A child's father gets beheaded while his son watches and the protagonist slaughters an entire village, including women and children.  PG, of course!  Double.  Standards.

DIRECTOR: George Lucas

I'm calling it right here.  I don't need to go further, but I will.  The Machete Cut does not fix the franchise.  Good golly, Darth Molly.  This movie.  I feel like a hipster claiming that this was the worst movie in the franchise before everyone else jumped on board, but I really want to stick to my guns.  People always rail against The Phantom Menace, but this movie.  Guys!  This movie?  It is REALLY bad.  I keep going in thinking, "I have always been way too hard on this movie."  Nope.  I haven't been hard enough.  There is almost nothing redeeming about this film and I'm ashamed to now own this movie.  The weird part is that, in the back of my brain --I can feel it! --I know the brain is healing from the damage and five year from now, I will be open to watching this movie again and I'll be angry again.

There's just so much.  So so much that I don't know where to start.  I'm going to go big and then just gripe from there.  This plot?  It doesn't make a lick of sense.  I have had the plot of the prequel trilogy explained to me and it is straight up dumb.  SPOILERS, BUT WHO CARES?    This is one of those storylines of complexity that really hides the fact that there is no way that this would work if any one of a million different random items went a different way than actually did in the movie.  Palpatine is grabbing for power by starting a war and backing both sides.  I give this movie more credit by stealing You Only Live Twice's metaphor of Japanese fighting fish.  But there's a lot of set up that got these two sides to fight, one side actually organized by Count Dooku --HIS NAME IS DOOKU! If Palpatine was able to manipulate all of these forces to fight on this grand of a scale, why wouldn't he use any of these things to simply kill the Jedi and the Senate.  The Third Order did it!  The creation of the Empire is weirdly the most tedious plot ever.  Many stories use corporate bureaucracy to compensate for the fact that they are regular dude.  That sneakiness is necessary because there are safeguards in place to stop any kind of underhanded plan.  But the Sith are the Sith!  They have force lightning and stuff.  They are really good at killing folks.  Why would you be secretive if you can shoot lightning out of your fists and have ungodly resources.  This plan makes not a lick of sense and I hate this movie for pretending that these things make sense.  The story is a rail shooter.  Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin just fall upon plot points at the end of one lead and there's no actual choice for the characters to follow.  Like the one moment of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that I reference all of the time (I'll make sure you get yours someday!), Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi shouldn't have been able to catch Zam.  It was an against all odds chase and only through a mix of extreme talent and unbelievable luck (I'm using "unbelievable" as literally as I can) did they catch the guy.  Also, the diner chef --woof -- knew about this hidden star system but every single Jedi has no idea that it exists?  There's just a level of lazy screenwriting in this movie that makes me cry.  Palpatine needs the events of this movie to happen, but the protagonists really aren't supposed to be surviving any of the challenges thrown their way.  Guys!  This movie!  Bruh.

I'm just repeating what the Internet has said so many times, but let's get this on record.  This is the most uncomfortable relationship that I can imagine.  It's not even the April / December relationship.  I can get past that.  They're both technically adults, although Anakin acts like an infant throughout the film.  I can even shut off my brain for the awkward chemistry that doesn't exist.  I've seen other movies and TV shows where I can accept that the two people don't really seem that in love.  It's the fact that Padme falls in love with Anakin despite the fact that Anakin is only showing his worst traits over and over again.  Padme feels sexually harassed from the moment Anakin comes near her. She asks him patiently not to look at her like he is.  He is coming on super strong.  The big theme of the movie is that Anakin is defying the code of the Jedi for celibacy and allowing his true feelings to rise to the surface.  There's a story somewhere in that.  I actually think that there can be quite an interesting plot there.  But Anakin never really grapples with that.  From the first moment he's on screen, he is proclaiming is love for Padme to anyone who would listen, including Padme herself.  That's not forward for a Jedi; that's forward for anybody.  I just needed him to reign it in a little.  He's not even charming with his revelations.  He's love poetry-ing the whole thing. He's making mixtape after mixtape for her and she isn't having it.  Lucas has a very male-fantasy aspect to his love story where persistence in the face of clear disgust wins.  He keeps saying how much he loves her over and over again and she starts to change.  Boo.  I say boo.  But I say "boo" even more because Anakin starts doing absolutely horrible things and she only falls in love with him the more.  At a crucial part of the courting (GAG!) process, Anakin slaughters so many tuscan raiders.  SO MANY!  He talks about murdering children and women and how much he liked it.  He confesses to having serial killer tendencies and apparently that's the button that Padme needed.  What?  WHAT?  Are we rooting for lightswitch serial killer and the woman who wants that?  That's the movie I just watched.  It's gross.  She sees him as a little kid who murders entire villages and that's what really gets her going.  Boo. 

