Mother's Day, Birthday, And Influences From My Mother

This comes two days after Mother's Day, but it also happens to be my mother's birthday today.  A very special happy birthday shoutout to her from her favourite son.  Many times on the podcast that I co-host, The Movie Breakdown, I have made reference to the movie influences my dad is responsible for.  To be honest, I did watch a lot of movies with him.  He would set the VCR to record movies on Saturday nights, usually being Abbot and Costello, Vincent Price, or the swashbuckling effort of Sinbad the pirate.  As a teenager, we would have movie festivals, and it was during one such event that I saw my first Monty Python movies.

Much more subtle, yet still ever present, is the role that my mother played in influencing my tastes.  Alastair Sim may be most well known as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, bringing a brash and uncaring presence to the screen, doing justice to one of story telling's most famous character arcs.  I never would have pictured him in a comedy.  That changed when my mother introduced me to The Belles of St. Trinians, a 1954 comedy where Sims plays both a school headmistress and her brother.

I don't remember as much of the film as i would like, but I know that I enjoyed it a lot, getting a lot of laughs out of Sims' dual performance.  This wasn't the only comedy of classic age that my mother brought into my life.  I got exposed to Some Like it Hot, which was my first look at Jack Lemmon.  I would meet up with Lemmon again in Grumpy Old Men, this time finding out about Walter Matthau.  The two showed incredible comedic presence, and I could easily understand why my mother enjoyed these talents so much.

There are wonderful memories of hearing my mother laugh uncontrollably while watching movies.  She will laugh when something's funny, but a certain type of hilarity is needed to really bring the giggles.  I don't think I will ever forget watching Home Alone and What About Bob with her.  The laughter that we shared in those moments was transformative, memories that force a wonderful grin on my face.

There is also something that my mother said around the time of Home Alone that has stuck with me.  When critics gave the movie poor ratings, my mother's response was 'what do the critics know?'  You may think that because I critique movies on blog and podcast form that I would take offence to a statement that took value away from trying to seriously analyze what makes a movie good.  But, ultimately, she made a point that is one of the most straightforward and true statements that could be made.

Honestly, who cares about what the critics are saying?  It doesn't matter.  I learned from my mother that you can enjoy something for what it is, and that it is okay to do that.  Critiquing a film is fine and all, but it is the personal experience of the viewer that matters most.  That's what really counts.  A critic just tries to act as a guide, and sometimes they can't grab the very things that will make viewers respond positively.  I try to set out reasons for why I like or dislike a film, but what matters is how you see it.  Honestly, that is seriously all that matters in the larger scheme of things.

From teaching me lessons about just enjoying movies, my mother also set me up for enjoying female centric material.  If there are simple things you need to know about my mother, its that she is bravely independent, proud to be a woman, proud of her accomplishments in male driven fields, and determination that woman are equal to men.  It is sad, but even in this 'enlightened' period, women still aren't on par with men in many aspects.  Look at top corporate structures.  Look at the tech industry.  Look at movies.

Now, these aren't movies, but they played a huge part in what I would call my feminist nature.  Every single week, we, as a family, would watch Murder, She Wrote.  Angela Lansbury walking around with a death curse that affects people around her, spending more time solving crimes than she does writing about them, which is odd because she is supposed to be a prolific author.  Anywho, I really enjoyed the Jessica Fletcher character.  Most of the times she had to deal with male sherifs, a lot of them brushing her aside for most of the episode until she had her easy to predict 'ah hah!' moment.  She, I suppose like my mother, was a woman in a man's world, just doing her thing.  And I loved it.

Also, there was The Golden Girls.  My mother showed me through this show that woman could be just as funny as men (we also watched Designing Women which did the same thing).  Really, this was a show with a top notch cast.  Rue McClanahan was the vivacious one.  Bea Arthur was down to earth, and, if I recall properly, a tad sarcastic.  Estelle Getty was the 'shoot from the hip' mother of Arthur.  And then we have Betty White, the criminally funny Rose, who always had a story about her time in St Olaf.  I didn't know this, but according to Wikipedia, this show is only one of three sitcoms  ever to have four talents earning an Emmy award.  It was deserved.  These woman throw away convention as to what a single woman in their later years would be like.  They were funny, they still had active sex lives (something that truly seemed groundbreaking for a show depicting older women), and they shared life together.

Yes, these are only two shows, but the groundwork that they laid has lasted through my entire life.  Sex didn't matter in making a story work.  That was what was proven.  I believe it with all of my heart, and I am continually dismayed every year when statistics of female participation in cinema come out.  It is wrong.  It is grossly wrong.  There is a chance that the #MeToo and Time's Up movements will begin to change things, but honestly I shed a tear over how unlikely it is that it will happen soon enough.

Of the top 100 grossing movies of 2017, only 8% were directed by women.  Ten percent of films had female writers.  A measly two fucking percent are cinematographers (I will be honest, this issue does make me unapologetically swear).  Twenty four percent of producers were females.  Women represented 14% of editors.  These numbers are not good.  While there have been better years, the numbers aren't much different since the turn of the century.  Movies with female protagonists was 24%, down four percent from 2016.

