So here is the first movie where the core members of the Avengers are brought together. The game plan for the franchise was genius. You start off getting audiences to love each of your characters individually, in their own movies. Now those movies all have to be good enough to stand on their own, so that when you bring them together, you don’t have to devote any time to introducing the characters. We all know who they are already. That way you can get right to the story-telling and the action. But that takes time and patience, both of which the MCU has proven to have.
So that core group is made up of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Now granted, the only time we have even met Hawkeye was in Thor, and we only met Black Widow in Iron Man 2. But at least they were not complete strangers. We had already met the villain Loki, so that was good, too. But the cannon-fodder bad guys, the Chitauri, were new. That’s ok. We don’t really need to know much about them. They are just there to give the good guys someone to fight.
Chris Evans as Captain America is always awesome. He is so good and noble that I an always drawn to him. He’s the kind of guy we all wish we were friends with. And his super-soldier enhanced fighting skills are amazing. This is also the first time we got to see Mark Ruffalo playing the part of the Hulk, and I honestly think that though Edward Norton did a good job, I Ruffalo was better. Norton’s performance, his approach to the character of Banner, had a harder edge that didn’t work as well for a man who makes a practice of being calm. Ruffalo was more at ease when he was at ease. Black Widow, played by Scarlet Johansson, was sexy and dangerous all at the same time. The only Avenger who I think needed more back story and development was Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner. But then again, like Black Widow, he didn’t have any super powers. He was just a guy with unmatched archery skills, so I guess he didn’t need as much of a history as the rest of his teammates. I just want to know where he gets all his trick arrows from. Did S.H.I.E.L.D. make them for him?
So there we have our team of six fighting against Loki, who was brilliantly played by Tom Hiddleston. He was so smarmy, so arrogant. He has personality for days, making us love him, even though he is the bad guy, the God of Mischief. It never really occurred to him that his plans might fail, until the very end, when all six of the Avengers have him beaten and cornered.
But part of what made the movie so good was the script. You see, the core group didn’t really come together as a team until the final battle. Before that, they were all at odds with each other, trying to fight the bad guys on their own. They didn’t know how to cooperate with each other as a team. And who was it that brought them all together? It was Samuel L. Jackson, playing the awesome character of Nick Fury. Jackson is so cool! Sure, he used a combination of coercion and manipulation to get them to work together, but it worked, and the world was saved from Loki and his Chitauri army.
There were so many things that this movie got right, from the pacing to the cinematography, from the directing to the costume and set design. So many details were given great attention. And the various personalities of all of the heroes and villains were so well-written. And the actors really did a great job staying true to the characters established in the previous movies. My personal favorites are Thor and Iron Man. Seriously, Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr. were born to play these roles. Hemsworth has just the right blend of arrogance and nobility to bring the God of Thunder to live. And Robert Downey Jr. is so witty and narcissistic that you can’t help but like him. Who am I kidding? I like them all!
Top 10 Favorite Parts
Loki’s arrival and the destruction of the research facility.
Cap and Iron Man capture Loki in Stuttgart.
Thor tries to take Loki and fights Cap and Iron Man
The Helicarrier is revealed. So cool!
Stark breaks into S.H.I.E.L.D. security.
Barton and Loki (and the Hulk) nearly destroy the Helicarrier
The Avengers defend New York from the Chitauri
Banner changes into the Hulk and punches down one of the giant Chitauri creatures.
The Hulk completely trounces Loki by grabbing his feet and slamming him into the floor several times. “Puny god.”
Iron Man takes the nuclear missile to the Chitauri mother ship and falls back into the rift.
I have to admit, when this movie was first nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, I had really low expectations. After all, I remember watching the first Top Gun film way back in the day, and I was not all that impressed. That bias was only reinforced when I re-watched that 1986 movie, just so I would have a better context with which to understand Top Gun: Maverick. The original wasn’t a very good movie. The script was juvenile, the soundtrack was ridiculously repetitive, and the acting was, in some cases, barely passable.
But I was so incredibly wrong about Maverick. This was a good movie that had depth, character development, a plausible narrative, very good acting, and a thrilling climax. This is one of those cases where I was quite happy to be proven wrong. Not only was this a great film, it is one I wouldn’t mind seeing again. So, to be sure, this was a sequel done right. It took the main character from the first film, and developed him, moved him forward in his arc, and made him more experienced, more mature. The drama was good, and the action was exciting!