The original trilogy had Lucas make a great story and then decided to make special effects that matched his story.  He needed to create these amazing effects because the story called for it.  He didn't want people sneering at something because it didn't look as good as what he needed it to.  These special effects were part of the mythology of George Lucas that I keep talking about. He's trying so hard to make something life changing and none of this crap holds up.  The movie is so covered in CG that it looks like a ride at a theme park.  (I think I'm starting to make that comparison too often, but these are honest thoughts I have been having about these movies.  The theme parks are meant to emulate, but not create something new.)  The opening shot is pretty cool with the ship landing on the planet, but I don't need to have actors clearly walking in front of a green screen.  That's the problem with many of these new Star Wars movies.  They are so special effects laden that don't hold up over time.  Nothing in this movie looks like it really exists.  I kept telling myself that I should just watch it for the story, but all of the action looked like characters were just floating via mouse click-and-drag.  There's no real suspense because there's too much garbage just flying around the screen and physics had no place in this world.  I watch the original trilogy and maybe once or twice, I think, "Boy, that's a cool special effect."  But most of the movie makes me forget that I'm watching a special effect.  Isn't that the point?  Well, I guess I can say a similar thing about the new trilogy because only once or twice did I think a special effect was cool.  (I'll tell you which one I liked.  During the final war sequence when the dust was flying everywhere.  The blasters had an aura around them.  That's the only time I was really impressed besides the opening shot.)  

My kid really likes the Star Wars cartoons, so I started watching Clone Wars  on Netflix.  Those stories are pretty solid.  Like, really good.  There is a good version of Anakin and Obi-Wan out there.  But every single performance was an actor's worst performance.  George Lucas had no idea how to convey a single direction to their actors.  I can't believe that Hayden Christensen is as bad as comes across here.  I feel bad for his career.  I'm positive that every note just asked him to ramp the performance up to eleven. Yes, the writing is bad and I'm really unforgiving of many of Anakin's speeches in this movie, but there could have been some really touching moments.  I just read an io9 article showing a reinterpretation of Darth Vader's stupid "NOOOOOOO!" sequence from Revenge of the Sith.  It was subtle and calm.  He only spoke using the word "No," but that "No" was always followed by a period.  It's anger like anger really is.  It is filled with regret and sadness.  It isn't screaming or crying.  It can build to that, but it doesn't have to be that at all.  And I know that Ewan McGregor is awesome.  He's so good in so many things.  He's crushing it on Fargo right now.  So giving him this really sad interpretation of this character that is almost nothing like Sir Alec Guinness, despite a spot on impression going on is just a waste.  The actors had to know that the intentions wouldn't be conveyed, but they had no choice.  

This movie isn't bad for Star Wars.  This isn't the time that George Lucas dropped the ball.  That happens to everyone. This is a bad movie for any movie.  It's not the weak one in a franchise.  It is a low point for science fiction in general and golly, I do not want to watch Revenge of the Sith.  This might be my angriest review.

Yeah, this is one of those "Not Rateds" that is totally rated R.  It has lots of nudity and language.  It is not overtly offensive, but it touches on some questionable subject matter.

DIRECTOR: Paolo Sorrentino

I thought of a cool project that I might start slowly incorporating into this blog.  As I watch my hits dip as summer progresses, I might just make little review games for myself.  I might start reviewing people's favorite movies.  I once had a problem with this back in college.  I watched Scarface, the DePalma one, after a kid in the dorm told me that it was the greatest movie ever made.  I hated it.  Sorry, Scarface fans.  You should keep liking it.  I hated it.  When he asked me what I thought and I told him that I didn't love it, he lost his mind on me.  But I do want to know what people claim as their favorite movie.  This is someone I know's favorite movie.  At least, it was the movie he recommended me.  

