally prefer a more chairoscuro lighting style shaped by shadow and patterns of light, but nonetheless the movie is certainly exploding with colorful pizazz and in deed is a pleasure to look at.

However, there are significant problems with this film. Everytime I watch this movie I am struck by how poor the character development, dialogue, and casting is for the two primary protagonist. Dane Dehaan does not sell alpha stud for one second, and Cara Delevingne cannot carry competence further than cute. They both appear appallingly adolescent, and unnervingly kin. Both leads posture stale, register blank, and emit awkwardly vacant. Listless mannequins from the junior department who can't seem to walk and talk at the same time - they have nil on-screen command, charm, or chemistry while arbitrarily awaiting their turn to stiffly preen stoic and recite telegraphed dialogue which never bothers to be vitally present within any motivated momentum of the circumstances they're supposed to be portraying. Stagnately staged and clunkily written repartee between the two lead actors only emphasis their lack of rapport. The movie shrivels up anytime these uncanny automatons attempt to flirt. Blame must ultimately fall squarely onto writer/director Besson for not honing in on and eliciting better from the performers he chose.

One can't help but dream what superior version might have been with a tighter script and assuredly adult leads in possession of some legitimate romantic chemestry (minus the creepy quasi-incestuous squabbling siblings thing we got). The Character of Valerian needed to irrefutably exude a brash overcompensating confidence for challenging Laureline's ardent resolve to button-up her fragility and sultry allure. Instead of the charisma vaccum children which Besson mistakenly cast, supplant them with the virility of an incourageably jarheaded Channing Tatum charmingly needling a lithely nubile Alicia Vikander as she feigns annoyance. Endearingly prodding one another with quick-witted tit-for-tat antagonistic exchanges in the best tradition of off-the-cuff screwball throw-away overlapping one-upmanship flippancy. Searingliy spry tension-filled clever retorts of rat-a-tat repartee by two opposites who clearly share a strong affection, attraction, and rapport expressed through their wryly coy banter. That alone would have made up for any faulty plot machanics in this otherwise gorgeous production. What a winning franchise launching difference just those fundamental casting and dialogue augmentations could have made.

Yet I enjoyed this idiosyncratic underperformer multiple times in nearly empty theaters and bought the Bluray first day. And still often when I consider my veiwing options on a given lazy afternoon, I have to stop myself from just popping Valerian into the dvd player again. Because there really is something special in it, dispite its failings. The world building and design is staggeringly stimulating. It's just a shame it couldn't have been firing on all cylinders. Besson did drop the ball on what could have been a stellar franchise, yet I have to admit that the way he fumbled losing possession still spun out with a whole lot of panache!

What can I say - 8/10 - I'm a fool for cool!

Director Len Wiseman's under appreciated 2012 Colin Ferrell lead remake of Total Recall should have distinguished itself from Paul Verhoeven's lurid 1990 Schwarzenegger action vehicle by simply titling itself "Rekal" (as is the company name in the original Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"). Also change back to the source novela's lead character name being Douglas Quail instead of Doug Quaid.

Because even though this movie clearly recycles broad strokes from the screenplay of its 1990 film predecessor, I do think this version has its own merits and stands as its own cinematic entity. This one is grounded better in a plausiblity which makes the question of whether the whole story is dream or reality more enigmatic.

Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback set their screenplay in a post chemical warefare earth where the only two inhabitable places left for humans are the metropolis of Britain and the colony of Australia, with a rapid communter gravity elevator/train called "The Fall" burrowing through the earth's core to transport between the two surving safe zones. The United Federation Of Britain (or UFB) is the supreme metropolitan mecca for higher culture, governement, business, and industustry - with a massively layered maze infrastructure system of intertwining magnetic interchange freeways to accommodate the everyday hustle and bustle parading storm of hover-vehicle traffic. While The Colony serves as residency for the lower caste and where the more dingy base elements of society are partitioned.

Everyday Colonist laborers cummute by way of The Fall to the UFB for medial work in its various production and manufacturing complexes. The Fall is an ingenuis design - a massive skyscraper sized heat shielded elevator with commuter train-like rows of rollercoaster-like security harnessed seating on gimbals which vertically rotate 180° as the shuttle comfortably plows through the earth's core and gravity ceases, so that it arrived upright at its polar opposite gravitational destination. Just as the Terraforming Reactor of Mars served as central "mcguffin" plot device of contention for the 1990 iteration of Total Recall, so here serves The Fall as hub for controlling the literal ascending or descending fate of a people.

With the supplanting of the Martian reactor with the earth elevator, so also goes any mention of a terraforming Mars, let alone a mission to get there and rescue its bizarre mutant inhabitants from being slowly suffocated. This one is decidedly more cyberpunk, and deals with government corruption to oppress and ultimately eliminate the lower class waste-of-space-and-precious-resources Colonial civilians of earth in rendering them obsolete by way of a robotic workforce and enforcement army, manufactured obedient to the elitist Cohaagen - here upgraded from Governor of Mars to Chancellor of The United Federation Of Britian (which essentially means the whole remaining world) - as deviously portrayed by Brian Cranston coming off his Breaking Bad height of zeitgeist popularity.

Colin Ferrell plays average guy Douglas Quaid who is haunted with dreams of a phantom perilous mission gone array with another woman he's never met (Jessica Biel's "Melina"), and an all around restless ennui with his mundan lot in life (even though he scored Kate Beckindale's seemingly stalwart "Lori" for a most enviable wife). Here, instead of a construction worker, Quaid toils his workdays off-colony with best pal Harry (Bokeem Woodbine) on a factory plant assembly line for robotic police troopers.

The headline news focuses on a wanted rogue traitor agent named Hauser, and the terrorist turmoil rising from a rebel outfit lead by Bill Nighy's "Mathius" (doing the non-mutant variation of the original film's Kuato character). And newly tying his resistance leader by relation to another key figure of the story.

Just as before, there is a company called "Rekall" which can transplant synthetic vacation memories and roleplay fantasies to affordably supplant the unfulfilled discontentment derived from the monotony of the common everyday grind. And as before, Quiad is drawn to this place to aquire its memory implant proceedure, which he hopes will alleviate his unqualified angst. He chooses a semi personalized espionage adventure package similar to his reoccuring dream, but before the proceedure can commence that is precisely what he finds himself in the middle of... but does it really transpire, or is it all just the memory transplant while he lay unconscious in Rekall's facility?

Len Wiseman's director's cut adds some interesting complications to the secret agent identity angle and a slightly harder edge. But it is sort of humorless, and has no glimmer of the excessively gaudy glee found in Verhoeven's satirical kitsche. It is a bit of a shame that this updated version was produced with a more family friendly rating in mind, but at least the unrated director's cut manages a soft R-rating equivelant. Certainly it feels restrained in places though. But hey, Verhoeven's farcical audacity had its fair enough share of embarrassing atrocity to undermine it too - so it's not like Citizen Kane is being tinkered with here!