Something happened last year, though.  Something that could actually cause some change if the studio executives are paying close enough attention.  The top three grossing domestic movies all had a female lead.  This is definitive proof that the larger audience will accept not having male leads, and that it can be profitable for studios.

Even though I spent more time watching movies with my father, the influences of my mother are huge.  Three of my favourite protagonists of all time are female.  Ellen Ripley in Alien, Sarah Connor in Terminator, and Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street.  You could easily throw onto that list more recent entries like Rey from the recent Star Wars movies and Emily Blunt's Rita, from Edge of Tomorrow.

I love my mother a lot.  The support that she has shown me over the years is something that would take a full book to detail.  Growing up she taught me that equality matters.  Not just with gender, but with race and religion.  So, to celebrate my mother's birthday and Mother's Day, I say a huge 'thank you' to her.  You didn't just raise me, you shaped me.  And I am eternally thankful for that.

Critics Had Nothing To Do With DC Failing

With The Avengers ripping through the theatres, I can't help but think about the people over at Warner Bros.  Ultimately, they know that this is exactly where they should have been back in November.  It was their turn for a gigantic extended universe team up with Justice League.  Not only did Justice League not do as expected, but it ended up being the lowest grossing DC extended universe movie, both domestically and world wide.

While Marvel has had a lot of financial success, their movies have also been critically appreciated.  The lowest ranking film was Thor: The Dark World with 66% on Rotten Tomatoes.  DC, on the other hand, has been plagued with films that fail to connect with critics.  The only movie on the Warner Bros side of things that got a 'fresh' rating is Wonder Woman, with a stunning 92%.

What ended up happening fairly early on in the DC franchise was that fans of the properties began blaming the lack of financial breakthroughs of the films on critics.  I know that the internets had that sort of talk, and I had people talking to me in person how the critics were out to sabotage DC while promoting Marvel. There was an insistence that the DC films were actually really good, it was just that those darned critics had some sort of vendetta against them.

The people who are saying that seem to be forgetting that one of the most acclaimed superhero movie series of all time were Christopher Nolan's Batman films.  Critics have absolutely nothing against DC heroes.  Even Lego Batman got 90% on RT.  Two of the Nolan Batman films even came out after the beginnings of the Marvel universe.  Critics were not setting out to pick one side over the other.  They have shown that they are willing to root for DC, even after Marvel started doing its thing.

Critics are so not the issue here.  The fact, plain and simple. is that the Warner Bros attempts were just not as good.  I understand that there are a lot of people who liked the movies, but ultimately it is not the majority who think so.  If the problem was in fact that critics were setting out against this franchise, then there wouldn't be generally lower audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, or lower CinemaScores for these films.

The best piece of empirical proof is the financials of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  If the problem was simply the critics, how is it that the film's opening weekend ended up representing 50.3% of its total domestic take?  That is the sort of opening weekend skewing that happens with insanely horrible horror movies, definitely not blockbusters.  The first weekend to second weekend drop was 69.1%, the type of drop that is pretty much unheard of for a movie of this scale.  Now, Star Wars: The Last Jedi had a dip of 67%, but its not the same thing.  First of all, its second weekend was right before Christmas.  As well, even with an enormous drop into its second weekend, its opening weekend still only represented 35.5% of its domestic tally.  The difference here is that The Last Jedi otherwise held up really well, representing continuing interest from audiences.

We could also look at the fact that while Dawn of Justice had the seventh highest world wide opening ever, it failed to perform past that.  The film currently sits at fifty seventh all time world wide, dropping a total of fifty slots from its opening weekend ranking.

The point that I am making is that these movies, excluding Wonder Woman, do not really hold up that well in terms of consistent performance.  The DC movie that held up the best after opening weekend was 2013's Man of Steel, where the opening represented 40.1% of its domestic total.  Wonder Woman, on the other hand, had its opening weekend ending up as 25% of its total.  That's the kind of first weekend representation that reflects strong audience engagement.

Some might say that the reason why Wonder Woman performed like that is because it was the one DC movie that saw favourable reviews.  We don't have to look far to see that critical response doesn't necessarily have much of an impact on consumer behaviour when it comes to blockbusters.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon scored 19% and 35% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes.  Revenge of the Fallen's opening weekend was 27.1% of its domestic take, while Dark of the Moon saw its opening weekend represent 27.8%.

There are some genres where critical opinion can affect the financial success, but those genres are typically those of prestige pictures.  Horror, comedy, and tentpole blockbusters are generally immune to Rotten Tomatoes.  I'm not saying that the critics have no influence on audience behaviour for those types of films, just that success does not hinge on what the critics are saying.  There have been many a film that have done well without the backing of critics.

