Maleficent review

 
Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler!


     This is one of those instances when you watch a movie and see it's flaws and consider it not a very good movie... but you still liked it. It's sort of how I felt about Divergent thought it wasn't a very good movie but still enjoyed it. I don't think I'll ever be watching Maleficent or Divergent again but still had fun so no money wasted.


   Maleficent is "supposed" to be Sleeping Beauty but from Maleficent's point of view-notice how I put air quotes around "supposed", you see the thing is that in the first thirty minutes or so they do set up a story where it would fit in perfectly to sleeping beauty. It's after the famous 'curse' scene happens does the movie decide to rewrite the story. Basically Maleficent not wanting the girl to die before the curse looks over her and overtime builds a strong mother-daughter-sister sort of relationship, she even tries to reverse the curse but it doesn't work. Even when she finds Aurora's Prince and he kisses her it doesn't work, she ends up breaking the curse herself (on the forehead and platonically you perverts), and she ends up crowning Aurora queen by the end.


   First let me start out with the positives. The visual's are gorgeous and the world is very stunning, the film was directed by a guy who once mainly did special affects and he does his best to make everything look fantastic. Angelina Jolie does a great job, she plays a good maleficent and was badass, expect her costume to turn into a big Halloween staple. The movie is also very funny but not overplayed like say Thor: the dark world was, the balance was kept perfectly. The action was very well-done as well.


  Now for the negative, like I said the film was directed  by a Special effects artist and from what I can tell this is the first movie he's ever done. This is problematic as it is evident the director Robert Stromberg has a better grip on visuals and action than he does on story and characters. Those are the main problems: the story & characters.


  Some reviewer says that while the film is sort of sexist towards the males of the films- this is true.  King Stephan is a bastard and there is nothing really to feel sorry about him, I think at  we were suppose to feel sorry he lost his daughter and the fact he went insane but with some of the things he does (We'll get to that later) you want him to suffer. Prince Phillip while cute really has nothing too him and I think he is in this for only eight minutes. The only really interesting male character was Tom Hiddleston- I MEAN the crow that changes from one animal to another as well as can change into a human. He is very funny and makes a good sidekick- albeit like Prince Phillip there really isn't that much too him. Although he does interact with Aurora way more and for a while I thought she was going to end up with him... furies anyone?


   Aurora is really nothing more than a pretty face and has no real personality to herself other than to be happy, cheerful and kind.


  The story is also basically wicked but where as wicked (both the book & the play) were filled with shades of grey, Maleficent is completely justified and completely right in the situation. The film also has a weird subplot about the humans and the forest that is really unimportant, unnecessary, forgotten about and just plain boring. Thank god Jolie, Fanning and Riley make a good team or the film would be very boring. The story is overall lackluster and weak. The last ten minutes of the film is annoying because it basically gets hijacked by Zack Snyder and turns into a slow-motion fest.


   Now something I want to bring up is Frozen, now unlike the majority I am not a fan of Frozen. There are a lot of reasons why I don't like but one of them is the fact that Elsa is a very underdeveloped bad guy, yes she does have the iconic song but beyond that her character remains very ambiguous. In this film they do it much better where Maleficent while she is more of anti-hero has a clear personality and character to her. This is more of a positive though, I still need to get to one more negative and something that will probably be a little controversial.




    If you haven't heard by now, the thing most critics are talking about is Maleficent's main motivation. What happens is a dying King says that however kills Maleficent will be his successor. Maleficent's old flame, Aurora's father Stephan, goes to find his old friend/lover. He spends time with her, charms, her drugs her and basically mutilates her by cutting off her wings... now you see why this is so controversial.


  Disney basically made a fairy tale version of a rape/revenger film. Jesus Christ Disney, guess people can't make fun of you guys for being so conservative anymore if your willing to go that far. The scene is pretty disturbing so if you think about bringing a child with you, you might want to think twice. You'll see a lot of parallels between this movie and other rape/ revenge movies such as kill bill (or as some people will say I spit on your grave but I have never seen that film and don't plan too.) It's not even rape undertones, they basically beat you over the head with it.

  Now of course Frozen has homosexual and self-acceptance undertones but the difference between this movie and Frozen is at least homosexuality is as touch of a subject anymore and isn't a bad thing. While they weren't promoting the act ,rape is not a easy or decent manner to touch upon. Plus this is a kids movie, and while Homosexuality is a good conversation the parents can have with their kids, I don't think any parent wants to discuss rape with their kid. While the kids in my theater didn't notice for the most part, the adults in my theater (including my mom and grandma) did, and from the looks on there faces they were probably considering leaving with their kids before something else happened.


