Posts

Posted on

Shmee Rides With 12 Strong!

Post 9-11 Afghanistan war movies generally fall in to two categories, critiques on America’s wars in the Middle East, or super patriotic action flicks.  12 Strong is definitely the latter, but it tells a compelling story about the first boots on the ground after The World Trade Center attacks, and their stunning victory.  I am not sure how much of Jerry Bruckheimer’s war tale is true, but it shines a light on some of America’s recent forgotten history.

12 Strong starts on September 11th with Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) settling in to his new home.  The towers fall and he is in to his military base getting ready to head out.  The job he and his eleven squad-mates are tasked with is aiding the Afghanistan Northern Alliance by calling in air strikes on the Taliban.  They are riding horseback against heavy odds in extreme conditions, but they get the job done.

12 Strong never lets you doubt these men are going to succeed, which ruins some of the tension, but it is amazing to catch a glimpse of what they had to go through to destabilize the Taliban so soon after the attacks.  It is a shame that so much of what these guys did was classified for so long, but I guess aiding a rebel group against former allies probably needed to be handled with some discretion.

They got a great group of actors for this movie: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, and Michael Peña just to name a few.  They were all believable in their roles, even if Hemsworth did seem too pretty to have spent three weeks in the dessert, but this is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, so everyone has to look great all the time.

My biggest critique of 12 Strong is that it is about thirty minutes too long.  Some of the movie felt a little redundant, so they could have done some editing to make this a much tighter and better movie.  Still, as it is, it is pretty enjoyable.

For a movie that was dumped in to the January wasteland of feature films.  12 Strong is a decent war movie.  It is not overly stirring, and it will not make you think about the complex politics about what is going on while these guys are riding their horses against overwhelming odds, but not all films need to.  Some movies, 12 Strong included, just need to show our military out there doing their job, or at least a Jerry Bruckheimer-ed super-explode-y approximation of it.

Posted on

What Fortnite Needs To Do To Beat PUBG!

Epic’s Fortnite has been in development a long time, and then late last year they gave people the chance to enter the beta for the game if they paid $40.  This seemed like a bad deal to me.  $40 to play a free-to-play game early?  I wasn’t the only person who thought so either.  It wasn’t doing very well, plus the fun base building game was walled behind a bunch of F2P mechanics (that your currently have to pay $40 for), so Epic smartly pivoted to something they knew they could do well, copy PUBG and give it away for free.  It worked.  40 Million downloads and 2 Million concurrent players later Fortnite is a hit, but it still is not king of the Battle Royal hill.

PUBG has less downloads, not surprising since Fortnite costs you nothing and PUBG costs $30, but PUBG frequently has over 3 Million concurrent players on Steam alone, and who knows how many Xbox players the game has at a given time, but it is a lot.  In other words, PUBG rules this game space for now, but I think Fortnite can change that, if they are smart.

First they need to ditch all the F2P garbage they have been developing, and then just let Fortnite have three game modes: Battle Royal (PvP), Survive (Base Defense, PvE), and Explore (Minecraft, PvEvP).  Then give it away for free like Battle Royal and sell tons of skins and hats, like a lot, a lot.  Ding, Ding, Ding! Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner!  Epic would then have a complete game with three fun things to do, and an easy monetization scheme.  AKA sell tons of digital crap for their three very fun game modes.  No city building or cool down nonsense.

If they do that, I bet more of those 40 Million people would play the game instead of just trying out Battle Royal once and figuring out that PUBG is a bit better.  They would keep playing because there is more to do, and those things are fun.  Meanwhile, PUBG will still only have its one, admittedly great, game mode, so if you get sick of that, you stop playing the game, and there goes selling all those loot box keys.

Posted on

Poor Justice League Returns Are Not Slowing Down The DCEU!

After yet another critical failure with the Justice League, the heads of the DCEU rolled once again, and now Walter Hamada is in charge with apparent complete control, but that doesn’t seem to be slowing down the DCEU.  Casting is almost complete (it may be now) for the new Shazam film, and it is coming out April 19th 2019, but the biggest news is that The Flash movie now has its third and forth directors.