I get that sometimes the way you view a film makes you want others to 'wake up' and see it as you do.  There are a large number of movies that I quite enjoyed that got railed by critics.  Both myself and my podcast co-host Christopher Spicer gave three stars to The Hangover Part III.  However, just because I liked it doesn't mean that the masses got it wrong or that people were setting out to destroy it.  There was no conspiracy, just the fact that I liked a movie that, in reality, may be considered a bad film.  It happens, and I invite fans of the DC Extended Universe to not blame critics, but just accept the fact that they may just happen to enjoy a movie that actually isn't as good as they view it to be.  And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Some movies that I enjoyed that the critics did not like
The Hangover Part III - 21%
Dead Man Down - 38%
Dark Shadows - 37%
The Kingdom (I didn't just like this, it was one of my favourite movies of 2007) - 51%
Drive Angry - 46%
Olympus Has Fallen - 48%
Bullet to the Head - 47%

The list goes on.  Rotten Tomatoes doesn't seem to be working right now, so this is where I will stop.

The Breakdown of 'The Week Of,' 'Kodachrome,' and 'Candy Jar'

Holy smokes!  It's Tuesday, and for some reason The Movie Breakdown podcast is just now getting published.  Well, let me tell you there is a very good reason for this happening.  You see, I got the podcast file prepared in record time and then decided to not pass it along to my co-host, Christopher Spicer, who publishes it.  Yep.  And this isn't the first time that this has happened.  I turn forty soon, so I will lay the blame on a memory that fades as the years pile on.

The good news is that we have three Netflix originals to talk about.  One of them is the latest Adam Sandler flick, The Week Of.  We talk about it, and are surprised at how we aren't as insulted and offended as we usually are with Happy Madison productions.  From there it is the road trip film, Kodachrome that has wonderful acting talents such as Elizabeth Olsen, Jason Sudeikis, and Ed Harris.  The third movie is a high school movie about two hard core debaters.  It's called Candy Jar, and it seems to imply during the film that it is a Romeo and Juliet styled tale, even though the similarities are few.

There is also some discussion on Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski getting expelled from the Academy.  There are many different views people can take here, and we try to make some sense of it.  On top of that, Avengers: Infinity War has broken all sorts of records, so we are talking about what studios (pay attention here, Warner Bros) need to learn from its success.

You can find the podcast on iTunes, and feel free to leave a review if you enjoy it.  Next weekend will see some more interesting films talked about, and perhaps, if all goes well, I won't keep it to myself.

REVIEW: Alone in the Dark

There are times when I may forget a movie that I had watched.  It isn't very often, but it does happen. I can quickly recover by looking at the movie's IMDB page.  That jogs the memory.  Last year, however, I saw a film that I had completely forgotten by year end.  The IMDB page didn't jog my memory.  Reading the entire plot synopsis on Wikipedia didn't work.  I even re-watched the first twenty minutes and nothing could make me recall the film that I know I had seen.  This was a first.  But it just got outdone.

Three days ago, I decided that I should finally watch an Uwe Boll movie.  For people who don't know, Boll is a director who is completely unapologetic about the quality of his movies, ready to insult and get into a boxing ring with his detractors.  Not that Rotten Tomatoes means everything, but his highest scored movie is at 25%, and he has five films that scored less than five percent.  It is one of those films, Alone in the Dark (1% on Rotten Tomatoes) that I decided to dig into.

The film starts off with a narrative scrawl of text to explain the setup for the movie.  It is quite long.  Not only do we get to read all of this, but it is also spoken.  After a number of minutes of that, we jump to narration by Christian Slater, who plays Edward Carnby.  That's a total of three devices to deliver expository dialogue right off the bat, and it doesn't end there.  Everything is overly explained. And yet, somehow, a miracle happened.  Even with being told everything along the way, I completely lost track of what was happening.

This film was watched over three different sittings, but that's not what caused me to feel like I was forgetting what was happening.  In all honesty, there were so many times that I completely blanked out while watching.  I ended up getting trapped into thinking about grocery lists, what was going to be for dinner, what chores I needed to do, and so on.  All matter of mundane found its way into my mind while I should have been paying attention to this film.  Seriously, I cannot give you a coherent outline of what happened.  As hard as I tried, I just couldn't pay attention to this hack job of cinema, this duel-seated, century old, full to the brim, outhouse of a film.

(Alone in the Dark kind of outright stole from Alien, even to the point where monsters were called Xenos)

This is the story, at least what I can remember of it.  There is an ancient native tribe.  They made something out of gold, perhaps?  And then an orphanage had a Christian Slater, and a nun stood outside.  Then the Christian Slater found an artifact, and Tara Reid hasn't been in anything of note since 2005 other than Sharknado.  Bunny Lebowski is looking at artifacts, and then is completely useless and doesn't add anything to the plot, outside of suddenly having sex with the Christian Slater.  Some old guy has a boat, and I think he didn't know what was in a box.  Then an animal got loose.  Another old guy liked artifacts, and I think he liked the animals that got loose.  Suddenly a tippity top notch squad of soldiers show up.  They look like they are on their way to roller derby.  Rock music blares, and people are shot.  There's a gold mine, and a bobby trap pit has a ladder built into the side of it.  Then an old man yells at the Christian Slater, and a knife kills him, but he opens an ancient closet door.  And then I think something happened, and Stephen Dorff runs through a mine tunnel that has a lot of natural light.  Then there is a vacant city, and seven minutes and forty six seconds of credits.