First off, I have to talk about Tom Cruise. That isn’t usually a name I associate with Oscars, though he certainly isn’t a stranger to the Academy Awards with movies like Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. Let’s face it. Despite what you might think about Cruise as a celebrity or a personality, he’s just a darn good actor. When he plays a part, no matter what the part is, he commits to it one hundred percent. He gives each character everything he’s got, and it shows.
And that’s what he did here. One thing that many action films fall short in is drama, but Cruise took the juvenile character of Maverick and gave him a sense of maturity that naturally comes with age, all-the-while staying true to the character. He was fantastic, proving that he still has what it takes to be a leading man.
Here they paired him with Jennifer Connoly, who is a talented actress in her own right. She played Penny, his love interest, who is also a single mom, and the woman waiting for him to come home from his dangerous mission. She still looks incredible, and she had great chemistry with Cruise on the screen.
And of course, we are introduced to the new generation of daredevil Top Gun pilots, all of whom are mostly referred to by their call signs. There was Glen Powell as Hangman, Lewis Pullman as Bob, Monica Barbaro as Phoenix, Jay Ellis as Payback, Danny Ramirez as Fanboy, Greg Tarzan Davis as Coyote, and others. And lest we forget, the upper brass who continually waffle back and forth between trusting and not trusting Maverick over the course of the film. There was John Hamm as Cyclone, Maverick’s main adversary, Ed Harris as Hammer, Val Kilmer reprising his role as Iceman, though now he is an admiral, Charles Parnell as Warlock, and Bashir Salahuddin as Hondo.
And the most important new pilot was actually in the first Top Gun film, at least the character was. Goose, who was originally played by Anthony Edwards, died in the first movie, and his son, Bradley, is now grown up, and is one of the best fighter pilots in the Top Gun School. His call sign is Rooster, played by Miles Teller. Part of the drama of this new movie was how neither Maverick nor Rooster had been able to get past feeling the guilt of losing Goose all those years ago. And in order to protect Rooster, Maverick held back his training by several years, claiming he was not ready for the prestigious training school.
But let’s not forget that though Top Gun Maverick had some pretty amazing dramatic content, it was, first and foremost, and action film. The amazing aerial flying sequences were phenomenal! This movie made stunt piloting look cool again! And from what little reading I have done about the making of the film, I have learned that virtually all of the flying sequences were real, not CGI. The actors were actually in real airplanes that were piloted by professional Navy pilots. They experienced all the g-forces that real pilots have to deal with, adding to the realism of the action sequences. Let’s hear it for those practical effects!
The main drive of the film’s action sequences was a mission to destroy an unnamed country’s underground bunker, in which traces of uranium are detected, indicating the production of nuclear weapons. The had to speed their way through a winding canyon at a very low altitude, scale a steep mountain, flip over its peak, and dive-bomb a small target in two waves, and then perform a ten-g ascent, after which, they are vulnerable to attack from anti-aircraft missiles and technologically advanced enemy fighter jets. It was a thrilling ride, and exciting to watch!
So yeah, I can see why Top Gun: Maverick was praised so much by both audiences and critics alike. It was just a good movie, and an incredible sequel. And as I said, it was a sequel done right. It didn’t rely on the tropes and plot points of the first film. It advanced the characters and the story. And yet, it remained true to the spirit of its predecessor. In fact, it was so successful, I read that in certain circles, another Top Gun movie is being discussed, following the character of Rooster. If that ever gets made, it is sure to be just as thrilling as Top Gun: Maverick.
Finally! Finally the Academy had the guts to award the Oscar for Best Picture to a science fiction film. And if you ask me, it was a worthy winner. But this movie was so much more than just a good sci-fi movie. It was a drama, with some awesome dramatic moments, a comedy with some hilarious comedic moments, an action film with some thrilling action moments, and a philosophical movie that really made you think about some deep concepts. It had all of this, and still maintained a really well-crafted story. It was an incredible film. On top of all that, it had a phenomenal cast, some really great acting, the sets were fantastic, the costumes were bold and wild, and the visual effects were top-notch.
There is so much to cover! The first thing that comes to mind is one of my favorite things about the movie. It was smart. It was intelligent. Some of my favorite movies of all time are movies that make you use your brain, movies that make you really pay attention to the story to understand them. You see, if this is done right, then everything about the films makes a certain amount of sense, at least according to the concept and mythology of the narrative. That means that the film has to follow its own rules. This movie did that. It is a fantastical movie about a multiverse, and characters using made-up technologies to access skills and memories from alternate versions of themselves, in order to use those abilities at will. But they have to perform random and bizarre actions in order to trigger them.
