Saint Vincent

Fatherless boy befriends grumpy, lonely, old man, and an “unexpected” friendship results. Okay. We’ve seen this one before, but reasons exist why we so frequently come across this storyline.

This sort of plot has worked beautifully in the past—and it blew up a few times in our faces, as well.

Such a story usually requires a gimmick of sorts (a house that floats via a million balloons, or the old man serves as a mentor to teach the kid how to write or play baseball, or act the old guy's Clint Eastwood).

Saint Vincent (actually spelled St. Vincent and mistakable for another movie of the same name, in which a hit-man goes undercover as a priest) relies less on gimmicks (not to suggest that gimmicks always prove a bad notion) and more on excellent characters expressed through unique actions.

Bill Murray presents a character named Vincent, who tries to make something of his life but never seems to possess direction. He gambles and loses. He waters his lawn, but not a single blade of grass ever grows.

Vincent tries to cheat his way to success, almost as if he doesn’t trust himself enough to get there through honest means.

“Honesty” and “Success” ripple in strange, out-of-balanced ways that feel . . . regrettably realistic.

Vincent’s outlook on honesty comes across as both warped and enlightened. He considers prostitution “one of the more honest professions.”

One such prostitute uses a “trick” to get a snack machine to drop two candy bars for the price of one (it serves as no surprise that the write’s chose Paydays for those candy bars).

Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Naomi Watts provide wonderful acting. McCarthy’s best scene, hands down, takes place in her son’s principal’s office. She might earn Best Supporting Actress for that scene.

Miscommunication serves as a constant theme throughout the movie, which starts with a joke about . . . well, miscommunication. The movie eventually embodies this theme with a stroke that shatters Vincent’s ability to speak. However, once Vincent drops his mask of sarcasm, even the stroke can’t prevent his words.

I could, if pressed to find a fault in this movie, complain that many issues remain unresolved by the film’s conclusion, but to voice such a complaint would amount my own evasion of the film's finer premise.

The movie reflects that life’s problems don’t always work themselves out by the end of the third act. Several characters say, “It is what it is,” which tells the audience that they shouldn’t hope for a clean break before the credits.

Saint Vincent speaks of left turns, let downs, bad luck, and the less-than-perfect person we become once we surface from the meat mincer.

I love an unexpected treat such as this one. It deserves and possesses my recommendation.

(You can enjoy my novels, such as "Daughters of Darkwana," on Kindle and my short fiction at martinwolt.blogspot.com. Thanks for reading!)

Fury

Let me begin with thanks and apologies to the many people who continued to check in with this and my short story blog (martinwolt.blogspot.com) all month long for very infrequent rewards.

I, a short while ago, accepted a freelance writing gig that took me into the Colorado mountains, where internet proves scarce and movie theaters nonexistent.

My movie review blog suffered a consequential lack of movie reviews. However, I recently bounced from Colorado to Florida (to check in with family and friends and complete another job) so I can again see movies and write about them.

I recently saw the movie Fury, which provides its audience with a boy-becomes-“man” story via placement within a platoon of World War II tanks. Our protagonist spent the war as a typist. He, at the start of our film, never killed anyone and presumably never saw anyone die.

The war nears conclusion at Fury’s start. Our protagonist nearly coasted to its completion without a scratch. His new, tank-bound teammates begrudge him this. They also fear that his inexperience will result in their own deaths.

So, yeah, Fury also serves as a fish-out-of-water and a prove-yourself-within-a-new-group/setting story. Less seasoned writers might've taken a more formulaic approach at this point. However, Fury remains unpredictable, as any war movie should. War equals chaos.

Brad Pitt plays the role of our protagonist’s mentor. He also serves as the embodiment of all the spiritual harm that war causes. Our protagonist serves as the embodiment of innocence. After versus Before.

To establish these roles early, the movie offers a scene in which Pitt’s character forces a revolver into the protagonist’s hand and further forces him to pull the trigger and kill a German man on his knees while he begs for his life.