I want to psychoanalyze the recommender of this movie with the knowledge that this is his favorite film.  You know how some people claim that owners start to look like their dogs?  I'm pretty sure this person doesn't own a dog, but this movie is telling of their personality so hard.  There is so much going on here and the movie is absolutely fascinating.  I'm going to go into filmmaking and directorial choices, but front and center of this movie is the exploration of art, the discomfort of aging, the oppression of regret and more.  This movie is deep as heck, guys.  I can't recommend it as a romp for an evening.  (I'm ashamed because the movie I followed it up with is Attack of the Clones, so I'm saying that I'm balanced on terms of depth.)  Jep is such an odd subject for the protagonist of a film because he's neither good nor bad.  But I don't want to confuse his personality as neutral either.  He is an active participant in moral choices, but those choices are bizarre and dramatic.  He leads this very deep life, but much of its depth come from the choices that he continues to make on a moment's notice.  He is neck deep in the world of art and expression, but he holds that world in a vacillating state of adoration and contempt.  I'd like to think that is what Sorrentino is trying to portray with is look at what my friend calls "a version of Rome that we keep seeing that never really existed."  The creator both is addicted to the world of art and sees its pretensions and artifices with everything he does.  Jep has the advantage of age, which allows us to view himself through a critical lens and without being a slave to this artistic expression, unlike his peers.  

The Great Beauty is the first movie that I can think of that places a higher definition on the notion of freedom.  Jep is always free to do what he pleases.  At one point, he claims that he is too old to waste time doing things that do not interest him.  He moves from emotional balm to emotional balm, mostly in a state of contentment.  But Sorrentino places a darkness within Jep.  He is a man constantly in a state of regret.  While he derives joy from his actions around Rome, he moves like a casual addict.  He does not waste time and seems to flock to social events that somewhat seem beneath him.  He mentions a line that he could have had children and the relationship he holds with the fifty-year-old stripper seems like a final attempt to bond with someone that he finds attractive in a non-sexual, yet fully healthy way.  But both of these people are so jaded and find the idea of family so simple and so cheap that neither really considers giving up their nomadic existences for the calming presence of simple companionship.  It becomes very binary for them.  The idea of family precludes artistic freedom and artistic freedom precludes the idea of ever truly being content.  I suppose I can relate to that.  I keep putting off finishing a book I've been writing for years because of the kids.  I suppose I really could finish the book had I wanted to, but I always feel like it is a diversion that I cannot afford with the presence of my kids.  I write this, perhaps as Jep would acknowledge, at the wee hours of the morning because I have silence.  This blog is acting as a bandage for the wound of creation that has festered and rotted.  Jep, although he seems to be done with his professional writing, writes similarly to the way I do.  He writes a column that receives a noticable readership, but not on the level that his intellectual property of his past received.  

Technically, this movie is absolutely stunning.  It is filmed absolutely beautifully.  With the Criterion Blu-ray, it shows Rome the way that it was meant to be shown.  My buddy commented that this is the Rome that never existed.  It is the Rome of cinema and I don't know if I agree or disagree with him.  I think this Rome exists, but it is a Rome that is very hard to find.  I hate to compare it, but this is the Rome of Thomas Harris, the idealized Rome.  Sorrentino has to think of this Rome as something larger than life with the closing credits of his film.  Every shot shows Rome as something majestic.  In my review for Lion, I commented that India has the odd dichotomy of being both the most beautiful place in the world and the ugliest place in the world.  Rome has a bit of that going on, but we rarely see the ugly parts of Rome.  Even in The Bicycle Thief or Rome, Open City, the city itself is gorgeous.  It is the actions of individuals who taint the architecture of this world.  But Rome has a personality and Sorrentino takes advantage of this with the high def camera at his disposal.  Jep, in his meanderings, acts almost as a tour guide for the artistic side of Rome.  No one's apartment is an apartment.  None of the treasures of Rome are oppressed by tourists.  There is actually a scene where someone questions how they are seeing these great works after hours and Jep simply laughs and winks, knowing a secret that we will never truly understand.  This is the Rome for the intellectual Romans.  To add to this landscape, the movie provides the most on point soundtracks that I have ever heard.  It plays it safe, with the artistic Roman score that you are probably playing in your head right now.  But it does not allow the classics to simply take over because artistic Rome is not simply classical, but it also screams techno and modern garbage.  And those sounds blare.  They match the colors of the lights and the aesthetics of the movie destroy.