  Now of course Disney probably didn't intend for this to happen but I am surprised no one realized this and didn't try to reshoot the scene so it came off less... rape related.




   I am giving Maleficent a 6.5/10- despite all the flaws I did still enjoy it but... man Disney I can understand why you guys don't do dark, you can go way too far.


  


  


 

Top six reasons for a Stan Lee Biopic

  Stan Lee the face of Marvel and the person everyone wishes was their Grandfather. His cameo's in Marvel movies are basically demanded by now and are a fun thing to look for. He is a genuinely nice guy and is probably one of the most adorable old men you will ever meet. Just thinking about him makes me wonder- Why hasn't there ever been a Stan Lee Biopic? So here are my top 6 Reasons for a Stan Lee biopic.


    6. Timing
   Comic book movies are dominating the genre now, especially Marvel movies, making millions upon millions of dollars. So will all this Marvel money why doesn't a studio (Marvel studios, Fox or Sony) decide to announce "Stan Lee Biopic in the works" in the middle of all the hype. Strike the fire while it's hot.


  5. Economics
   Going off the last reason a Stan Lee Biopic who is not only a nerd icon but a pop culture icon. He is recognizable, even if only by name, if people saw a poster for a Stan Lee biopic then they would recognize it and may see it. Biopic's don't cost 100 million dollars to make so the gross versus the budget would be economically beneficial.


  4. Oscar bait
   Let's face it if a studio doesn't get the money then they want to get the awards. Biopics are perfect for the Academy circles who literally eat this stuff up for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  3. Interesting story
   Stan Lee is ninety one years old so that's a lot of history you can pick and choose from. He grew up during the depression, was a soldier in WW II, had a family, lived through the 60's, 70's, 80's and more. He was with Marvel from the very beginning and not only showing the life of Stan Lee would show the progression of Stanley Lieber (Stan's real name) but the progression of  Marvel comics.


   2. Comic book writers
  Outside of Comic book fandoms comic book writers aren't really give the respect they deserve. Most of them some people haven't even heard of some of these writers while some don't consider comic book writers "real writers" which to me is bullshit but that's another discussion for another day. Gail Simone has given us some of the best Wonder Woman stories, Ed Brubaker basically re-invented Captain America, Chris Claremont is the reason people know who the X-men are, Dan Slott is one of the best Spider-man writers in the last decade or more and Geoff Johns saved Green Lantern (Hal Jordan anyway), resurrected Barry Allen, and brought Aquaman into the forefront.


   If a Stan Lee biopic were to be not only could comic book writers from that same time period could appear but it could also bring modern day comic writers the respect and attention they deserve from the mainstream.


   1. Great tribute to Stan Lee
 While ok Stan Lee is not dead ( that would be the saddest day in human history) but he is a legend and sometimes people need to be reminded why these legends are so... well legendary. Not only would it show how much people care about him if this goes well but this would be a way to immortalize Stan the man Lee forever and always.

Hail Thanos!

God I need to start posting more things more frequently. I've been doing solid so far I just need to keep it up. Also my Maleficent review will go up either today or tomorrow.




  
   Anyway news broke that Josh Brolin will be playing THANOS THE MAD TITAN! Awesome! Ignoring what has been said about Josh Brolin in the past ( questionable movie choices & some domestic problems in his personal life), he is a phenomenal actor and has to voice for Thanos as well. Plus it would be such a middle finger to DC since Brolin was Jonah hex and was in the running for the new batman. By the way does anybody think that due to how much shit Marvel's been getting with the whole Ant-man thing that announcing this now was to appease the fans and get them to stop talking about Ant-man. Just saying.

The Elephant

   A problem with Hollywood (well one of the problems anyway) is the lack of diversity. For the most part big blockbuster movies or at least movie that seem to make a lot of money are dominated by handsome Caucasian males. To me we are only just now starting to tap (not crack) the glass barrier between Hollywood and diversity. We seem to be just now tapping into the black and female barriers that plague Hollywood with things like Hungar Games and rumors that John Boyega will be the lead in the new star wars films. Now that's where I want to bring things in full circle.


 A couple weeks ago the main Star wars cast was unveiled ninety-percent which were male. The only girl unveiled for the cast was an unknown actress named Daisy Ridley who from looking at her picture will obviously be the child of Han Solo and Princess Leia. Now I am not obviously asking for a completely female dominated cast what I am asking for at least one or two more female characters that are not going to be evil (which seems to be way more co-ed than the good guy playgrounds) or related to the original trilogy. Now I know about the rumor that one or two more female characters are still being cast but those are rumors and since they weren't unveiled with the rest of the cast chances are they won't pay that huge of roles.Now of course this is a problem with Star Wars films across the board.


