Daily Archives: November 14, 2024

For Christmas, Amazon gave us a knock-off Marvel movie

Movies made by committee, where confused tones and tangents compete for dominance, at least offer some compelling friction in their chaos. Movies made by focus groups, like Red One, enter into a bland Fake Movie canon dominated by Netflix’s wannabe blockbusters (Red Notice, Heart Of Stone, The Gray Man). These movies—starring former superhero actors and/or helmed by their middle-manager filmmakers—chase the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s bet-hedging success, offering a bit of everything to everyone while excelling at exactly nothing. They are, as I wrote when reviewing Heart Of Stone, “two hours that have an uncanny resemblance to cinema, but upon closer inspection, are more akin to a business proposal.” Those three Netflix movies were crafted to be dead-eyed horses forever circling around a content carousel labeled “spy action thrillers,” but Amazon MGM’s Red One is even more mercenary in pursuit of a holiday franchise.
Being both a spy action thriller and a Christmas movie (and a buddy comedy and a father-son reconnection narrative), Red One is like the $250M version of those IP-chasing public domain slashers starring Steamboat Willie and Winnie the Pooh. What’s a more recognizable, copyright-free name to build your synergistic, omnigeneric tentpole around than Santa? 

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So, Red One slots a bevy of Yuletide nouns into its MCU Mad Lib, snagging ex-superheroes Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans from the Fake Movie mines. The pleather-clad globetrotters chasing MacGuffins with a bevy of gadgets and powers and conspicuously brand-forward cars just happen, this time, to be on the hunt for a kidnapped Santa Claus—punching CG hench-snowmen instead of CG bug-aliens. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the film was written by Fast & Furious franchise scribe Chris Morgan, but that should only reinforce the idea that all blockbusters are approaching a monotonous event horizon from which no originality can escape.
As Jesse Hassenger notes in his A.V. Club review, the desaturated colors, half-assed quips, CG sheen, and anonymously frantic action sequences don’t help Red One beat the MCU allegations. But that’s just on the surface of the flat, digital-forward film, where conversations mostly happen in the passenger seat on the way to the next Atlanta warehouse. Beyond its build-it-in-post aesthetic, the world of Red One replaces imagination with imitation. Where Artemis Fowl made its myth-meets-tech universe accessible for kids, Red One introduces it to the military-industrial-superhero-movie complex. Referring to Santa in Secret-Service-speak is just the beginning.

You see, in Red One—a Christmas movie from Amazon deeply concerned with delivery and manufacturing logistics—Santa lives in a North Pole factory-metropolis, protected by a Wakandan force-field dome and guarded by multiple extra-governmental agencies. Callum Drift (Johnson) helms one of these, E.L.F. (Enforcement, Logistics, and Fortification). No, The Rock isn’t ironically playing a diminutive elf, despite Drift’s main gimmick being that he can shrink and grow at will like Ant-Man; he’s just a loyal employee, working for Amazon like everyone else. Maybe Johnson pissed in a bottle on set out of solidarity with his delivery driver comrades?
E.L.F. works with M.O.R.A. (the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority), which is legally distinct from S.H.I.E.L.D. but similarly obsessed with walkie-talkie comms, corporate efficiency, proper protocol, busy computer monitors, and wearing black. It’s led by Lucy Liu, who gestures towards the Headless Horseman with even less-disguised weariness than Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury. They are all concerned that the Naughty List’s count is up 20% year-over-year. Remember when massive tight-assed organizations were the bad guys in holiday movies?

Red One’s bad guys look pretty much like the rabble running around any other recent action movie. The main villain Grýla may be an ancient winter witch taking inspiration from Cate Blanchett’s Hela, but her militia of underlings aren’t weird little critters like those clocking into Santa’s warehouse. Instead, they’re burly guys with face tattoos wearing flak jackets. Like so many superhero movies ashamed of their origins, Red One attempts to ground itself in all the wrong ways.
Who’s shooting at this witch’s heavies? Why are witches using drones? Why does an exposition scene take place in the North Pole’s weight room, with producer-star The Rock spotting J.K. Simmons’ needlessly jacked zaddy Santa? The answer to all these is that big muscles, militarized gear, and high-tech nonsense check some algorithmic box, one looking to counterbalance the inherent frivolity of a Christmastime caper or comic book lore with Serious Cool Stuff. It’s why the main character, Jack O’Malley (Evans), is just there to roll his eyes at the idea of “saving Christmas” and end every other scene with a remark that’s become its own sarcastic shorthand among Marvel-bashers: “What just happened?”
What just happened is that Red One was designed from the start, by Hiram Garcia, president of The Rock’s production company, less as a movie and more of a shareholder stocking-stuffer. It was made by people who spend their days trying to exploit the Santa Clause for tax breaks. It was made to stake a claim for a potential universe, to fulfill brand partnerships (with Hasbro, Mattel, and at least a few others front-and-center), and to exploit overworked FX houses with yet another final monster too dark and green-gray to see. Some have described Red One as a Grinch-like film, but that’s not quite right. Red One didn’t steal Christmas, but purchased it in a hostile takeover and laid everyone off.