Actually, I think that was a pretty concise summary of the film.

There is a huge part of me that enjoys watching awful movies, but that part of me was not satiated with Alone in the Dark.  It was just boring as anything you could ever imagine.  There were some awful special effects that lightened things up a little, but nothing was a proper cure for the comatose state that Uwe Boll put me in.  This is the first movie, ever, that I forgot about while I was watching it.  It would be getting zero stars, except the Christian Slater did some sort of flip via way of MacBook Pro.

That is all.

Rating - 0.5 out of 4 stars

The Joy of Movies That Are Full of Heart

I spend some time on this blog talking about movies that do amazing things and push boundaries.  That stuff is good and all, but not every film needs to be revolutionary or aim for acclaim.  There is a huge spot in cinema for movies that simply want to deliver a good time.  They aren't films that are setting out to make a point, they make just start with goofy or sweet ideas that morph into an hour and a half or two hours a fun.

On The Movie Breakdown podcast, there have been a number of those types of movies that easily land in the 'recommendation' column and last in our memories for years after watching.  In 2013 we had The Grand Seduction, a small town in Newfoundland story that had chum buckets full of charm.  This movie was nowhere near perfect, but it is a film that may be our most referenced movie on the podcast.  We constantly refer to it in terms of how a film with charm and identity can be a memorable experience. Last year it was Happy Death Day that appeared to have us marvelling over just how much pleasure could be had from a three star movie.  I will be honest, I wanted to put this movie on my top ten of the year list, despite it having a lower rating than many other films.  In the end, I kept it off.

Today is May the fourth, unofficial Star Wars day.  That got me thinking about Star Wars, obviously.  Then I thought about Star Trek, heresy on such a day.  That brought me around to thinking about Galaxy Quest, and I couldn't help but smile.  For those who haven't seen it, this film is a spoof on the Star Trek phenomenon and subculture.  It plays with the tropes of the show and its fans, bringing spoof to outer space.

What is wonderful about Galaxy Quest (which is what is also wonderful about The Grand Seduction and Happy Death Day) is that this is not a mean spirited film.  It isn't looking to bring anyone down in order to have fun on their behalf.  It has its premise, it pokes fun at it, and it honours it.  At no point does it take itself seriously, and is just about having a romp for an hour and forty two minutes.

It is impossible for me to think about simple, good natured films and not think about Galaxy Quest.  As comedies more often than not rely on making fun of people or delving into as much raunchy material as possible, it is good to remember that success doesn't require it.  There is a place in the landscape for the playground of the good-natured.  It may be odd that I mentioned Happy Death Day (a horror movie) when talking about good-natured films, but I do think it fits in there.  Like the other films mentioned, it is a movie about heart.  Yes, there are knives in it, but there is also heart.

Blockbuster season is upon us, and big explosions are afoot.  In a number of months, festivals will be happening and the Oscar hopefuls will be rolling out.  In amongst all of that, there is always room for a film like The Grand Budapest Hotel or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  These are the movies that entertain and show that simply wearing your heart on your sleeve can work in the competitive world of movie making.  These types of films don't happen too often, but it is hard to forget them when they do come along.

What Filmmakers Can Learn From Mad Max: Fury Road

Upon a recent viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road, I was reminded of exactly the reasons why I love this film.  Not only was it my favourite film of 2015, I picked it as the best movie experience since my friend Chris and I started podcasting about movies five years ago.  Yes, I liked it that much.  It was a film that was pure adrenaline rush, and was worthy of the ten Oscars it was nominated for, and the six that it won.  There was some really good film making on display here, and I would like to talk about four major take-aways from the film that people can learn from.

Simple Story - Nothing Complex Needed

Essentially the story is as simple as a massive chase scene.  We have Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) helping the concubines of Immortan Joe escape from his clutches.  Their paths cross with Max (Tom Hardy), who has been captured by Immortan Joe's war boys and he escapes with Furiosa.  There.  That's the story.  Tom Hardy never even reveals his name until the last few minutes of the film.  There is very little dialogue, and everything is simple and straight forward.

What is impressive here is the fact that while being uncomplicated and streamline, there is still something to focus on.  We have three main characters.  Furiosa, Max, and Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who is a war boy.  Even through sparse dialogue and almost non-stop action, each of these characters has a story arc.  Some films can't manage having an arc for even one character, let alone three.

In a time where scripts seem to feel the need to be convoluted at times and throw endless twists and turns into the mix, George Miller reminded everyone that top notch story telling could still happen with a minimalist hand.  Create characters, give them a reason for taking action, and follow it through.  Simple, straight forward, and still extremely satisfying.

Nothing Looks Better Than Well Done Practical Effects

I won't pretend that there is no computer animation in this film, because there is a lot of it.  However, incredible detail was paid to doing as much practically as possible.  There are uncountable unique, post-apocalyptic vehicles in this film.  Each of those were physically built.  Not only were they constructed, they could all drive so they would be used in the film.  Explosions happened in real life.  Mind blowing stunts happened.  All of this taking place while the vehicles are actually driving through the desert.