In more ways than one, the concept reminded me of The Matrix movies, but was different enough that I wouldn’t call it stealing. In the Matrix, characters could be given skills by downloading them from a data disk. Here they can gain the same abilities by borrowing them from themselves in other realities. The action was highly martial-arts based, with a lot of kung-fu-style fighting.
Interesting note: In early drafts of the script, the main protagonist was supposed to be Jackie Chan. However, when the lead character was changed to a woman, Who else could they get but Michelle Yeoh? The reason for the gender switch was because the directors thought the drama would be relatable to more people.
Another interesting note: A fun fact I found on IMDB about Everything Everywhere All at Once is that all the VFX for this film were done by nine people, including the two directors, with the majority of the shots being done by a core group of five people. None of the VFX team went to school for VFX. They were all friends who taught themselves with tutorials they found online for free.
So in order to understand the film, let me give a brief synopsis, as best I can. Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh, and her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, are Chinese American immigrants. Their marriage is in danger, and Waymond is trying to find the right moment to serve Evelyn with divorce papers, as a way to force her to pay more attention to their relationship. They have a depressed lesbian daughter named Joy, played by Stephani Hsu. The family owns a laundry business that is undergoing a tax audit. At the IRS building, Deirdre Beaubeirdre, the IRS inspector, played by Jamie Lee Curtis is threatening to seize their business.
On their way to the audit meeting, Evelyn is contacted by Waymond from a different universe, as he takes over the body of her husband, to tell her that a villain is threatening to destroy the entire multiverse. He says that Evelyn is the only one who can stop her, and he gives her instructions to follow that will set her on the path to defeating the evil Jobu Tupaki.
After that, the chaos begins, and Waymond, after chewing on an entire stick of chap-stick, begins displaying superhuman abilities that he could not possibly possess, like near magical kung-fu fighting skills. As the family is attacked by Deirdre and a group of security guards, the new Waymond begins teaching Evelyn to access similar abilities by connecting with her counterparts in other realities and using their skills and abilities. Evelyn’s mind is stretched, bent, and nearly broken, as she experiences multiple versions of herself from different universes. But she eventually learns that Jobu Tupaki is actually her daughter Joy, who, in another reality has become so depressed that she has found a way to destroy every universe in existence.
But the whole crazy adventure that Evelyin embarks on is just a metaphor for her strained relationship with her daughter. And after a lot of action, a lot of absurdist imagery, and more than a little philosophical debate, the multiverse is saved as the mother and daughter reconcile and find a kind of peace and understanding with each other. And in the process, Evelyn’s nearly ending relationship with Waymond is repaired, as well. That’s where the main drama of the film is really explored.
But that’s just the bare bones of the story. The movie was so much more than that. There were the visuals. The film took the concept of accessing different realities to the extreme, from the mundane, where Evelyn became a celebrated movie actress or a sign twirler on a street corner, to the more absurd and fantastical, like an earth where human beings had hot-dogs for fingers, or an earth where Evelyn and her daughter were nothing more than piñatas. They even spend considerable time in the existential arena, where life never developed on earth, and the two women were nothing more than stones on a barren landscape, discussing the peaceful meaninglessness of existence. I actually really liked those sequences. The hot-dog fingers were amusing, but if you think about it, why couldn’t that have been the dominant trait that survived the evolution of our species?
And then there were the strange and sometimes disturbing triggers that characters had to perform in order to access their counterparts in other realities. At one point, Waymond had to give himself paper cuts between his fingers, or Evelyn had to proclaim her love for another person. At one point Evelyn has to put her shoes on the wrong feet. And not all the triggers were so benign.
There was an absurd combat scene where two men had to shove large plugs into their butts to become master martial-arts fighters. The first man confuses everyone by slowly taking his pants off, then attempting to sit on the object. There is a brief struggle as Evelyn fights to prevent the… insertion. But then a second fighter leaps in from out of nowhere with no pants on at all, soars through the air with his knees held to his chest, and lands squarely on the plug. Suddenly, he was able to spar with Evelyn as a kung-fu master… with the device dangling from his rear end. Then the first combatant finds something else to shove into himself, and Evelyn is forced to battle two opponents. She wins the fight by yanking both of the anal plugs out of the men while they are in mid-air. I don’t think I’ll ever watch an action sequence quite like this one again.
