Ten Statements About....AMERICAN HUSTLE (2013)

Ooooooh....double-plus purty

“I think the name of this operation is offensive. What, Abscam? "Arab-scam"? It's racist!"
“Are you fucking kidding? What do you care? You're Mexican.."

1) I don’t know, but for a film that’s supposed to be a period piece, it doesn’t feel like a period piece.  Hell, you could do this film more modern-day with only a little tweaking.  The whole sense is that these are not 70‘s people, but people playing dress up.

2) That being said, I appreciate how the bulk of the actors are made to look distinctively different from their normal look--thus giving us more of a sense of veracity and allowing us to immerse ourselves in the story.

3) David O. Russell must really love Good Fellas, because so much of the structure and the way the film handles music is lifted from that film.

4) I really don’t understand why this is considered a comedy, as the tone is more grim than humorous.

"Hey, Jeremy...move your hair.  It's blocking my sightlines..."

5) I was really taken with Amy Adams’ Sydney--and not just because she’s purty (and show quite a bit of cleavage throughout).  When she’s masquerading as the very British ‘Edith,’ Adams allows her natural intonations slip through at key points, reminding us that she’s new at playing a role.  And the fact that she’s manipulating Bradley Cooper’s Richie is very well handled.  That being said...

6) ...I really think it was a mistake to give Adams a narration sequence in Act One.  It disappears fairly early on in the proceedings and dilutes the fact that this is Irving’s story.

7) Boy, Jeremy Renner’s hairstyle should get its own credit considering how it seems to dominate the proceedings every time it’s onscreen.

"No, dammit...I won't play Pattycake with you!"

8) I love how Russell’s opening title card--’Some of this stuff is true’--allows him to embellish the story to his heart’s content.

9) I get that a pop music soundtrack is now essential to any period piece movie (and that Russell is trying to emulate Good Fellas’ usage of the same), but the songs seem chosen haphazardly and placed in the film obtrusively.

10) The resolution of the story arc of Sydney’s and Christian Bale’s Irving seems forced.  It seems like they’re made to do what Russell wants them to do and not what’s organic to the story itself.

Overall...painfully flawed but with some interesting performances, it’s mildly worth a watch.  I can’t see why it was nominated for Best Picture, though.

Ten Statements About....28 WEEKS LATER... (2007)

You hang your head, Imogen Poots!  YOU KILLED
A FRANCHISE!

"It all makes sense. They're executing code red. Step 1: Kill the infected. Step 2: Containment. If containment fails, then Step 3: Extermination."

1) You can see how badly this film gets it wrong in the opening sequence, where we see an Infected biting and, it is implied, eating a victim.  These Infected act like, well, conventional zombies, which implies that the four writers who wrote this sequel didn't understand the rules Alex Garland set out in the first film.

2) And another thing the script didn't understand about the first film was how the characters came first.  Instead of the small group of people we got in that film, we get a family of unlikable characters surrounded by a group of military ciphers.  We learn nothing about Jeremy Renner's Doyle and Rose Byrne's Scarlet and are expected to sympathize with them solely because they buck the system and decide to protect the kids we're expected to sympathize with solely because they're the main characters.

3) I guess an argument could be made that Robert Carlyle's Don is the most effective of a pretty sorry lot of characters, and he effectively pulls off his Janet Leigh-ing at midpoint...but it's hard for Carlyle to overcome the way Don was so badly written.  He's never quite able to add enough nuance to justify the fact that he was a cowardly dickhead who acts purely on selfish impulses.

Robert Carlyle tries to run away from his commitment to
star in this movie.

Plus he's there for far, far too long after the big change in his status quo solely so...well, we can get more sympathies for his children.

4) ...and don't get me wrong, Imogen Poots (still the most unfortunately named actress in the world) and Mackintosh Muggleton are downright awful as Tammy and Andy.  Andy is a rather one note character, and Tammy is petulant and unpleasant throughout.  And they end up making a decision--much like the decision Don makes when confronted with his wife--that's so stupid as to break the suspension of disbelief.

5) But then, that's the core problem with the script--it is moved solely by stupidity that's not profound, not illuminating, but just...stupid, starting with the way the writers have Tammy and Andy sneak out of an armed encampment by...ducking behind a wall on a bridge?  Hell, we have Doyle noticing their escape, reporting it to the main command center, only for the troops to do...nothing?...for as long as it takes for the kids to discover their mother.  The plot is built on stupid choices which are made solely to expedite the plot and are not supported by the logic of the film's set-up.

"I'm planning on taking up the bow...how does 'Hawkeye'
sound as a codename?

6) Why do you hire Indris Elba as Stone and then give him absolutely nothing to do except call 'Code Red' and order all the snipers to kill everyone and let God sort 'em out?  Is that how you waste an expectional actor like him?

7) I have nothing against characters being used as plot devices....except, you know, when the script doesn't bother to give Catherine MacCormick, well, anything remotely resembling a character other than 'concerned mother.'  Hell, once she re-enters the story, she's there solely to be washed up, have the big reveal about how her blood fights the infection, and get killed off.  We never even learn how she survived the Infected attack at the beginning of the film, or how she didn't starve to death; the implication is that she spent the intervening six months cowering behind that facacta couch.

