Ten Statements--No, Wait, Eleven!--About....THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (2014)

"I know you've got a meeting with Batman Forever's
Edward Nigma for nutball pointers, so I'll let you go."

“You want me to come down there so you can kill me?"
“Yeah!"
“OK, I'll be right there."

1) Once again, this film succeeds on the absolutely effortless chemistry between Andrew Garfield’s Peter and Emma Stone’s Gwen.  Even when the two are breaking up, there’s a connection between them that is palatable and spurs on Peter’s story arc.  It’s an element that was lacking between Toby McGuire and Kristen Dunst.

2) My God, what is it about this version of Spider-Man where literally everything that ever happens anywhere in New York is connected to Oscorp.  By the time we see the scheming that makes Paul Giamatti the Rhino, the whole Oscorp angle becomes ridiculous.

3) While I have no problems with his Green Goblin, which is different but just as valid as Willem DaFoe’s version (only without the stupid helment), Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn is oddly off-putting.  Not only does he have this bizarrely emocore haircut, DeHaan doesn’t have nearly the chemistry with Garfield he needs to have to make his story arc credible.  Their status as best friends doesn’t come off well, doubly so when Harry’s back story in the context of this film is presented.

"So, ummm....which of us has the goofier hair, Pete?"

4) I have to wonder if Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon got together with Jim Carrey’s Edward Nigma to have coffee once a week, because Max is a broad caricature at best.  There’s always a sense of Foxx winking at the audience and playing at being a character as opposed to being a character.  Once he goes all Dr. Manhattan-y as Electro on everyone, he becomes better, but that first act is winceworthy.

5) To my pleasant surprise, director Mark Webb does manage to effectively juggle the three villains who appear in the film--The Rhino by using his story as bookends for the main story, and the Green Goblin by making the origin stretch out across the movie so his ultimate appearance doesn’t happen until the end, giving Electro the chance to, ahem, shine as the main baddie.  That being said....

6) One of my biggest problem with the film’s villains is that two of them have as their motivation a hatred of Spider-Man, and the other’s motivation is spurred on by his worship of Spidey.  These motivations truly are at odds with the grandness of the schemes of these bad guys save for The Goblin.

7) You know, I appreciate that Sony wants to put little easter eggs throughout the film--partially as fan service, and partially as seeds for future characters--but some of these easter eggs make no sense, being transformed so much by the film that there’s no reason for them to be here.  In particular B.J. Novak’s Alistair Smythe and Felicity Jones’ Felicia Hardy are so far away from the basic concepts of those characters that there’s no reason for them to be those characters.  And let’s not get into the fact that Dr. Ashley Kafka gets a facacta sex change and a ridiculous German-ish accent as portrayed by Marton Csokas.

Somehow, Spider-Man's stand-in
seemed a little...off.

8) I surely appreciate Mark Webb’s decision to continue the mini-theme of how Spider-Man’s empathy with people may be his biggest strength.  It’s his empathy with Max that gives the man hope and almost defuses the situation when he becomes Electro.  And a moment with a young kid makes for a nice, albeit tense at times, undercurrent and mirror for Peter’s own story arc.

9) The ending to this film has a weird feel to it.  It’s too long, for one, and seems to move well beyond the natural end point for the film.  The thing almost feels like a mini-movie on its own, and prolly should have been better handled.

10) You know, the first film promised ‘the secret story behind the hero’....and yes, the film does do some minor advances to this backstory, but it’s mainly a flashback, some hints that Peter was destined to be Spider-Man and him finding a secret lab under a subway tunnel.  There’s a definite ‘Get To The Fuckin’ Monkey’ vibe beginning to come from this series both with this subplot and the one involving ‘The Man In The Hat’ (that should be called ‘Dr. Spinoff’ given what he’s planning).

11) What the Hell was that totally unconnected scene from X-Men: Days Of Future Past doing in the end credits? Other than, of course, seeing Jennifer Laurence all blue’d up again...

Overall...still a valid and entertaining film in its own right that manages the deficits well enough that they don’t damage the film proper.

Ten Statements About....DJANGO UNCHAINED! (2012)

Yes, he is a free man and yes, he meant to dress like that....

"How do you like the bounty-hunting business?"
"Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?."