And I have to talk about the bagel. The omnicidal Jobu Tupaki says, “I got bored one day, and I put everything on a bagel. Everything. All my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every last personal ad on Craigslist, sesame, poppy seed, salt… and it collapsed in on itself, ‘cause you see, when you really put everything on a bagel, it becomes this: The truth.” In response, Evelyn asks, “What is the truth?” and Jobu Tupaki’s answer is, “Nothing matters.” And when Evelyn says, “No, Joy, You don’t believe that,” I loved the fatalistic response. “Feels nice, doesn’t it? If nothing matters, then all the pain and guilt you feel from making nothing of your life goes away.” So she builds a great cosmic bagel, which, after she herself steps into it, will consume all existence in all universes.
And I think that it was another metaphor for Joy’s desire to commit suicide. And the whole conflict of the film is twofold. One is that she doesn’t want to destroy herself thinking that she is alone. She wants her mother to be there with her. And the other is that she is hoping that her mother can find a way to save her from her growing nihilism. It left me with the impression that the movie’s overall message is that the universe is so vast that nothing we do matters, and our lives are ultimately meaningless.
But of course, Evelyn breaks through Joy’s depression and her desire for eternal non-existence, and convinces her that she is not a lost cause, and that despite the fact that she has not made a complete success of her life, whatever that means, love is a good enough reason to continue living. And just to put a wonderfully touching bow on that gift, it is Waymond who teaches her what love is, and what it can mean, no matter what reality you inhabit. It was a beautifully crafted message. I’m sure there are many more things that can be drawn from the philosophical concepts explored in this movie, but that was what rose to the surface for me when I watched it.
But let’s not forget the comedic moments in this movie. There were some actual laugh-out-loud moments that were shocking and hilarious, like the scene where Jobu Tupaki beads a man to death with a pair of giant dildos, or the scene where a chef is revealed to have a sentient raccoon on his head, controlling his cooking, as in Disney’s animated 2007 film Ratatouille. When the obviously mechanical rodent is revealed, put into a cage, and is driven away, I found myself with real laughter in my throat. Or the Butt-plug fight. Or the pinky fingers of fury scene. Or the googly eyes on the rock. There were a lot of genuinely funny moments, and I loved them all. Again, such a great script!
Now, I’d like to talk about the cast and the acting. Right away, I need to mention that Michelle Yeoh won the Best Actress award. Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Jami Lee Curtis won for Best Supporting Actress. Stephani Hsu was also nominated for Best Supporting actress, only losing to Curtis. And though I have not yet seen all the performances in those categories, I think I’m safe in saying the awards were very well-deserved. They were all incredibly good! I liked all their performances. Michelle Yeoh was incredible as she always is, but I think Ke Huy Quan really stood out as phenomenal. He was so good! He had several incredibly dramatic scenes that were so profound and impactful to the story. Well done Quan!
And of course, Jami Lee Curtis was wonderful. I have never seen her in a role like this one. Not only did she play the part of an over-weight, overworked IRS employee, she also had to do a bit of fighting herself, which, in this kind of a movie, meant a bit of wire-work. Not bad for an actress in her sixties. And she handled it all beautifully, proving that she was more than qualified for the difficult role.
There were some great supporting cast members in smaller roles, who were still perfectly cast, and really added to the greatness of the film. James Hong, who has been around forever as a fantastic character actor, played Gong Gong, Evelyn’s demanding father, Harry Shum Jr. as a teppanyaki chef in one of Evelyn’s alternate realities, and Jenny Slate as Debbie the Dog Mom, a laundromat customer, and one of Evelyn’s opponents, who uses her dog on its leash as a rope dart weapon. And I have to give special props for Andy and Brian Le, brothers who performed the butt-plug fight scene. The entire cast did a fantastic job, and there were no weak links.
The whole film was such a great success, from its cast to is visual effects, from its sets and costumes to its choreography. It was a masterpiece in filmmaking. But all that greatness had to come from somewhere. And for that, we have to look to its directors, who were also the script-writers. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, otherwise known as the Daniels, really did an unbelievable job in putting together a script that was not only fun, funny, action-packed, and engaging, but smart, as well. It is a movie that made me think, not just about what was happening on the screen, but also about the philosophical concepts the narrative explored. As I’ve said before, I do love movies that are epic in nature, and this was certainly that.
I can’t even imagine what kind of a logistical nightmare this movie must have been to film and put together, but they handled it perfectly, and I find myself wondering what other films they have made. They did a fantastic job, and they really deserve all the recognition this wonderful movie has brought them. The movie was nominated for eleven Oscars, taking home seven. It won for Best Picture, of course, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing. That actually makes the movie the highest winning film since Slumdog Millionaire in 2014. Pretty impressive.
