Paddington

Paddington is a shockingly sharp / smart little film.

I don't say "shockingly" to be dismissive of the genre, IP, or concept at all. This is a very underrated,  accessible family film, and I'm surprised more people aren't saying, "You should see Paddington."

Some of the cinematography is arrestingly subtle, I think Paul King directs brilliantly, it has more fantasy elements than I expected (yes, in addition to the talking bear) and the output from the entire cast and crew is great.

Guardians of the Galaxy

So ... I've seen Guardians of the Galaxy four times. In the theater.

I don't think I've ever done that with any first-run movie.

By way of comparison, I'm a huge Captain America fan -- and not casually. Not casually at all.

I've been a fan and reader of all things Cap for thirty-plus years, and my love for the character and ideals and challenges wrapped in that mythos is deep and informed, well-considered, and oft-wrestled-with.

I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier a lot. A lot a lot. And I saw it in the theater. One time.

I didn't plan on seeing GotG so many times. It just ... happened.

Sure, I'm a Guardians of the Galaxy franchise fan -- From the original crew, to the great great Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning stuff. *

The first time I saw the movie, it was with a fellow franchise fan on opening weekend.
(I like to see films with genre friends who will appreciate the awesome when the films are great, and weep with me when they're not.)

The second time I saw the flick, it was when I took my game studio to see it (it was a topical team-building opportunity, plus I wanted to do a big old "told-you-so" in response to nearly 2 years of derision for my bold summer of 2012 announcement that "Guardians is what 2014 is going to be about").

The third time I saw the film, I took my lovely wife. Because I love her. And because I wanted to share with her a recent pop culture offering that I love. She was skeptical -- and she loved it.

Fourth time? Took my brother, who doesn't get as much time as he'd like to see first-run movies (the dude's usually off working to find a cure for cancer.)

I'll probably even go a fifth time, and take my oldest daughter.

My daughter's maturing, and The Guardians of the Galaxy is a more mature film than other Marvel Studios films (this is different than offerings like Ang Lee's Hulk or Iron Man 3, where the young audience arguably had to be a little more mature to safely view them).

The criticism a comic colleague leveraged on the film was "it feels a bit like James Gunn was out to make a popular film."

Fair enough.

And, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!

Do you know how hard it is to make a film that appeals to action fans and fantasy fans and sci-fi fans and space opera fans and comic book fans and introverts and extroverts and people who do/don't like animals and the non-genre masses and men and women and ... ?

You don't set out knowing you're going to make Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Empire Strikes Back or The Wrath of Khan or Ferris Bueller's Day Off or ...

Rant aside (and a bit because of it), this seeing-a-movie-four-times-going-on-five gives me pause.

What is going on here?

It was after the fourth viewing it started to make sense. And then it codified a bit after I wrote up some thoughts on the movie soundtrack, the "Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol.1". **

Guardians of the Galaxy fires on all cylinders (that makes sense when you see it; and if you don't, I can't make that real for you).

Aside from firing on all cylinders, the movie is "that thing I want to share with people."

It's like a mix tape.

I've made a lot of mix tapes. I made mix tapes that had and deep and poignant meaning to me; of course they did -- I made them to talk to and yell at and echo my euphoria or heartbreak or romanticism or unfathomable teen angst or whatever.

Did you ever get a mix tape from someone else? And it was amazing? And it resonated with you and it was more moving and refreshing because it was new -- You didn't have a hand in it, but it was hand-crafted and had meaning and it still hit you where you lived? And you were shocked that it was so amazing? And that made it more amazing?

And then you shared that unlooked-for mix tape with someone else, and they "got it", too, and you had this amazing, simpático conversation about why you both got it and you both got why it mattered and you both got why it was awesome?

Guardians of the Galaxy is like that. For me.

(Oh, and evidently for a ton of other folks, too.) ***

* (I've stayed reading even through the new stuff, but quite frankly, comparatively it's been a bit slow and hollow. It does seem to be picking up, though.)

** For those that know and love me, a vinyl version is being release this month. F***ing vinyl, man!

*** And that's after a shortened 4-week summer run. Ooga-chaka.

Pacific Rim

I've been raving about Pacific Rim since I saw it opening weekend, and didn't realize I hadn't yet written about it.

It's a fantastic, big-robots versus giant monster film, has the requisite Guillermo Del Toro visual panache, and is a needed film.

(What?)

I avoid reviews before movies, but I remember after seeing them movie hearing a phrase from one reviewer who said, "This is exactly the kind of movie we need" -- And that resonated with me.

I don't know what his/her meaning was, but for me, movie going has changed for the (far) worse over the years. Theaters not being competitive (not running their establishments like a business), spoilers rampant and tough to avoid on social media streams before the movie even comes out, disrespect and distraction from audience members during a showing, etc.

(Thank goodness for Alamo Drafthouse.)

But then Pacific Rim comes out.

It's a movie meant to be seen in the theater, and it drove people to the theater. It's a genre film, and that genre is "anime mecha" (cartoon giant robots). And it delivered a live-action version of that genre in a brilliant way that pulled in the Neon Genesis Evangelion crowd, and the crowd for which that esoteric franchise isn't accessible or attractive.

It pulled off tropes from Japanese action cartoons in a live-action film, and did so not only believably, but in a way that made people cheer out loud in theaters.

Charlie Hunnam as the lead is solid. Charlie Day is engaging as not over-the-top comedy relief. Rinko Kikuchi is empathy-grabbing without being maudlin -- I would love love love to see a Breakfast at Tiffany's remake with her as Holly Golightly, or My Fair Lady with Ms. Kikuchi as Eliza Doolittle. (Give me a moment.)

And  Idris Elba? Totally sells cancelling the apocalypse. Every time.