The 80's Paul Verhoeven movie has more tasty cheese for sure, but I really enjoy and prefer Wiseman's visual production design, camera aesthetic, action choreography, and future tech imagineering for his remake (which harken's closer to Spielberg's other Phillip K. Dick world adaptation "Minority Report").

Yet it's still definitely more a remake of the Verhoeven movie's original character aspects, rather than a more-or-less faithful adaptation of Phillip K. Dick's short story from which both film version's are loosely inspired in general premise setup.

Kate Beckinsale was great as an amalgum of the Sharon Stone wife/Michael Ironside soldier characters from the Verhoeven original. And I enjoyed Bokeem Woodbine as Quaid's workmate/best friend Harry also serving the psychiatrist role of the first film's Dr. Edgemar, and trying to convince Quaid he's in a fragile mental breaking point within his Rekall fantasy, while set in a facility lockdown police hostage negotiation scene, with bewildered wife Lori outside in police escort wrapped in obligatory trauma planket.

Colin Ferrell does seem kinda miscast. He functions, but is quite bland in the role. In a perfect world they'd have gotten Jason Statham to add some working class charm and world wery wit while kicking people's throats in - and gotten Jude Law to play his former secret agent counterpart self Hauser before facial augmentation surgery (Ethan Hawk plays this additional aspect to Colin Ferrell in Wiseman's director's cut - which is a smarter idea rather than Hauser just retaining the same identifiable face in the midst of this hidden Quaid persona).

But I mean c'mon, this remake has cool droid troopers, surface projecting smart communicators implanted into the hand, holographic masks collars, insane hover car freeway chases, a truly enticing three breasted solicitor callback, and weightless action sequences inside an inverted shuttle train bulleting through the earth's core - all wrapped in cinematographer Paul Cameron's anamorphic lens flares!

I did miss Rob Bottin's Kuato mutant fx and Jerry Goldsmith's magnificent music score though. In particular, I do wish remake composer Harry Gregson-Williams could have retained some of Goldsmith's awesomely bombastic thematics, because his new score is quite generic and instantly forgettable.

The good news is, for different reasons we can enjoy the disparate virtues of both incarnations on the same sourced premise! No reason to get resentful about it.

Know outright that this great film has no aspiration toward being a slice of life document of the average U.S. soldier's experience during the Vietnam conflict of the 1960's and 70's. Psychedelic or otherwise, the Vietnam War was simply the most apropos contemporary setting to place this adaptation of Joseph Conrad's mythic novel "Heart Of Darkness".

The plot is nothing more (or less) than one man's destiny to confront another man. It's Martin Sheen's Captain Willard floating through surreal chaos in existential angst on a clandestinely assigned mission to find this rogue-warrior-cum-mad-messiah figure of Marlon Brando's Colonial Kurts and either end him or succum to the same madness. In dreamy slow burn we hear the internal dialogue and intimate journal entries of a war wery Willard as he drifts futher down river with his army entourage encountering one bizzare event after another, all the while crystalizing his sole focus on finding the deep jungle compound of this enigmatic Kurts and ultimately eliminating him with "extreme prejudice". But will he? Can he? Should he? Why? Who's to say what is even the moral priority anymore in the midst of this grotesque farce of torrential terror and trivial turmoil? The final act and resolution is nothing short of a baroque masterpiece.

The tone is engulfing dread for impending doom. It's this heavy pull-down immersion into the sinking "heart of darkness". It's the apocalypse... right now. As Jim Morrison's voice announces over the opening shot of a carpet bombing napalm drop over a palm tree horizon - "this is the end my beautiful friend".

Vittorio Storarro's hypnotically tranquil anamorphic cinematography is astonishing in both its lushness and chairoscuro tenebrism. Walter Murch's editing and sound design is fluidly detailed, layered, and mercurial. With the vital contribution of Grateful Dead drummers Mickey Heart and Bill Kreutzmann - father/composer Carmine Coppola, and director Francis himself created an eerie vortex of percussion and abstract sonic experimentation that would become a prototype for the progression of ambient and industrial avante garde music. Francis Ford Coppola mounted a seminally bold vision of Cinema as myth at its highest level of narrative trandscendence. Truly an epic odyssey through the struggling volition of the sentient soul, oneirically seeped in perennial paramnesia. Utterly magnificent and profound.

And the behind the scenes making of the film itself is maybe even more harrowing. Following the experience of this magnas opus, watch the outstanding documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" as an essential peak into the ground level turbulence and strife that enduringly plagued the legendary production. As documented on location and narrated by director Coppola's stalwart wife Eleanor (with additional subsequent interviewee perspective), the curtain is totally stripped away as each calamity culminates into dangerous flirtation with complete catastrophe. Broadly considered the most transparent and enthralling behind-the-scenes companion piece to a biblically taxing production of a equally worthy Cinematic achievement ever.

Everything around and about "Apocalypse Now" is just stunning and rife with wreckage, resilience, and resonance.

I personally prefer the extended "Redux" version edit for its ever more sprawling surrealism.

Okay, now pay attention and I will tell you (without spoilers) exactly what is wrong with "Alita: Battle Angle". It's not the dialogue, because that was fine. It's not the love story either, because I'm a sap anyway so I relate to Alita being one also. The two hour and change run time was a breeze, so that's not its issue either. No, if you want to know what precisely is my problem with the film - the thing that prevents me from recommending this movie whole heartedly to everyone. Well, I'll tell you. Here it is: what's wrong with "Alita: Battle Angle" is nothing. That's right - not one single thing. It's very good. I give it a solid 8.5 out of 10.

Don't look to my review if you need a plot synopsis or cast and character rundown - I'm writing this on IMDB which means that info is readily availible without me regurgitating it.

Now before you ask why not a 10/10 rating if there's nothing wrong with it, understand - an 8.5 means it's incredibly deft and proficient. a rating of 9/10 would make this a masterpiece in my book. And masterpiece status can't begin to be fairly assessed until after some time. Understand, I give 10/10 to something that resonates in the core of my soul after a decade of reflection. That top rating is reserved for art so deep and moving that it fundamentally transforms your perspective in a profound existential way that can never be shaken off. Therefore 9/10 is about as high as a movie of this subject and genre could possibly hope to achieve from me. And 8.5 means it made all the right moves. But no, it's not "Citizen Kane" or "Apocalypse Now"!