And the fact that it was a science-fiction film, thrills me to no end. It is about time that the Academy recognizes that a movie doesn’t have to be a drama to be good. Now, I know I’m generalizing, but just look at the history of Best Picture winners. This was the 95th Academy Awards, and of the ninety-five winners, around seventy of the winners have been dramas. This movie was so well thought out and so well put together. I think it deserved every Oscer it took home. Beautifully done, everyone! Beautifully done!
On the one hand, this is a Stephen Spielberg movie, so it is inherently good. It is well-written, well-constructed, well-cast, well-acted, and well-presented. Add to that another incredible John Williams score, and you have a shoe-in for a good movie. But on the other hand, the movie was a little slow, and even though it might have been somewhat cathartic for the famous director, it felt slightly self-indulgent. That being said, with all the incredible films under his belt, I think he should be allowed a passion proj ect or two. But all that is a very minor complaint, and in any case, is my only real criticism of the film at all. This was a very good movie. I may not have nominated it for Best Picture, but it was quite entertaining.
The film was a sort of slightly fictionalized autobiography of Stephen Spielberg, himself. It told of how, as a child, he was introduced to, and became fascinated with cinema. It showed how his passion was embraced by his mother, and dismissed as nothing more than a hobby by his father. It showed how his love for the art form was developed and how the young director honed his skills.
But there were also several keen dramatic elements to the film, like the terrible anti-Semitic bullying he faced in school, the infidelity of his mother, which led to his parents getting divorced. And it was these things, I believe, that earned the film its Oscar nomination. And it didn’t hurt, of course, that the voting Academy is a sucker for films that are about films and filmmaking. That’s why they loved movies like The Artist, which won Best Picture in 2011, and Hugo, which was also nominated for the top prize in 2011.
The cast was incredibly good. Here’s a quick run through of the key players. Gabriel LaBelle played Sammy Fabelman. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano played his parents, Mitzi and Burt. Seth Rogan played Benny, Mitzi’s lover. A couple of other notable names show up in smaller roles, names like Judd Hirsch, Greg Grunberg, and David Lynch. The entire cast did a fantastic job, but special props have to be given to Williams and Dano. For me, the acting skills of these two really seemed a cut above the rest. The first movie I remember seeing Michelle Williams in, in which she proved herself to be an outstanding dramatic actress was 2016’s Manchester By the Sea. The role of Mitzy wasn’t quite as intense as that one, but it was still beautifully performed.
But really, it was Paul Dano that caught my attention. He was just so believable in the part of Burt Fabelman. He was smarter than all of the people around him, certainly more so than his son and his wife. I think He was somewhat aware of his wife’s affair, and continued to treat her with love and kindness. But in the end, she left him to be with Benny, taking their three daughters with her. When Burt saw a photograph of Mitzy in her new home with a smile on her face that he had never been able to give her, his private emotions came to the surface. Dano was so good in that moment. But even then, his main concern was for his son, Sammy, who was going through a difficult time of his own.
And then I have to mention Seth Rogan. The character of Uncle Benny could very easily have been a bit of a throw-away character. But I really liked the way Rogan played the part. In particular, I liked the scene where he bought the camera for Sammy. It became clear that despite having an affair with a married woman, he was actually a good man who not only loved Mitzy, but Burt as well, and by extension, their children. He loved Mitzy enough to back away and end the affair, and because of both the way the character was written, and Rogan’s performance, I ended up liking Uncle Benny, despite his faults.
The other dramatic subplot of the movie was one that I was not expecting. It was the bullying Sammy had to endure because of the anti-Jew behavior of the other kids at the school. But it was handled fairly well, I think. It was intriguing, because even the girl who showed romantic interest in Sammy was anti-Semitic. One of the only reasons she initially wanted to go out with him was so that she could convert him to Christianity. She was almost more offensive than the bullies because she so easily assumed that he had an innate desire to become a Christian. The thought never even occurred to her that he had any desire to remain a Jew. I was offended on Sammy’s behalf!
And one final scene that I found fascinating was the one in which the school jock, the chief bully, grew both angry and strangely sympathetic toward Sammy for making him look like a superstar to the rest of the school, despite that way he had treated him all year. It was almost a touching scene, by the end of which, the two boys developed something like mutual respect or even understanding, knowing that they were still not friends, but no longer enemies.
This was a Spielberg movie that didn’t feel like one. It had a smaller scale and a subtlety that I’m not used to seeing from him. It was good, though I wouldn’t call it great. It was enjoyable to watch, though it’s not the kind of film I need to see again any time soon.