The guys that wrote the very funny Spider-Man: Homecoming, John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, are now writing and directing Flashpoint.  It is interesting that they will be adding so much comedic talent to a movie that will have no-doubt far reaching implications for the DECU, but it is still the best sign that even though Warner Brothers is not slowing down their superhero output, that they are indeed changing the tone of their films.

I love the cast of the DCEU movies, they just need to start making GOOD movies with them.  Hopefully they get things turned around with Aquaman, Wonder Woman 2, Shazam! and Flashpoint because I need to have a good Justice League movie.  I NEED IT!!!!! … Anyway, we will see if these movies are what the doctor ordered, or if that is the end of the DCEU as we know it.

Posted on

Shmee Checks In For The Big Sick!

Imagine you find the love of your life, but then during your first real fight, this person ends up in a coma.  Sounds pretty funny right? … right?  Well that is the basis for The Big Sick.  Which is a semi-autobiographical story about how Kumail Nanjiani met his wife.  It fits very much in the  mold of Judd Apatow’s patented dramedy.  Which is to say it is pretty good.

Apparently this all started because Apatow and Nanjiani were on the ‘You Made It Weird’ podcast together, and Apatow convinced Nanjiana that his story would make for a good movie.  Of course Apatow would produce since funny people getting kind of sad is his bread and butter, and here we are.  I have to admit it is a pretty touching movie, so Apatow knows his business.

The actors are all equally funny and sad.  I think Kumail is on the verge of becoming a big star.  He has great comedic timing, and he is very relatable.  I would watch him in another couple dozen films.  I hadn’t recognized the actor that played his would be wife, Zoe Kazan, but apparently she has been in a lot of stuff, and she is very talented.  Even if she is in a coma for a lot of The Big Sick.

Amazon has gone to work making sure that they have plenty of movies for their service, and The Big Sick shows that all that work is paying off.  I would have expected this movie to make a bigger splash this awards season, but a lot of non-comedies are filling up the comedy nominations this year, so The Big Sick and others are being left out.  Which is kind of a shame.  Anyway, if you have Amazon Prime, The Big Sick is a worthwhile film, and another hit added to Apatow’s already large collection.

Posted on

Shmee Discovers The Shape Of Water!

If you know me, or have been reading this site for a while you know that I love Guillermo del Toro‘s work, so there was no chance I was not going to see his latest film, The Shape of Water.  Like almost all his movies it is visually stunning, but it also has a lot of heart to go with that visual splendor.  There is no better purveyor of adult fairy tales than Mr. del Toro.

If you have heard anything about The Shape of Water than you know it is about a mute woman (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with a fish-man/monster (Doug Jones) in a secret government lab, and for most movies that would be enough, but there are so many little things that go along with the main plot that fill in this film’s world beautifully.  Things I will not spoil for you.

In del Toro’s movies it is never a surprise that the monster of the movie isn’t really the monster, and that is true here as well.  What is surprise is how easy it is to empathize with Doug Jones’ fish-man.  The character is beautifully brought to life and somehow feels completely normal in the strange world that is being shown on the screen.  Sally Hawkins somehow makes her love of this ‘being’ believable.  The rest of the cast is fantastic as well, but with the likes of Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Richard Jenkins that is hardly a surprise.

While the story and the acting are fantastic, half of the reason to see a del Toro movie is because he will always show you something incredible.  He has a unique visual flair, and he keeps finding new wonderful things to show us.  He also loves to use extremes.  There are no half measures, while the movie is sweet and tender, the violence is graphic and harsh.  The Shape of Water is rated ‘R’ for a reason.  All the reasons.

The Shape of Water is a delightfully strange tale, and it is a perfect film for a weirdo like me.  It will take more than a little graphic violence and some nudity to keep me from succumbing to The Shape of Water’s charms.  Apparently I am not the only one because The Shape of Water earned Guillermo del Toro his first Golden Globe for directing.  An award that was well deserved.