If I had to be critical, which I suppose I do have to be, there are some themes that I don't think are thoroughly explored or I simply choose to bury my head in the sand because of who I am.  The motif of Catholicism and faith comes into play pretty hard, but it seems like the criticism of the Church is pretty out there.  Two (technically three if you count the nun with the sweaty palms) represent the Church and one of them acts as an overt allegory.  The cardinal nearing his closeness to the papacy represents the hypocrisy of the contemporary Church.  Rather than help the poor, the Cardinal stresses his knowledge of the poor while enjoying the delights of his position.  The message wasn't lost on me.  The question I had came to the stand-in for Mother Theresa.  I might be using this silence at 1:09 in the morning to try to verbalize any themes going with this character, but I feel like the portrayal of her was meant to be scathing.  But I don't know what it is critical of.  The character, nicknamed "The Saint", is beyond reasonably old.  At 104, she is more of a husk than a human being.  Her good works, like Mother Theresa's, have brought her a kind of celebrity status that she seems to abhor.  She is mostly silent, due the pain that even the slightest activities bring her.  She poses for photographs with people of all cultures, standing still while a photographer moves the subjects around her.  She speaks a great game and does greater works than possibly imagined.  But my big question is why Sorrentio makes her uncomfortable to look at?  She is Mother Theresa, I get it.  But Mother Theresa, even in her last days, was never abhorrent to look at.  Rather, Sorrentino pays attention to her rotting teeth and horrors of aging.  Yes, aging is one of the many themes of this movie and her aging is amplified by the simplistic lifestyle she has caring for the poor while taking part in self-flagellation.  Her aging is a foil to Jep, who leads a life of comfort and implied agnosticism.  But why make her gross?  There are ways to show extreme age without muddying the message.  There has to be something there, yet I don't think I know or would agree with the director's choice.  If the protagonist is an extension of the director, which I feel he must be considering the sympathetic nature that Jep manages to garner, the movie does look down on organized religion, particularly Catholicism.  So are her actions foolish?  I don't see the movie saying that.  But it is a criticism that I don't think I can necessary follow or would necessarily choose to investigate deeper.  

Without a central plot, the movie almost feels like a series of vignettes that should almost be analyzed separately.  The overall tie is Jep and his very minor changes to his internal conflicts and the almost inperceivable changes to his character throughout the film.  I don't know if I would ever want to be friends with Jep.  He is an interesting man and a fascinating human being, but his removal from the simple aspects of life kind of puts me on edge.  He lives a life of wine and chit-chat.  Jep is cool, but in a way that makes him unrelatable by choice.  He is above us in intellect, and that makes him below us because he can't develop a friendship on an equal level.  Love is a concept to him, not a state of being and that bums me out a little bit.  Regardless, the movie was an extremely interesting watch, regardless of the digital animals.

​Oh, I didn't mention them?  There are weird digital animals all over this movie.  So bizarre.  

PG-13. It's the most non-committal rating for a movie that it could get. I was going to make a gender stereotype joke to compare PG-13 to stuff that men and women do, but I feel like Wonder Woman​ isn't the place to do that.

DIRECTOR: Patty Jenkins

This movie be turning some heads. Like, everyone is talking about this movie. Everyone. It's changing lives and it was barely advertised not that long ago. I don't think that I've seen a film studio breathe a collective sigh of relief harder than the reviews were not only good, but they were overwhelmingly positive. That's so cool. I mean, I liked the movie, so when the world says that this movie is good, it should be a validation to my good taste (I'm very self-involved). But why do I feel like something is a little off?

Again, I can't stress enough that this movie is good. I feel like I'm going to get attacked for mentioning anything rough about America's favorite movie right now, so anything I say, please take it under the umbrella that I really dug this movie. But is it as good as everyone is saying?  A lot of the problem is that this movie is good, but it wasn't that good. Honestly, considering that I've written a lot of superhero movie reviews on this site, this one actually felt pretty tame. This is a superhero origin story. The best thing I can say for the movie is that it really nailed the superhero origin story. But it also has the same problems that many of the superhero origin stories have:  it gave its best villain to the first movie. Wonder Woman is more of an icon than she is a fully fleshed out story. Again, I'm inviting challenge, I suppose. But I always look to the villains to really determine the amount of depth that the superhero can provide. Wonder Woman is super cool in concept. It's always been a crime that many writers can't really pad out her story with equally iconic storylines. There are exceptions to the rule.  I think Greg Rucka nailed the New 52 reboot, which is the only time I'll combine the words "nailed the New 52 reboot".  There are two villains in Wonder Woman's canon that could be worthy of storylines: Cheetah and Ares. Cheetah is never all that scary as much as she is recognizable...kind of. Ares isn't necessarily a foil for Diana in the books as much as he is a tank, like Doomsday and Superman. Jenkins and screenwriters were smart to steal the formula from other origin story movies and made Ares a stronger parallel to the protagonist, similar to Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man. But the problem that lies within is the same problem that happened with Spider-Man. The first movie burned off the best villain. Norman Osborn was gone at the end of part 1 and Ares barely has any screentime in Wonder Woman. So as cool as it was seeing Diana done right, I now can't really expect a great Ares movie. Or it could go the way of Thor and make Ares the equivalent of Loki, but I don't see that happening.