It's a fun film to see in digital 2D. And IMAX. And D-Box. Multiple times.

(And I'm hopeful for a director's cut with tons of extras.)

The End of Love

I finally got to watch Mark Webber's The End of Love, which is one of the more beautiful, brutally painful things I've seen in a while.

It's such a delicate, raw film, and I don't want to give anything away. Think of it as a documentary-style, slice-of-life fictional vignette.

Here's the modified logline (since the full version I think gives too much away):

A struggling actor is forced to grapple with his inability to grow up as he tries to raise his two-year-old son alone.

It's a dramatic film -- But not full of drama. It's that real kind of living drama, where each of us are just surviving day in and day out, desperately trying to do a good job with the important stuff we're supposed to do a good job with and not mess up, but messing it up. And dealing with that.

It's a relational film between Mark and his in-movie (and real-life) toddler son, Isaac, and showcases single fatherhood in Los Angeles as Mark (as a working actor) tries to get gigs, pay the bills, and all the while spend time with Isaac.

To be fair, it may not resonate with people like it did with me. I'm an actor. I'm a dad of a toddler son. I desperately love my family (and love being with them). I don't want anything to happen to them. And I worked in an aquarium shop. (But that last one is a real minor thing. But it did ground it for me a bit.)

And, for a few moments in time, I lived through a horrible loss that was -- in those few moments -- permanent.

It's a really good movie. More indie than mainstream, though you might recognize talent like Michael Cera, Amanda Seyfried, and Shannyn Sossamon, who I think make generous, authentic appearances as themselves in the film.

Personally, I'd count myself lucky to be a part of a quiet, emotionally important, sleeper film like this.

(As of this writing, it's also streaming for free if you're an Amazon Prime subscriber.)

World War Z

I took my game studio to see World War Z this week, and we found it it be a solid flick. The pacing is pretty spot on, the tension doesn't let up, there are multiple instances of clever early set-up of mechanics that will matter later in the film, and for the most part, they avoid overly telegraphing events in the film.

I really enjoyed the fleshed-out family relationship Brad Pitt has with his wife and two daughters (Mireille Enos, Sterling Jerins, and Abigail Hargrove). There is some great stuff there creating a broader avenue for acting, higher stakes and tension in the film, and makes the film matter more at a cost and consequence level.

On the one hand, I'm hopeful this adds to the appeal of the film for those of us that have matured on genre and non-genre films, and now have kids of our own. On the other hand, I worry the familial stuff won't resonate with the stereotypical "unmarried male with no kids" demographic -- "I liked the film, but that family stuff really got in the way of the action."

The other reason the film resonated so well with me is I think expectations for the film were justifiably low.

Let's face it -- the project had a troubled history. Some of that was rights issues, and some of that is due to re-writes and re-shoots to an already-finished, supposed-to-be-holiday 2012 tentpole movie, that was so bad it needed to be moved into summer of the following year. That creates justifiable concern around the quality of a movie -- last-minute re-shoots and moving to another distribution window (or direct-to-DVD) rarely bodes well for a project.

Thankfully, World War Z survives all of that, and is a better film because of it.

Another challenge for a film like this is zombies certainly aren't passé, and since they're part of the cultural conscious, it can be tough to do something interesting with them. Without giving things away, there's a good advancement of the 28 Days / Later "fast zombie" contributions to the mythos that are well-executed, and really add to the tension and terror in the movie. And it holds onto the "shambling zombie" memes in a clever way.

Now, to be frank, in some ways, expectations for the film were unjustifiably low. A lot of that is due to a weird societal "Brad Pitt hate" -- which is stupid. Hate him because he looks amazing? Go deal with your insecurities and sense of entitlement ("he looks handsome and I don't so I hate him") elsewhere.

I was talking to a guy who "hates" Brad Pitt, and I asked him if he liked him in any of his films. He told me that while he hates him, he found him "amazing" in Inglourious Basterds, Snatch, Fight Club, Twelve Monkeys, and Se7en. That's a long list of likes for an actor this guy hates. (Personally, I find him a pretty inspiring actor for me to emulate.)

It's important to understand the movie is far different from the Max Brooks's World War Z book -- And that's fine.

I'm one of those "I want different expressions of property in different mediums" -- So as long as a treatment doesn't do things that violate core pillars of the franchise -- so what?

Sure, I have minor quibbles with the film. I'm a bit familiar with CDC and WHO practices, and even if you're not, there are some obvious efficiencies taken in the story, with some obvious artificial conveniences. The pacing is compelling enough, though, that many of these inefficiencies are only noticeable in hindsight -- a pretty good sign for a story.

Overall, World War Z (the movie) holds onto core tenets of the book, gives viewers a good (and accessible) genre-treatment, tremendously balances the expected and additional tropes around zombies, and wraps it all in a well-acted, well-executed package.

Man of Steel

I find Man of Steel to be a great, true-to-the-franchise revamp of the caped blue boy scout's movie persona.

Superman is a tough character to pull off. How do you make a god-like super being "believably unbelievably powerful" and not boring?

One piece of it is getting an actor that can pull it off.

Henry Cavill? Check. And for so many reasons.

Whether he does "as good as" or "a better job than" Christopher Reeve is academic. For many of us, "Christopher Reeve is Superman" is a reality, but that doesn't box out other people in the role. Superman and Superman II will always hold a special, carved-out and long-held place in my heart. That doesn't mean people like Cavill, Tim Daly, or even Brandon Routh don't get some space, too.

There's a visual aesthetic to Superman. There's a tapered look in everything from the "S" symbol on the chest of the hero to ... the hero's chest itself. Physically, Henry Cavill looks like Supes.