So why the half point shaved off then? Well, I suppose to save that half point as something for the sequel to aspire for. Or maybe because the movie isn't an hour longer to more fully flesh out the supporting character motivations. But really - I'm well indoctrinated with how stories work, so I can infer more backstory from what's already there by cross-referencing its classically familiar form. I think there's very little to be gleaned from inefficiently bloating the run time to unnecessarily justify itself by stopping the momentum to guide the audience through autonomous scenes of slow growing aquantances and acclimations. The entire benefit to utilizing classical archetypes is so the audience can quick reference the equivalent by assumed association, without holding their hand and patronizingly spelling out the reason for every little minute nuance. The entire anthropological history of mankind is a broken record on repeat, so it's no cheat to play the tune we all dance to. To gripe about that is to gloss over the engrossment and completely miss the point. Stories are a reflection, and classical stories are infinity mirrors - the deeper you go the more you notice the pattern remains the same. Movies such as Avatar and Alita play upon that foundation and give enough to fuel the journey without needing to stop to define what an audience should already subliminally comprehend.

Alita is our subjective surrogate through the narrative, therefore we don't need to understand much more than she herself does. We get to share her wonder and naivete, her infatuation and heartbreak, her indignation and resolve. That's the meat and potatos, and it's all laid out for pleasurable consumption on a nice shiny dish with the properly sharpened utensils. I don't need the ingredients explained to me - it went in warm, taste just fine, and slid out smooth. Maybe it wasn't exactly all derived from the freshest organic grocery, but I'm satisfied.

As for me - being thoroughly steeped in narrative language - I sort of appreciate that the film trust that we can connect the dots without needing to watch every line being drawn. Therefore I'm content with its entire tenure as well as how it ended. But I guess the one thing that could have helped some of this film's needy nitpickers feel more satiated would have been an additional 10 minutes or so just to more profoundly seed how vital and vicious the sport of motorball is in encompassing the aspirations of its competitors and the surrogate hopes of their fellow subjugated spectators for the fulfilled class ascension to the nearly mystical iconic city of Zalem (literally that seemingly unattainable iconic haven in the sky which oppressively casts its looming shadow upon our story set within the dingy bottom dwellers of Iron City). I would bet a scene was shot with Jay Courtney's major leaguer, were he converse with the curious Alita about just how real the stakes are, and maybe instills some advise and warning. Really build up her climatic entrance into the grand arena with more breathy anticipation and nervousness, so that when (*MILD SPOILERY*) she does the unexpected spoiler thing - it would register her priorities even stronger and lend to a more enthralling resolution (*END*). Also, I suppose some additional scenes to further establishing the reveries, revelries, rivalries, rapport, and repartee between characters could have helped more firmly cement relationship dynamics. I wonder if such threading does actually exist, but got excised because of the already lengthy running time? Personally, I had no problem inferring from the breazy pacing, because it's playing upon those classical tropes we should all have a shorthand with. But I can understand how the naysaying novices might perceive that briskness more like a sampler tray rather than a four course meal. Nevertheless, I think this movie is quite wonderful. If an extended bluray edit happens to appear someday to put even more meat on its bones - then I welcome that as well. The film as it is has a comfortable pacing that doesn't lag, and does a fine job of establishing the world and characters just enough to coherently orient the viewer while leaving deeper questions availible for future examination.

I'm really impressed with how well director Robert Rodriguez was able to tone down his usual fantastically flippant frivolity on frugal finances, and ably adapting his acumen to commission achievement of writer/producer James Cameron's pattented plausible world building, controlled geographic clarity and nuanced detail with gorgeously exorbitant refinement. I think it's easily the best thing Rodriguez has done - probably because he did less of it himself - and instead finally decided to mature into the lesson that professional film directing is judiciously delegating a vision to departments more expertly capable to each specific task. Music composer Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL) continues to prove he's a legitimate top tier talent, with some evocative character motifs (even if one of them does closely resemble Nino Rota's classic "Romeo and Juliet" love theme, albeit with a different orchestrational complexion intentioned more toward the intimate wonder of discovery and empowering developement rather than the wistful romanticism of Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Shakespearean tragedy). Along with some quite gorgeous and even delicate signatures and swells, Holkenborg's musical prowess most emphatically impresses in a rousing rollicking adrenalized tour de force movement to equal the visual realization of the climatic future sport motorball competition sequence (basically "Death Race" meets "Rollerball") - which it should be noted is merely an opening act preliminary league tryout to a much grander pro main event level that we'd presumedly see fully explored in the proposed Alita sequel. The set and costume designs all feel authentic to this uniquely distopian cyberpunk Central/South American "Iron City" (a retconned Panama). "Matrix" Cinematographer Bill Pope provides naturalistic beauty for the lit photography, and Weta digital piggybacks on his work to render a new high water mark in vfx for their work on the fully virtual humanoid titular character as well as seemless integration of computer generated imagery with live action. This adaptation of the well loved Japanese graphic manga accomplished precisely what it set out to: It kept my glad attention, sure-handedly ushered my entry into their skillfully crafted foreign future by acutely utilizing archetipical touchstones, and left enough open to anticipate for potential further expansion.

Nothing wrong with that. Bring on the sequel!

Years ago now, when we learned of two simultaneous rival iterations of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book being adapted for cinemas - at first blush I was more prone to align my affinities with the grittier more serious Warner Bros approach. Sure, the Disney cartoon from the 60's is a classic - but that's just the thing - it's a classic, it perfectly exist already. However, to tell the story from the point of view of what a boy raised in the jungles of India by wolves, a bear, and a panther would actual be - well that goosed my appetite. Andy Serkis, as a then first time director whom at that point had only previously helmed some second unit for the disappointment that was Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy - well, that wasn't particularly inspiring. Yet I still surmised myself more simpatico with the Warner Bros premise, and on paper felt the voice casting appeared to top Disney's. But then the Disney movie beat WB out of the gate, and set a new bar for photo realistic computer generated animals and environments... oh, and also was completely charming and far more evocative than anticipated. Scrambling to get out from the looming shadow cast in the wake of Disney's massive success, Waner Bros implemented a series of pushbacks, retitles, and rejiggerings. Even so far as bringing in maverick genuis Alfonso Cuaron to "consult". Well, Alfonso Cuaron is legitimately one of our finest living filmmakers, so it could only mean Warner Bros was giving all due diligence to make their interpretation as refined and impressive as possible - and genuinely carve out a deeper resonance to transcend the memory of Disney's resent juggernaut... Right? Oh, I wish I could tell you that is what happened. With some slight ceremony, Warner Bros waved the white flag and seemingly surrendered their cinematic aspirations to Netflix. But why? Well, that would answer itself in part as soon as we all got that first trailer glimpse of what two years of extra tender loving care had garnered. Sadly what it seemed to wrought was rot.

Warner Bros-cum-Netflix's "Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle" is unfortunately pretty inept and inert as far as being a satisfying cinematic experience. Now, I have never read the Rudyard Kipling stories, but I can discern a shoddy showcase when I smell its stench. The one and only element Serkis' tone-deaf attempt did do better than Disney's was the title character (who was indeed presented and acted with more allusion toward psychological depth and nuance). Other than that sole attribute, "Mowgli" loses the Jungle Book competition on every conceivable level to the deftness of Disney's concurrent version (for its sense of gracefully inventive hospitality and cohesiveness - its iconography in shot composition and lighting, its editorial flow, its tonal transitions, its scene vignettes, its ingraciating charactizations, its rendering of the animals, and its more resonant musical score).