After watching Elvis, the big question I’ve been trying to answer is… did I enjoy the film? And I think the answer is, no. That is to say, I enjoyed certain aspects of the movie, but on the whole, I don’t think it worked for me. And I’m sorry to say, I think I know why, and I know there are many, many people who are going to completely disagree with me. It was the director, Baz Luhrmann. He has a very distinct style, and his fingerprints were all over this film, from the script to the cinematography, from the editing to the pacing, from the music to the set design. It had Luhrmann’s stamp on every frame.
Now, on the one hand, that’s awesome. Luhrmann told the story the way he wanted it told, and it is always really cool when you can tell who directed a film just by watching it. But it was the subject matter that threw everything off. Luhrmann’s style worked perfect for another of his big hit films, Moulin Rough. But here, I think the biopic of the life of Elvis needed a more subtle approach. The director is great at the bold and in your face spectacle, and Elvis was certainly known for that… on the stage. But behind the scenes, I wanted more intimacy, more sensitivity, more detail.
One thing I’ve seen Luhrmann use in other films is split screens and panels, and this worked just fine for the story. It was especially effective during the montages and expositional excerpts. But there were too many other things that didn’t quite work. For one thing, the break-neck pacing was too fast, and constantly left me feeling like I was getting the cliff-note version of Elvis’s life. I wanted more details, longer scenes that delved into Elvis’s relationships with his family, his manager, and his wife. I don’t feel like I got the detail I wanted. I mean, the film barely touched on his military career or his movie career, and I felt like I wanted to know more about that. I mean, Elvis was actually in 33 movies over a 16 year period, and this two hour and forty minute movie barely spent ten minutes on it. But when it came down to it, I suppose this movie wasn’t about Elvis’s career. It was about the abusive relationship Elvis had with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
And then there was Luhrmann’s choices concerning the film’s music. I mean, here we have one of the biggest rock music sensations of all time, and yet there were scenes underscored by modern rap music, which felt disconnected from the story and absolutely unnecessary. Didn’t ELVIS have enough music to cover the whole plot of the movie? Of course he did. And modern rap music in a story that took place before modern rap music even existed brought me out of the story. It just felt like a lost opportunity to showcase the King. And even when they did use Elvis’s music, they mixed it with more dramatic underscoring the changed the tone of the songs to fit the scenes. It was like Luhrmann was trying way too hard to be dramatic, and it made the movie feel a little too full of it’s own subject matter.
And finally, I have to say that I didn’t care for the way the character of Priscilla, played by Olivia Dejonge, was handled. They didn’t do anything wrong. They didn’t show her in a bad light or make up things that weren’t true. I just don’t think they gave her enough prominence in the film. To be certain, she wasn’t ignored. But I do think she was underused. It was a little bit as if she was an afterthought that was only there to make the film a little more historically accurate. Maybe that is just me showing my ignorance of the singer and his life and career, but I would have expected the love of his life to have a more prominent role in a film about him.
But there were things that I did like about the movie. I loved the costumes. They were spot on, and looked great on the big screen. I loved the acting. Tom Hanks, did a great job as always. Actually, he arguably played the lead role, as the entire film was told from the perspective of Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, who manipulated and abused Elvis, taking most of his money. It is hard to picture Hanks playing the bad guy, but I think that’s exactly what he did here. Austin Butler was amazing as Elvis, himself. There were times when he looked exactly like the real superstar, but then there were other times when he really didn’t. The structure of his face was just different enough to break through the illusion the filmmakers were trying to create. I wonder if this might have been fixed with a little deep-faking technology, or would that have been too expensive to accomplish.
Other significant characters in the movie were Elvis’s parents, played by Helen Thomson and Richard Roxburgh, and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King. There was even a great little scene with Alton Mason playing a very young Little Richard. But mostly, I loved the recreations of Elvis’s most famous performances. The ’68 Comeback Special in his black leather outfit was so cool! That’s one thing this movie did brilliantly. It showed Elvis as the fantastic performer he really was.
This was a strange movie. After I finished watching the film, my first though was that I liked it, but I wasn’t sure exactly why. The acting was incredibly good, but that wasn’t it. I mean the story. Did I enjoy the plot? I think yes, I did. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it didn’t have a very enjoyable plot. The two main characters were barely likeable, and they made decisions that just didn’t make much sense. But I’ll get to that in a bit.