World War I is cool. I love that they chose the hipster of the two World Wars. It is something that viewers only need to be somewhat familiar with, but they still get the basic premise. Jenkins really gets a much better playground establishing Diana in a war-torn, international setting. Metropolis and Gotham have already been beaten to death and lacked anything that made them stand out from other cities. Besides, it isn't like Wonder Woman has one of these iconic locations outside of Themyscira, on which Jenkins delivered in spades. Again, Wonder Woman might have been a harder sell than I might have given credit for because there's nothing I've been itching to see in a Wonder Woman movie outside of seeing Wonder Woman be cool with her weapons and her awesome punching. But World War I hasn't exactly been overdone and this movie really had enough parallels with Captain America: The First Avenger than it really needed. (Honestly, down to the costume and the "aw shucks"-iness of it all...there's a case to be made.) That said, there is a problem with the setting that kills the pacing of the movie. LIGHT SPOILERS: Themyscira is ACT I of the movie. ACT II of the movie is London. ACT III of the movie is the front. Act I: Awesome. Act III: Really awesome. Act II? Almost completely unnecessary. I get Jenkins's choice behind World War I London. It is something that the DCEU hasn't really even gotten close to and it also allows Diana to see the World of Man as it really exists, with its nobility and foibles. The theme of the film deals with "Is humanity worth saving?" So the whole London stuff is necessary, but golly, it is dull. Dawn from The Office is the stand in for the guy from Fantastic Beasts. It's weird how I praised the exact same character in the other film, but now find the exact same character tiresome. Maybe because this is becoming a caricature. But the momentum is lost all through the London sequence until No Man's Land, which is safely the coolest part of the movie.

But this is where the movie shines. Gal Godot dominates these action sequences. Wonder Woman ripping guys apart without resorting to using sexuality to kill folks? Yup. Awesome. (Compare Godot's fighting style to Black Widow or Xenia Onatopp and you'll see what I'm talking about.). The fight sequences can get a bit silly, but who cares? It was fun. I'm going to caveat this whole section: violence cool; Godot perfect. There are so many small choices that she makes that sell the character that I could watch her performance on a loop. I love this casting so much. She is Themysciran. (I know she's Israeli, leave me alone.). But she is a native of her mythical island sooner than she is an Amazon or a superhero and I applaud this so hard.  Diana, like Superman, is the story of the immigrant.  But instead of the desperate immigrant, Wonder Woman chooses the outside world and doesn't need it.  She sees the world as something that could be benefit from her presence.  She actually goes against what her culture tells her and embraces change.  Superman repays his debt to America for taking him in during his most vulnerable moments.  Instead, Diana loves her homeland and sees people in pain.  She embraces that change and that is her as a foreigner, not as a warrior.  Her warrior heritage would tell her to stay home and defend those around her.  Her humanity is what drives her to explore the world.  What I'm saying is that I want Gal Godot for president. Also, I feel like Gal Godot is a nom de plume acting as a one for one for "Wonder Woman".

I applaud that that they nailed some of the nerdier elements of the character. Steve Trevor has the right attitude. He borders on mansplainer without becoming overt or condescending. He has the right amount of skepticism and he is a solid companion. I saw a bit too much of his Kirk in the portrayal, especially when he got a Scotty to play across from (now you CAN'T unsee it!). The team seemed a bit Howling Commandos for me, but they were fun. I wonder if they were the characters I know from"New Frontier", but I couldn't stop seeing the Howling Commandos comparison. They are just the perfect reminders for Diana and they really work for the story, but the beats felt a bit too similar.  Perhaps the combination of folks in the team are a bit too perfect for showing the true nature of ourselves.  They are almost too perfect ambassadors because their weaker moments are not presented in the context of malice or ill will, but rather just human weakness.  They are funny and charming and I'm not sure that is an accurate portrayal of what makes humanity.  But maybe that makes me a cynic.  Who knows?

This is short, but can I give a round of applause for the return of the iconic score? I know that we first heard it in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but that theme is so cool. What exactly is happening there to get that sound? Regardless, the theme has been stuck in my head all week.  Every other theme song I have a small insight into because my Pandora station plays it on a loop while I'm grading papers.  (Reminder, I am cool.)  But the first time I heard that Wonder Woman theme, I was in love.  It's very boss without trying too hard.  I really hope it sticks around into the future films because it is John Williams level iconic.

