MCU Watch pt 4

Moving sucks.  It has played merry hell with my posting schedule so I am just now getting to the recap of movies I saw last weekend.  The good news is that we are through Phase II and will hopefully be wrapping up this multi-part series very soon.

Guardians of the Galaxy - Ah, the first truly space-based Marvel film.  Remember when this was considered a huge gamble for Disney to put such largely unknown characters out front-and-center?  And now they're the emotional touchstones of the entire franchise.  ...Which Disney is attempting to burn to the ground by shelving GotG3 indefinitely.  But we're not going to focus on that because it just makes me angry and depressed!  Instead, we're going to talk about how the film still works really, really well in setting up this group of misfits and the introduction of the third Infinity Stone.  "We are Groot" is still a tearjerker and the soundtrack still kills.  The only thing that was kind of weird was seeing Yondu as more of a villain when we know what a fucking teddy bear he is by GotG2. 

The Avengers:  Age of Ultron - I can't believe I forgot how much I loved James Spader as Ultron.  There really needs to be a retroactive Oscar for voice acting because he was incredible.  Every sneer, every ounce of arrogance and menace is conveyed purely by tone and cadence.  The CGI artists did a great job giving Ultron a face, granted, but without an incredibly expressive voice so much of the character would have been lost.

MCU Watch pt 3

I kind of fell off the grid for a little while because I was moving to a new apartment and I didn't have a computer or TV for several days.  It's been a little chaotic but I'm trying to keep up, which is why you're getting a random post on Friday instead of your regularly scheduled programming.  Last Sunday marked the entry into Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The Infinity Stones are moving to the forefront, HYDRA is back in a big way, and people are faking their deaths left and right.

Iron Man 3 - Tony's PTSD after New York causes him to overreact to the perceived threat of The Mandarin, creating 1001 new suits and obsessing over Pepper's safety.  As a standalone film, that would be an okay premise but it ends up being sidelined as foreshadowing for Age of Ultron.  Also, Marvel muddied the waters with Aldrich Killian, wasting what could have been a great sucker punch of a villain in Maya.  Still, it wraps up the arc with Pepper, and gave us a few nice moments with Tony and the kid, Harley.

Thor:  The Dark World - This really only exists to introduce the Aether as an infinity stone.  Jane Foster is given almost nothing to do besides be a carrier and swoon dramatically into Thor's arms.  It would have been nice if she could have confronted Malekith herself or if any attention was paid to the fact that she is a HUMAN WHO CONTAINED AN INFINITY STONE AND DIDN'T IMMEDIATELY DIE.  But, you know, Thor.  And hey, it gave us more Loki, which I can't even be mad about.

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier - OMG, HYDRA.  The second installment really does showcase how much more solid the Captain America films are as a standalone trilogy.  Cap is in the present and his old enemies have been just lurking in the wings, waiting to strike.  There are so many past/future parallels woven into a(n already good) story of corruption and idealism.  It absolutely stands as one of the best films in the canon.

We're still doing a lot of unpacking but hopefully we can get through the second half of Phase 2. 

Mission: Impossible: Fallout (2018)

  I was going to wait and just catch this one on DVD or Netflix but it was getting such rave reviews, I had to see what the fuss was about.

And it's not bad!  It's exciting, it's funny, there are poignant moments, and Rebecca Ferguson kicks some serious ass.  There are also some interesting parallels between this and Mission:  Impossible III, which I will get to in a moment.

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) fucks up a mission in Berlin, allowing three plutonium cores out in the world.  CIA director Sloane (Angela Bassett) thinks Ethan is falling apart and assigns her own man, August Walker (Henry Cavill), to watch Ethan and his team as they attempt to infiltrate the gala of the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby), a black-market facilitator.  Ethan successfully wins the Widow's trust and learns that in order to get the plutonium, he must trade evil bad guy Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) for it.  Meanwhile, Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) has been told by her MI-6 bosses that she can come back in if she brings them Lane to answer for his many crimes, pitting her against Ethan once more.  Of course it's all part of Lane's diabolical plan to make Hunt suffer and the team must set aside all their issues in order to prevent the situation from going mushroom-shaped.

Okay, the parallels.  This part might contain some minor spoilers for M:I3, if you haven't seen it, so I'm warning you now.  I think that Fallout rectifies everything that went wrong (within the story universe) for Ethan Hunt.  He failed to save his protégée, Lindsay Ferris (Keri Russell), from a super villain intent on destroying everything, Owan Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman, RIP), and he accidentally got his girlfriend, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), involved in his crazy spy life and nearly got her killed.  Okay, so in Fallout, his new protégée, Ilsa, is still a little green and naive about how cutthroat it is but she is waaaay more competent than Lindsay and shows herself to be more than capable of staying alive, even against an extremely intelligent and ruthless bad guy, Solomon Lane.  Julia, meanwhile, is happy and making her own choices free from the specter of her association with Ethan.  If the Mission: Impossible producers wanted a way to gracefully retire Ethan Hunt, this movie provides them the perfect opportunity to pass the torch to Ilsa.  It resolves all of Hunt's underlying fears and also hands the franchise to a younger woman capable of carrying it through the next decade.