1) Since this is a Quentin Tarantino movie, I appreciated the way he incorporates elements from the original Franco Nero films into the story.  Hell, I practically stood up in my seat when the Morricone theme (arguably the greatest movie theme of all time) came out of the speakers at the beginning, and pumped the air when Nero shows up for a brief cameo that passes the torch onto Jamie Foxx.

2) Even though Tarantino has had flirtations with other actors before, I have come to believe that he's found his muse in Christoph Waltz.  Just like with his portrayal of Landa in Inglorious Basterds, Waltz' Dr. King Schultz is a vivid character who seems to have his own weird code of honor.  And given how well he plays off of Foxx, he's a great characters who brightens the film as long as he's onscreen.

3) I think the real charm of Leonardo diCaprio's Candie is that while he does villainous things, an argument can be made that he may not exactly be the villain.  Yes, he does some hideously awful things, he has that subtle but gross incestuous relationship with his sister...but nothing he does is outside the law or mores of the culture he exists in.  It's only when Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen outs Schultz and Django that Candie becomes a monstrous individual.  Taken in this context, it makes sense that his role is relatively small.  And speaking of Stephen....

"You are supposed to be me? Funny...I do not look black...."

4) I have to wonder if Stephen is, in Tarantino's mind, the true villain of the piece.  Jackson's performance is extremely clever.  Judging by the way Stephen seems to shift in intelligence depending on who he's addressing, this seems to be a man who gives off an inferior facade to hide the fact that he's always angling to be in a superior position.  And give it to Tarantino that he doesn't give the character the redemption moment we are led to expect him getting at some point simply because of who is playing him and what his character is in the context of the world.

5) God bless Tarantino for continuing to use practical effects.  These wounds are splattery and messy, and doesn't have the sameness of CGI wounds in other films.  This carnage is so gross that you sort of understand why Django hesitates to kill one man in front of his son.

6) I know that some people have some problems with the humorous way Tarantino handles Don Johnson's Big Daddy and his proto-Klan buddies, especially the scene featuring Jonah Hill complaining about the hoods.  But that humorous element was vital.  There's so much grimness on either side of that sequence, especially when we start moving toward the Candie sequence, that those moments (and I'll fess up to laughing out loud at the whole discussion of whether to wear the hoods or not) are necessary to allow the audience to relieve the tension.

7) One thing that sort of niggles at me is how we never see the logical extension of what Django does at both Big Daddy's and the Candie plantations.  There is so much gravitas to the way Django dispatches the overseers at Big Daddy's that I expected the slaves watching him to rise up.  I can understand why the slaves wouldn't rise up at the Candie's initially--they do have Stephen manipulating them into thinking they should be good lil' slaves--but the ones at Big Daddy should be running around kicking all sort of white ass after seeing Django beat and kill their masters.

Look, Don Stroud...I know you were hot shit in the 70's, but
you don't mess with Christoph Waltz....

8) It puzzles me why Tarantino chose Kerri Washington to play Hildy.  Don't get me wrong; Washington is an excellent actress....but given how little play Hildy has in the film itself, it seems like a waste of her talents.

9) And speaking of talented actors...I am totally cool with Foxx as Django for about 95% of the film's running time.  But there's about 5% where Jamie Foxx The Personality steps out of Jamie Foxx The Actor and totally subverts all the work the latter has put into making his version of Django into a living, breathing character.  There are some moments where I can forgive it, like in the coda at the end, but some of the other moments in Act Two and the early parts of Act Three end up being discordant.

10) I was somewhat floored by the amount of celebrity cameos in this film; if it was made in the 70's, I could easily see it being marketed with one of those headshot lines showing all the big names in small roles in the film.  But without a doubt, the most pleasurable of these cameos for me was seeing John Jarrett of Wolf Creek as an Australian mining guy who is tricked into arranging for his own death.

Overall...an excellent western in the Tarantino mode that only makes me sadder that this may be the beginning of the end of his career.

I was at the Atlas again--they've now raised the price to ten dollars for a matinee, which is almost as expensive as the regular price--and managed to avoid the sludge that is the Firstlook.  What I did not avoid is the family behind me who brought both their infant child and their young son, who thought nothing of deciding to play a little Angry Birds about midway through the film; I really think there should be a parenting license in this country, don't you?   Not a lot of interesting trailers, perhaps the most intriguing being the one for Scary Movie 5--not because I wanted to see it, but because I was surprised the producers took this long to tackle the found footage genre.