Andy Serkis really doesn't have a great grasp on executing a sound vision, as evidenced by his choices swinging between either oddly offputting or mundanely pedestrian. The direction of the (e)motion-captured animal performances of the actors strangely seems to be aspiring to stage a simultaniously more realistic and cartoonish portrayal, and the inconsistancy of this hodgepodge world-building ends up cannibalizing itself of any credibility in conviction, candor, or cadence. Visually, the computer renderings are seldom convincing to true animals, and Serkis made some extremely poor design decisions from the outset on how he approached the animals by giving them far too much human affectation in body mannerisms and facial appearance. If Serkis never fully appreciated the indelible contribution artistic choices on behalf of directors and animators had aided his previous actorial mo-cap performances - he surely should now, after having revealed his profound lack of understanding in how to properly negotiate the equation. If this was supposed to be Andy Serkis' proof-of-concept to vy for directing an adaptation of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" - then it should serve to only take him completely out of the running (get George Miller!).

All in all, there was maybe eight salvageable minutes of quality cinematic storytelling in "Mowgli" (the running of the wolves/monkey abduction/Bagheera at Mowgli's cage) - whereas Favreau confidently directed the entirety of his Disney extrapolation to thrilling effect.

If I wanted a rugged version of The Jungle Book, I would have hired Jean-Jacques Annaud to direct it in the Indian wild with real animals, sans any anthromorphization.

I must therefore consider any alleged persons that claim to hold the heinous opinion that Serkis' effort is even halfway adequate, to in fact be Netflix shills or WB stooges. It just simply doesn't pass muster. Not in light of Favreau's achievment with fx house MPC. Not even close.

Curb your expectations accordingly.

Before I dissect my minute qualms, let me preface now that "First Man" is a quality movie - and that said - I'm not going to concentrate on any of its virtues here. Because I do have some rather glaring reservations;

Aside from the always welcome addition of Kyle Chandler, I kinda feel most of the film is miscast. Ryan Gosling is one of his generations finest leading actors, but here he is quite blank and doesn't remind me of the real Neil Armstrong at all. In fact, none of the astronaut characterizations seemed like their true-life counterparts. Although I am hard pressed to site better replacements, so perhaps it's more a fault in the writing and direction of those characters.

Another element I take issue with is the constant roaming hand-held camera stuff - especially in the Armstrong home. It was a distractingly curious choice at times, because it gives the actual cameraman a very intrusive participating presence in some of those intimate scenes (for me at least) - echoing the worst tendencies of recent Terrence Malick. Damien Chazelle apparently wanted to underplay everything, yet he overplayed the verite camera work trying so desperately to feel authentic yet calling attention to its artifice through its behind the lens searching, probing, and lurking.

The music score had interesting instrumentations and some impactful moments of tenseness, but to my mind was all too often too subdued and simply tonal wallpaper - and there was never any sense of idealism, which just seems disingenuous as representetive of a story about driven people inspired to do audaciously bold things. It's very obvious they deliberately chose to eschew trumpets and drumlines to avoid the cliche - to once again underplay the events - but I think it's at the cost of undermining the significance of such a momentous accomplishment and undercutting the aspirational emotions involved by being a little too revisionist toward the true stirring spirit of that literally flag-planting era (which was certainly jingoistic in propulsion).

I understand Chazelle is intentionally demystfying the iconism which has become mythicly cliche, and that's a smart place to start from, but at some point in telling a story it will demand when it wants to be fetishized for the purpose of granting perspective on the broader impact. Here we're never really treated to a cinematic rendering of just how profoundly the nation and the world was affected by placing our own footprints onto that big glowing orb in the night sky that has beguiled and beckoned mankind's oneiric romanticisms for our entire tenure as conscious entities on this earth. So even though I appreciated the intimate subtext it told within the pretext, in the respect of the wider context "First Man" fell short for me.

"Apollo 13" is still the best film about a NASA mission. I prefer HBO's excellent mini-series "From The Earth To The Moon" as well. "The Right Stuff" is also superior.

"First Man" is worth a watch, but not likely a rewatch any time soon.

I love this movie.

Briefly, "Rapa Nui" is the native Polynesian name for Easter Island, and this story is set during a highly speculative, yet resonant, depiction of an end of an era that saw high superstition influence the Long-Ear ruling class to ruthlessly subjugate laborers of the Short-Ear clan for building and erecting ever larger giant stone-carved-statued "Moai" to placate seemingly ambivalent ancestral gods while depleting all their natural resources in the pursuit of this sole aim.

Featuring a great primal adversarial dynamic between Jason Scott Lee and Esai Morales, as former childhood best friends, equally noble but from different social castes - both competing in a breathlessly filmed islandwide triathlon of running/swimming/climbing contested by the various clans to decide who rules them all as "Birdman" overleader - as well as a private wager between the two men for which will win the hand of their lifelong romantic ambition, as personified in the lithely loinclothed Sandrine Holt (at her most naturally rapturious). All this while the only world they know is spinning out of control and collapsing around them.

"Rapa Nui" is a finely acted, well spun, sweepingly romantic historical epic tragedy with stunningly photographed oceanic vistas, harrowing action sequences, and an incredible ethnic music score from Police drummer Stewart Copeland! From the perfectly plausible authenticity of the costuming and sets, to cinematographer Stephen Windon's lush scope complimenting director Kevin Reynold's grand vision, the entire cast and crew sublimely complete a truly intimate and stirring portrayal of social revolution amidst environmental upheaval. It's honestly a gripping tour de force in adventure cinema, with an astonshingly realized recreation of a world lost to time. Firmly planted among my favorite films. And certainly one I am always pleased to expose more people to.

I've heard writer/director Kevin Reynolds subsequently express disappointment with this film. I understand it's difficult for him to have a fair perspective of something he's so intimately involved in the intricacies of attempted recreation of, especially when it doesn't perform finacially after much trouble. I suppose maybe it became a source of brow beating for him that perhaps factored into his immediatly following tumultuous period on "Waterworld"? Just speculating. But he should be extremely proud of his achievement here, because it is quite exceptional.

A new more finely tuned retrospective ought to be commissioned to accompany a long overdue restoration release of this film, assembling original existing behind the scenes promo featuerettes with more candid contemporary interviews. I've always been keenly interested in the making of this particular underseen gem. And I've always been curious about its vaguely alluded to production woes, as well as how hands on producer Kevin Costner was. It's one of my most coveted bluray remaster wishes, as I've never seen it in anything near a pristine presenation ever. It's worthy. Very much so. Anyone who appreciated Mel Gibson's "Apacalypto" - or perhaps Roland Emmerich's "10,000 B.C." or even James Cameron's "Avatar" - should be clamouring to add "Rapa Nui" to their top shelf collection. Classical mythologic hero's journey archetype done to perfection.