Oh my God, you guys.  Mission:  Impossible has become the new Star Wars.  Movies 1-3 suck, 4-6 are great, and 7-9 are going to be female-led and probably hated by a toxic fandom.  I HAVE UNLOCKED SECRET KNOWLEDGE HERE!

MCU Watch pt 2

Okay, so we had a few events going on this weekend so we only got to finish up Phase 1 of the MCU today.  Both films clock in at over two hours so that's still a good chunk of time devoted to all things Marvel.

Captain America:  The First Avenger - I have literally not watched this since it was in theaters.  I have watched both seasons of Agent Carter more times than I have watched this film.  It was shocking, therefore, to realize just how good it really is.  Everything came together so perfectly in it.  Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper, Stanley Tucci, and of course, Chris Evans all played their respective characters as if they had never had another part in their lives.  Plus, there were cameos from actors I didn't expect like Richard Armitage and Natalie Dormer just hanging out, blending in like it's nothing.  This was the first truly great Marvel film.

The Avengers - Again, I haven't sat down and actually watched the first Avengers since I saw it in the theaters.  Remember how exciting it was?  Before Thanos showed up and just ruined everything?  Honest-to-God, I forgot the Chitauri were even a thing.  The whole Battle of New York was such a big deal.  And it was the first time we got to see Hawkeye and Black Widow do their thing.  Of course, there was that whole thing where Coulson died (and I still think that was ham-handed) but this movie could have been a trainwreck and it wasn't.  It pulled together the team we knew and loved and set up the Mad Titan storyline that would one day break our hearts.  Also, fun thing I noticed this time:  early in the film, when Tony and Pepper are discussing the finalization of Stark Tower, Coulson calls.  Tony, being Tony, tries to duck the video call by saying "you've reached the Life Model Decoy of Tony Stark."  I damn near fell off my couch, thanks to season four of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. introducing me to what those things are.  The show hadn't even gotten off they ground yet and I have no idea if they planned it out that far in advance, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The Breadwinner (2017)

  Yikes, this film was hard to watch.  On the bright side, if you need a way to traumatize your kids to remind them how good they have it, you've hit pay dirt, my friend.

Parvana (Saara Chaudry) is an 11-year-old girl living with her family in Afghanistan.  When her father (Ali Badshah) is arrested by the Taliban, it leaves them with almost no way to survive.  Women are not allowed to enter stores, sell, or buy goods in the marketplace without a male relative or husband present.  To keep them from starving, Parvana cuts off her hair and dresses as a boy.  She continues her father's work of offering to read or write for people who are illiterate, knowing that if she is caught, she will be killed by the Taliban.  To keep her courage up, she tells her friends and family a story she has made up about a hero on an epic journey.

Honestly, this movie is one soul-crushing adventure couched in candy-colored animation.  Tyler, who has been to Afghanistan, took one look and noped the fuck out, preferring to stay in another room until it was over.  I can't blame him.  The movie is beautiful and it has a really sweet message about how imagination and tradition are what hold us together even in the darkest times but I'd be lying if I said it was worth the suffering.  Don't do this to yourself.

Or do.  What do I know?  It's streaming on Netflix.

Fear Strikes Out (1957)

  This is a sports biopic about Red Sox player Jim Piersall, the first professional athlete to openly discuss mental illness.  Piersall was what we would now call bi-polar and wrote a memoir that was used as the basis for this film.

Frustrated by never achieving his ambition of becoming a professional baseball player, John Piersall (Karl Malden) focuses all his hopes and dreams on his son, Jim (Anthony Perkins).  The boy shows aptitude, and like most children, has no concept that what he is experiencing is abuse as John pushes him from childhood through high school games.  Any minor setback is treated as a betrayal, forcing Jim to work harder and harder to get any warmth from his father.  Even when Jim is scouted by the Red Sox and sent to their training camp, John never lets up.  Eventually, the pressure is too great and Jim collapses under the weight.  He is voluntarily committed to the care of Dr. Brown (Adam Williams), who begins to unravel some of the trauma surrounding Jim's life.

