By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Marvel Comics rolls out an old-school take on the Captain America comic book series, bringing the revered character to life by way of depicting his origins fighting Nazis in World War II … all as a set up for next summer’s mega-superhero go-round, The Avengers.
THE SKINNY:Captain America makes for reasonably pleasant, unstressful summer entertainment, but Marvel takes no chances here – literally, none whatsoever – in picking the hardy Captain’s enemies, so as to guarantee that absolutely nobody gets offended by this film … not even Germans. Although Captain America has been around for some 70 years, fighting everything from Russian communists to terrorists to mad supercomputers, Marvel has him back fighting Nazis again – technically, rogue Nazis (the usual ones weren’t good enough?) – as if America hasn’t had any new enemies since that time. Origin-story purists will be thrilled; everyone else will likely yawn.
WHAT WORKS: • From leads Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America and Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, to veteran stars like Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving and Stanley Tucci in supporting roles, the cast here creates characters who believably inhabit the World War II milieu – even if their roles rarely rise above cliché.
• The production design and visual FX are sumptuous, presenting a highly romanticized vision of the World War II era – not unlike something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Rocketeer or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
• Much effort is taken to distinguish Captain America’s regular-guy, shrimpy-kid-from-Brooklyn origins from the usual ‘Chosen One’/supernatural boy-toy so common in comic book fare. This lends the film an unmistakably old-fashioned American vibe.
By Jason Apuzzo. In advance of Comic-Con, Legendary has just taken the unusual step of releasing a trailer for Frank Miller’s forthcoming Holy Terror, which will be released by Legendary as its inaugural graphic novel title on September 14th.
Here’s how Legendary described Holy Terror in a press release from June, courtesy of Deadline:
In HOLY TERROR, join The Fixer, a brand new, hard-edged hero as he battles terror. The graphic novel is a no-holds-barred action thriller told in Miller’s trademark high-contrast, black-and-white visual style, which seizes the political zeitgeist by the throat and doesn’t let go until the last page.
THR also had this to say about the project, back in June:
Holy Terror was originally conceived by Miller as a story of Batman taking on those responsible for the attacks on 9-11 but was scrapped by DC several years ago. … The political themes and ties to 9-11 will almost certainly remain.”
Miller is famous, of course, not only for his work on the Batman comic/graphic novel series but also for 300 and Sin City. We’re certainly looking to what he’s cooked up here.
As I’ve said before, I like the concept of building a film around the ancient Greek hero Theseus, lover of Ariadne and slayer of the Minotaur – but from this new trailer it still looks we’re dealing with more CGI overkill here from the same producing team that gave us 300 – a film which, for all its cheeky/politically incorrect depiction of the ancient Persians, still felt way too much like a cross between a video game and a Chanel ad. Immortals looks like it’s picking up right where 300 and the Clash of the Titans remake left off, substituting CGI and TV commercial styling for a lack of storyline or interesting characters. I’ve seen two trailers for this film so far, and I still have no idea what the film is about – why, for example, as the tagline goes, ‘the gods need a hero’ (gods being gods, they usually don’t need human heroes) – although I have seen a lot of massed CGI armies and shouting. And Mickey Rourke wearing what look like Bronze Age bunny ears.
And by the way, where’s the Minotaur in this film? There’s no sign of it – nor of the Labyrinth. I’m hoping the creators of this film are aware that what Theseus is most famous for is slaying the Minotaur inside the Labyrinth – think of slaying the Minotaur as being for Theseus what, say, the 56-game hitting streak was for DiMaggio – and that it might’ve been a shrewd idea to include either a Minotaur or a Labyrinth somewhere in the film or the trailer. Is it too much to ask for a Minotaur or a Labyrinth in a movie about Theseus? Hello?
• Speaking of 300, the big news about the prequel is that it will no longer be called Xerxes, but 300: Battle of Artemisia – a triumph of brand marketing over common sense. The new film, of course, is not about the 300 Spartans, and is about Xerxes – but no matter, brand triumphs over all and the producers are obviously worried that no one in foreign markets like Poland or Thailand or West Virginia will understand that a film called Xerxes is actually a prequel to 300. (Maybe they should just call it 200 – that makes about as much sense.) In any case, Zack Snyder will not be directing the prequel – it will apparently either be Noam Murro and Jaume Collet-Serra. (Murro, interestingly, has done commercials for the Halo video games – and may do the next Die Hard film.) So what does any of this mean? Not very much, except that this would-be franchise is still on the drawing board while a lot of time passes. By the time Battle of Artemisia hits theaters (in late 2012 at the earliest), both Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans will have been released, along with Immortals, and 300 will be at least 5 years in the past.