  Now while the star wars movies while often complimented with being landmarks for special effects and story telling have been very 50's when it comes to diversity. There is only one (well now two but Lando has been confirmed on whether or not he will be returning) token black guy in all of star wars movies. The prequel's were called out often for racist stereotypes and there have only three actual female characters in Star Wars: Padme' Amidala, Princess Leia and Shimi Skywalker. No I am not counting Mothmo or any of Princess Leia's hand maidens since there is a difference between being an actual character than there is on being a background extra. While listening to the Escapist Podcast I learned you can't actually get a  Princess Leia action figure.


  This is weird since Disney has so many female brands you would think they would want to sell this to girls as much as they would too boys. Setting aside all the sexist evil Disney Jokes, Disney has a corporation has basically made a science on marketing to girls heck one of the reasons they bought Star Wars is because they didn't have enough boy brands. They had Marvel but that was just about it, they needed more.


 This also kind of points towards a rather dark spot on nerd culture of the pretty scary fact that sexism, racism and homophobia is present to the point where it becomes slang. I could be operationalizing but this is a very big elephant in a very big room.

X-men days of future Past review

   I think this is the first X-men that I don't genuinely care for- I don't hate it by any stretch of the term nor is it in any way a bad movie. The visuals are freaking amazing and very fun to look at, the action seems are the best they have ever been, there's a lot of good emotional moments, Quicksilver was a lot of fun and Blink's power set was really cool.
  
   The problems with this movie are the story, characters and overall structure of the movie. In this movie sentinels have taken over, although how they are being run be it the giant sentinel brain in the future or some group of humans the film kind of side-steps over. In order to rewrite the future they send Wolverine to the past with Kitty Pryde's time travel powers, which the film does not really give a reason about where she got those powers but that over didn't bother me as much as who or what the hell was running the sentinels. What's really funny is that many people assume and the trailer's sell is that yet again the overused Wolverine will be the main protagonist. Well... not exactly.


   You see in the future they explain that the reason everything happened is that Mystique assassinated Bolivar Trask, and they used her DNA when they captured her to use for the sentinel project fifty years later. So really this is a Mystique movie and in movie if you did the math Mystique is in the more than Wolverine as well as does more than Wolverine.


   Wolverine as Hugh Jackman is still good in the role but really doesn't due anything, heck I think he has only two fight scenes in the movie. I have never been a fan of Mystique and I fail to see why Rebecca Romane is the better Mystique as she barely does anything in the original X-men movies. Jennifer Lawrence is not that much fun as Mystique, heck throughout the movie she loves pretty freaking dead which is weird because I think she has the best motivation out of everyone.


  Speaking of that my least favorite character in this movie has to be Professor Xavier. Many people complain about Professor X not having a personality outside of the wise mentor but here he's really whining and just kind of unlikeable. The reason for the depression is because of the fact due to the Vietnam war many of the students and teachers got drafted so he gave up... wow that is stupid. The reason for the fact he can walk (as well as the fact Beast stays human for a majority of the movie) is because of the fact Beast managed to create a serum to repress his beast powers and allow Xavier to walk albeit in exchange for suppressing his powers. How they could do this and not in the future the film does not bother to explain.


  Many of the characters really have nothing to do or are completely rushed. In the future I loved the new future X-men because a lot of them looked visually interesting but beyond them nothing else to them and most of them don't even show up at the end. I wanted to get to know them but the film wouldn't let me. Halle Berry has nothing to do and from what I heard was almost cut completely from the movie and you can tell. From my own theories when watching interviews and from a one of the few scenes they were In I think Storm was suppose to be one of the mutants, Bishops, mother. Ian Mckellen gets this really cool action scene but doesn't really talk except for a few lines of exposition. Ellen Page is ok and probably does the most by sending Wolverine into the past. Iceman really has nothing to offer and we only see him ice man up for a couple of scenes albeit it was really cool. Patrick Stewart does good with what he is given.


   Magneto was ok but I found a lot of his actions sort of schizophrenic and at one point he uses his powers to take control of the sentinels even though the thing that would make sense would be to destroy them. Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask is ok and does good with what he is give but isn't as interesting as Sebastian Shaw in X-men first class. Havok serves no purpose other than for one scene as does Toad. Quicksilver was the best part as he was funny, light hearted and had some of the best scenes in the movie. He also had the best action scene which plays to a good music track. His costume doesn't even look that bad in motion. They also do handwave that he is Magneto's son which I have a feeling they might reveal in X-men apocalypse.


