Month: April 2015

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A Daredevil Worth Watching!

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Netflix gave me a birthday present not to long ago when they launched their new comic book based TV show Daredevil.  This show has nothing to do with the unfortunate Ben Affleck movie, well besides that it features the same character.  It is still Matt Murdock beating up bad guys, but now it takes place in a believable world, and it is not pulling its punches.

It is a tale as old as time (sing it Angela).  An orphan wants to makes his home a better place, so he uses his extraordinary abilities to take down crime.  In this case that orphan is the blind Matt Murdock played by Charlie Cox who I am sure you know from Stardust.  You don’t know him from Stardust?  You are a terrible person!  Well back to the review,  Murdock, a local defense attorney, is trying to cleanup his part of New York City known as Hell’s Kitchen, but he is finding it harder than he anticipated.

What I love about this series is that it is so much more brutal than any other Marvel property as of late.  When the good guys and bad guys go at it, they really go at it.  There is blood and bone crunching, and people will die.  While it fits nicely within the Marvel Universe, you can definitely tell this corner of it was inspired by Frank Miller’s (Sin City) run with the character in the 90’s.  It has that dark washed out feel to it that is quite different than the bright and almost cheery Marvel Movie Universe.

If Daredevil is setting the tone for things to come in the Marvel TV Universe, I am very excited.  It shows that Marvel is finding more stories to tell outside the Avengers.  Not to rag on Agents of SHIELD which has now found its footing, but some separation from the movies will do wonders for these new TV shows.  With the good work they have done with Daredevil, I can’t wait to see AKA Jessica Jones!

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John Wick, Shmee’s Take!

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The Paladin already did a great review on John Wick, but since this my site I figure I would let you know what I thought about it.  I know that Keanu Reeves has been busy murdering his career lately, but he finally made the kind of movie that he was born to be in.  An old school action movie with a very green/blue tint that lets him murder a bunch of people.  It at least gives the poor career a brake.

When I say old school, I mean old school.  This movie follows every action movie trope by the letter: John Wick is an amazing assassin who gave it all up for a girl; He has to get back in the game because a mob boss’ son is an idiot who screws with him; There are cool secret assassin hangouts that have ‘rules’; Clubs are places shootouts happen, and women of course are not to be trusted.

I think it works so well because it slavishly devotes itself to those tropes.  Instead of trying to be something new, they did something old, but just really well.  The only thing they changed was that the mob boss’ son killed Wick’s dog and not his wife because … well … the wife was already dead.  She was pre-killed, died from an illness of some sort, and the dog was a posthumous gift from her.  So it was still all about her.  We just didn’t have to see her get needlessly tortured and killed.  I guess that is better?

All the tropes and story clichés would be pointless if the stunt work and action was not good, and it is pretty darn great.  I am not sure that Wick reloads his gun enough, but overall it is pretty top notch.  Solid movie-fu, and over the top gun play make this movie fun to watch.  You can tell the directors, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, are stunt workers because they framed all the action perfectly.  No shaky blurry action cam here.  You get to see everything.

The actors all play their one dimensional characters well.  That is the bonus of using clichéd writing.  We know how these characters are supposed to act, and the cast delivers on those roles.  With the likes of Keanu Reeves, Willem Dafoe, Michael Nyqvist, and Dean Winters there was never a doubt they knew what they were doing.

John Wick will not win any awards, unless it is a Taurus World Stunt Award (it is up for Best Fight and Best Stunt Coordination), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a solid movie with some great action.  If you want to see a lot of people get the crap beaten out of them this is a good film to watch.  If you want a story that moves you, not so much.

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Aquaman Gets The Comic Book He Deserves

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For one reason or another Aquaman has always been thought of as a joke.  I guess it has something to do with his water based powers, or maybe it was his terrible representation in the old Super Friends cartoon, but whatever the case besides being able to control fish, he is super strong, can jump long distances, and has a weapon that can pretty much destroy anything.  Despite all this people still look down on him, and that is what Geoff Johns and crew address in Aquaman’s New 52 re-launch.  Even as a fan of Green Lantern, I have to say Aquaman may be Johns’ best work.

In this book Aquaman (Arthur Curry) has given up ruling the sea kingdom of Atlantis, and he and Mera (don’t call her Aquawoman) decide to instead protect the coastline from harm.  The humans in the area misunderstand him, and they think of him as a looser in the superhero community even though he is regularly saving their lives.  He is constantly the butt of their jokes.  While this gets on Mera’s nerves, Aquaman does his best to let it go and still do what is right.

I love that Aquaman continues to be a hero even though people don’t really like him that much.  It is easy to rescue people when they love you, but to save them even though they mock you is another thing entirely.  It was smart of Johns to bring that real world aspect in to the book.  It just makes Aquaman that much more relatable.  Here he is saving the day, but people are still not giving him the respect he deserves.  I think we all feel that way sometimes, and I hope that we deal with it as well as Arthur Curry.

I have heard that Aquaman was the best New 52 comic book, and after reading the first trade paper back I can see why.  It looks great, and it tells a great story about an underappreciated hero.  I hope that he is given the respect he deserves in the upcoming Justice League movies, so that he will thought of as more than just the guy that can talk to fish in the future.

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The True Cost Of Going Clear!

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There has been a lot of buzz lately about the HBO documentary Going Clear by Alex Gibney.  It is based off the book with the same title by Lawrence Wright.  I have watched quite a few horror films in my day, but this documentary about a “religion” truly terrified me.  There is a reason it is one of 2015’s must watch films.

The film presents a brief outline of how Scientology came in to existence, and some background info about its founder L. Ron Hubbard, but the real meaty parts of this film are the first hand accounts of its former members.  Their descriptions of abuse and harassment are gripping and horrifying.  It is hard to believe that these people didn’t leave earlier, but it seems once the church has its grips in you it is hard to get out.

I used to think that Scientology was simply full of harmless weirdoes, but now I know that it is large and dangerous organization that wants to exploit it members for every penny they have, and if they put up any resistance, they are abused and harassed in to submission.  Meanwhile they keep a few key celebrities very happy, so they can put an attractive front on the church.  That way outside people don’t dig too deep, they just see Tom Cruise.  It should be mentioned that the Church of Scientology refutes all this, but it kind of has to.

Now I have to give Alex Gibney a lot of credit, if this movie was purely an information dump it wouldn’t be as good, so his direction keeps this film moving humming along.  It doesn’t drag at all, and that is hard to pull off for a documentary.  Though I am sure that his job was made easier with all the research done by Lawrence Wright.  Wright says in the film that he did not start looking in to Scientology to do an exposé at first, but that he just wanted to see what Scientology was all about.  Once he started to hear the stories and find the truth, he was just blown away.

I don’t watch a lot of documentaries, but movies like Going Clear remind that I should.  The good ones inform and entertain like no other medium can.  I hope this film can loosen the grip that Scientology has on it members, so they can get out of the church’s exploitive system.  Going Clear should be on your short list of films to watch this year.