We meet three other characters inside Pitt's tank, each of which resembles a real person—but would've each felt more real had I learned more about their lives prior to their soldier-hood.

The war serves as the antagonist. Our hero says he would “rather die than kill someone.” He wishes to retain his innocence, but the war plans to frustrate his efforts.

I suppose I might walk a step further and say that humanity serves as the antagonist, as it is human nature to wage war against itself. I can’t decide if such an observation goes too deep or shallow.

Animal nature dictates violence, yet I could argue that war arrives less as a product of animals or even humans, but of men. Women do not hold the frequent habit of warfare (until we invent a passive-aggressive bullet).

The tank in Fury serves as an armor-plated, mobile womb, from which our protagonist will eventually suffer a symbolic death and rebirth.

Fury’s a great movie. It’s well worth your time and ought to move even the coldest of audiences. I would not recommend it for the younger kids.

The 5 Worst Superhero Movies

I published, last post, a list of what I considered the top five superhero movies based on a DC or Marvel comic. Today, I present a list of the five worst movies in that same category.

You may wonder why I would publish that, rather than my usual movie review. You may even wonder why I decided to only consider DC and Marvel movies. If so, you didn’t read my last post. It explains everything.

I decided to add one more circumstance to this list. Some movies prove too ridiculous for honest consideration. It would feel unfair to list Nick Fury with David Hasselhoff, for example.

Countless terrible and forgotten movies from decades ago exist of The Hulk, Captain America, and Spiderman. Stuff that requires you to look very hard to discover it.

5) Man of Steel

Disclaimer: I never liked Superman. A perfect, flawless, indestructible character bores me to tears. So, yeah, I hold a bit of a bias on this one.

The action entertained me. The fight scenes felt fun. I liked that bit of business with the “Days without an accident” sign. However, too much worked against this overly formulaic movie.

What drove me craziest: how close and how often this movie nearly touched on a real issue or conflict of interest.

The movie almost had something to say about closed-borders policies.

The movie almost followed a man-versus-self fight to decide to protect rather than dominate.

Throughout this story, great ideas peeked at us from just below the surface before they vanished back into the deep.

. . . I must admit, Hulk (2003) nearly defeated Man of Steel for this slot.

4) Ghost Rider

Dear God, what happened to you, Nicholas Cage?

Satan offers a man a deal, and the deal turns sour for one of them. Guess which.

Oh, and the deal gives Nicholas Cage superpowers, because you want to screw someone over with a bad deal and afterwards arm them against you.

This movie goes nowhere. It marks time from start to finish. The characters feel two-dimensional. Their dialogue hurts to hear. The entire disaster drips laziness.

3) Fantastic Four (either one)

Five scientists go into outer space and get turned into superheroes or super villains (for some reason). They dance around, do nothing of consequence, eventually fight, credits roll, I try to choke myself with a folded Frisbee.

Not a single scene makes sense.

In one such scene, the character who turns invisible does so for the purpose of pushing her way through a crowd, something she could’ve accomplished without turning invisible.

In the second movie, a giant space fart (seriously) goes around eating planets. So he devours this one planet and everyone on it, except one guy. Then, the giant space fart grants this one guy (the Silver Surfer) enough power to destroy the giant space fart.

Why would he do that? Of course the Silver Surfer will turn his powers against the fart who ate his house and kids (look what happened to Datan when he gave Nicholas Cage powers).

Instead, the Silver Surfer does the giant space fart’s bidding. He helps the fart eat other planets by . . . um . . . flying around them on a magic surfboard (for some reason).

Why. Won’t. This. Frisbee. Fit. Down. My. Throat?

2) Green Lantern

The words “bat shit” get thrown around a lot, but . . .

Our protagonist discovers a crashed alien, who says, “Here. Have a magic ring. You’re a superhero, now. Good luck with that.” Truly.

The transitions, or lack thereof, prove the worst feature of this movie.

In one scene, a flock of superheroes attack a (I swear to God, I do not fabricate these next three words) giant space fart. Three seconds later, one of the aliens tells his superiors, “Yeah. Everyone died but me. Can I have Monday off? I have a thing.”