Fortunately, he acts like it, too. Cavill pulls off the conflicted, gradually informed Last Son of Krypton, pragmatically informed Only Son of Pa and Ma Kent, and adopted son to the People of Earth. That's a lot of layering for any role.

And having producer Christopher Nolan, director Zack Snyder, and writer David S. Goyer certainly pulls the package together nicely.

I actually like the gradual ties back to Clark Kent's childhood upbringing. With very true-to-real-life elementary, middle and high school, and young adult life happenings under the tutelage of Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent and Diane Lane's Martha Kent (both are stellar portrayals). The asynchronous flashbacks -- which differ from the Richard Donner, serial childhood -- have the dual purpose of breaking up the narrative into non-boring chunks, and makes the childhood recaps more relevant to the matter at hand. I think they also resonate with people raising kids as best they can, not trying to do everything for them, and knowing we can't protect them from or prepare them for everything.

"Superman as a badass" is pulled off really well. The sheer power and destruction of some the fight scenes show the untapped power of the hero -- but also highlight one of my criticisms of the film.

"Realistically", there is no way there could be the level of destruction shown in the film without massive, massive loss of human life. Given how counter this would be to the core of the character (and that core exemplified in this treatment of him), it definitely breaks the fourth wall a bit. The recent DC Animated film, Superman vs. The Elite, actually does a good job of showing what a disregard for casualties would look like.

To be honest, I was geek-terrified for this film. Not because I was worried it would suck -- Despite a recent, decently long track record of good comic book films, I live in a place where I expect them to suck (and films like Green Lantern don't help my genre PTSD).

No, what I worried about was jacking with the core of the character. I heard complaints that Donner's 1978 Superman "was for a time", and "too patriotic and 'America and apple pie'." I was worried we'd get a darker-for-the-sake-of-darker, "we are the world", being-patriotic-is-being-insular garbage layer on top of the film.

Fortunately, not so much. And definitely not enough to pollute the film.

Other criticisms include a bit of disjointedness in the flow. This may be a casualty of wanting to get slot certain moments in, or a lack of fluidity in editing (which, to my mind, is one of the hardest parts of movie making).

The other criticisms I have are inconsistencies that I shouldn't mention, because they create spoilers. Let's just say they revolve around Superman having spent a lifetime soaking up our yellow sun's radiation, so he should have a lifetime of difference in strength and attributes, based on that.

There's also a bit much of "Cavill cacophony". He yells. Emotionally. A lot. Christopher Reeve yells once in 1978's Superman, and it is powerful, bone-chilling, and believable. I unintentionally chortled at the third Man of Steel yop.

But these are all minor quibbles. The movie is great fun as a summer action flick, a comic-book genre film, and for this comic book afficianado. It pushes the franchise forward on new legs (better, I'd argue, than DC's "New 52" reboot), and I'm looking forward to the announced Man of Steel 2.

(And a quick aside in support of the last reboot, Superman Returns. While that film had its issues, it was intentionally -- In Bryan Singer's own words -- a kind of "love letter" to the Richard Donner films, and what they meant to Singer in his life at that time. Looked through that lens, the film holds up a lot better, and in a lot of way excuses "Routh's portrayal of Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent playing Superman".)

(And an aside aside: Patriotism is not passé. Pride and accountability in values is not insular. Both of those attitudes from faux global elitists is a prime contributor to the decline of our society. Face.)

This Is The End

Yes, I saw This is The End. Yes, I really liked it. It's hilarious, so wrong, has nuggets of awesome, and is overall entertaining.

I judge movies like this by how long friends and stand in a parking lot laughing and recounting stuff in the movie. We were there for a while.

This is another of those tough movies to talk about without giving something away, but suffice it to say, it's a bunch of actors playing versions of themselves, in a humorous, very graphic, post-apocalyptic comedy horror movie. If you don't know a lot of the reveals, I recommend seeing the film without even looking at the IMDb -- Because the cast list itself will give away key gags in the flick.

"Main" characters are James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson, but there's a potpourri of actors and actresses playing skews of themselves, to hilarious effect. I'm impressed actors can be so confident to put portrayals of themselves like this out there, because without the perceptual armor of a character out there, it feels like they're taking more of a risk with their identity.

Sounds vague and weird, and you have to see the film to get it. Especially scenes like Michael Cera's.

This is The End is a crass, over-the-line flick. And not "regular" over-the-line, but pole-vault over the line, do a little bit of naked tea-bagging, then streak back and forth over the line while laughing at things you shouldn't laugh at.

("Shouldn't" being totally subjective.)

The film's taken some flack for being "sacrilegious". And it's not easy to say it is or it isn't. Yep, there's some stuff here I could totally see people justified as saying, "You really shouldn't play with that".

On the other hand, there's some "good theology" here, and it's not buried that deep. Again, I can't say too much without giving things away, but it does some interesting stuff dealing with right versus wrong, superficial relationships, the true measure of the heart, and other stuff.

If you can't handle movies poking fun at things you're deeply, spiritually attached to, I don't recommend it. But if you're more wired along the lines of an ongoing challenge of the stuff you believe in, This is The End might be an unexpected foil for that.

Star Trek Into Darkness

We took the entire studio to see Star Trek Into Darkness Friday.

The consensus from the team it's "great fun".

It's hard to talk about the film without spoilers (and I think it's important to avoid those spoilers), but it's enough to say the film stands on its own, is a strong successor to the previous film, and has a lot of great (and clever) nods to original series and films.

The movie is getting a little critically dinged for various reasons -- "More of the same", "predictable", "too sentimental", etc. -- None of which I agree with. (Besides, it seems like critics feel the need to be critical.)