The amount of planning to coordinate everything that was done is almost impossible to fathom.  With doing so much practically, there are so many elements that could go wrong, which is probably why blockbusters generally rely on the controllable nature of CGI.  Some movies can make the images look believable, but sitting in the theatre, seeing those brilliant life-like explosions, people jumping from vehicles, and collisions, it was a jaw-dropping experience.  While George Lucas was taking the industry towards nothing but green screens years ago, a brave wave of directors have lately been showing audiences and critics the unimaginable beauty of actually creating the experience.

Women Can Kick Just as Much Ass as Men

This film is actually quite subversive.  We are given the scantily clad, out of their league appearance of Immortan Joe's sex slaves.  It is as blatant 'damsel in distress' imagery that could ever be made.  I had a feeling that George Miller wanted to throw this horrible cliche into his film just to throw it on its head.  Standing toe to toe with Mad Max in combat ability is Furiosa.  Theron plays her in a smooth, almost effortless feeling way that perfectly delivers the physical capabilities of her character.

Not only do we have Furiosa, but a group of older woman in a roving motorcycle gang.  One of the typical images of the post-apocolyptic world is bands of tough looking males on motorcycles, and here we have Miller giving us post-menopausal women.  Beautifully, they don't disappoint.  We believe everything they do, their toughness, and the fact that they can match up with any man.  It felt as though it was a mission of George Miller to play around with stereotypes and crush this feeling in cinema that if you wanted an action star it had to be a male.  Even though Max's name is in the title, this is just as much Furiosa's film.  They are of equal importance here, showing us that gender matters not.

No Expository Dialogue

The opening to the film is indeed narration to set up what is about to happen, but it is quite vague.  The movie starts, and we are just introduced to different things without being told what it is all about and the purpose to it.  Max gets hung in a cage and called a 'blood bag,' and there is nothing to specifically inform us that the war boys are sick and that people in the wastelands get caught to be used for blood transfusions.  Another example is that we are told Furiosa is an Imperator, but, after six viewings, I still can't find the moment when we are told what that means.

The film introduces us to a world that works in its own ways, that has its own routines and habits.  As the viewer, we are just thrown in and not educated on what is happening and why they do things certain ways.  What this leads to is feeling like we are literally dropped into a fictional world, scrambling around just as one of the lead protagonists does.  The experience that we are given allows us to realize that we don't necessarily need to know everything, and that perhaps just witnessing a story happening is better than having it explained.

Bill Cosby Kicked Out of the Academy, and the Forty One Years They Accepted Sexual Crimes

As the accusations against movie kingpin Harvey Weinstein kept making waves in the news and the movie industry, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him the boot.  He was the second person ever to get thrown from the Academy, with the first happening to Carmine Caridi in 2004 for leaking preview videos.  Today, Thursday May 3rd, Bill Cosby got the same treatment.  Last Friday, Cosby was found guilty of sexual assault.  That means they acted after six days, a speedy action to show the public that they won't tolerate people who break their Standards of Conduct.

At the same time, the Academy expelled director Roman Polanski.

Here's the problem, and an indication of how sad this situation actually is.  Polanski pleaded guilty to statutory rape in 1977 after he had a physical relationship with a thirteen year old.  The key here is the fact that this didn't turn into a 'he said, she said,' this was a person admitting guilt.  It was an undeniable sexual crime, one that he served forty two days in prison.  Hearing rumours that a plea bargain was going to be scrapped, Polanski then fled the United States and has been a fugitive since then.  The US has tried to get him extradited to face the crime he had admitted to.

It took six days for the Academy to show that it didn't tolerate sexual crimes in the case of Bill Cosby.  It took forty one years to take the same stance with Polanski.  It makes me wonder if they would have even gotten around to addressing the Polanski situation if not for the publicity of the Cosby incident.  I do think they need to get some credit for their actions, but their response to Polanski seems to be a prime example of the mentality in Hollywood that had run rampant up until, and through, the #MeToo campaign in 2017.

For forty one years, the Academy seemed to not have a problem with Roman Polanski's legal situation and the severity of the crime that had been committed.  Not only did they not expel Polanski, but the Academy has since seen him nominated with three Oscars, and winning one of them.  While the public face of the Academy for the last half year seems to be of an organization that will not put up with toxic behaviour from its members, their actions show something else.

They had over four decades to do something about Roman Polanski.  By seeing him getting Oscar nominations the Academy seemed to be saying that not only would they not expel him, but that they would still consider him a peer and colleague and celebrate him.

Yes, good on them for moving to embrace diversity over the past few years, and for the action against industry sexual predators.  But, seriously, how much credit do they deserve?  Once again, Polanski wasn't just suspected of a crime, he admitted it.  There was no, 'we will treat him as innocent until he is proven guilty.'  He WAS guilty, full stop.  And yet they keep him around and celebrate him.  Forty one years and three nominations and one Oscar win.  It is that history that shows perhaps just how the mentality of Hollywood was around sexual crimes in the industry, and it is that history that should be four decades of shame on a group of people who now all of a sudden take action.