Because who goes to a movie to see action. We want an actor who regrets his involvement to tell us it happened. Much better.

1)   The Amazing Spiderman 2

I want so badly to cool down and try to act a bit more constructive here . . . but I just can’t.

This movie insulted everyone who went to see it. This movie screamed, “We paid for the word ‘Spiderman,’ and that means you fork over your money. We don’t have to try.”

The movie juggles a bunch of half-ideas. I suspect that a boardroom full of writers argued over whose idea ought to make in onto the script, and someone finally said, “Screw it. We’ll do all of them whether they cohabitate organically or not.”

In one storyline, Peter Parker’s blood might save his friend, Harry’s life (for some reason). Peter doesn’t want to give Harry the life-saving blood, because he’s afraid Harry might have a “bad reaction.” Again, Harry dies of he doesn’t get the blood.

In another storyline, Peter breaks up and gets back together again with his girlfriend in a ceaseless loop.

The producers should've titled this movie, “Peter Parker Wastes Everyone’s Time.”

In only gets worse. In another storyline, Peter searches to discover what really happened to his father, but he doesn’t do anything productive about it until a “clue” almost literally falls into his lap. He follows the clue to discover . . . nothing he didn’t already know.

In yet another storyline, Peter’s aunt becomes a nurse, but she doesn’t want Peter to find out (for some reason). Ha-ha. Both Peter and his aunt keep a secret identity from each other. Isn’t this movie fun? Please buy an action figure.

In another storyline, Jamie Foxx gets electrocuted by eels and gains the ability to shoot lightning from his hands (for some reason). He then decides he wants to destroy Spiderman (who doesn’t even know the guy) because he forgot Foxx's birthday (I swear I didn’t invent a word of this).

But Spiderman defeats Foxx, and the police arrest Foxx—who ends up in Harry’s basement (for some reason).

I don’t even think the writers compared notes. There’s a scene where Peter’s (ex?)girlfriend finds out that Harry (her boss—small world) has Foxx imprisoned in his basement. Harry sends his security guards after her . . . and it never comes up again. Everyone just forgets about it.

There you have it. The five worst superhero movies from Marvel or DC.

Oh? Did you expect another movie to make this list?

Yes, Batman and Robin provided its audience with an unwanted, confused, and overly colorful kaleidoscope of ass-hattery. However, I’ll defend it.

I loved the old 70’s Batman TV show—because it provided its audience with total nonsense. I choose to view it as a throwback to Adam West’s Batman (and only Schwarzenegger seemed aware of the joke).

Top 5 Superhero Movies

For those of you not following me on Twitter, I’m currently in the Rockies on a long-term, freelancing, writing project.

I have (terrible) Internet and virtually no cellphone signal. I’ve never before gone so long without a Starbucks (the mocha withdraw proves a challenge).

Not a single movie theater stands anywhere near me.

That provides a problem in regards to movie reviews, which means I must either take a leave of absence from this blog or get creative with it. I attempt the latter.

I’ll list, for this review, the top five (in my current opinion—always subject to change) superhero movies.

First, some ground rules. I shall, to simplify things, only count superhero movies based on comic books (sorry Kick Ass and Hancock).

I’ll count only superhero movies based on comic books that existed before the movies or cartoon show (sorry G.I. Joe and Transformers—as if either of those would stand a chance of making this list).

I will, as a final rule, only count movies based on comics made by DC or Marvel (sorry Watchmen, Predator, Aliens, Akira, Terminator 2, and the good versions of Robocop and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

Why all the rules? If I don’t narrow my selections, I’ll face days’ worth of consideration. The scope of candidates without these limits proves too much to consider.

So here we go. The Top Five Movies Based on a DC or Marvel Comic, listed from least to greatest.

5) X-Men 2

Few good movies have carried the X-Men name.

The most frequent downfall of these movies proved their lack of characters. By “lack,” I mean quality, not quantity. X-Men movies often offered an army of characters, each little more then an action figure for parents to purchase.