As matter of fact, I consider Into Darkness a genre success along the lines of The Dark Night -- Not just a great genre flick, but a great film (independent of genre).

"More the same"? Sort of, if you mean, "More of the same fresh take on the Star Trek universe", or "More of J.J. Abrams's Awesome Sauce".

"Predictable"? OK, so I've got a minor beef with the big conceit I saw teased at the beginning, and then got beat over the head with a couple of other times, but outside of that, there's a difference between "predictable" and "artfully constructed".

It is Abrams, after all. From Alias to Lost to Revolution, part of his signature magic is constructing "zomigosh what now?" scenarios, and then doing something amazing inside of that.

He also gets amazing, amazing things out of actors. If anyone had other than him had picked Zachary Quinto (Hero's Siler) to be Spock, I might have been nervous (arguably unfairly). But not with Abrams at the helm. As an actor myself, I get excited by the range and language and emotion Abrams pushed from Quinto (and the challenge to which Quinto rose). Consistently, Abrams gets greatness from his team.

(And not just Abrams; I'd enjoy being on any project written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, or Damon Lindelof; and I'm sure Abrams doesn't surround himself with slouches in any production discipline.)

Additional actor-wise, Chris Pine's not just dreamy eyes -- the guy can act. His subtle and grand emoting in response to small and big things is a joy to watch. And Zoe Zaldana gives Uhura amazing range, Karl Urban is Bones McCoy, John Cho shows he's so much more than Harold & Kumar (and a ridiculously hard-working actor), Simon Pegg humbles me with his quickness and range, and Bruce Greenwood is so accessible and stately as Pike -- brilliant to watch. I'm hoping there's a director's cut showing a lot more of what Alice Eve can do; aside from the eye-candy role she serves in this film, there are teases as some real depth there.

And Benedict Cumberbatch? I was already a fan of his (thanks to "Sherlock" and otters), but he shows surprising range in this film. Can't say too much without spoilers, but he's fun to watch throughout.

Honestly, there's a point in the film where I felt emotion welling up. It wasn't about the scene in the movie -- It was this joy of a summer genre film package coming together with acting and writing and directing and genre tropes and honor to legacy and being its own thing. And doing so exquisitely.

So, yeah -- It's a recommended see.

Oblivion

Saw Oblivion this weekend.

I'm not going to say a lot concretely about the film, because it has some fun twists and nuances for folks who have done their best to avoid spoilers.

I definitely put it in the "very good movie" category. I was looking forward to great visuals -- especially after meeting one of the members of the visual team last week -- and the film more than delivered. The entire "futuristic ruin" aesthetic really works for me. The technology (all three kinds) are very internally cohesive, and the smooth white aesthetic in particular is pulled of well (think "TRON in the daytime", and avoiding the dirty-ish Mad Max vibe).

The scenery from Iceland and June Lake (California) are absolutely gorgeous, and make me ache for my Idaho / Montana / Wyoming stomping grounds (but not at all for Cali).

I have minor quibbles with some of the art (buildings on top of angled spires? Earth and rubble pulled up after the events that devastate the earth?) -- But they are minor quibbles, and there are fictional elements that address those quibbles. A bit.

There's much more plot and story than I expected. I got wrapped into several of the emotional threads, and they feel authentic.

There's some really nice interpersonal messiness. Relationships are messy, and I like to see filmic treatments of that messiness -- both analogous to the things we all do as we try to make this important stuff work in the real world, and allegorical treatments of relationship friction.

Actor-wise, this is one my top-3 Tom Cruise films (along with Collateral and Jack Reacher). Andrea Riseborough is wonderful in an understated, conflicted way. I would have loved to see more of Ukrainian-born Olga Kurylenko, but there is a wonderful, moving, subtle scene during a meal that shows the depth and connection of this actress. I hope there's a director's cut with more scenes from Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, because as it is, his scenes feel a little ham-fisted (but not in a Ralph Fiennes chewing up scenery in Clash of the Titans way; more like in a "scenes that build to import were edited out" way). And I could watch Morgan Freeman sit and read a phone book, so there's my bias there.

I'm also really digging Joseph Kosinski as a director. First TRON Legacy, then Oblivion, and (soon) the TRON sequel. I'm looking for more goodness from Mr. Kosinski, and hope I get to be a part of it in some way.

And for those who are fans of the graphic novel source material, this is a really a good treatment of that originating story. And kudos to Radical Publishing -- Oblivion this year, and then Hercules: Thracian Wars looks to be great fun in the movie version in 2014. Now, if I could just get a Freedom Formula movie (or make a game for it) ...

So, yes -- Oblivion is a worthwhile watch, especially in the theater. I'll probably see it a second time in IMAX,  because unlike TRON: Legacy (where the film was opened up to full-frame for 40 minutes of the movie), the entire Oblivion film was shot in full-frame, probably making digital IMAX the preferred viewing experience.

Christmas @Marvel TV episodes

Today, the kids and I watched a few of Christmas-themed episodes from past Marvel television series -- all of them currently stream-able on Netflix.

First up, we watched the 1990s X-Men animated series, and my all-time favorite episode, season three's "Nightcrawler".

It's not Christmas-themed, per se, but it does happen in winter during a failed ski trip vacation, and introduces team mainstay Nightcrawler to the series.

In the comic books, Nightcrawler was a deeply religious, deeply forgiving, convicted person, and this episode showcases that in an authentic way. The episode is pretty multi-faceted, and positions Nightcrawler's faith against Wolverine's desperate agnosticism against the mob-mentality of good -- but uneducated and scared -- people.

This episode, plus season four's "Have Yourself a Morlock Little Christmas", both show a sampling of the complexity hidden in the stereotypical nineties action cartoon series. Quite honestly, I'm not sure episodes like these two would even be made in today's faux politically correct broadcast world.