  What happened to the first-class cast was that all of them Azaezal, Banshee, Angel and Emma all died horrifically which is why Mystique was the way she was in the film.


   Overall I think the main problem with X-men days of future past was the fact that you can feel the fact that only reason it was made was to dive into the Avengers money. Which is also the reason Amazing Spider-man 2 suffered. It is a really rushed product that was basically slaughtered in editing, which is weird because this is a two hour and eleven minute movie but I feel actually could have benefited to going a full Lord of the things style three hours. I felt as if their should have been a direct first class sequel before this movie so that way a lot of it wouldn't feel rushed or too lazily written.


  By the way this is also the most graphic X-men movie I have ever seen so you might not want to bring a small child to this. I mean literally use see a pile of dead human bodies in the beginning of this and I am pretty sure any child thirteen and under will be scared by this movie.




Overall I give this movie a 5/10, great actions, great visuals, great quicksilver but is not great in story, characters or structure.

Big Hero trailer

In trying to keep my one post a day quota I came across the big hero six trailer- here's the link below.


    http://screencrush.com/big-hero-6-trailer/


This looks like it's going to end up being visually interesting and really funny at the same time and I am looking forward to this movie. (Sorry I don't see X-men days of future past until tonight and unless David Goyer says something else I won't have that much to talk about until tomorrow.)

David Goyer basically gives the middle finger to the fans

 While surfing the twitter sphere (when really I should be working on a project I have for school) I came across a couple people I respect (and being very mad about it) about David S. Goyer the guy who is going to write Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice ( I seem to be the only one actually liking this title as I kind of get what they are trying to say although I don't kind it very suitable for a movie title.) So I went on Google, typed up David Goyer and found this article:
 
 http://www.themarysue.com/david-goyer-calls-she-hulk-sex-fantasy/


  Basically during an interview/podcast he calls She Hulk a slut and Martian Manhunter a goofy... and the rage starts now. This has riled up a lot of people up not just Martian Manhunter and She-hulk fans or even just comic book fans but the main stream people who have internet access are freaking pissed off.


  I myself was pissed off when I read this too and suddenly the horrible realization fell upon me of why in the world, a skinny underwear model instead of an actual actress was cast to play the most iconic super heroine of all time.


   I like the believe the human race is making progress with human relations with stuff like gay-rights, women's rights, race rights etc. but it's stuff... no PEOPLE like this that brings me back to reality. For one thing it baffles me that for a man to sleep with a lot women it's considered cool but when a women sleeps with a lot of men it's considered slutty. For men to be considered manly women have to fail at completely... it's down right evil. While I am not the biggest she-hulk fan I still think she is a cool character who is both powerful and smart and loves who she is. As someone who grew up watching Martian Manhunter on the Justice league animated series it makes my blood boil to see him so berated and disrespected by the guy who might end up writing him in a movie while over at Marvel a gun wielding Raccoon and a tree who can only say three words are treated with the upmost respect.


   I also come to realize the problems with DC movies might not quite just be the studio involved with it but the creative team behind it. With this article everything starts to become more clear and make much more sense- and it's scary. It's scary that sexist- misogynistic bastards get to make millions help make the things I love. 

   David Goyer while he did write both batman begins, the dark knight and the first two blade movies is not a good writer. He is going at story but not good at executing the actual script. He's the kind of writer that tends to rehash the same idea over and over again.


   This has a lot of people demanding David Goyer be fired and I can't help but agree since these comments he's made give a LOT of insight into how he might be writing Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of justice. He should have never said those comments as not only is it just plain wrong but it makes the studio, the movie he is working on currently and Wonder Women look bad. I hope WB makes him issue an apology but considering certain stuff that is never going to happen.

Heartache effect

   Today in school I was suppose to be dissecting some frogs for biology class but due to poor scheduling on my teacher's part we ended up sitting through a presentation by an animal activist. It was a pretty good presentation, basically what the guy wanted to talk about was how it's wrong to eat animals and actually pretty unhealthy by showing us charts, diagrams and showing us videos of slaughter houses. It was both heartbreaking and sad to see the cruelty these animals had to suffer even though we really don't to eat them. Yet in the back of mind I couldn't help but think- Would this really change our minds?