Ten Statements About....COLLATERAL (2004)

In this movie, Jason Statham is not the baddest mofo in the
room...

"Tens of thousands killed before sundown. Nobody's killed people that fast since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Did you bat an eyelash, Max? Did you join Amnesty International, Oxfam, Save The Whales, Greenpeace or something? No. I off one fat Angelino and you throw a hissy fit."

1) You know why I truly like this movie? Michael Mann takes three actors I honestly don't care for, two of which I think are truly lazy in their choice of films and their performances...and wrings performances out of them that thoroughly blow me away.

2) And it's not just the performances. Notice how Mann chooses to use a dark, deep color palette for the majority of the film--not because it looks cool (which it does), but because it makes Tom Cruise's Vincent, with his grey hair and suit, stand out from everything else, an unwelcome interloper in Max's world.

3) Of course, before Vincent makes the scene, Mann takes his time not only setting up Max's world but letting the scene between him and Annie unfurl at a leisurely pace. This opening conversation does two things--it actually establishes a chemistry and a selfish reason for Max to want to save Annie later, and also ties into the whole theme of coincidence that seems to run as an undercurrent in this film. That Jada Pinkett Smith and Jamie Foxx are able to dial themselves down so that we get a sense of these two people as people, and understand why Annie might have an attraction to Max, gives that aspect of the film a veracity so many other thrillers don't bother to establish.

4) Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Tom Cruise's performance here is the way you get a sense that Vincent has some strange form of feeling (respect? like?) toward Max. It's not exactly conveyed in a conventional way, but see how he encourages Max to stand up to boss or builds Max up in his mother's eye--this is one professional recognizing another and endeavoring to help him out. Hell, even that sneering monologue where Vincent mocks Max for never really intending to get his limo company off the ground can be construed as a pep talk to motivate him to move forward with his life.  Even after Max tries to sabotage his agenda, Vincent seems somewhat protective of him (he doesn't carry through on his promise to kill his mother even hen Max actively hinders him).

Two professionals in a taxi cab...but it's not confessions
that are fueling this trip....

5) Of course, would this film have worked if Cruise wasn't willing to let go of his own vanity and let his real self show up on screen...and such a simple thing as showing up unshaven with grey hair severs the man on the screen to our perception of Cruise as a star. And similar de-glamorization happens with our other leads.

He may look like an ally...but this film
isn't about wrapping things up into
neat little packages...

6) Another thing I love about Mann--he loves actors who look like real people, not actors. Who else has used Bruce McGill as often as he has? Even the smallest roles--Javier Bardem showing up as a crime boss for a single extended scene, or Debbie Mazur and Bodhi Elfman popping up to argue in the back of Max's cab seem like real people, which adds to the realism of this world Mann is presenting.

7) And speaking of McGill's Pedrosa--I appreciate how the script by Stuart Beattie builds up both his and Mark Ruffalo's Detective Fanning's role...only to have them unceremoniously killed off during the sequence at Fever. This just emphasizes the whole coincidence theme, and makes Vincent come off not as the cool, collected pro he passes himself off as, but as a chaotic force of nature.

8) I have to say--while I can accept the use of many of the songs in the film since they're ambient noise tied into specific locations, the sudden appearance on the soundtrack of that one ballad after the coyotes cross the street in front of Max's cab briefly shocked me out of the film. It's not just because it's so out of character with James Newton Howard's bluesy film noir score, but because it's the one note of artifice in a film that up until then has tried to keep its feet somewhat in the realistic.

9) I had always heard that Peter Berg started his career as an actor--but I never recognized him as such until seeing him here...and ironically it's his character's inability to accept Fanning's insistence that there's a pattern to the events of this night that saves him.

10) And one of the great things that Beattie's script does is makes Max's motives selfish on some level. Yes, he is doing something heroic when he throws Vincent's briefcase containing his agenda onto the highway--but only after he feels ashamed by Vincent's lying on his account. Yes, he tries to stop Vincent by causing a car wreck--but only after Vincent mocks him. Yes, he works hard to save Annie--but there's always the nagging feeling that he does so because he knows and is attracted to her, as opposed to the previous victims.

Overall...a magnificent little thriller with echos of noir fueled by the exceptional performances by Cruise and Foxx (and to a lesser extent Pinkett Smith), a clever, smart and philosophical script by Beattie, and Mann's excellent muted direction.