This latter episode is a little more nuanced about what being a hero can mean, and the fear that comes from having previously failed as a rescuer -- over and over again.

And while the episode is totally accessible to those not steeped in the X-Men comic book (up to that point), those that are will be rewarded with some fan-service historical reference nods (which makes the struggle with heroic acts more understandable).

We rounded out today's TV episodes with an updated take on the X-Men franchise, with the too-short-lived X-Men: Evolution, and the episode, "On Angel's Wings".

Here, fans are introduced to this series's incarnation of Warren Worthington III, aka "Angel". This is a nice, sweet little episode that in 22 minutes pulls together humble hidden heroism, secret agendas (factional, teen romance, and media), doing the right thing even if the world might hate you for it, and also neatly encapsulates in just a few sequences the complexity and methods of Magneto, the in-series leader of the X-Men nemeses, the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants.

I know there are more Marvel Christmas-themed episodes out there, but can't think of all of them right now.

We'll probably end up watching Christmas-themed The Spectacular Spider-Man season two episode "Reinforcement", and "at-least-they're-snow-themed" episodes like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends "Spidey Meets the Girl from Tomorrow" and "the world is freezing over" story arc episodes of Season Two of The Super Hero Squad Show.

If you have Marvel-themed Christmas suggestions, let me know in the comments.

Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph is Disney's highest-grossing (non-Pixar) animated opening in history -- and it deserves it.

Besides being a solid all-ages animated film, it is a great, great nod to all things video game history (and other than not laughing when other folks in the audience might be laughing, that's not a barrier to entry for the film).

I'm a big, big John C. Reilly fan (since meeting him during his Criminal project), and I love to see him consistently moving up in the entertainment world -- The guy is genuinely talented, and is working his tail off in the Biz.

Wreck-It Ralph is fun, visually impressive, and has neat messaging about being yourself, using your gifts, and "the core of being" is more about who you are, and less about what you do -- But what you do (and your attitude while doing it) says a lot about that.

My minor quibbles with the film include a lot of time spent in one single environment -- which is totally organic to the film, but the "I make this stuff and it kind of breaks the fourth wall" side of me wonders if this was done to constrain costs.

The other thing to be aware of is while this is a good family film, near the end, one bad guy gets very (and very unexpectedly) dark and a bit scary, so if you have younger, more impressionable kids, it's good to know that going in (kind of like taking kids of the same age into Cars 2 is not as "safe" as the original Cars).

And, yes, this has some neat moments of heroism and sacrifice that are the telltale elements of what makes a film resonate longer with me that bubblegum fare.

Secret of the Wings

My girls and I are fans of the Tinker Bell franchise.

For me, beyond just the IP level, I have a more than passing curiosity for how Disney is using franchises like this to answer a few specific questions:

1. What is Disney doing to articulate "important" messages to young audiences?
2. How does Disney change the expression of the franchise in different ways with each film, but stay true to the franchise?
3. Where does Disney place its focus  -- "Quality"? "Commercial return"?

The eponymous first film was a solid, fun origin story for a lot of folks' favorite pixie. Good animation, diverse characterization, and strong technical execution.

The second film, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, is a far stronger film, and arguably the strongest in the franchise. Technically more complex and visually impressive, it expanded the franchise with fleshed-out male characters and animal companions, and very solid, explicit positive messaging about the lie of independence, our need for help from the community around us, and asking forgiveness for treating friends badly. Good stuff for growing girls.

The third film, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, took a dramatic step backwards, with violation of the IP (people outside of the Peter Pan crew having knowledge of the Fairy world), sub-par fiction elements,  noticeable decline in visual and technical quality, and superficial content. Perhaps not coincidentally, it seems to have the largest outsourcing effort of the assets and animation of the first three films.

(Editorial: "Quality" and "Commercial Return" aren't exclusive -- I have a bias that says if you make a quality offering, you'll make more money --but a lot of good, large companies try to reduce cost to the point of impacting quality, and then the commercial return is less.)

Fortunately, Secret of the Wings is an improved fourth entry for the franchise. Overall, stronger visually and technically (with two noticeable aberrations in the form of a bobcat and breaking tree boughs), and positive  messaging that can be taken to be the importance of siblings, and a race relations (seriously).

There's also a decent bit of heroism (something in particular that resonates with me in media). I'm also a fan of films showing "sacrifice with cost", and Disney dances on the edge of that in the climax of the film -- though I feel they missed a big opportunity when they mulligan it (but maybe that would have been too Dark Knight for them).

Overall, a solid family film, engaging and enjoyable, with high art attributes and less "parental disrespect" moments than similar offerings. Totally recommended.

Dredd

I'm a fan of Judge Dredd as a character and a franchise, so I'm pretty happy the new Pete Travis Dredd movie does a spot-on job of translating the UK long-run, homegrown comic book success to the big screen (something the 1995 Stallone vehicle wasn't able to to do).

For me, the comic (running in some form or another since 1977) is a fascinating take on police states, one man as judge/jury/executioner, and vigilantism (the latter two, I'd argue, being different things).

Gritty and uneven, the Dredd comics for me shared a common ancestry with the thematically and artistically "messy" work of people like James O'Barre (the man behind The Crow, later turned into it's own successful (first) film with the late Brandon Lee).

Dredd is an odd character. Not as in offbeat or cartoonish, but in compelling, high-caricature fashion. In some ways, he's a broken-mirror parallel to Marvel's Captain America -- Not "Bizarro Cap", but a man living in and empowered by a system, code, and framework for operating into which he's deeply, deeply bought, and it informs everything he does.