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Sweary Trainspotting mural causes “chaos” at The Barras during filming of James McAvoy movie

Rogue One A Glasgow street artist created a mural for the new film and it has generated a lot of attention. Bobby McNamara, the Glasgow street artist Rogue One, is known for his works across Glasgow, including The World’s Most Economical Taxi mural on Mitchell Lane and the beautiful montage of local famous faces that wrapped The Clutha. His depictions have included Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Billy Connolly, John Byrne, Paolo Nutini and Sharleen Spiteri. His latest work, a commission for a new film by James McAvoy, was a depiction of the character Renton from the film Trainspotting, played by Ewan MacGregor, emerging from a toilet, alongside the movie quote “it’s sh*te being Scottish.”Bobby explains the background: “This piece, like the original movie, has became quite controversial. Painted as a temporary piece for filming in the new James McAvoy directorial debut movie California Schemin’. A film about two Scottish kids that took the American hip hop scene by storm but were shunned when it was discovered they put on American accents.“In that sense of story, the piece has context, but of course it does have a swear word, and folk can be patriotic. I was given only two days to paint this, working together with Art Pistol Projects, so I did my best under pressure. Rogue One“We decided to cover the word sh*te with gallus while the mural was left a few days before filming. Then during filming the quote was revealed. Obviously people don’t realise it’s just temporary and for a film so chaos commences. Gotta love the internet. Now of course the quote has been covered until the artwork will be blasted off. The mural did it’s job, in more ways than expected lol. Finishing note* It’s brilliant being Scottish! But it can make it harder to succeed in things.”The mural was spotted over the weekend in The Barras which has been a focus for filming during the production. The artwork will be removed from the wall now the scene has been completed. The image gained a lot of attention with some calls for it to become a permanent artwork in Edinburgh or to be replicated elsewhere in Glasgow. Others on social media were raging about it. I interviewed Bobby McNamara at an event in the Ubiquitous Chip and one of the topics we discussed was the transient nature of street art. Exposed to the elements it will naturally decay or it will be tagged and painted over. Some of his artwork elsewhere in Glasgow has already disappeared, other examples – including some on the official city mural trail – are in various stages of their journey towards fading away. Whether the Renton artwork finds a new home, it’s worth considering what street art we want to preserve and what we accept as a part of the cityscape that has a finite timeline. Meanwhile, the bold James McAvoy, having stirred things up around The Barras with this sweary mural, will continue filming his directorial debut. The new production, California Schemin’, charts the true story of Silibil N’ Brains, a Dundee rap duo who conned the international music industry by adopting American accents and pretending to be established Californian rap artists. A set-piece for the movie will be filmed in the Barrowland Ballroom next week.Continue Reading