Sadly, as of the writing of the review, for some fool reason one of 1994's most beautiful films "Rapa Nui" is not readily availible, not attractively so anyway. I've never even seen a decent presentation of this, just an HBO recording from VCR, then an old pan and scan used rental VHS, and then finally a slapdash foreign DVD rudimentary transfer. Apparently Warner Bros Archive has released what may be a slightly improved presentation. Yet nevertheless, it is blatantly magnificient in every incarnation. So someone in charge please chose to do the right thing and preserve this film properly.

"Rapa Nui" really is deserving of discovery and reassessment. I feel like it's objectively a wonderful film. To me, it's absolutely a classic.

Look, let's all agree from the outset that Transformers -- as a concept -- is absolutely asinine. It's a race of advanced alien super machines disturbingly taking on traits of human behavior and cultural affectation whilst mostly rolling around in the guise of various performance vehicles fawned over by philistines. There's no rationale where this isn't a mind-numbing conceit born from a toy line aimed at the aggressive fantasy synapses of immature brains. And that's a perfect sandbox for Michael Bay to build his arena and wallow with gluttonous abandon.

So now that that's established, let me declare the main thesis point for advocacy here: He's a genius! That's right -- Michael Bay is a genius!

Because Bay is one of the few commonly known filmmakers in the zeitgeist, certain glib hipster constituencies lazily feign credibility in cinematic knowledge by dropping his name in loathing as a pathetic synonym shortcut for superiority though snark. In deed, any faint praise toward Bay is often immediately shot down with hyperbolic aghast and equated to justifying Hitler by his work as a painter, or musing on the songwriting merit of Charles Manson. Now I won't dispute that Bay has an inclination for silly sophomoric humor and vapid glamorization of excess. Nor will I gloss over his propensity to indulge in stereotypes and cliché. One may not be simpatico to his fetishizations, but it's sort of pointless to criticize the very essence of the art form, especially when it's done with such gusto. At lest Bay seems to have a knowing wryness that can take a joke at expense of his brash reputation. As an artist working in the medium of moving visuals, Michael Bay is nothing short of brilliant. If he plays to the lowest common denominator, that denominator in nonetheless true to a passionate perspective set by him. These raucous boyhood reveries aren't just mercenary exploits, but expressions of what Bay truly loves and wants to revisit. Intimately personal to a singular psyche, these are massive experimental art films that happen to align with commerce as their principled dogma. If nothing else, being cognizant that what you're getting is being given with a verisimilitude that absolutely attends to the authentic aura of its own axiom, ought to eek some appreciation -- however begrudging. Just because Bay makes movies with the sensibilities of a thirteen-year-old boy, doesn't mean he ought to be demonized as though guilty of atrocities.

It's fairly true that Bay's spectacular extravaganzas cater to simpletons, but the dense amount of information breathlessly presented through pure cinematic terms within them is anything but simple. The fact that most of the breakneck exposition being blasted at an audience actually sticks, is proof that Bay is profoundly competent beyond eye-popping exhilarations. It should be noted that before his feature debut with "Bad Boys", Michael Bay was already one of the most sought after and acclaimed commercial directors of all time, having amassed an astounding amount of advertising awards for his ability to pack viscerally entertaining stories into thirty-second to a minute-and-a-half short form films.

Unlike the majority of filmmakers credited on complicated productions of vast proportion, Bay (quite uniquely) doesn't shirk responsibilities off to 2nd-Unit crews and department heads to autonomously realize aspects or sequences, but rather personally micromanages all divisions to his specified fruition. With a wicked efficiency in speed and breadth, Bay generals hugely intricate on- set sequences involving simultaneous camera setups of stunning aesthetic composition involving impressive precision in kinetics, frame- rates, lighting, lens augmentations, stunt work and practical effects rigging -- with actors performing in frame – and orchestrates all this "Bayhem" safely. Then without missing a beat carries that energy over to lording over every minute aspect of post-production; from the incredibly layered complexities of editing, effects, sound design, music, and even marketing. Bay is no gun-for-hire hack, he is a specific visionary of immense skill set. Although some may be bewildered by the styled nature of its non-stop sensory bombardment -- and regardless as to its vulgar pronouncement, no one can claim it's not often astonishingly beautiful and does somehow express a cohesive whole. That's an extraordinary exhaustive task that only a handful of the most adept and composed directors in the world could even dare attempt, which Bay confidently mounts on a frequent basis, to a degree perhaps unequaled.

There is a reason why the often emulated, never replication, bigger than life spectacle that Bay routinely accomplishes has garnered proper recognition, accolade, and defense over the years from peers such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, Edgar Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino; Because they know that action and montage is the purest form of cinema and Michael Bay is a master of that discipline -- and the fact that it seems so undisciplined is maybe even a testament too. Also they understand the overwhelming workload required to definitively command such gargantuan ventures, and the fact that Bay does it time and again with virtuoso vision of auteur aesthetic is a totally impressive feat -- even if you don't care for it.

Opposing the consensus dismissal that Bay is an unsophisticated abomination that merely makes incoherent populace bombasts that lack any semblance of subtly or nuance in pensive development -- I would counter that perhaps the purveyors of that notion simply lack capacity in comprehending communication through super sophisticated rapid sensorial stimulation. Bay may be stuck in arrested development in his childish proclivities, but that child is nonetheless a supreme savant in cinematic verse.

As for "Transformers: The Last Knight", it has the same expected virtues I've detailed as well as those defects of being excessively loud and shallow. Sure, I'd prefer Bay tone down the bro banter, silly stoicism, and frenetic editing – but such criticisms can only go so deep when what is presented is so staggeringly authentic to its aspiration. Anyway, Anthony Hopkins seems to be having a helluva time!

"Jodorowsky's Dune" is an engaging documentary about a failed mounting of a major motion picture. However its determination to conclude that, if produced, it certainly would have resulted in a supreme testament to the profound potential of the Cinematic art form -- is not given the credibility such a claim demands. Unfortunately, the total absence of any rational opposing viewpoint (removed from the delusions of grandeur indulged to its star speaker) explaining the practical reasons why such an almost-masterpiece was not ultimately supported, renders this a masturbatory propaganda puff- piece (and forces me to knock the rating down considerably out of sheer sycophantic exhaustion). But go ahead and give it a watch -- especially if you're a confirmed cinephile, genre aficionado, or "Dune" devotee.

But with all the eclectic true talent that had begun to assemble for this project, why do I so flagrantly assert the dismissal that this film wouldn't have lived up to any of their collective potential? -- Eight syllables: Al-lay-han-dro * Joad-doe-row-ski.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the silver tongued snake-oil salesman of highlight here, understands that -- while he may be a great teller of tall tales -- he is not a great storyteller. Not in the least. Would-be auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky comes from the "avant-garde" art scene -- which is just a pretentious way of saying he has a propensity for vacuous kitschy pop perversion, yet is able to hide under a fancy Frog word to validate it. The man is known not for great movies, but for playing to the lowest common denominator of art affectation. Oh so loving odes to the scatological and profane; incoherent posturing strung together through cute little images of blasphemy and vile sadism.