One of the things that made 300 so intriguing was its apparent relevance to our contemporary War on Terror. With Iran becoming more belligerent all the time, that relevance will likely still be there by 2012 or 2013, but one can’t help but wonder whether an opportunity is being lost with this franchise …
Jason Momoa as Conan.
• Conan the Barbarian 3D has a new international trailer out, an amusing new ad, and also a red band trailer for the more bloodthirsty among you. This film seems to be cruising along toward its late summer (August 19th) release, without a lot of heat or buzz – mostly, I suspect, due to the cast not being filled with A-listers. But the film looks diverting enough (as these things go), and – in an important carryover from the Schwarzenegger films – willing to have a sense of humor about itself. This, incidentally, is what’s noticeably lacking from the Immortals trailers thus far – a sense of humor.
Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar."
By Jason Apuzzo. • I had the opportunity recently to read Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay for the new Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio film J. Edgar, set for release this October. Even though the film covers a fair bit of Cold War history, in terms of the FBI’s handling of communist infiltration, due to the fact that J. Edgar covers Hoover’s full professional story – from his rise in the late 1910s all the way through to the Nixon years – I’ve decided to talk about the screenplay outside the context of one of our regular Cold War Updates!. I would love to give the screenplay an even more exhaustive write-up, frankly, but due to my own time constraints I’ll have to keep things brief – and focus primarily on what the film will be saying about the anti-communist struggle.
I’ve decided to write about this screenplay publicly because it’s covering extremely important areas of history – 50+ years of it, in fact, dwelling on issues of law enforcement and privacy that still resonate with us today – and also because we’re dealing here with an actual historical figure, with a very public record. (I’ll also try to keep things here as spoiler-free as possible – with the understanding, again, that we’re dealing with Hoover’s long public record.) People should know, frankly, how the man who founded the FBI and shaped a large part of 20th century American domestic history is going to be portrayed.
Young Hoover arrives to investigate a bombing.
There’s a lot to like about J. Edgar in its first act. Hoover’s colorful rise is set against the struggle over communist infiltration of American society during the late teens and early ‘20s – a struggle rarely covered in cinema, as most people assume (mistakenly) that Soviet agents only first hit our shores during the 1930s. The screenplay actually begins with the bombing of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s home by communist/anarchist saboteurs in 1919, and we see famous figures like the young FDR and Dwight Eisenhower pour out onto the street in the aftermath – as a peppy, ambitious young Hoover arrives on a bicycle and begins piecing together clues over the bombing. In fact, if you’ve seen early set photos of DiCaprio as Hoover on a bicycle (see right), those images are likely from this opening sequence of the film – a sequence that sets the tone and mood of the film with America under a constant sate of siege (first from communist agents in the 1920s, then from criminal mobs in the 1930s, and finally from Soviet agents again from the late 1930s forward). We see Hoover and his maverick team take down Emma Goldman and a violent gang of communist-anarchist saboteurs, and Hoover begins to put the policies and procedures of modern criminal investigation in place.
The communist/anarchist saboteurs in this section of the film, incidentally, are not depicted as terribly pretty people. They’re made to look dangerous and deceptive – not as victims of a witch hunt, or martyrs. In fact, with their bomb-making factories, and attempted gamesmanship of the legal system, obvious parallels will be drawn with today’s Islamic terrorists. The message here couldn’t be more plain: a robust federal investigative force is needed to face down this threat, and ensure domestic security. Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Reviews the Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio J. Edgar Hoover Screenplay
Michael Bay & Co. premiere "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" in Moscow.
By Jason Apuzzo. • Libertas is about to break some major news regarding one very big, forthcoming movie related to the history of the Cold War, so stay tuned …
• .. although of course, the biggest Cold War-related news of late is the whopping debut of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a film steeped in the lore and romance of the U.S.-Russia space race (see my review of the film here). Dark of the Moon had its huge, worldwide premiere just over two weeks ago in Moscow, and as of the writing of this post is already approaching the $500 million mark at the worldwide box office.