Val Lewton: the king of B-movies who pioneered psychological horror

(Credits: Far Out / TCM) Thu 14 November 2024 13:30, UK In the late 1930s and early ‘40s, American cinemagoers were fed a steady stream of rousing propaganda. The dawn of a new world war brought a wave of patriotic screen heroes who put their country above themselves, with Rick Blaine in Casablanca being the most enduring example. At the same time, however, audiences were looking for other forms of catharsis, and as has been the case for as long as the genre has existed, horror came to the rescue. Within this category, no filmmaker was as influential as Val Lewton, the man who presided over the B-movie unit at RKO Studios. Far from creating trashy double bills for audiences who weren’t picky about what they got, he made films that were socially transgressive and timely. Though his name may not be widely known, he was one of the first great influences on modern horror movies, destigmatising supposedly monstrous characters and villainising those who ostracise them instead. Ironically, Lewton got his big break thanks to Orson Welle’s misfortune. Following the disastrous release of Citizen Kane, which did almost no business at the box office and received polarised reviews from critics, the studio started a new advertising campaign. Titled Showmanship in Place of Genius: A New Deal at RKO, it promised a cheaply made spectacle over the experimentation of a single filmmaker. With their weakened financial state in mind, the studio heads decided to reboot their B unit with horror movies that imitated the massively successful pulpy horror productions at Universal. They chose Lewton to lead the charge. As the former private secretary of super-producer David O Selznick, he had played an instrumental, if uncredited, role in the conception and execution of MGM hits like Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Now a producer in his own right, they thought he would be the perfect, affordable fit for RKO’s new path.During his eleven-picture stint at the studio between 1942 and 1946, Lewton was given tight parameters. For one thing, he never got to choose the title of his movies. He was simply given a name that was almost always a knock-off of a Universal film (The Leopard Man instead of Wolf Man, for example), along with a tagline, a budget of $150,000, and a strict runtime limit of 75 minutes. On the other hand, as long as he stuck within those boundaries, he was given free rein.Cat People – 1942 (Credits: Far Out / MUBI)From Lewton, the studio was expecting a competent “yes man” who knew how to balance a budget, work quickly, and create a reliable assembly line of productions. What they got was a subversive auteur not unlike Welles, who stretched narrative and stylistic boundaries. The producer decided early on that he wanted his audience to identify and empathise with marginalised figures. By today’s standards, creating sympathetic monsters is hardly revolutionary, but at the time, it was the height of cinematic subversion. When the studio assigned him the 1942 film Cat People, which is now a cult classic, they gave him the tagline, “She was one of the dreaded ‘Cat People’— doomed to slink and prowl by night… always fearing that a lover’s kiss might change her into a snarling, clawing KILLER!” Lewton leaned into the idea of doom. Centring the film on a young woman who turns into a panther in moments of sexual arousal, he and the director Jacques Tourneur (his most frequent collaborator) put the focus on her psychological torment – her fear of hurting those she loves and of never being able to enjoy a normal life. Far from being “one of the dreaded ‘Cat People’,” she cries when she inadvertently kills a bird and is wracked with guilt when she can’t give her husband what he wants. Lewton was also intentional about casting an actor who looked more like a kitten than a feline seductress. Simone Simon had the childlike, elfin face of an ingénue rather than the arch, sophisticated look of a femme fatale. As such, she looks like an innocent victim in the film rather than an evil siren. In the end, the monsters in the movie turn out to be the men in her life – the husband who abandons her for another woman and the psychiatrist who tries to rape her. RKO executives were appalled by the film and its lack of a classic monster, while critics found it downright irresponsible. One called it “unhealthy”, while another called it “morbid and unproductive”. But audiences loved it. Lewton had shot Cat People in three weeks with a budget that was $15,000 under the studio’s ludicrously low limit, and its box office returns brought RKO back from the brink of bankruptcy.I Walked with a Zombie – 1943 (Credits: Far Out / Criterion Collection)Lewton’s next film, I Walked with a Zombie, was even more subversive. Set on an island plantation in the Caribbean, it explores racism, slavery, and voodoo religion. It also challenges the very definition of a zombie, transforming it into a tragic condition that leaves its victims in a liminal space between life and death. Again, the supposed monster of the film is a young woman who has been cursed, and her condition leads more to her own suffering than anyone else’s. Like the main character in Cat People, she doesn’t survive the film, and her death is more likely to conjure tears from the audience than reassurance that the source of their fear has been dealt with. At a time when movies were supposed to show clear delineations between good and evil and avoid the collective grief of yet another world war, Lewton muddied the waters and lingered on the pain. In another show of empathy, Lewton made The Leopard Man, turning a title that promises a monstrous creature who is half man, half leopard, into a movie about animal rights. The plot follows a leopard who escapes from the nightclub where it is meant to perform like a circus animal. Scared and confused, it kills a girl. When women begin to turn up brutally murdered, the crimes are blamed on the leopard, conveniently ignoring the very human killer who is hiding in plain sight. Lewton highlights the leopard’s innocence even further by showing that the only reason it ran away from the nightclub in the first place was its fear of the loud castanets. The things we think are monstrous, Lewton suggests, are almost always victims of misunderstanding. Meanwhile, the real monsters are lurking among us.At the end of the war, Lewton lost his job. The executive who had defended him at RKO had died, leaving the studio in turmoil, and audiences were no longer interested in brooding psychological chillers that turned outcasts into victims. They wanted movies that offered either complete escapism or ones that approached the fallout of the war head-on. Of these, William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives is still the gold standard. Lewton was promised the opportunity to make “A” pictures at Paramount, but he wasn’t given the same creative freedom that he’d had at RKO, and many of his projects fizzled. When he died in 1951 at the age of 46, he wasn’t lauded as the pioneer that he would be decades later. Today, Lewton is hailed for his subtle use of light and shadow, his subversion of what a monster can look like, and the affinity he showed for ostracised figures. However, he also had a pessimistic view of being an outsider, which many filmmakers still avoid for fear of devastating their audience. Most of the outcasts in his movies die, a cruel turn of fate that feels inevitable in the unsentimental world of his movies. He chose to make society at large the real source of horror, a damning worldview that is as relevant as ever. Echoes of his work can be found in movies like David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, where outsiders are celebrated, but the harsh realities of the world are never glossed over.[embedded content]Related TopicsSubscribe To The Far Out Newsletter