I’ll give a very brief plot synopsis. Pádraic, brilliantly played by Colin Farrell, is a simple man who is completely content with his life on the small fictional Irish Island of Inisheran off the coast of Ireland. His lifelong friend and drinking buddy is Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson. One day Colm decides he no longer wants to be friends with Pádraic, saying that he is too dull, and that he no longer has room in his life for dullness. So he no longer wants to be friends. Hurt by this rejection, Pádraic attempts to reconcile with Colm, who initially treats him with indifference that soon grows into anger. Colm tells Pádraic that if he ever speaks to him again, he will cut off one of his own fingers. More than once, Pádraic continues his attempts to get his friend back, and Colm keeps his promise, throwing his severed digits at Pádraic’s door, until his left hand is nothing but a fingerless stump.. But when Pádraic’s beloved miniature donkey chokes to death on one of the bloody fingers, Pádraic retaliates by burning down Colm’s house, knowing that his former friend is still inside. The next morning, the two men meet on a beach, and Pádraic says that the feud would only have been settled if Colm had stayed and died in the burning building. The end.
What on earth did I just watch? Wikipedia describes this as a black comedy, but once again, I found nothing funny about the movie. Maybe I’m just being a stick-in-the-mud, or maybe I’m taking the plot to literally. Maybe I’m just not getting the humor. But critics actually praised the comedic content of the film. Personally, I just found it depressing and unnecessarily macabre. Was the death of a lifelong friendship, or Colm’s inexplicable inability to feel any sort of empathy for his former friend’s pain supposed to be amusing? Were the extreme acts of self-mutilation supposed to make me cringe, but chuckle at the same time? They didn’t. Were the dire predictions of death by the mysterious old lady supposed to make me laugh? Were the village idiot, Dominic, played by Barry Keoghan’s desperate attempts to look for love and attention supposed to make me feel awkward, but tickled? They didn’t. They just made me feel sad for him, and sympathetic for Siobhán, Pádraic’s sister, played by Kerry Condon, who was the object of his affections.
I have to think that the things that happened in the film were supposed to be metaphorical. I mean, what man in his right mind would cut off his own fingers to make someone leave him alone? And after the first finger had been severed, what man in his right mind would continue trying to reason with him? I guess the basic plot just made no sense if you take it at face value, because normal people don’t behave that way. And the characters were not portrayed as stupid. So I have to think that it was all a metaphor for something that I just didn’t get. Pádraic was so desperate to have his friend back that he couldn’t see when to leave well enough alone, and Colm was so mentally unstable that he horribly maimed himself. That’s what I got out of the story.
Now… all that being said, the movie can still be enjoyed if you focus on the acting, the poignant score, and the directing. The movie was nominated for nine Oscars, and unfortunately, it didn’t win a single one. All four of the main members of the cast were nominated in the acting categories, but my personal favorites were Farrell and Keoghan. I’ve seen Farrell in other dramas, and had an idea of what he was capable of.
But Keoghan really surprised me. He was so good and so believable as Dominic. The scene in which he asks Siobhán if she could ever love someone like him was so sweet and so sad. Keoghan was absolutely wonderful in that moment. She gently turns him down, but it is the last time he is seen alive on the screen, and when he is later found dead in the lake, I have to wonder if he committed suicide after the rejection. It was never made clear what happened to him.
Then there was the score by Carter Burwell. It was one of those film scores that was incredibly expressive, and did a fantastic job of setting a sad and depressing tone over the entire film. It was drastic and melancholy, and yet somehow beautiful at the same time. It easily draws you into the story and makes you want to weep for the sake of loneliness. Simply enchanting.
And the director, Martin McDonagh, really did a great job of telling the dark and bewildering story without being flippant or apologetic for either the macabre tension or the un-believability of the actions of Pádraic and Colm. It is what it is, and when it comes to it, I supposed I didn’t need to understand the movie to enjoy watching it. I liked it. But again, I’m just not exactly sure why.
I’ll start this review off by saying that I didn’t particularly care for Miliza Korjus’s performance, and I have two reasons why. She wasn’t terrible, but she wasn’t great, and sadly not worthy of her nomination. I’m not going to say she couldn’t act, but I’ve seen better. And I’m not going to say she couldn’t sing, but again, I’ve heard better. But I will give her one thing. She was absolutely gorgeous.
So let’s look at those two points a little more closely. First was her acting. As I said, she wasn’t bad. But her performance seemed to lack passion and conviction for me. The role she played was that of a vain opera star who is won over by the music of Strauss. In stereotypical fashion, she was used to getting her way all the time. But if you are going to play the spoiled diva, then play it. Give us a little more energy, more drama. Be more grandiose and more animated. She had these qualities, but I think that they were a bit too subtle. It felt to me like she was holding back, almost as if her command of the English language affected her self-confidence. I don’t know if that was true, but that’s what it felt like.