Take Holle Berry’s character, Storm. She appeared in nearly every X-Men movie, yet her removal from those movies would’ve made little to no difference. She’s just there.

I could nearly make the same argument for the character Cyclops, who served as the X-Men’s leader. That’s a huge, red flag.

X-Men 2 performed a bit better. It’s not the only decent X-Men movie, but it seems the movie most worthy of mention. While a few characters still appear in this movie merely to sell toys, the most central characters feel better flushed out.

The action felt solid, rather than a device with which the writers marked time.

The move didn’t feel predictable, yet managed to make (enough) sense.

I could complain about the creepy way Wolverine tried to sleep with Cyclops’s girlfriend, topped only by the fact the Wolverine decided to tell Cyclops about it because it might somehow help Cyclops cope with said girlfriend’s death.

The movie provided a fun ride and a relief after its predecessor.

. . . I might’ve, in all honesty, bumped this movie onto the list so that Marvel Adventures movies didn’t dominate this list.

4) Captain America 2

The line between a movie armed with a moral premise and a movie that stands atop a soapbox and preaches to its audience remains a fine line, indeed.

Captain America 2 marched that line and made it look easy.

Even the most politically uneducated couldn’t have missed this movie’s message, yet the movie didn’t talk down to its audience or baldly state its theme. Captain Showed its message. It didn’t Tell it.

Effort remained a pleasant surprise that this movie shared with all but one (Iron Man 2) of its Adventures-based movies.

Given the success of its predecessors, this movie could’ve offered any lazy platter and raked in the cash. Instead, Captain proved a thoughtful film saturated with consideration. Every scene. Every line.

I felt that its creators wanted desperately to fashion a good movie.

Even if you disagree with Captain’s moral premise, you ought to respect the rhetoric of its closing argument.

3) Guardians of the Galaxy

The dialogue alone makes this movie. Every exchange sounds as if the writers spit-balled back and forth for hours in their labors to find the most perfect way for every character to deliver her or his every thought.

Yes, the villain proves a two-dimensional bad guy with few motives beyond bad-for-the-sake-of-bad, but this seems to work in comedies.

The second scene provided one of the best character introductions in the history of film. We saw our protagonist, Star-lord, enter a scene straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. It screamed threats of booby-traps and other dangers.

A lizard-like monster proved the setting’s deadly potential when it, fangs bared, made a beeline for Star-lord. How did our hero react? He snatched up the monster and improvised it as a microphone while he listened to happy-go-lucky music on his prized Walkman. He sung into the lizard (which snapped and slobbered at his face) and danced around deadly traps. Perfect! I knew everything I needed to know about this character.

Guardians offered excellent, complex characters (aside for the aforementioned villain). They each felt flawed to belief. They felt real as people and unreal enough to admire.

2) Iron Man 3

I would repeat myself to mention most of what made this move so damn good (see Captain America 2). This movie just managed an even more admirable job on each of those points.

This movie asked a lot from its audience. Hard-to-swallow concepts abounded, but, in the end, the exchange of suspended disbelief for entertainment proved a bargain.

The acting worked. The dialogue worked. Great special effects. Wonderful, soundtrack. Directing. I couldn’t conceive of a better way to have told this story.

Best of all—and I again repeat myself from my above review of Captain—the writers communicated their moral premise without, well, without sounding as if they had a moral premise to shove down our throats.

1)   The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger made this movie. We all know it. Yes, Knight had a lot to offer, but without Ledger’s amazing performance and the writers who conceived of the Joker’s dialogue . . .

Ledger’s Joker provided moviegoers with the most quotable villain since Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter (although that seems a different list).

Well, I have to slide my laptop back into my pack and hike down this mountain. I’ll publish this post as soon as I discover some Internet.

Next time, I’ll provide my top 5 Worst superhero movies.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my short fiction blog and my novel, Daughters of Darkwana on Kindle. Daughters stands as the first in a series, the third book of which arrives next January. Thanks for reading!