I’m liking this film even more as I ruminate over it – and over the entire Transformers series, which snuck up on me unexpectedly, in so far as I only ever saw the first two films on DVD. Some of you might ask, is it possible – or even healthy – to ‘ruminate’ on a Michael Bay film about giant toy robots? I’d say ‘hell yes’ it is, when the films are as well-crafted, warm and human as these are – not to mention freedom-loving. And although Dark of the Moon to some extent surrenders to its (admittedly fantastic) technology in the third act, it only feels that way because – once again – Bay does such a nice job setting up his characters in the film’s early sequences. This is the aspect of Bay’s work that is so consistently underestimated by critics: his ability to create sympathetic characters, who bring a human dimension to the mayhem that otherwise transpires in his films. Believe me, f this were an easy thing to do, more directors would do it.
Incidentally, it looks like Bay may actually complete the trifecta here. Both previous Transformers films were the top grossing films in their year (in part due to Avatar straddling 2009-10), and it looks like Dark of the Moon may complete the hat trick. I don’t think anybody’s done anything like this since the Lucas-Spielberg heyday. Dark of the Moon is also is tracking young, which has suddenly – and mysteriously – become Hollywood’s big problem this summer; plus, the film is also blowing up all of those silly, premature burials of 3D – most of which were based on bad 3D conversions.
By Jason Apuzzo. The Transformers series is basically a high-speed, whipsaw collision of three things: 1) the venerable, 1950’s-based alien invasion genre, with its subtext of American freedom-fighting in the face of overwhelming technological threats from abroad; 2) a Hasbro toy line; 3) the retro-80s/MTV sensibilities of director Michael Bay.
This unusual and unexpected combination of elements have proven extremely successful at the box office over the past four years, but like any successful franchise, the Transformers movies are also more than the sum of their parts. The movies are fun, epic in scale, earthy in their humor, cheekily conspiratorial in their politics, playfully fetishistic in their focus on cars and girls, and keenly attuned to the sensibilities of the moment – what’s cool and what isn’t – in the same way the Bond films were in their heyday.
But the films offer a bit more than that, actually. Like Michael Bay’s best work – Pearl Harbor comes to mind – the films are unbending in their affection for the things that make America special: our independent streak, our fighting spirit, our passion for technological innovation. The films also radiate middle class values: the value of hard work and sacrifice, of remaining loyal to friends, and the importance of family – even when your family drives you insane.
The high-class, professional girlfriend.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon doesn’t necessarily add anything new to this formula that wasn’t there in the first two films. The familiar elements are all there in the first half of Dark of the Moon, but what Bay adds in the film’s second half are action sequences so gigantic and complex in scale – and amplified by astonishingly detailed 3D imagery – that one can only really compare them to Avatar or to certain moments in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. And the sum of all this ultimately is quite arresting and entertaining … but sometimes a bit overwhelming.
So let me just blurt it out here and say that as much as I liked the film, it also felt a bit excessive. The first two Transformers movies I first saw on DVD, on a portable player, in a situation in which the action in my field of vision was tightly contained, and the audio channels compressed down to classic L-R stereo. Watching Dark of the Moon in 3D on a big screen in 7.1 sound – with the film’s rapid fire dialogue, multi-layered conspiracy plotlines, and mind-shattering action sequences – left me feeling liked I’d just spent 2 1/2+ hours behind a jet engine … while reading Stephen Ambrose. It was a lot to take in.
Michael Bay’s directing style might best be described as palimpsestic, like something out 17th century Baroque painting or drama: dense, tightly packed plotlines are unfolding as comic one-liners shoot at you rapid-fire, while imagery of complex machines hurtle through space in balletic, gravity-defying maneuvers … right as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is turning a corner in an outfit that makes her look curvier than Jessica Rabbit.
And you have about .3 seconds to take all that in before the next shot.
Not a millimeter of the frame nor a single audio frequency is wasted in Dark of the Moon. Every moment is packed to the gills with detail – and frequently with references to other films. It’s a unique style that I’ve come to like from Bay – the style of a muralist, rather than a portraitist – and a style that assumes the audience is capable of absorbing an ocean of detail. But sometimes, as when you’re looking at a huge mural in a museum, it can be a bit overwhelming.
This isn’t a complaint or a criticism, so much as an observation: Michael Bay seems to be inaugurating a different kind of filmmaking in the Transformers series, a type of complex, information-rich filmmaking style that assumes his audience can go back endlessly on DVD/Blu-ray after seeing the film and actually figure out what the hell happened, and savor all the details (and there are plenty to savor; especially if you like Osprey helicopters, or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s legs). Because I liked Dark of the Moon, I recommend you do that – because on first viewing it’s quite a lot to take in. Continue reading LFM Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