Jodorowsky wants to adorn himself an out-of-time progressive renaissance man of immense enlightenment, but his thoughtless philistinism is like a low-rent tribute to the depraved vapid vulgarity that hallmarked the careers of Andy Warhol, Ken Russell, John Waters, and Pier Paolo Pasolini -- but without even attaining their unmerited impact. It's quite telling that anyone who will indulge with Jodorowsky in substance abuse, cater to his ego, or allow themselves subjugated to his insane whims are distinguished by Jodorowsky as "Spiritual Warriors", while those with more sober senses are "Soulless". And eyes roll toward the darkest recesses of cranial cavitations having to endure the permeation of such blustering nonsense go completely unchallenged.

Instead of plausibly translating the grand universe of intricate histories, theology, political intrigue, and power struggles that "Dune" author Frank Herbert scribed so illustriously, Jodorowsky would have desecrated its eminent quality by substituting debased detours catering to the diseased of spirit, in giddy honor of degradation and silly pseudo-philosophic utopianism. Because that's who Alejandro Jodorowsky is -- a man who insist the collaborative nature of film-making and adapting authors' works has to be an act of defilement, and bolsters that claim by analogizing it to a marriage night where the husband must forcefully violate his wife, because to continue to regard her with respect could never produce a child -- so "Rape! RAPE! RAPE!... but with love". That's how this guy's mind works. He only cares about himself, and is perfectly fine to abuse others to get his way -- even though his way holds not one shred of virtue. Of course he would cast his own pre-pubescent young son to scurry about fully nude in his odious "art-films" for no honest reason other than pedophilic pleasure. This is a man who literally films defections for scat enthusiasts. Jodorowsky is not an artist, he's a charlatan of art -- he doesn't express the humanities, only dehumanization -- he's an exploitative sensationalist rather than imperative provocateur.

The most bizarre aspect of this documentary is not even the gonzo eccentric at its heart, but rather the fact that this deviant was ever even considered a viable pillar to hinge a major investment on! Of course his rambling nonsense would be forsaken once money needed milking, but before that reality set in, Jodorowsky had already recruited (most probably exclusively through vice enticement) an incredible array of superstar talent for both ends of the lens. This examination does nevertheless merit attention for the grotesque fascination of learning about an adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel that would have managed to be even more of a corruption than David Lynch's vomit, whilst simultaneously tainting so many bright young talent's careers -- after casting their bests into an abyss of excrement under the abominable shepherding of Alejandro Jodorowsky - - and possibly derailing their destinies in genre film's hall of legends. At least half of the legacy citations it stretches to tie to Jodorowsky's credit as direct lineage progeny are -- to be generous -- highly suspect, and I just don't at all agree with its ridiculous thesis that this was "the greatest movie never made".

Now if proved virtuoso, consummate professional and diligent filmmaker Ridley Scott had realized HIS planned vision for "Dune" -- maybe that truly is one of the great missed opportunities that would have birthed a legitimate masterpiece! Hmm... perhaps a sequel is in order:

"RIDLEY'S DUNE"?!

More of a retrospective commentary than a review; what follows is completely spoiler-free in terms of plot points, but is intended as an admiring post-script annotation to the film's thematic legacy and resonance.

The Iron's Giant is simply the best animated feature ever made and one of the most subtly sophisticated conscience driven "films" in all of Cinema. In addition to the elegant old-school cell animation, wonderful adventure, and truthful humor -- auteur Brad Bird's tour-de-force quietly and magnificently emerges as much more than just another innocuous warm-hearted family friendly diversion.

Set in cold-war paranoia & post nuclear Rockwellian/Capra-esque New England/Americana nostalgia, this all-time classic gem -- with sublime eloquence and earnest maturity -- beautifully dignifies powerfully principled pronouncements on prejudice, xenophobia, alienation, anti-authoritarianism, nonviolence, and moral identity; Of lonely boyhood reverie and single-working-mother/son repport; surrogate family in father figures, secret bonds & empathetic brotherhoods; tolerance, compassion, free will, devotion, sacrificial love, and the nature of consciousness and the concept of a spiritual soul. But far from heavy-handed frothy proselytizations, it wisely finesses those virtues subtextually into the nuances while rendering a completely involving fantasy story of a boy coming of age through a symbiotic relationship with an otherworldly friend that rivals Spielberg's "E.T. The Extra Terrestrial" in pure exhilarating enchantment! This movie is all lunch-boxes, no soap-boxes.

Perhaps The Iron Giant's most profound platform however is the bitterest pill: running against the modern hedonistic zeitgeist of coddled indulgence and fickle fluidity to shrug, "The Iron Giant" gracefully drives its primary message that each sentient individual of seminal volition is autonomously responsible for the decisions that ultimately define their position as a cognizant being. Regardless of birth or influence, every conscious entity with the capability to express love or hate beyond self preservation, has the self-agented obligation in full context of their ethical effect upon the existing morale they help mold to mindfully choose what and who they are -- even at the rejection of core inclination. It's the total opposite to excusing one's self because of proclivity. In this life each Soul is sole, but the lone quest to find purpose through harmonization, because all are connected beyond the dirt we return to, and everything counts, every attitude ripples, and every action reveberates. No one who is able, can dismiss that ability by citing implement or impediment as the deciding factor to their path. It doesn't espouse the total embrace of what one wants most, but rather the total thoughtfulness to what wants most from one -- what is right and worthy of one's "oneness", and where one fits into carrying that through for the sake of togetherness.

Disney will glorify the vapid virtue of "being yourself", while The Iron Giant will implore the existential ethic to find yourself by being beyond just yourself. The high-road will always be up-hill, but "you are who you choose to be".

In empathetic powers, anyone can resolve to become "Super" by submitting to a supreme ethos/pathos/logos which reciprocates the sacrifice of superficial selfishness with the significance of synthesis in shared sacredness.

Who you choose to be is dependent on what you will choose to service.

Director Lawrence Kasdan went mythic in scope and breadth with his majestic ode to the great lost American West for "Wyatt Earp". It's just full-on romantic sweep, hard-nosed stoicism, and pioneer spirit -- making for one of the most rousing pleasures in the entire genre.

An initially overlooked classic, having had the misfortune to arrive under the still looming shadow casts just prior by the similar themed (and also great) "Tombstone". The two very different films share old west lawman Wyatt Earp as their main protagonist, but only overlap in depicting the episodes that culminated in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral -- which occurred in Tombstone's namesake; So naturally that film -- which focuses squarely on the particulars of those specific events -- wins, in rendering fuller aspect to its isolated circumstances.