    What I mean is have you ever seen a really sad movie or read a really sad book (ex: The Pianist for both) and afterwards feeling so sad to the point of actually wanting to change something or be proactive at the very least but later completely forgetting about it? I think a lot of people get this way when seeing something sad one minute your so depressed that you wish the world would change but the next you pretty much forgot what you were so sad about be it whether or not your were distracted by something else.
   
     Today after watching the presentation I completely forgo my lunch but tonight when my mom came home with Chinese food I scarfed down some barbecued ribs from a dead abused pig and didn't remember the presentation until thirty minutes ago.
 
   Now I know this type of stuff actually does change people's mind entirely and at least one of my classmates might go completely vegan now but on the majority- it might not do that much. Some of my classmates my become vegan for a few days or hours but then get drawn back in through either temptation or just completely forget.


   In order to relate this to the blog it is sort of the same with movies particularly deaths be it of a human or an animal sad for an hour, maybe a few hours at most a couple days and then your fine. It's very rare something that sad sticks around for more then a week.


This is what I call the heartache effect sad for one moment then fine the next.

X-men: Battle at the box office

  Well since I missed the Guardians of the Galaxy Q&A (because I passed out before 10 o'clock) and I am trying to do at least one post per day I might as well as report on something I actually have something to say about. This weekend is memorial weekend so any movies opening this weekend will have the opportunity to rake in a lot of change from adults, teenagers and kids who want something to do for the weekend if they can't go to the beach or don't have any direct access to the beach. Two major movies coming this weekend the new Bryan Singer film X-men days of future past and the Adam Sandler comedy Blended.
  
    X-men days of future past prediction- $108 million dollars worldwide (international & domestic)


    Blended prediction- $ 24 million dollars world wide (international & domestic)
 
  Blended's box office prediction is unsurprising, as that's what Sandler's last couple of movies have open to. In my opinion I hope it makes less then that as I have been burned by Adam Sandler for the last couple years and if it weren't for we're the millers coming out Grown ups 2 would have been my most hated movie of all time. Plus the reason I think it might make less then that is not only because of X-men days of future past or the fact it just looks bad but because of the fact it seems to me the average Joe of the movies might actually be wising up and be smart enough not to see this crap... I hope.


   Now X-men days of future past is what I wanted to talk about- to me that number seems really unreasonable. Now before I move on let me set the record straight I LOVE the X-men movies good and bad. X-men first class is my favorite comic book movie of all time even more then Avengers, the original iron man Captain America the winter soldier & Watchmen (all of which including first class are my top five favorite comic book movies- I will leave it for you to figure out the order yourself.) Even though Thor: The Dark world was my favorite I thought the Wolverine was the best comic book movie of last year. The original x-men and x-men 2 I love to death and can watch over and over. Heck I even like X-men: The last stand and X-men origins: Wolverine even though those movies are things X-men fans want erased in X-men days of future past.

  So where does my doubt come from?:


   Well for one thing ever since X-men: The last stand every X-men movie has made less and less money domestically. I am not making this up if you look it up all X-men movies have not done that well domestically- well not good enough anyway when were talking about block buster and block buster budgets. It's in the international markets is where the movies have had to make the money so that way they don't just break-even (only enough to cover distribution and budget but not enough to turn an actual profit for the studio.) Their opening weekends since the last stand have never gone over $70 million dollars and in all of their theatrical runs no X-men film has ever gone over $500 million which in the past was a feat within itself but now is only a quarter of a lap block buster movies run.


   Another thing is the build up behind this movie which has been mixed to say the least. Recently with the overwhelming positive reviews and sitting at a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes will definitely boost the movie in many people's eyes as well as word of mouth. However thanks to the empire covers basically killing a lot of good will and hope many fans had specifically with the revelation of Disco-style Quicksilver (although I hear he is the best part of the film) and Aids-patient Toad. The cutting of certain comic characters, some specific character plot points said that has made a lot of people angry, Wolverine fatigue, the first lackluster trailer and the Bryan Singer Scandal (which I do know people who aren't seeing the movie mainly because of that.)


   Another really bad thing is the movies really expensive budget which is about
$225 million dollars, that sum is not including marketing but it probably won't be that high since it X-men days of future past hasn't had the Amazing Spider-man 2 Marketing. This is the second most expensive movie Fox has ever done to date, the first being Avatar which cost over half a billion dollars to make. To be considered a hit it will have to make near a billion dollars.