He's not like Marvel's Punisher, who in his best portrayals is a tortured soul dealing with the devastating loss of his wife and children -- and in his worst, he's a screw-lose psychopath with a penchant for arbitrary bloodletting. To be fair, there are some portrayals of the Frank Castle character -- like those by writer Matt Fraction -- that bring the character closer to Dredd's consistently monochromatic umbrella of "assess guilt and mete appropriate judgement".

(And by "monochromatic", I don't mean pejoratively. Think along the lines of a dog (who can allegedly see only in black and white), with the faculties of a human being, the rolled-up hyper training of S.W.A.T. soldier / beat cop / F.B.I. agent, the need to instantly sift through and separate black, white, and myriad shades of gray, and act on those differences.

The film is set almost entirely within a single mega-city -- a monstrous evolution of today's high-rise living buildings that can house seventy thousand people, multiple communities, crime syndicates, and environments. The challenge of successfully pulling off the movie equivalent of a video game "corridor shooter" is impressive.

But what strikes me as most impressive about Dredd are two things:

1. Karl Urban is Judge Dredd
   
2. The brilliant gimmicks that enable movie tropes

Let's face it -- Karl Urban's got chops. To try to dismiss his portrayal of an "emotionless character" as "easy" would be to both miss his range of play (just look at 2009's Star Trek), and the nuanced character of Dredd himself.

To be honest, that's what made the movie fun for me. Urban brilliantly portrays this tough, stoic character -- who never takes off his mask --and shows weight, diversity, humor, and even worldview growth through the course of the movie. And he does it only from the nose down.

(In the comics, Dredd's face was never shown -- the one time he did remove his helmet on-panel, a large "Censored" bar was placed in front of it.)

Secondly, from a guy from "The Biz" side of movie making and acting, I love the conceits that allow for movie tropes to play out, "organic-in-the-context-of-the-movie".

I don't want to give anything away, so all I'll say is the Slo-Mo drug as an excuse to do cinematic things like camera and composited slow-motion sequences, hero poses, and special FX, is just brilliant. Astoundingly so.

What I didn't see (and can't comment on) is the 3D aspect of the film -- I prefer the higher-resolution of 2D prints.

That said, this is a film I may see again for the 3D, which warrants some defense.

Like a lot of folks, if I see one more 3D filmic ax thrown at my head, I may run out the theater screaming obscenities.

But this film (besides the pretty VFX) might get 3D right.

My beef with 3D in movies and video games (aside from the gratuitous and arbitrary nature of its use), is the "outside-of-the-plane" implementation that causes such rigid viewing position, occasional headaches for sensitive people, and even sometimes eye-stabbing pain (thank you, Uncharted 3 multiplayer UI).

Well-done games (some on the Nintendo 3DS, for example), do 3D behind the plane -- "shadowbox" style. Dredd 3D (I hope) makes use of the perfect opportunity of the amped-up version of a skyscraper spiral staircase to leverage this particular implementation of 3D to interesting effect.

As far as franchise fans go, the film will treat you to the violence of the comic (though the gore side of that violence was surprisingly high for my expectations, and isn't necessarily required for violent films). You'll also get nuanced bits from the comic book series, like "dirty judges", the gang wars, and some nods to the then-futuristic tech depicted in the serials.

Which is the final thing I like about Dredd -- it's true to the source material. I expect (and want) IP to be different to adapt across different consumer mediums,but for broadest success, it should be true to the source. The Guardian's Phelim O'Neill maybe said it best when he commented on the film, in the context of complaining about other adaptations changed too much when moved to film: "In a world of compromised adaptations, Dredd is something of a triumph."

The Avengers

I'm not going to say a ton about Marvel's The Avengers movie -- because I hate spoilers and don't want to be That Guy.

I will say, as a lifetime comic book fan and film guy, I'm very happy with the film.

Joss Whedon and Zak Penn do a great with story and dialog (and the cast with delivery and physicality), and there were some unexpected, laugh-out-loud moments (in a good way).

I also like the parkour stunts for Captain America (I think Levi Meeuwenberg was his double) -- this worked far better for me than the CGI that (for me) takes away from things like the Spider-Man films.

Mark Ruffalo is a surprisingly good Bruce Banner / /Hulk, Tom Hiddleston is an increasingly good Loki (with one particularly good / creepy vitriolic diatribe), and Scarlett Johansson surprised me by holding her own in the film.

And (again avoiding spoilers), the after-credits scene surprised and shocked me, and put my hairs on end -- non fan boys might not get the import, but for me, it teases toward one of the defining story arcs in the Avengers universe.

Well worth a watch. Maybe a re-watch. Or several.

Batman: Year One

I finally got around to watching the Blu-ray of Batman: Year One - and it's pretty solid. Critical and user reviews are all over the map, probably due to fanboy attachment, previous voice actor fixations, and nostalgic reminiscences of the original comic book arc.

If you're not familiar with Frank Miller's seminal retelling of Batman's and James Gordon's origin, it's a gritty, character-driven story about motivations.

The film adaptation is pretty appropriately brutal, pushing the boundaries of its PG-13 animated rating. My big problem with Batman's origin is - if told badly - it's easy to dismiss the critical, devastating death of Bruce Wayne's. This adaptation walks the line pretty well.

Though that's maybe where the film drops a bit -- the original arc was arguably not kid-safe, and trying to make the motion adaptation fit into a safer rating gimps it.

But almost better than the movie are the special features, which are pretty robust for this direct-to-disc release.