Whereas 1993's "Tombstone" was a cracking contained rollicking rampage of a buddy action western, 1994's "Wyatt Earp" acted as the saga of a man, a family, and a country -- a lavish production spanning the majority of its titular figure's lifetime.

Kevin Costner is every bit as excellent in his own way here portraying Wyatt Earp as Kurt Russell was in his unique fashion for "Tombstone". But instead of being as hellbent and primal, Costner goes for quiet simmering dread. He's a peaceful realist haunted by violence, willing to warily adapt to triumph within those means. A harsh man with heart, convicted by the decency dispersed down to him by his disciplined and principled patriarch father, memorably played to perfection in just a few scenes by the always wonderful Gene Hackman. Doc Holiday is not the breakout star in this opus like he was in Val Kilmer's show stealing performance for "Tombstone", but rather he shows up maybe half way through and is played very believably and seriously by Dennis Quaid. More amusingly cantankerous in his witty retorts than Kilmer's swaggeringly deft provocateur. I imagine Quaid's less seductive Doc Holiday is honestly more realistic than Kilmer's, although Kilmer wins in entertainment value and greater sense of unpredictable danger. For the Tombstone set portion that occurs in "Wyatt Earp", it's really very well done, but admittedly it's mostly bettered in "Tombstone" simply because of that film's ability to flesh out just that story over the course of its entire running time. But also, I think the casting is slightly better, or at least flashier, there too -- I mean "Tombstone" has Bill Paxton, Sam Elliot, Powers Booth, Michael Biehn, and Stephen Lang just gnawing on the scenery and spitting it out! Although Michael Madson and Linden Ashby are no slouches as Earp bother's Virgil and Morgan, neither is Mark Harmon's local sheriff stooge Behan. One casting the two movies have in common that I find "Wyatt Earp" has a resounding superiority over "Tombstone" in though, is that of Wyatt's great lasting love Josie; In "Tombstone" she is played quite shrill and to my taste unappealing by Dana Delany, whereas Joanna Going here is so very graceful and lithely empowered that one easily imagines Wyatt's old weather-beaten heart's sudden exposure to the supple elements of such a fine specimen of femininity being quite enough to absolutely consume it. What I'm saying is Joanna Going is very pleasant in deed, which is especially good, because Josie plays a more integral role in "Wyatt Earp" as well.

"Wyatt Earp" is so much more expansive than "Tombstone" however, and therefore has so many more fantastically casts roles throughout. Besides the aforementioned Gene Hackman, there's Bill Pullman and Tom Siezmore as Ed and Bat Masterson, plus young Ian Bohen is really good as the boyhood Wyatt. Veteran character actor, James Gammon makes a nice appearance. Even Jim Caviezel shows up briefly as the youngest Earp brother. And the Earp wives and women actually hint at some genuine human agency, nicely realized by Mare Winningham, Catherine O'Hara, JoBeth Williams, Alison Elliott, and Betty Buckley. So, an unequivocally great cast.

The set design looks wonderful and appears proper in depicting the burgeoning West under construction. The costuming feels authentic, but "Tombstone" also felt appropriate and had the added benefit of cutting an indelibly iconic silhouette with Doc and the Earp brothers drapped all in black as near undertakers in those long duster coats and Wyatt's wide flat brimmed hat. Kurt Russell and Sam Elliot also clearly won the mustache war. Not that "Tombstone" wasn't a well photographed film in its own right, but oh-my, what wonders do dazzle brilliant in "Wyatt Earp"! Owen Roizman provides some of the most exhilaratingly lush pastoral scope cinematography you're likely to ever lay your gaze upon, yet then counterpoints that with wonderfully moody chiaroscuro lighting evoking the very best in film noir. It really is about as good as it gets. Yet not to be outdone, composer James Newton Howard goes on ahead and throws his hat in the arena of the very best Western film scores ever. In fact, the differences between these two iconic cinematic Earp offerings can perhaps be best encapsulated in their music scores, with Bruce Broughton composing an equally perfect accompaniment to his picture's less lofty but more rugged ambitions. But "Wyatt Earp" is just working on a whole other level, as is its moving score compositions.

Although "Tombstone" was the breakout box- office hit, both succeeded wonderfully true to their aim. A provocative pulp novella, and a sumptuous sprawling tome; "Tombstone" is one terrific juicy burger, and "Wyatt Earp" is one magnificent four- course-meal. And just as a delicious entree, movies and music are treats of taste meant to be consumed and enjoyed; they're not subject to monogamous fidelity, and won't become hurt or jealous of time spent or pleasure derived from another!

If any should find the verbiage of the review impenetrable, then congratulations, you possess the prerequisite disabilities necessary for deciphering the deeper logic of this illogically lauded landmark of cinematic stupidity. But by all means, I do welcome someone to please reasonably enlighten what exactly is good about this movie... And while I wait for pigs to fly -- and before getting onto the intricacies of its incompetence -- I will first, in as pithy a fashion as can be mustered, thoroughly explain precisely what is bad about this movie now: EVERYTHING.

I first encountered director John Boorman's 1981 abomination "Excalibur" on VHS as a child of that decade. and without any passion recalled only that it never particularly resonated, aside from its memorable molestation of Carl Orff's fantastic "Oh Fotruna" on the soundtrack. Under the ignorant indoctrination of distance, I eventually succumbed to the assumption within popular consensus that it must be pretty good -- afterall, its status as the finest cinematic translation of Arthurian legend is constantly evoked to the point of having created its very own mini mythos. Upon resent sober reevaluation, I disturbingly found myself at a complete loss as to what could have possibly gained this film such a following of ardent acclaimers. I do not know what necromancy has perpetrated such a mass delusion upon this vocal constituency, but their adoration is patently misplaced. Due to its utter incomprehensibility, as I attempt to critique the wall-to-wall flaws of this film, I will dwell exclusively on the deficiencies that render its ponderous plotting unintelligible rather than dare delve into the details of describing the silly scenes arbitrarily stitched together to resemble its said plot.

An incoherent unfocused mishmash of checklist attributes found in Arthurian Lore does not unto itself make for engaging cinematic storytelling, when the needed essentials of solid drama are shunned. I stress the faults within Excalibur's "cinematic language" here, because regardless of its adherence to sequential events, it is the dramatist's very purpose to call upon technique to link those happenings with a rationale that lends them credence, creating a suspension of disbelief for their fantastical nature to nevertheless ring true. Rather than allowing even a summery reading, the movie plays like being granted only the chapter titles and footnotes from a sprawling novel to glean inference from, without sufficient context of the vast content composed between to inform how each random caption connects to a cohesive whole. Any decent yarn-spinner resigns to the responsibility to at minimum entertain, if not edify. Artists enter into intmate bonds of good faith with captive audiences, assuring that their attentive trust is a reciprocal investment that will be rewarded in kind with some recognizable or relevant reflection of life as comformation of a shared humanity and therein pay off the indebted obligation owed for luring their patronage.