REVIEW: The Week Of

I will admit that in my teenage years I enjoyed and laughed at some Adam Sandler movies.  I saw The Water Boy and Mr. Deeds in theatre.  They were good enough times for thoughtless laughs, but the problem was that I grew up and matured, the films from Adam Sandler remained the same.  There was no evolution to the Adam Sandler movie, no growth and development.  It was always just the exact same thing, over and over.

There are certain things that you can be sure you will come across in a Sandler film.  Him yelling for an extended period of time happens a lot.  That's where the comedy is.  There will also be children doing shocking things.  Add in some interesting views of foreigners and taking some entertainment around people who look different.  A lot of times it can be mean-spirited humour, and will always involve some sort of toilet joke.

After having a string of horrible Sandler experiences from his deal with Netflix, I was completely blown away with his latest film, The Week Of.  Now, when I say that I was blown away, I don't mean that the movie was good.  I mean the movie didn't seem as nasty as other attempts, although the common trappings of a Sandler film were still there, just framed a little differently.  Know for sure that this movie is still immature and crude, and, unfortunately, lacking jokes.

The movie is about Kenny Lustig (Sandler) who is about to see his daughter married.  Because of his humble existence, Lustig feels threatened by the father of the groom, Kirby Cordice (Chris Rock), and tries to manage the wedding on his own with his limited finances.  As the film develops there is supposedly some sort of arc to the two fathers that we suddenly learn about in one scene near the end of the film.  With the tension wrapped up, for some reason there is still twenty minutes left.  This felt like a bad decision by director Robert Smigel as it was a bloated portion of the film and didn't add anything.  By the time the credits rolled, I was understanding that this was supposed to have some sort of maturity because of character development, but adding two scenes at the end of a meandering movie doesn't make it story telling.

While this flick had many problems, I didn't feel as though I was completely insulted or offended by it.  I was disappointed when I saw that there was a character that didn't have any legs, and I was preparing for that person to be made fun of.  Instead, oddly enough, it lead to what may have been the only joke in the film that had a set up.  There were other elements of Sandler films in there, such as a kid giving the finger, a cartoony portrayal of a foreigner, and a joke that was simply someone having to poop.  This was, by no means, a movie where I was laughing along with it.

It says a lot when I am blown off my feet that a movie didn't insult the viewer and offend.  That's not the bar that they should be shooting for.  Time has come and gone, but Sandler remains very much the same.  His Happy Madison productions are scripts that feel tossed together with massive amounts of product placement and endless, meaningless cameos.  It is so damned frustrating.  Adam Sandler is so extremely talented.  He has shown it, but only every now and then.  Seeing him in films like The Meyerowitz Stories is a testament to what he is capable of.  Sadly, he seems content throwing out movies that are more rambling sessions than stories, looking towards bodily evacuations to get a laugh.  It is hard seeing these flaccid efforts when I believe, and I truly do believe this, that with some effort and discipline he could land a performance that gets an Oscar nom.  Yes, I do think he has it in him, which makes sitting through these films all the more difficult.

Rating - 1.5 out of 4 stars

An Anniversary and Some Movie Moments With Jack Black

May 2nd, 2009.  Marriage day.  It was time for me to put on my big boy pants and tie my own shoes.  Everything was set and ready to go, except for a frustrating experience at Enterprise when they told me that they didn't have the car I had booked.  It was less than an hour before I needed to be dressed and ready, and it reminded me of the segment from Seinfeld about car reservations.  In the end, all worked out and I made it to my own wedding in time.

Years prior, me and my future wife were standing outside of a movie theatre trying to decide what would be the first movie we would see as a couple.  She wanted to see The Devil Wears Prada and I had a hankering for Jack Black in Nacho Libre.  When neither of us could formulate a convincing argument for our respective choices, the coin was brought in to settle the dispute.  I will shout from the mountain tops that I won, and Nacho Libre was the ultimate victor.

It wasn't a critical hit, but I got some laughs from the wrestling obsessed character, Nacho.  It was bright and fun, good for a viewing, but I don't think has aged very well for me.  I can say for sure that my wife didn't enjoy it and would have much rather seen Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep.  There was also a breakout performance by Emily Blunt, but we wouldn't see this movie until years later.  I did end up enjoying The Devil Wears Prada a lot, and we have it on DVD.  Actually, we have Nacho Libre on DVD as well, meaning that at any time we can recreate that first date experience.

Over the years we have exposed each other to our individual tastes as far as films go.  I have seen the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice as well as Twilight.  On the flip side, Rachel has had to endure Die Hard (which she somehow fell asleep during) and Mad Max: Fury Road.  In the early days I had to see Eat, Pray, Love in theatre as payback for Rachel sitting through Clash of the Titans with me.  Trust me, there were no winners at Clash of the Titans.

There have been some wonderful films that we have watched together in theatres, like the fun Into the Woods.  We also saw films that lead to interesting discussion, such as Denis Villeneuve's Arrival.  There have been some duds that we saw, as we both were bored to the gills while watching Disney's The Lone Ranger.  Thankfully there have been more good movie experiences than bad ones.