So the movie's greatest strength is that it feels like a movie. That's the phrase that kept running through my head as I watched it. "This actually feels like a movie!" Maybe we're grading on a curve and I have too many sad theories about that. . 1) It's the first good DCEU movie. I can live with that.  It acknowledges that the franchise is getting better and we're willing to forgive small mistakes.  I'm sure that if I watched the first Iron Man again, it would seem mighty simplistic.  I think a major franchise needs to have a solid foundation and it is weird that we are considering the fourth movie in the DCEU to act as the foundation.  2) Wonder Woman  is a hard property to tackle, so any success should be seen as a major triumph.  I mentioned this earlier.  There aren't a ton of storylines that really resonate through the ages.  People love the animated movie and I don't think that it holds a candle to this one, despite the fact that many of the same plot lines were used.  So I can see people forgiving mistakes because of this.  I don't think this is the reason we are embracing this movie.  I think that requires an inside knowledge into a franchise that many people don't have.  I do think it's number 3.  3)  Female superheroes are criminally misrepresented, so they need support.  I wrote about this with the Ghostbusters reboot, now officially titled Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.  Ghostbusters wasn't very good, but it needed to be.  Wonder Woman is a good movie, so I think there might be a collective understanding that we can forgive weaker moments to make sure that this keeps happening.  Wonder Woman represents so much more than simply a superhero movie.  She is strength for women everywhere and it's just the worst that people keep getting the character wrong.  So if we all play dumb to the weaknesses this movie presents, who knows?  Maybe we'll genuinely get an amazing Captain Marvel movie?  Maybe Black Widow will finally crush in her own amazing spy film?  Golly, I'd love to even see Ms. Marvel get a shot.  But I have to call it what it is:  Wonder Woman is a good movie that we're all going to pretend was great because we needed it to be great.  And I'm weirdly okay with that.

Not Rated.  For the most part, the movie is pretty innocent.  There is some mature content, but that's just talk about dark times in the boys' lives.  Also, the actual Raiders of the Lost Ark movie has some questionable moments.

DIRECTORS:  Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen

It's a documentary about a bunch of guys getting really passionate about movie making.  This should be my film bible.  This should be the movie I watch when I feel down in the dumps and despondent about the state of filmmaking today.  If I nailed down all of the elements that would make a documentary with the intention of inspiring me to do better with my life, this should be it.  So...why isn't it?

I suppose I'm going into light spoilers about this documentary, but the movie lies in the premise.  Three best friends in traditional '80s best friend style decided to remake Raiders of the Lost Ark.  That shouldn't seem crazy.  We tried remaking Goldfinger in a weekend.  I'm sure that other kids with a camcorder have tried remaking their favorite films.  The big difference between their movie and ours (okay, there's probably a lot of differences between their movie and ours) is that they decided to go shot-for-shot with their remake, without the benefit of having a way to rewatch the movie.  This is the pre-VHS era, so they boys had to reconstruct this whole major blockbuster movie using things found around the neighborhood from memory.  See, now I'm jazzed to watch this movie again, even though I know that it didn't really hit all of the buttons it was supposed to hit.  See, there is one problem to the movie and this unravels the whole thing: they didn't finish the movie.  There is one shot that is beyond filming for kids in the '80s and that was the airplane sequence involving the big, bald, shirtless Nazi.  So as adults, the guys decided to come together and film such a massive scene to outdo other fan films.  I have problems with this.

Watch Son of Rambow.  That movie rocks.  I have to disclose that this movie is fictional.  I'll also throw Be Kind, Rewind into that film festival.  Both movies focus around guerrilla filmmaking in an idealized world where people are full of heart and know the meaning of sacrifice and art.  Oh, there's that new movie about the release of Star Wars?  Same deal.  When it comes to this happening in reality, it somewhat comes across as a little sad.  I love all of the kid stuff.  I'll talk about that hopefully at length in a minute.  It's the adults who are throwing tons of money at a screen that might be more telling about the nature of filmmaking today that disheartens me.  I honestly doubt that the filmmakers were going for that, but half of the movie surrounds three very privileged individuals --Chris, Eric, and Jayson -- and how they can abandon their lives and their families' futures to film a scene for their own gratification.  I'm always a big fan of the "following your dreams" route, but this almost just seems selfish.  The world doesn't need the scene to be perfect.  Eric is a perfectionist, which I totally relate to.  Sure, he doesn't wear shoes when it would be perfectly reasonable to ask him to do so, but he knows what he wants and he is going to pursue it come Hell or high water.  The thing is that the movie making was about their friends coming together and to do something that linked them forever together.  When their friendship started to dissolve, Eric should have realized that this was more about what they could do with Jayson and Chris versus making the same mistakes that they had done as children.  The first time that they filmed the movie, it became "not-fun" because of the fact that it became a chore.  When things started going badly in the present, it also looked really not fun.  Sure, the scene was accurate.  In fact, it was scary accurate.  (I admit that I enjoyed how much attention to detail was put in the remaking of that scene.)  But what is the point.  They almost blew a guy up for this and spent ungodly amounts of someone's money to make a scene work.  This was a Make a Wish Foundation for rich guys with few problems.