And then there was her singing. Now, this might not have been her fault, but that was why she was in the movie. She was there to look pretty and to sing. Maybe it was a bad sound recording, but she sounded shrill and unpleasant to listen to. I have no doubt that she sounded fantastic if you were listening to her in a live performance, but in this film, her soprano voice became a little piercing. She sounded a little like Snow White, in the first Disney animated feature, and thus fit for a cartoon character. Her occasional staccato melismas were awful. Granted, there were times where she sounded alright, especially when she was singing in a lower register, but her high notes were just not pleasing to the ear.
But there was one scene in particular that I actually liked her performance a lot. It was the scene in which she first hears Strauss’s Tales From the Vienna Woods, and finds herself falling in love with him. She was properly mesmerized by the beautiful music, entranced by the grandeur of the lovely melody. In that moment, I believed her. But if that was the highlight of her performance, I think I wanted more.
So I’ll say right off the bat that I’ve never been a huge fan of the Hulk. First off, the whole concept of the Hulk has never appealed to me. Just a big monster who’s only real skill is extreme violence. Second, I’ve never really been impressed with any of the other Hulk movies. There was the TV version, in which he is played by Lou Ferrigno, which had 3 movie length features, and then there was the film in 2003 starring Eric Bana. The former couldn’t really portray the character’s true power, and the latter made him look like a cartoon in a live-action film.
But here, I think they began to get it right. Now played by Edward Norton, The Hulk got another makeover. He looked so much more realistic than the previous versions. His skin wasn’t such a neon green, his face looked more like a real face. And let’s face it, the Hulk’s look is very important when it comes to the believability of the character. That‘s not to say this version was perfect, but it was the best we’d ever seen. And the quality of the representation only got better from here on out.
Edward Norton was great. He got the differences between Bruce Banner and the Hulk. He played both sides of that coin and it was pretty awesome. As Banner, he showed intelligence, and a keen awareness of his particular condition. At this point in the character’s overall arc, he had absolutely no control over the green monster. If he allowed himself to change into the Hulk, he was liable to destroy, hurt, or even kill, with no hope of controlling his actions, and so he did his best to not make the change. But inevitably, the transformation would happen, and the carnage would begin. Now here, they were finally able to display his true awesome power, his raw savagery. He was fast, vicious, and just an absolute force of nature. But one notable difference, they showed that he still had a little of Banner’s intelligence when fighting. He used a makeshift shield, two halves of a police car as boxing gloves, and the infamous Hulk Clap to put out a fire.
The only person that was safe from his rage was Betty Ross, played by Liv Tyler. The first time I ever saw this movie, I’ll be honest, I didn’t like Tyler’s portrayal. Something about the actress just rubbed me the wrong way, and I don’t exactly know what it was. But the more times I have watched the movie, the more she grows on me. She did just fine, so really, I have no complaints there. Betty’s father Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by William Hurt was such a great antagonist. He was an egotistical military man that is so easy to hate.
And then there was Hulk’s main rival, Emile Blonsky, aka, the Abomination, played by Tim Roth. He was an interesting character, in that in order to fight the Hulk, he becomes obsessed with becoming a bigger monster. I actually don’t know much about how the comic books treat the Abomination, so I can’t comment on how the two compare with each other, but here, he felt a little generic, just a grey version of the Hulk. But really, who else could they have pitted him against in the film that introduced him to the MCU? Though, as I’m thinking about it. I understand that even though the Eric Bana Hulk was not officially part of the MCU, this movie essentially picked up where that previous movie ended. And this movie made the Hulk kind of cool in my mind. So now I might have to go back and watch that other film, just to get a little more insight into the character.
Now, I’ll briefly address the elephant in the room. This was the only time Edward Norton played Bruce Banner / the Hulk. In all his subsequent appearances in the MCU, he was replaced by Mark Ruffalo, who I actually like better in the role. I’m not saying Edward Norton was bad. I just can’t imagine what direction the character would have gone in, if Norton had continued to play the part.
Top 10 Favorite Parts
Banner is running from the military and Blonsky. ParKOUR!
Hulk destroys the bottling factory.
Banner reunites with Betty, and cannot make love to her.
Banner is trapped in the bridge at the University, and changes into the Hulk.
Hulk fights an enhanced Blonsky and saves Betty from being killed by Thunderbolt Ross and his men.
Banner suppressed the change in Dr. Stern’s lab.
Blonsky gets injected with Banner’s blood and becomes the Abomination.
Banner jumps from a helicopter and only changes into the Hulk after hitting the ground.
Hulk defeats the Abomination.
The post credit scene where Tony Stark pays Thunderbolt Ross a visit.