   While it definitely won't flop and when It comes out I definitely go see it and post a review for any one who reads this blog. I don't want this movie to crash and burn. This Franchise has been beaten so many times that it saddens me as an X-men fan. I want to see X-men: Apocalypse, I actually don't want to see this cross-over with the Avengers. I want to see it make $108 million in it's opening weekend show that the X-men are back but I don't believe it will. Yet still God I can't wait to see this movie. What's my prediction?:


Opening weekend: around $91-97 million
Domestic total: around $250-300 million
international total: $300-$400 million
World wide total: $ 550-$ 700 million


If you do read this blog then tell me what you guys think this movie will make. Until then see you- whenever I decide to post something else which could be very soon.

Godzilla 2

  While I still have confused feelings on the Godzilla reboot I still enjoyed the movie enough and hopefully they take the time to fix the problems of the first one. Especially since the director said if he did a sequel he would want to do Monsters island.

Guardians of the galaxy trailer

So here's the link to the new guardians of the galaxy trailer (mainly because I am still figuring out how to upload videos on my blog.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crIaEzXgqto


I love it, I cannot wait for the movie to come out in August which seems to be coming closer and closer. My favorite parts, the music ( Marvel makes excellent music choices), Ronan the accuser, Rocket Raccoon, Groot and The collector.

Godzilla movie review

  
  NOTE:THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS
 Most actions movies are often criticized for a lack of emotional substance and too much focus on eye-candy explosions or stunts. Godzilla is more of the reverse effect where too much focus is put on weak, poorly written human drama and not enough on the actual monsters. However there is a purpose for that in something like a Godzilla as Godzilla in the past has been more of a force of nature than an actual character, you need something other than fight scenes to fill time. Yet in this film the director Garth Edwards actually attempts to make Godzilla a character of his/her own and actually sort of succeeds along with giving the other two monsters human moments that actually made me smile.
    
     That's the strongest part of Godzilla overall, the monsters- not only are they awesome to watch (two words: ATOMIC BREATHE) but are given actual touching moments in the film. That's really cool but sadly while the monsters were actually fleshed out into characters the actual characters, the humans we are suppose to rally around and hope make it out of here alive are not fleshed out at all and are either plot devices or just people to spout exposition.


   None of the characters are unlikeable but none of them are that particularly interesting, and in the end we don't give a damn about what happens to the characters. In the beginning a character that the film clearly wants us to care about is killed but we don't care because we just met this person and know nothing about them. I can't remember most of their names if I had to be honest. First off, SPOILER, Bryan Cranston is completely wasted in this movie and all of the scenes of him in the trailers are all you are going to get. He gets axed off in the first twenty minutes and overall gave quite a hammy performance for the time he was there. Elizabeth Olsen is pretty wasted in this film too and had no particular reason to existent in the film. Aaron Taylor Johnson is the really the main focus of the film but I honestly didn't care as he didn't really have any sort of personality and his scenes kept getting in the way of the monster stuff. Ken Watanabe is really just captain exposition and while the film attempts to give him a personality beyond giving information and 'enlightening' dialogue, they even attempt to give him a backstory but overall it didn't work. This is tragic because in my opinion he really should have been the main human character but I will talk more about that later. All in all a lot of the characters could have been cut or a few of them could have been morphed into one character.


     This movie is also extremely long, about two hours give or take, it doesn't hit a point where it becomes unbearable but with all the human drama cutting into all the fun monster stuff it got annoying very quickly. This movie could have been cut to a standard ninety minute movie and nothing would have been lost.

    Now I may sound as if I didn't like the movie at all but in reality I really enjoyed myself. While the movie does have a lot of flaws all of the monster stuff out weighed the boring human side story and made a lot of it worth it. There was even this cool bus driver that I really liked, I even heard a few people clapping for him, I won't give it away but you'll see what I mean. The opening credits sequence is also one of the best opening credits sequences I have seen in a long time. I still recommend seeing this movie.


    Now a topic I really wanted to address was the ethnic diversity in this film. Godzilla is for the most part of Japanese creation, what a lot of people wanted to know if this film would be culturally sensitive. Well they aren't insensitive... let me explain: they do make reference to the nuclear radiation, Hiroshima metaphor, as well as the Japanese culture that Godzilla is all about but it really is only a hand wave at best and really forced. Ken Watanabe's character actually has a bit of a backstory with Hiroshima.
  
    This movie is really an American bread basket, Ken Watanabe seems to be really the only Asian person present, there is maybe one or two black people and one Hispanic guy but for the most part it is a wonder bread cast. Heck in a scene that clearly takes place in Japan there are more white workers then there are Asian workers. Now this kind of disappoints me and also fits into the whole hand wave to Asian culture. While I don't believe It needed to be predominantly Asian I still think there should have been more than one Asian guy walking around.