While today is our anniversary, I wonder over what was the greatest theatre experience we have shared.  It wasn't Nacho Libre, that's for sure.  I would possibly vote for The LEGO Movie, but Rachel may say The Fault in our Stars.  Regardless, the nice thing is that after nine years we both still have our individual preferences and are able to share those with the other.  Hopefully the next year will bring us some wonderful times.  Lately we have been watching a lot of cooking shows together, so not too many new movies.  That doesn't mean we can't, or shouldn't, pop Fury Road on again.  We should probably do that at least four or five times a year.

UPDATE:  Since writing this, I have been told by my wife that she loves Mad Max: Fury Road, she just didn't like it on first viewing.  In fact, after she read this she suggested that we watch it again.

Summer Sleeper Movies - Guaranteed to Happen, But Impossible to Predict

Almost upon us is the summer blockbuster season.  This is when theatres are usually flooded with the biggest budgets, the most exhaustive special effects, and the loudest noises.  Lots of money is to be made from the beginning of May to Labour Day weekend.  At the same time, there is a chance for lots of money to be lost, as inevitably there are bound to be some flops that cost studios not only money, but can affect their release schedules and strategies going forward.

An aspect of the summer that I enjoy the most is waiting to see what movie is going to turn into a sleeper hit, a film that ends up connecting with audiences and blowing expectations out of the water.  There are usually at least one each summer, and predicting them is impossible.  When they occur they can leave people pondering what it was that made them a success as well as sometimes causing studios to knee-jerk into trying to make a similar movie, hoping to repeat the success.

With the summer season starting in only a few days, I thought I would take a few minutes and look at some of the movies that performed a lot better than people expected over the past five years.  As with many things, this can be subjective.  Some might argue with my definition of 'sleeper' and could argue that some of the movies mentioned actually performed as expected by the studio.  I'm simply going off of memory, recalling the movies that made waves at the time of their release.  The great news is there is nice diversity in this list, showing studio executives that movies don't always need a white male lead to be financially viable.

2013

We're The Millers - Starring comedy names such as Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, and Ed Helms, this August release truly caught people off guard.  While the trailers did not seem especially enthralling, We're the Millers opened to $26 million and went on to make $150 million domestically and $269 million world-wide.  This was the highest grossing movie that Sudeikis had been in, and the second highest for Aniston, behind Bruce Almighty.  We also got a glimpse of rising star Will Poulter.  The antics of an unusual road trip delivered the laughs for audiences.

Instructions Not Included - This Mexican film was a true shock in terms of success.  It opened in only 348 theatres and debuted in fourth spot in the box office with $7.8 million.  It was a constant earner, and ended up taking in $44 million in the domestic box office with another $54 million in foreign markets.  That is a mammoth success for a film that expanded but was never reached a thousand theatres.  There came from it a lot of talk in Hollywood at that time around the success of the growing latino market and how to tap into it.

2014

The Fault in Our Stars - Some people may say that this shouldn't be considered a sleeper because it was based off of a popular book and had a fan base to tap into.  I would say that a movie with a budget of $12 million raking in $307 world wide has a case to be made as a sleeper.  There was marketing around this movie, but the droves that went to theatres were larger than a lot expected.  Not only did this movie succeed, but it could be argued that it lead to other movies like Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Paper Towns.  The movie solidified Shailene Woodley as a star and introduced us to Ansel Elgort (who, coincidently, is going to be mentioned again).  The film made audiences laugh, have hope, lose hope, and cry all in one sitting.  When was the last time a wide release movie for teens pulled all of that off?

2015

Straight Outta Compton - This film truly was a movement that rekindled an insane amount of energy for old school rap, the group N.W.A., and the amazing talents that came out of it.  There are not many movies that literally buzz when you are at the theatres, and this was one of those films.  It sparked something, a recalling of a subculture and what that subculture meant and stood for.  It grabbed $60 million its opening weekend, averaging $21,000 per theatre.  On the streets after the release, many Ice Cube and Dr. Dre shirts were worn.  The film absolutely tapped into something, spawning an interest in 2017's biopic of Tupac that hoped to have the same sort of success.  Not only was this a sleeper, but it was an exciting wave in pop culture that was a pure delight to be in on.

War Room - At the end of August, the faith-based film War Room came out.  It was on a budget of $3 million, and was the highest grossing film of director Alex Kendrick.  He had success prior in faith-based films like Courageous and Fireproof, but War Room exploded, almost doubling the gross of Courageous.  With a solid opening weekend of $11 million, the film held up amazingly well and took in $67 million.  Many films around then and the year prior had been trying to reach the Christian market, and War Room was the one that appeared to nail the efforts.

2016

Bad Moms - Mila Kunis successfully made the transition from television to film, heading from That 70s Show to the big screen.  While she had been in big hits, such as Ted and Oz the Great and Powerful, Bad Moms was the first film where she was front and centre that really took off.  With a supporting cast of people like Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn, this film created a fun premise of work-a-day moms letting loose.  The audiences liked what was being offered and buoyed the film to $183 million world wide.  It lead to a sequel, and I can't help but perhaps it helped influence 2017's Rough Night.