Five awful movies Roger Ebert absolutely loved

(Credits: Far Out / Rebert (Roger Ebert) Thu 14 November 2024 15:45, UK We all have our opinions on movies, but there is usually a general consensus as to whether something is good or bad. In many cases, some movies are so terrible that they receive unanimously bad reviews, win accolades from the Golden Raspberry Awards for their awfulness, and ruin the filmmaker’s career. Yet Roger Ebert, who wrote countless film reviews from the 1960s until his death in 2013, was never afraid to be honest, even if his opinion differed from the majority. He had many great opinions, rating many classics full marks and cementing himself as a trustworthy critical voice. At the same time, some of his movie reviews were bonkers, with the writer delivering some rather unhinged opinions. In many respects, his bravery to share such polarising opinions was commendable. Ebert slammed many fantastic films, like A Clockwork Orange, Pink Flamingos, and even The Elephant Man, and he also praised some absolutely terrible ones. So, from Home Alone 3 to Anaconda, here are five bad movies that Ebert praised, giving three or more stars out of four. Five terrible movies loved by Roger Ebert:5. Home Alone 3 (Raja Gosnell, 1997)Ebert’s rating: 3/4 starsEveryone loves Home Alone, a classic Christmas movie that sees Macaulay Culkin play Kevin McCallister, who defends himself from two bumbling thieves with plenty of innovative booby traps. By the time the third instalment rolled around without any of the same cast members, most people agreed that the film was poorly written, directed, and performed. Ebert didn’t seem to agree, though. He wrote, “To my astonishment, I liked the third Home Alone movie better than the first two; I’m even going so far as to recommend it, although not to grownups unless they are having a very silly day.” While Ebert was aware the film was no masterpiece, he concluded, “The stunts at the end are more slapstick and less special effects. And the result is either more entertaining than in the first two films, or I was having a very silly day.” [embedded content]4. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Steve Carr, 2009)Ebert’s rating: 3/4 stars If a film has production credits from both Kevin James and Adam Sandler, chances are it’s not going to be great. In 2009, they produced the Steve Carr-directed Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which starred James as the titular character, a security guard who finds himself involved in rescuing hostages. It’s a stupid comedy that appealed to many children and childish adults during the late 2000s, and Ebert was actually one of them. He found the film entertaining, calling his review ‘Lone Rider of the Purple Segway’.He wrote: “Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a slapstick comedy with a hero who is a nice guy. I thought that wasn’t allowed anymore.” Ebert continued, “What’s even more amazing, Paul Blart: Mall Cop isn’t ‘wholesome’ as a code word for ‘boring.’ It’s as slam-bang preposterous as any R-rated comedy you can name.” [embedded content]3. Anaconda (Luis Llosa, 1997)Ebert’s rating: 3.5/4 stars Met with predominantly negative views, Anaconda had a strange cast featuring the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, and Jon Voight. The movie follows a fictional documentary crew as they attempt to make a film about an indigenous tribe. During their journey, they meet a snake hunter who takes control and leads them to find a giant anaconda. Ebert was one of the few critics who loved the movie, which most people thought was plain terrible, from its effects to its acting. “Anaconda did not disappoint me. It’s a slick, scary, funny Creature Feature, beautifully photographed and splendidly acted in high adventure style. Its snakes are thoroughly satisfying,” Ebert wrote. [embedded content]2. Speed 2: Cruise Control (Jan de Bont, 1997)Ebert’s rating: 3/4 stars Three years after Speed—in which passengers are stuck on a bus that is rigged to explode if it slows to a certain speed—a sequel was made, Speed 2: Cruise Control. Jan de Bont’s second instalment wasn’t half as popular as the first, with practically all elements of the film receiving criticism. In this movie, Sandra Bullock returns as the same character, only this time, she must help out when she discovers the cruise she is on has been hijacked. Ebert was in the minority when he declared his love for the film, writing, “The special effects sequences in the movie are first-rate,” and even stating that he “chortled a few times.” He added, “Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure. And so, on a warm summer evening, do I.” [embedded content]1. Land of the Lost (Brad Silberling, 2009) Ebert’s rating: 3/4 stars Based on the television show of the same name, Land of the Lost was released to negative opinion in 2009. It earned its fair share of Razzie nominations, with most audiences pointing out how little was to be desired from the writing and performances. It failed to be particularly funny or interesting, and most critics left it scathing reviews, resulting in the film fading into the land of the lost.Ebert, on the other hand, had a slightly different attitude. “Land of the Lost inspires fervent hatred, which with the right kind of movie can be a good thing. Amid widespread disdain, I raise my voice in a bleat of lonely, if moderate, admiration.” He continued, “I guess you have to be in the mood for a goofball picture like this. I guess I was.” [embedded content]Related TopicsSubscribe To The Far Out Newsletter