   Now I am going to explain why Ken Watanabe's character should have been the main human character. As well as the fact it would have paid homage to the Asian heritage of Godzilla but overall even though he was captain exposition he was more interesting and had more to do than either Aaron Taylor Johnson and Bryan Cranstan's characters. With the backstory with Hiroshima and the fact of his connections to one of the monsters as well as what the film was going for in trying to give him an interesting personality it seemed as if in early drafts of the scripts Ken Watanabe's character was suppose to be the main character. That was until someone (probably someone from the studio) said to put in an American family the audience could relate too (even if they were boring), which in turn diminished Watanabe's role.




  Now despite there being a lot wrong with the film I still give it a 7/10- the parts that are good are good and stand out significantly.
  

Rosemary's remake

 On Sunday (mother's day) part one of the Rosemary's baby remake miniseries aired starring Zoe Saldana and Patrick J. Adams. The reception was pretty much a man of steel- half of the audience being very impressed with the modern update while the other half staying true to the masterful original 1968 movie were massively disappointed. I loved the original movie but at the same time I didn't think the remake was that bad. I will agree with the masses when saying that it was way too long for it's own good (in my opinion they should have just remade it into a movie not a miniseries) and unlike the original does share the expert sense of suspense like the original did to make up for the long running time. Adding to the lack of suspense the miniseries resorts more towards gore and shock, tropes that are probably the biggest problems when it comes to making horror movies.

    Although there were some things I did like, Zoe Saldana is a great and likeable actresses and it shows in the performance, I was invested in what was going on with her enough to care and didn't feel the need to compare her to Mia Farrow's portrayal. I also found Guy much more likeable and much less of a scumbag due to Adam's performance, I really like the Paris Gothic setting that sets a very omnipresent and dark mood for the miniseries. I also liked the revamps Castevet's from a creepy old couple to a charismatic French middle aged couple which draws a lot less attention to who they really were.


   Again holds no candle to the original but I found the miniseries had a couple new changes to offer and in all honesty I wouldn't knock giving it a try... albeit you might want to watch this on a Saturday or a Sunday when you have some free time because it is a long sit through.


   This sort of review on the miniseries as I read back through kind of reflects my own opinion on remakes. Remakes have, in my opinion, a lot to offer such as modern updates we might have never thought of  as well as a new perspective on another directors work by a new fresh face. Heck some of them even surpass the original such as the Dark knight and Scarface ( The Al Pacino version was a remake, go look it up.) I am not one of those people worried about remakes and reboots taking over the movie sphere, we still have enough original content to go around such as neighbors, Grand Budapest hotel and Belle. Plus if it ends up sucking we still have the originals to watch- when my friend watched the Rosemary's baby miniseries she asked if we could watch the original and when it was finished she both loved and was scared shitless by it. So hey Remake's aren't all bad.

The New Batman

 Introducing the long awaited Batsuit and Batmobile! Yeah something finally from DC/WB! What's my opinion....


Batmobile- I absolutely love it and I think it looks amazing as it harkens back to the Tim Burton 89 Batmoblie while still creating it's own style. I can't wait to see the thing in action.


Batsuit- I think I am in the minority on this when I say I don't like the Batsuit at all, now that doesn't mean it won't look good in color or in motion but to me it looks very weird and awkward to the point of being almost disjointed in a way.


  Now that we have the  Btsuit let's see what Wonder Women's outfit is going to look like (please let her have pants... please let her have pants... please let her have pants...)

Spider man no more- maybe

 Spider-man...Spider-man...Radioactive... Sony re-think your plans
 
  For those of you who haven't heard the 18 million dollar movie Neighbors starring the Seth Rogan and Zac Efron ( a movie which you really should watch it's freaking hilarious) beat the 200-225 million dollar Amazing Spider-man 2 at the box office. Neighbors made about 51 million dollars while the Amazing spider man 2 only made 37 million dollars in only its second weekend. This is bad... (for Sony any way.)


   For those of you (which is most of you) who don't work in the field of movie economics for a movie to be marginally successful and pay back how much money it spent to make said movie, it has to make double it's budget- basically "breaking even." That's due to the fact that a studio only gets half of what a movie makes as the rest goes to the theaters that distributed it. For neighbors this good as it has not only broken even but many people are saying it is on its way to break the hundred million dollar mark so Universal break out the caviar and champagne.