Sometimes I forget that Anthony Perkins was in stuff other than Psycho.  His ability to shift from vulnerable to manic serves him very well here but it's Malden that really makes this picture work.  He never raises his voice or turns violent, but his cold silences quell your heart.  And I also like that this doesn't go for the sappy Hollywood happy ending where his mental illness is magically cured through baseball or hugging it out with his tormentor.  It's a valuable lesson even in this day and age that toxic people need to be cut out of your life, no matter how close a blood relative they are.

I would recommend this for a watch.  It's available to rent on Amazon for about $4.  I tried finding it other places for free but came up empty.  Amazon's streaming quality is pretty good, though, so I think it worked out.

MCU Watch pt 1

Yesterday, Tyler, Bethany and I began our marathon of Marvel movies.  It's not like a real marathon, where we would have watched all 20 back-to-back.  We're old.  We started at a reasonable time and watched as many movies in a day as we all felt comfortable doing.  Less glamorous?  Yes.  But this is how to manage a project when you are over 30.

(I thought about doing a live blog but I didn't honestly think it would be very interesting.)

There was some initial debate about whether or not to watch the films within the timeline of the universe, which would mean starting with Captain America:  The First Avenger, or watching in release order,  which begins with Iron Man from 2008.  I won, so Iron Man was first up.

(We also briefly debated including the various TV shows like Agent Carter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, and the like but ultimately that seemed like too much of a time sink so we're strictly sticking with the movies.)  

Iron Man:  Robert Downey, Jr. was 43 when he took on the role of Tony Stark and has not really aged a day since then.  This was the flagship movie of the MCU and it needed to be exceptional to win the kind of attention necessary to breathe life into this project.  Ten years later, it holds up really well by keeping the story simple.  Spoiled man gets a rude awakening to the real world.  Wants to change the establishment.  The Establishment, an older male in a father figure role, doesn't like it and tries to destroy the catalyst using the very tools created to change the world.  Fails due to an imperfect understanding of those tools.  Simple, iconic, and with mythic overtones.

The Incredible Hulk:  Also from 2008, this was a different beast entirely.  This was the first collaboration between studios in an attempt to create this shared universe.  See, Hulk was distributed by Universal, not Paramount.  That's why it doesn't look or feel the same.  There's been a lot of Monday night quarterbacking about how this film could have been better in the subsequent decade, especially in light of how Hulk has been handled in later films, but that doesn't really do anyone any good.  This is the Hulk movie we got.  And probably the only standalone Hulk movie we're ever gonna get.  Yes, there are problems with it.  Yes, the casting is weird.  BUT.  It achieved its objective, which was to bring the Incredible Hulk into the MCU and it solidified the tropes we've come to expect:  cameos and throwbacks as an homage to the comics,  easter eggs for future films and villains, the Stan Lee cameo, and even the stinger at the credits (not post-credit in this case, but just before.)

Iron Man 2:  Fast forward to 2010.  Remember when we had to wait for a Marvel movie once a year or even every other year, instead of every season?  This is a lot of people's least favorite Marvel film but I maintain that it is important to the canon as a whole.  It sets up more of the backstory between Tony and his father, Howard, that will be important in Civil War.  It brings in Black Widow for the first time and shows how important S.H.I.E.L.D. will become to Tony's future.  War Machine makes his first appearance.  Tony's issues with the military-industrial complex are furthered, making his later capitulation to the Sokovia Accords a huge shift in character development.  This movie is a big deal.

Thor:  I had watched this quite recently with Tyler so I checked out a little bit here.  (Holy shit, I actually just checked the date I watched it and it was a full calendar year ago.  It feels like it was just a couple of months.  God, it sucks to get old.)  This is the first MCU film that feels like it was actually designed for Blu-ray.  The space backgrounds are so gorgeous I can't stand it.  Thor is arguably the weakest character of all the heroes until Ragnarok and it's hard not to focus on that.  Honestly, Loki gets much more depth of character in the script and I think that's part of why he becomes so popular.  (The other reason is Tom Hiddleston.)  Loki and his abandonment issues are more interesting than Thor and his entitlement.  

Stay tuned for next week when we tackle more of Phase One!

Unknown (2011)

  This was a fairly dumb action movie that just got itself erased from my server.

Martin (Liam Neeson) is involved in a car accident in Berlin.  He wakes up at the hospital with no real memory of what happened to him or why he was there to begin with.  He manages to discover what hotel he was supposed to be staying at only to find that his wife (January Jones) seemingly has no knowledge of him and is there with another man claiming to be him (Aiden Quinn).  Frustrated and freaked out, Martin tracks down the cabbie (Diane Kruger) that was with him in the accident, unwittingly dragging her into an international conspiracy.

This is like Jason Bourne for old people.  Honestly, it's not worth your time and the "mystery" is dumb.  Avoid.