Absent in Boorman's "Excalibur" is any variant of satisfying narrative tropes; Establishing the stakes for audiences to buy into, through engrossing conflicts, relatable ambitions, and objective goals. The anticipatory tensions and delights derived from setting up character and plot details, dynamics, quirks, traits, and motifs to be revisited in inventive ways. Using dramatic-irony, reversals- of-fortune, tragedies, and triumphs to engage empathy and entice desire toward resolution.

In lieu of chivalrous ideals, Boorman lathers on stilted misogynistic posturing, and not much else. As a confirmed admirer of composer Trevor Jones, its with apprehension that I admit his music here provides nothing worth note, having been relegated to incidental ambiance due to the desperate amount of "needle-dropping" of Richard Wagner and Carl Orff -- whose classical pieces were already autonomously great before being desecrated in this nonsense and therefore cannot be applied by commandeered proxy to the picture's credit. Character nuance in thought process and relationship dynamics are non- existent, nor is any action granted even a crudely drawn motivation, therefore the drastically broad yet thin arcs are simply devoid of plausibility. The heavy- handed expositional dialogue is truly ridiculous -- every single word that comes out of a character's mouth is an embarrassingly lame soliloquy stating exactly what is already evident, but not explaining any reasoning for any of its indiscernible merit. For a film that employs many indisputably talented actors, it's quite the shameful accomplishment that every performance is over-the-top and affected with hysterically pretentious theatrics. The costume design, in all its gaudy grandeur, has not the slightest semblance of practicality -- all the knights just lounge around in shiny polished full body armor, while the caricatured buffoon Merlin wizards a meticulously tattered yet pristine jet black robe and nifty platinum skull cap. The production-design is like sets from a cheap stage play. If some trees seem to appear legit, I'm gonna go ahead and just credit nature and God for their surely accidental inclusion within this vulgar vomit. The usually great Alex Thompson's cinematography is all gauzy and unnatural light, with magical moments casting a nauseating "non-diegetic" neon green. At no time do any of the boringly vapid and across-the-board malevolent characters demonstrate a shred of rationality or principal to explain their lack thereof... the same is true for the filmmakers.

I've heard the apologist excuse this clumsy pile of drivel because it was supposedly a revolutionary step forward for the fantasy genre in contemporary cinema. However this argument simply cannot hold water, when the fact that "Excalibur" arrived in the immediate wake of fantasy masterpieces like "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Conan The Barbarian" is taken into account.

I could go on... but why? John "Borefest" Boorman's irredeemably tedious "Excalibur" is cheap, inane, inept, and flat-out awful.

I've got love for Martin Lawrence. He fuses hilariously exaggerated physicality and vocal inflections with genuine charm and charisma. And with this concert I went in as affable as possible, but an audience can only suspend its goodwill so far.

Now I'm no baseball fan, but here an analogy does come to mind: Anticipating the return of an old school player (from the Himalayas), home plate is reverently dusted off for the older wiser champ to step back up to bat and show how maturity can adopt and adapt with smarter efficiency of technique. However, with a consistent barrage of material simply devoid of wit, Lawrence's aimless swings never connect, and when he settles for the bunt it unfortunately rolls right to first base, sadly making all his exerted efforts at still proving his intact run-and- slide capabilities no more favorable to the scoreboard.

Essentially it's an hour-and-a-half hanging with your friend who thinks humoring everyone with excessive bawdiness is the reason people like him. So he goes on an on... and on and on... an amiable buddy mistaking debased jokes for the basis for his place at the table (and maybe in youth we mistook it for being that as well). But really he's funny because of the exhaustive energies and affectations he lends to illustrating how he tells a story, not necessarily because his stories are inherently funny. And here is Marty-Mar's trouble; what he has to say is actually nothing special and kinda sad that he can't think of anything better. The main problem (outside of just baseness ad nauseam) is that he wants to do observational comedy while being blatantly disingenuous about the circumstances for such an observation. The most essential element for effective comedy is truth, even when lying you've got to be telling a higher truth. Here Lawrence lazily fictionalizes accounts of smoking weed with a ghetto-fabulous Obama family in The White House, and a bunch of explicit misogyny-tinged ruminations about the sensations derived from bodily organs and functions. It's tired low humor that an audience endures in vein while waiting for the funnier stuff that never comes.

C'mon Marty Mar -- you're a 50 year old man, and you're better than this!

And again here with "The Zookeeper's Wife", yet another film standing stoically for virtue, forgets to actually be virtuous. Superficial piety poorly substitutes for the vitality of verisimilitude.

I'm not going to write a lot about the plot or delve into specific spoilers here, except to say it's supposedly based on true events, focusing on a Polish family using their forcibly defunct zoo grounds to help hide and save Jews from Nazi occupiers during the second world war. Now that that is established, let me say as well meaning as I'm sure all involved were in telling this story, it is written and directed to play into every lazy cliché, and feels forced and false far too often to ignore. It's simply not enough to facade a crudely painted platform for the humanities whilst being disingenuous to the holistic hindrances and hardships that hue humanity.

Although the film employs a perfectly talented cast, the acting is overwrought to the point of nearly being disgraceful. Like calculated clockwork; one single solitary tear systematically shimmers down Jessica Chastain's chaste cheek seemingly every five minutes. I don't necessarily blame the performers here, but rather Niki Caro's heavy-handed direction to them. Everyone is acting like their in an "important" movie instead of acting like real human beings faced with critical moments and difficult circumstances. We know the zookeeper's formidable wife is a woman of great integrity and capacity for courage and tolerance because -- in addition to pulling up her sleeves and working with the animals -- at every chance she affectedly plants affectionate kisses directly onto the snouts of any creature in her care without discrimination. Typical sniveling Nazi villain checks all the prerequisite boxes throughout, and is of course an arrogant predatory fascist stooge with fantastic notions of his own allure and aspirations of grandeur. Victims act like caricatures of victims, pulling faces and gestures with demonstrative abandon. A lot of shifting eyes here, or hysterics there -- everyone telegraphing their emotions when their supposed to be hiding them. Heinous character choices run rampant here, obviously meant to manipulate an audience's empathy or outrage, but backfire in there inauthentic regard for truthful human behavior and intellect. So many broadly melodramatic details clutter this telling without thought for the real-world recklessness that those choices would have actually been, that even without doing any research into the details of the actual events being portrayed I simply know as an common person of fair perception that there is no way they could have occurred in the fashion depicted within this film.

The cinematography, production design, and musical score are uniformly serviceable and generic. I give this project credit for decent aesthetic appearance and humane ambitions, but unfortunately cannot endorse such egregious posturing. I never felt a single true moment that made me forget I was watching a contrived scene meant to stir sentiment without sentience, and therefore constantly felt disengaged by its labored desire to be loved.