   For Amazing spider man however this is not so great. It took about 200-225 million dollars to make the amazing spider man 2 but if any of you have stopped and paid attention to the insane, marketing campaign Sony has been doing the budget for the Amazing spider 2 is way more than 225 million dollars, with many estimating that the Amazing Spider-man would have to break the million dollar mark just to be considered a hit. Now with the rise of comic book movies and the fact that it is freaking spider-man this might not seem a very big problem... however now with these results plus the majority of critiques basically throwing garbage at the movie Sony might be wanting to think of a back up plan. (In my opinion The Amazing Spider-man 2 is a 6/10 movie not necessarily a horrible movie but not a good one either.)


   Now when I look at this situation in its entirety this reminds me of a little movie that came out in 2011... Green Lantern. Green Lantern like Amazing Spider-man 2 was a critical disaster and from the looks of Amazing Spider-man 2's box office they both might fall into the same camp as box office disaster. While Amazing spider-man 2 is nowhere near as bad as the Parallax- catastrophe of a movie there are way to many similarities to be ignored. The supposed starts of cinematic universes (look it up Green Lantern was suppose to be the original start of the DC cinematic universe before it bombed), polarization from critiques, and in all honesty too much going on in one movie.
 
   Whether Amazing Spider-man 2 will bomb as bad as Green Lantern is up for debate as with the marketing campaign we don't know how much it cost really to make but it already has 500 million dollars in the bank so that is a good sign. With Green Lantern we don't really know how much it took to make as WB is too ashamed to tell the public (somewhere between the range of 400 to almost 500 million dollars.) Still if  Amazing Spider-man 2 doesn't make enough money to please the heads of Sony then the promises of a Spider-man cinematic (villains) universe might be up for some renegotiations.


 Now I could be totally off and completely wrong, but still this is troubling. Sony has gone from a billion dollar corporation to only a 9 million dollar corporation, now that might not sound so bad but going from a billion dollar studio to only a measly (in Hollywood) 9 million dollar studio is a big jump in only 14 years. They are betting everything on Spider-man to keep themselves a float financially and this movie has a chance of not making what they were expecting. Some things could come from this:


1.) They reboot- This is the extreme prediction as they would be rebooting a reboot but Spider-man 3 made over 800 million dollars on a much smaller budget but they still rebooted the series. This is the unlikely option but still a possibility.


2.) They rush out a Sinister six movie- This is the most likely prediction to the point where it might actually happen. For example the Superman film man of steel made 600 million dollars when WB expected it to break a billion ( which is a stupid expectation but that's another discussion for another day.) So instead of making a proper man of steel sequel to fix the mistakes of the first movie they are rushing out a batman vs. superman film that stars both Wonder Women, Cyborg, possibly Aquaman, possibly Jon Stewart Green lantern and whoever else they can cram (just relent and call it Justice League god dam it.) They already have a director, Drew Goddard from Cabin in the woods, and half the cast Sony is might decide to make Amazing Spider-man 3, Sinister Six instead. Plus Andrew Garfield has says he does not want to return for a fourth movie so might as well get it out of the way.


3.) They sell it back to Marvel for 2 billion dollars- This is another really unlikely prediction but with how Sony's financial resume's been lately and if Spider-man fails to make back what it took to make or doesn't even make what the previous one did then Sony just might want to wave the white flag and make a quick buck. Again this probably won't happen although more out of pride than actually being in trouble.


   Spider-man is in big trouble though as with this week's Godzilla, the week after that is X-men days of future past and then after that Maleficent all cutting in any money the Amazing Spider man 2 might make then Spider-man might be no more.




    
   

Hello World!

   As the title says hello world and welcome to my blog... wow I hope that did not sound as cheesy as all hell. I have tried to blog before many times but hopefully try 1,047 works and I manage to stay focus enough to last for more than three weeks. Through this I hope to improve my writing skills and my work skills both of which need drastic improvement.


   This blog will be focus mostly on movies, maybe books, maybe comic books, maybe some manga, maybe a topic that bugs the crap out of me and can't be ignored from time to time but for the most part just film news, reviews and other stuff that may come up.


   So in order to break the ice my name is Camille my favorite movie is a tie-between Fantastic Mr. Fox, what's eating Gilbert Grape and Back to the future part one, my most hated movie is We're the Millers, my favorite director is Wes Anderson, my least favorite is Michael Bay, my favorite book is Chinese Cinderella and my least favorite is any substance less young Adult book and lastly I love Asian food... no rhyme or reason for that I just wanted to say that.