So the present sucks.  I'd like to think that the old me exists somewhere today, despite the fact that I hate him and I know he has a dumb haircut.  (Maybe I WILL see that therapist.)  But their childhood was pretty great.  Part of the snobby version of me would like to think that they picked a more obscure film to make their favorite film, but that's because I walk around with my nose in the air despite the fact that I think that Raiders of the Lost Ark was absolutely great.    But that is the story that is interesting.  What kind of freedom were these kids granted?  Honestly, they set each other on fire.  Watch the original film!  Those stuntmen are doing absolutely crazy things in that movie.  If you saw Harrison Ford actually doing those stunts, it would make major news.  I remember watching the last entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise and seeing Tom Cruise actually strapped to the side of an airplane and it blew my mind.  That was at least months of training alongside a whole stunt team with rigs and harnesses.  Just think back on the original Raiders and your mind kind of melts thinking about the things they did.  The drag under the car scene?  Yup.  That kid should be dead, but thankfully he's not or this documentary would be a real bummer.  Considering that I watched this movie on Netflix, I'm a little bummed that I couldn't just watch their version of Raiders.  But their weird wacky childhood didn't end where our Goldfinger did, mercifully forgotten at someone's house never to be seen again.  Instead, the movie eventually got passed onto some major Hollywood directors (okay, Eli Roth...) before becoming an underground classic and meandering into the hands of Steven Spielberg.  I do wish that there was a map sequence showing the movement of the tape, but that might have been a little too on the nose.  

The movie does have a little heart to it though.  The boys were growing up on screen and friendships at that age don't always last.  I already discussed Eric's perfectionism when it came to making the movie perfect.  A third of the trio, Jayson, is socially uncomfortable to say the least.  But he was also the smartest of the three on the set.  He loved Fangoria influenced special effects and knew how to make them on the cheap.  Jayson might have been the secret weapon on this movie, but I got the vibe that he was bullied and treated differently because of his awkwardness.  Also, many of Jayson's plans were way more practical, but would have pulled away from Eric's epic vision of doing it the exact same way as Spielberg did however many years ago.  That idea hasn't really changed as the guys grew up.  Quite the opposite, unfortunately, because it seems like Jayson had some hindsight about the whole film project.  He seems very bitter about how things went down and is weirdly the most forgiving of the group.  But they treated him the same way as before.  When coming up with the model solution for the film scene when the weather wouldn't cooperate, the boys once again ignored him.  Eric was portrayed as noble for risking his career for a shoot that mattered not one bit and Jayson was again ignored.  Then there is the sadness of Chris's drug addiction and the movie really becomes a bummer at a point.  I also have to mention again that Eric nearly got a guy killed on set.  (But part of me questions whether that was staged because what are the odds?)

I found it really weird that Spielberg himself doesn't really play a part in the documentary.  He is involved in the story and I know that this documentary had to have had his blessing.  Even weirder, John Williams's iconic theme doesn't make an appearance.  LucasFilm released footage of the movie, but the actual Raiders theme doesn't appear, even when people talk about how important that music actually is.  Even worse, the filmmakers decided to use a very weak soundalike and that made me even more sad.  

There's some fun to be had with this movie.  But my brain got too involved.  They guys kind of seem unlikable now.  Eric wears Indiana Jones themed tee-shirts all day and seems super-dee-duper serious.  Chris partied hard and didn't really develop the personality that seemed super interesting.  Jayson made me nearly shut off the movie a few times with his awkwardness.  And none of this really needed to happen.  Yeah, the reshoot drives the narrative for the documentary, but I don't care at a certain point.  The scene is cool, but who cares?

This movie is still R, despite the fact that it is now in black-and-white.

DIRECTOR:  James Mangold

We'll see if this is a full review or a mini-review.   After all, I've already reviewed the colorized edition of the movie, so if you want the real poop on this movie, read that.  I'm just reviewing to see if watching it in black-and-white changed anything.  The really short version of this review:  I guess?