2017

Baby Driver - There could be some talk over this one as to whether it could be considered a sleeper based off of its budget of $34 million, but I point to director Edgar Wright's career.  He is incredibly popular, but not for making films that roll in the dough.  He makes modern day cult classics, and generally that means next to no money.  The cumulative gross of his five films is two hundred million, with just over half of that coming from Baby Driver.  This is easily Wright's first commercial hit, a film that made $226 world wide.  With the history of how Wright's films did in theatres, like the $60 million budgeted Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, realistic projections didn't have this film being the success that it was.  This movie also sees the second appearance of Ansel Elgort in this piece.

Girl's Trip - Not only did this film do well, but it shot Tiffany Haddish into the spotlight, with some people saying that she delivered and Oscar worthy performance.  It wasn't just one person saying that, I read a number of people talking about her for an outside Oscar nomination.  I was introduced to Haddish in 2016's Keanu, and can attest to her on screen charisma.  With names like Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Jada Pinkett-Smith (who was also in the aforementioned Bad Moms) there was plenty to get the attention of audiences.  I doubt anyone thought that this film would open to over thirty million, which it did, or only dropping a mystifyingly low 37% to its second weekend.  This film stood in the top ten for seven weeks and banked $140 million world wide.

2018

Looking ahead to this summer, I am left pondering what could be the sleeper hits.  There is an interesting case to be made for Tag, which sports a remarkably deep cast and could be a comedy smash hit.  One that I am banking on is Uncle Drew, a film based off of a character in Youtube videos played by basketball superstar Kyrie Irving.  Names such as Shaquille O'Neal, Tiffany Haddish, and LilRel Howery (who gained fans from his performance in Get Out).  Another contender is Crazy Rich Asians, which is based off of a bestselling novel.  Seeing as how a lot of the break out sleepers are about minorities and subcultures, there is nothing that should really get in the way of this movie breaking expectations.

Adam Sandler May Once Again Ruin My Life

And so it sets upon me, emerging from the darkest craters of the streaming landscape and rising high, blocking out the sun, blocking out the very essence of hope, and blanketing my life with an unescapable shadow.  Mortality cannot save me from this fate, a promise of peers, a promise that rests on me the albatross.  Without ability to inhale, all constricts my shell, bringing me down to the bare framework of existence and beckoning my lack of certainty in identity and fate.  I am a victim of that which I have fed myself, the beast that I let loose to destroy and tear asunder.  Weeping and gnashing of teeth...

Yep, it is the time of year to review Netflix's annual Adam Sandler movie, The Week Of.  Ever since he entered into the unholy union with the streaming giant I have had to watch and review a new Adam Sandler film since December 11, 2015.  It kicked off with The Ridiculous 6, which I gave a very rare zero star rating.  The movie did everything it could do to snag that rating, and it wasn't the fist Happy Madison to get the zero star.  Bucky Larson nailed that one.  In 2016, it was the action comedy The Do-Over.  I think it may have had action, but I can assure you that it did not have comedy.  Half star for that one.  And last year it was Sandy Wexler.  While my podcast co-host Christopher gave it a massive two stars (thanks to the performance from Jennifer Hudson, who I agreed was magnetic), I could only be bothered to give this incredibly annoying character, along with Rob Schneider once again giving us a racially stereotypical performance, half a star.  Three films and a cumulative score of one star out of four.

This isn't something new to Netflix.  Sandler has been delivering a mean-spirited brand of comedy for a long time, settling for scripts that make the third Austin Powers movie look like a revelation.  My favourite of his movies lately was Pixels, but we can thank Peter Dinklage for that.  Every now and then we get a reminder that he is actually super talented when he blesses us with performances like he did in Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).  Leading into the deal with Netflix, Sandler had put out near offensive efforts acting or writing in movies like Jack and Jill, and Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star.

I really don't want to write Sandler off, but he has an absolutely horrid track record.  His films go for the easiest jokes possible, rely on cameos to a level similar to Zoolander 2, insults people who look different, and includes Herculean product placements and advertisements for companies.  I'm not asking for anything sophisticated.  I enjoy goofy humour, but it needs to be based off of something.  It can't just be scenes with kids peeing on things or kids swearing.  That's not a joke in itself, yet Sandler treats it that way.  His sense of humour is so base that native American actors left the set of Ridiculous 6.  It is also the sense of humour that had Schneider in brown face for some reason in that movie.

It could be my own fault that I have to watch and review the latest Sandler movie.  I may have said that all Netflix originals would be reviewed for The Movie Breakdown podcast.  I obviously wasn't thinking about what exactly that would mean at the time.  I want Sandler to prove me wrong.  He has the ability to do so, but he doesn't seem to put forth the effort when an easy stroll is all that's needed to fulfill his obligations.  I must do what I need to, and I hope that I will have a good time.  History tells me that the odds are against me.  I am thinking the run time will make a mockery of me and I will lose part of my sanity in this endeavour.