• Catwoman -- A sexy (definitely PG-13), slick anime-esque original short pits Eliza Dushku-voiced Selena Kyle against a very, very bad man (voiced by John Di Maggio).
• "Heart of Vengeance" -- A solid (if a bit fawning) look at Frank Miller's comic book work and impact on comics; more than just a "known name", I'd say Miller creatively re-invigorated comics at a critical point in the speculative market that arguably nearly killed the industry.
• Voice acting -- There's a commentary-heavy voice acting feature with producer Alan Burnett, writer/editor Mike Carlin, and Andrea Romano (voice casting director); good for Biz folks.
• Two previous Catwoman cartoons -- Oddly, there's a Catwoman-themed episode each from Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures. They're OK, but not stellar. 
• Justice League: Doom -- This teaser shows off the upcoming modernization of the Justice League versus Legion of Doom, popularized in the Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon from the late seventies.

But my favorite extra is the roundtable let by Batman producer Michael Uslan, with Dan Didio, Denny O'Neil and Scott Snyder. Insights from O'Neil by himself made this worth the price of admission for me, but (though it might just be great editing) my favorite part of the interview is seeing young gun Scott Snyder share what resonates with him about the Batman mythos, and watching Didio and O'Neil apparently visibly moved by the impact of the franchise on a new generation of writers.

Overall, a good Blu-ray for content and extras, especially for those of us who are Batman fans and are OK with different expressions of some of our favorite stories.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I saw the Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and I am deeply impressed.

I honestly was expecting a great movie. I was not expecting a powerful, moving, and in some ways, important film.

It was all of that.

Yes, I'm tired and impressionable and a ganglion away from my raw emotions right now, but the initial trailers really mislead about what the movie has to say. There's deeper stuff here.

James Franco does a solid job. Well cast, emotive, and not over-used. John Lithgow is brilliant, and his portrayal of a victim of Alzheimer's is poignant and moving and appropriately hard to watch. No, it doesn't show us what it is to live with the disease day in and day out anymore than a movie sex scene shows what a lifetime romance is, but his portrayal is at least less tawdry.

And Andy Serkis gives one of the most powerful utterances I'm heard in a film in a long, long time.

But what's important about a science fiction movie with apes?

I dunno -- maybe what it says about medical ethics, humane treatment of lesser creatures, family love versus obligations, desperate hope in the face of futility, greed, playing god, and revenge versus reckoning?

You know -- light, sci-fi fare.

The film is a prequel to the 1968 film -- and yes, there are earlier entries in the franchise (I had to argue that point with a cheeky cashier who not only didn't understand The Customer is always Right, but she also doesn't know her classics).

Rise does a good job setting up the small set pieces needed to dovetail into Planet of the Apes, and other than one over-done piece of dialog, wasn't hamfisted about it (the extraneous bit of dialog was jarring, and would be OK for homage, but not prequel). On the positive flip side, there's a bit of nifty easter egg here for the first film's leading man.

There also are some neat solid artistic-but-not-art-house composition and shots in the film, if you're into that kind of thing (I am).

On a not-quite-minor point, I'm impressed with the movie's clever use of end credits as epilogue. Some, "But how did" questions get deftly answered in the graphics there. Cheeky Cashier missed that.

I recommend the film. It's not War and Piece, but it is a solid offering that pulls the bandage off of some unresolved debates, watch the small moments, and enjoy the fun ride.

Superman & Batman: Apocalypse

I finally got around to watching Superman & Batman: Apocalypse.

Despite some occasional shortcuts on the animation side, this is one of the more solid comic book animation offerings.

Definitely not kiddie fare, it's a great reprise for Tim Daly as Superman and Kevin Conroy as _the_ Batman.

There is some interesting concantenation of a few start arcs, but there's some meaty content here, and a good expression of the Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman interplay.

There's also a pretty impressive sequence showing what a battle between a Kryptonian and Darkseid should look like.

Definite recommend.

Thor

I'm a fanboy, and I dug the new Thor film.

Good balance of giving Thor something worthy to fight, and following comic canon.

Maybe more later.

Hawaii Five-0

One of the pleasant surprises for me in the recent television season has been the Hawaii Five-0 reboot from CBS.

To be honest, I really didn't have much by way of expectations for the series.

Now, I say that, but since Alias, I do give pretty much anything from writer/producer Alex Kurtzman a chance (mostly for his mad production skilz). Same for his partner, writer/producer Roberto Orci (mostly for mad writing skilz).

And I'm a big Daniel Dae Kim fan (he plays Chin Ho Kelly in the series). Since I think I first noticed him a The Pretender episode in the late nineties, I've realized this dude is one of the consistently hardest working working actors I follow (seriously, look up his IMDb rap sheet; you'll say, "Oh yeah, that guy!").

I've been impressed with Grace Park (Kono). Having intentionally missed the whole Battlestar Galactica reboot, I wasn't all that aware of her work (which is my shortcoming, because she's been busting it for years). Though I did remember her as being one of the dancers in Romeo Must Die. Because I'm a guy.

And Scott Caan ("Danno")? I dig him in everything from Ocean's Eleven / Twelve / Thirteen, Boiler Room, to Entourage. He adds a heart to the show as the mainland-displaced, divorced dad madly protective of his daughter, and willing to sacrifice anything to be available to her. He does that role really well, and with trademark Caan snark (like father, like son; but make not mistake, Scott is his own man).

I was also curious to see how Aussie Alex O'Loughlin handled an all-American lead roll as Commander Steve McGarrett (spoiler: he handles it well).

The show started off expectedly rocky, and the cast got past it's pilot and start-of-season jitters early, and the writing, camera work, and O'Loughlin mugging the camera thankfully went away quickly, so that the show didn't become a cartoon of the action-forensic genre.

Sure, the non-main cast acting (with some exceptions) is still uncharacteristically weak, the product placement commercialism is at times distracting and fourth-wall breaking, and the Iron Chef fixation is ... odd, but overall, the series keeps getting stronger.