Logan is a better movie than I gave it credit for initially.  Yes, it still has the problem with being wildly juvenile.  The movie loves the f-bomb like a kid hosting a party with the girl he likes there when his parents are out of town.  He feels really comfortable with it.  But the movie is really solid.  Okay, you can't take my wife's word for it on this one.  She discovered this new Facebook group and all of the sudden, all movies got way more dumb because she's reading posts about different diet tips.  But I suppose that once I gave up trying to impress her with the movie, I tended to find a lot more of a silver lining than I did the first time.  It's bizarre that my brain watched this movie the first time thinking of the potential time that she would be watching this later.  Yeah, I'm that in my head all of the time.  But the movie has more heart than I gave it credit for.  Yeah, it is a tonal copycat of The Last of Us, but The Last of Us is really good and trying to adapt that would be a huge mess.  Instead, we have a risky X-Men movie and I can live with that.

When Frank Darabont did The Mist in 2007, he really wanted to make it in black-and-white because he said that was what the movie called for.  The studio butted heads with him pretty hard, as they are wont to do when it comes to Frank Darabont, and he caved.  The studio realized the color version and he was only allowed to show his original vision on DVD.  That black-and-white version of the movie is perfect.  You can tell that he was filming it with a very specific look to the movie and that the color version kind of cheapens that.  I don't know if James Mangold had the same idea in his head.  When the first images for Logan came out, they had the monochromatic look and it was awesome.  The poster, too, had a monochromatic feel to it and the entire publicity campaign kept screaming The Last of Us.  (I know that this is a film blog for a film class, but if you haven't heard of The Last of Us, take a look.  It is beyond coincidence.)  I would love to think that Mangold had that artistic integrity that he went against the studio system and lost.  I don't know the backstory there, but the black-and-white version does somewhat tell a different story than the color version of the film.  I saw the same thing happen when AMC re-released season one of The Walking Dead without color.  There is something simpler and darker about what the movie was about.  The cool thing about these movies coming out with the color removed is that it seems like the post-production team spent quite a bit of time with the saturation and the focus on achieving a true black.  A lot of this movie is a bummer and the movie just gets that much more disheartening without the color palate to support it.  For the most part, it works.  I admit, the first few minutes of the movie, I was leaning towards Logan Noir as a gimmick, but some of the sequences really pop with the shades of gray.  Nature plays a more important role when the bright blue has been removed.  Hugh Jackman looks more torn up and more world-weary with the color removed.  The movie has a richer feel at times.

But I don't believe that this was every Mangold's belief.  I believe he thinks it's cool, but I don't know that he filmed it to be black and white.  Two scenes really suffer from the color palate removed:  the phone documentary and Las Vegas.  Vegas is one of the coolest scenes in the movie and the colors of Vegas are such a contrast to the exhausted Logan and Xavier that this scene feels very artificial.  To add insult to injury, this location is also where Xavier shares Shane with Laura.  Shane is this movie that has this fantastic Technicolor feel to the movie and to wipe the color from that scene makes the movie seem less than it actually is.  The phone documentary is also problematic in the main movie, but screams even more artificial against what should seem simplistic.  Monochromatic perhaps seems to be the way of old.  I like the focus on character in black and white, which may seem silly. But think of a movie like The Matrix with all of the color gray instead of green.  Logan drives around in older cars, with the exception of his quickly savaged limo.  The world screams the old age of the future.  There's nothing apocalyptic about the setting of Logan, with the exception of the missing mutants.   But the movie has that post-civilization feel where black-and-white really plays well.  Anything that reminds me that this is actually a science fiction film that must take place in the future reads very contrary to the color.  That's why scenes like dinner with Eriq La Salle's family reads so well with the color removed.  It is a scene about characters, not science fiction.  So a lot of it works, a lot of it doesn't.

I don't think that I wrote about this the first time I wrote about Logan, but I saw a video comparing Logan to Children of Men.  I thought the video was garbage and I thought that the choices were superficial at best.   But they are related.  I don't know if anything is intentional, but the parallels are definitely there.  I love Children of Men and Logan is no Children of Men, but I do think I'll probably watch Logan more often.  Yeah, I'm a bro sometimes.  Logan is pretty darned great and it probably is one of the best X-Men movies, but I still have to see it for its flaws...which includes its lack of originality at times.  By-the-bye, I don't think I realized that James Mangold also directed The Wolverine, which probably shows his love for the character.  It's kind of amazing that both these movies were made by the same man because they have a very different feel to them.  I definitely think that this movie couldn't have existed without Deadpool to carve the way because I don't think that James Mangold would have had the freedom he wanted had it not been for a successful R-Rated superhero movie in a parallel franchise.

Anyway, so much for a short second review...