8) Maybe it's the fact that they're using a different method to depict the Infected, or maybe it's because director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo saw The Bourne Identity and thought shaky-cam was a good idea, but the Infected attacks are not as scary as in the original.  They're messy, confusing and just not exciting in the least.

9) Given all the negativity I have for this stupid, stupid film, there is one moment that captures the feel of the original.  The sequence at the carousel manages to give the film its one breath in between the endless stretches of carnage, and manages to give us one of the best chills in the films as its punctuation.

10) Look, I know that the original script is contradictory about this fact--but it is mentioned by Selena in that film that there were reports of outbreaks in France.  So why is the revelation at the end (brought about, presumably, by the selfishness of Tammy) so shocking?

Overall...Almost everything the first film gets right, this film gets wrong, resulting in a film that does not innovate on the Zombie Film Formula, but slavishly imitates it.

Ten Statements About....THE AVENGERS (2012)

"You gotta strut, pout, put it out/that's what you want from..."

"The Avengers. It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mighiest Heroes' type thing."
"Yes, I've met them."
"Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count here: your brother the demi-god; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and YOU, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them."

1) I owe Joss Whedon an apology, as in this film he manages to prove he is able to do big-ass on-screen action and super-heroics...and manages to find new and engaging ways to do said big-ass on-screen action (although there is a moment which makes me wonder if he was aware of the criticism some people leveled at him, myself included, and decided to spoof it).

2) Mark Ruffalo's take on Bruce Banner is rather interesting. There's a strange sense of humor running under his take, a kind of bemused sarcasm that plays off of Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark really well. And while I still don't buy the reasoning Banner gives for controlling his Hulk-Outs in the third act, I can see how Ruffalo made those choices to bolster that contention.

3) At first, I really thought Clark Gregg's beloved Agent Coulson was acting out of character when he went all fanboy in the presence of Chris Evans' Captain America...but then I realized that what Whedon was doing was showing how Coulson's admiration for Cap is what spurred him on to become the super-cool secret agent we've grown to like in the previous four films, that Cap's selflessness became a template for Coulson's sense of duty and honor, and spurs on his actions later in the film.

4) One of the things I really, really appreciated was how we had our heroes actively using their powers to save people at time rather than just beating things up. Iron Man trying to jumpstart the helicarrier, Cap making the save in the bank....these moments gave us a sense of these characters being heroes and not just gaily-dressed guys beating up armored lizard guys.

"Goodness...is that...our profits?"

5) So first Scarlett Johanssen, now Cobie Smolders...is it the agenda of these movies to get every woman I think is hot squeezed into a formfitting SHIELD uniform? Can I look forward to Kristen Bell playing Daisy Johnson? Maybe McPhee as Victoria Head?

6) I was also appreciative that the only real member of the Joss Whedon Day Players was Alex Denisoff's Other (unless you count Chris Hemmworth, who got Thor thanks to Cabin In The Woods)--and he was buried under make-up. But then, this is perhaps the least Whedon-feeling of Whedon's productions, even though there are large elements that are Whedon-esque.

7) While Tom Hiddleston's Loki acts a great deal more like an actual super-villain, he's still excellent in the role. He successfully gives us a proper face to the Big Shouty Alien Bug Invasion, and both puts forth his agenda ('It's easier to give up freedom, isn't it?') with a degree of rational thought and revels in his mischief.

"So you really think I'll be sticking around as Banner?"

8) While I recognize that the 'meet-and-fight' sequence that pulls the curtain down on Act One is there to give us a legitimate action beat while also giving fanboys a bit of a thrill...I wonder if it was actually necessary. It's not like Fury wouldn't have briefed everyone on each other, or that they'd be aware of each other's abilities. Yeah, it's a satisfying dust-up, but it could easily, easily have been sidestepped with a few lines of dialogue...

No, wait...this isn't supposed to be a Brian Michael Bendis comic.

Wow....that's....ummm, kinda tight, innit,
Cobie?"

9) I also recognize that someone had to get the short end of the stick, and I'm not surprised that it's mostly Those New Kids--Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye (who comes off as pretty much a cipher) and Smolder's Maria Hill. However, I am impressed that the script gives us a sense of both characters in the main action that we don't feel too left out. Hell, in the case of Hawkeye, what we learn made me actively interested in seeing this talked-about Hawkeye and Black Widow movie if said movie was a prequel that revealed the story they referenced a couple of time.

10) That last act could have been a massive mess of shaky-cam confusion...but I love how Whedon came up with lots of innovative action set pieces (the way Cap and Iron Man worked together utilizing the shield to focus and direct the repulsor blasts) and moments of genuine characterization that kept the film's momentum engaging. It's absolutely fitting that the last moment in the film includes a testimony from a seeming bystander making reference to Cap saving her during that last act.

Overall...about as great as a super-hero movie could be while still being unapologetically a super hero movie, this is the greatest movie little twelve year old Tom could have imagined when he was reading those old Shooter/Perez issues....and is a great two hours and change for adult Tom to experience. Here's hoping the next one is half as fun.