And though I've been meaning to write about the series for a while, it was this week's episode, Episode 20 -- "Ma He Kahakai" ("Shore"), that prompted me to write. There is so much going on in this episode, that if you're invested, you may find yourself tired at the end of it.

And it's not about the series, or even the episode, per se. It's about character, heroism, and sacrifice -- topics that have been consuming me over the past few months in particular.

Be warned, there are some **spoilers** below.

At its core, this episode is about heroism -- no matter the cost.

Series lead Commander Steve McGarrett is wired as a hero. Mere minutes into the episode, he discovers a body, and he jumps down a cliff to investigate, and has a fall that shatters his arm and nearly kills him. And he goes back to work, as if nothing has changed. He works with a conviction and focus that makes a broken limb an incident, not an inhibitor. He doesn't complain; he works. It'd be easy to dismiss this as unrealistic writing (feel free to), but we've got 20 episodes of consistent character development that sets it aside as being tremendously congruent with the series and the character.

And for series faithful, we finally find out the secret behind Chen's "dirty" cop disgrace -- Chen dismissed from the force, accused of stealing money.

It turns out his cop uncle (played by hard-working actor Sab Shimono) took money to pay for a black-market kidney for his dying wife, Chen's and Kono's beloved aunt. Chen didn't know about, but when he found out, he took the fall on behalf of his uncle. He lost his job, his badge, his reputation -- and he did it willingly, so that his uncle would be free from jail, and could take care of his wife. Family before reputation (which, for me, means he didn't lose his honor).

When kid-cousin Kono finds out, she's furious, and wants him to tell people, so he can clear his name. He says he won't, because he wants to keep protecting family. In so doing, he potentially estranges himself from his last remaining family advocate. More sacrifice.

But you know who the biggest hero in the episode is?

It's the fisherman, the barely named Jack Leung (actor/producer Joji Yoshida) - dead before the show starts, making an appearance only as a body at the beginning of the show, and as a disembodied "vic" photograph throughout the episode.

This man was a father and a grandfather. His only run-in with the law was an assault charge days before the story's events, when he was beaten for refusing to be part of drug running operation. Integrity. And he was working day and night jobs (unbeknownst to his son), so that he could put his family financially in the free and clear. Sacrifice and humility.

It's this man, who -- while working his night job -- saw the perpetrator of a cold murder case board a plane, he pursued information about it, and was ultimately killed for doing so. He didn't cower. He didn't turn a blind eye, pretending he didn't see anything. He didn't deceive himself as, "Naw, I'm probably reading too much into it."

And, because he pursued it, the murderer is caught, extradited, and is going to be tried -- bringing justice and potential closure to the surviving parents of their murdered 19-year-old daughter.

It cost this man his life. In an anonymous, unglorified, non-televised act of heroism that he never even got to witness.

I hesitate to call this the "best" kind of heroism. But it feels pretty important. God willing, it becomes more and more common in our character disordered, not-my-problem, "heroism is for TV, not the workplace" world.

I hope you won't dismiss this rambling because it's spawned by a TV show. For me, entertainment is an outlet and encouragement for character -- good and bad. It's bigger than what's shown on screen. The biggest foil isn't the characters on-screen -- it's the audience.

Quick aside number one: The father of the murderer is trying to excuse his son's actions as a "mistake; a stupid mistake". Danno holds him accountable:

"A stupid mistake? He strangled that girl. He strangled her because she wouldn't go up to his hotel room. And he dumped the body in the ocean. That's not a stupid mistake. That's what your son did."

Quick aside number two: The victim's (Jack Leung's) son is played by James Kyson-Lee (most people probably remember him as Ando Masahashi in the Heroes TV series.). I've written before about how inspired I am by him. Another amazingly, amazingly constantly working actor.

The Super Hero Squad Show

I'm a big fan of Marvel's Super Hero Squad franchise.

It started with the wicked awesome, mini, mildly deformed-style toys, branched into online comic strips (followed by an ongoing comic book series), a video game (lately followed by another), and then the TV series.

Every expression of the franchise has got its merits, but it's the TV series that's currently scratching my fanboy and professional itches.

Why? How about top-notch voice work form the likes of Tom (Spongebob) Kenny and Japanese anime and action cartoon demigod Steve (Spike Spiegal) Blum?

And while I've been wanting to do this quick write-up for a while, it was the recent episode, "Lo, How the Mighty Hath Abdicated!", written by Charlotte Fullerton, that reminded me what works for this series.

A lot of comedic animated series try to hit at two levels -- kids and adults. What surprises me is SHS successfully hits those two levels, and a third -- the Marvel fanboy.

In this particular episode, you get to see comic mayhem (a la Loki and the Enchantress), which is entertaining for kids and adults alike. Add to that subtle jokes like an Elvis-themed Asgardian wedding officiator (trust me, it works), fanboy comic mythos allusions to the complex relationship between Magneto, the Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, and even a comic re-enactment of one of the more touching moments in The Wizard of Oz.

Other episodes have clever, almost dallying-with-the-line adult jokes ("Move it, asteroid clown!"), and subtle clever references to Star Wars, other pop culture tropes, and even past Marvel animated forays (the introduction of Firestar spawns a "Reptil and His Amazing Friends" moment); entertaining, above the heads of the younger audience, but engaging for adults.

And while the first season stayed largely planet-bound as the Squadies gather fractured infinity gems in opposition to Dr. Doom and his ragtag crew, season 2 has gone cosmic, possibly following the lead of the Marvel publishing line's wildly successful print series.

I highly recommend the series for fans of clever writing, solid voice acting, kid-plus-adult friendly entertainment, or pop culture and fanboy tributes. And any combination thereof.

Excelsior!