Reviving a franchise with a brand new day

Warning: mild spoilers.

Enjoyed Senior privilege at the movies. It was really gratifying that a 4:10pm screening was packed! Cinemas have recently been complaining about a lack of audience, but Marvel/Sony's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" seems to have brought back the crowd. It wasn't all old folk, though. Young adults, teens and little kids were out in force to watch Spidey battle an unseen menace in his 4th MCU outing as the titular hero.

From the trailers, it looked like a Sinister Six kind of set up, but I'm glad the focus fell on only a few of the pantheon that was promised. I especially loved Frank "Punisher" Castle's portrayal. Normally unhinged and trigger-happy -- still is here -- he turns out to be a very good friend to Spider-Man and has his back all the way, well, maybe except for that one oops moment, 'nuff said.

Banner is here too presumably as a technical consultant for some new tech Spidey is building. This new tech foreshadows something dark in the future, although the tech already exists in rudimentary form which we've already seen Damage Control using elsewhere. But Banner is also here to help Spidey see that they both have monsters inside of them that they must keep under control, or the consequences will be devastating. Carrying the weight of the world on lone shoulders will do that to a guy.

Ned and MJ are Spidey's only humanizing force, especially now that Aunt May is physically gone. But because of Dr Strange's final spell in "No Way Home", they don't remember Peter. It was a clever choice to let all three characters age up. Through Ned's TikTok posts, we see time pass from when they were freshmen at MIT to graduation, to returning to New York -- which is about the length of time it took to make this movie. Chronologically, we're all caught up. Frank still calls Spidey 'kid' though, the old fart. But Peter can't decide if breaking Strange's Forget spell is the right thing to do, so circumstance decides for him.

Circumstance comes in the form of an identifiable character from the X-Men, making their MCU debut. Speculation about Sadie Sink's character is now confirmed. She plays 616's version of Jean Grey, telepath and telekinetic extraordinaire. But she is in her pre-X-Men self, needing guidance for both her psychological trauma and training in the control of her abilities which are quite terrifying. Which leads to the question: does Xavier's school already exist in the 616 timeline? Also, if the X-Men in the Doomsday trailer are native to 616 or yet another timeline -- like maybe the one Monica Rambeau ended up in, in 'The Marvels'. Yes, overlapping lore can be confusing, but so rich in universe-building potential.

And Damage Control, ever the representatives of everything that has gone wrong under the current political administration of the USA today. No spoilers here. Despite their friendly facade, we already know from past movies and TV series what the DODC are all about. Every time they involve themselves, everything gets worse. Apart from that one voice of reason in the 'Ms Marvel' TV series, Damage Control is usually bad news.

So, Brand New Day mission brief: Spidey has to solve the mystery of the attacks on DOCD, make the reacquaintance of old friends, control the monster he could become, survive a resurgent Hulk, and keep Frank from killing too many people. And make friends with a young, rageful, terrifyingly powerful mutant this universe hasn't -- overtly -- identified as a potential threat to humankind yet.

Overall, this is one movie that needs to be watched on the big screen. Though, easy for me to say on a $5 ticket. Grandpa flex.

Focus on POTUS in MCU's Captain America: Brave New World

MCU's Captain America movies usually have some political statement to make. Brave New World, Cap's 4th outing, draws a parallel between newly elected POTUS, Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) and the real-life current POTUS. Both have done and are still doing morally questionable things, and although much of their misdeeds are public knowledge, they have still been given the mandate to be the country's top decision-maker.

What's different about Ross is that his misdeeds are misguided attempts to keep the country safe by all means necessary, including the use of deadly force resulting in heavy collateral damage -- a callback all the way to the MCU's second movie, The Incredible Hulk. That legacy carries over to his initiation of the Sokovia Accords resulting in the unintended(?) disbanding of the Avengers during the brutal Civil War conflict. By this time, Ross is convinced that regardless of his political success, he would never win back the love of his daughter, Betty (Liv Tyler). As such, he seeks to redeem himself by negotiating a global peace treaty over the fair and equitable distribution of a new element that seems to have more potential than even vibranium. This new element is found in the body of Tiamut, the Celestial that arose in the Indian Ocean, but whose full emergence was prevented by the Eternals in their own movie.

Current real-world POTUS has opposite designs for national self-sufficiency at all cost. 'nuff said.

The mantle of Captain America now falls on Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), formerly Falcon. He bears the shield with a sense of inadequacy, feeling that Steve Roger's boots are too big to fill. Moreover, Wilson does not have any super-soldier enhancement, and clearly cannot match OG Cap's physical prowess and abilities. Wilson does have the advantage of aerial combat and makes use of his natural empathy to deescalate tense situations. Without enhancements, Wilson has his own approach to dealing with powered individuals, preferring to use words over fists, although fights can end a bit anti-climactically for a hero-fest. It's not that he can't use his fists to end a fight -- as he does with Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) -- but he prefers not to.

BNW is a straight up comic-book movie. There's enough action and fighting through a varied palatte of threat levels to keep the pace breathless. But because Wilson is already such a good guy from the start, his character arc doesn't have that many legs. By the end, he's gained a little more confidence in himself as Cap's successor, but we already knew that he was worthy. His costume design is also busier than I like, but that's an aesthetic quibble. It was President Ross who kept my attention for this movie. He had the broader character arc with more to redeem himself from and more to seek forgiveness for. His resolution is a bit of wish fulfilment for us in the real world, but it is in taking personal accountability and responsibility for his past missteps that finally brings Ross peace.

Overall, while political enough, I feel that the previous Captain America movies had more emotional depth and higher stakes. BNW tried to create a bit of a besties dynamic in the Sam Wilson-Isiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) pairing, but the Wilson-Bradley friendship doesn't run so deeply that the audience roots for them as we did with Steve-Bucky. The biggest impact of BNW on the greater MCU is the tying up of some loose ends from previous movies while vaguely pointing the way forward with the discovery of a new element to exploit, and a cryptic prophecy delivered in the sole end credits scene. Generally a good movie, but seeing as the supporting character stole the show, it doesn't top any of the previous installments of MCU's Captain America movies, at least for me.

Audience Miss match #themarvels

A fairly long interview with Disney CEO, Bob Iger, but I'm mainly commenting on the sound bite between the 13-15th minute in which he blames The Marvels' box office disappointment on 1) the Disney+ streaming platform, and 2) the lack of executive supervision during the production process.

I agree with #1 in that The Marvels was not billed enough as a significant event that would get people out of their homes and into the cinema. Doubly so when the audience knows that we'll be accessing it on Disney+ not too long after its movie premiere. Nothing particularly important happens in this movie that shakes up the MCU other than a few seconds of mid-credits scene that we had to sit through an entire movie for. Nope. Most people would rather save their money and catch it on D+ as and when it shows up. There was no urgency to be first in line on opening day, and many, like myself, didn't even know when opening day was. Both the pandemic, and the actors/writers strike were factors in the lack of hype for this movie: nobody knew what the stakes were, or even who the villain was. Truth be told, I still don't.

Which leads me into #2. Iger doesn't elaborate on what he means by executive supervision, but it sounds to me like corporate meddling with the creative process. I think corporate should have said something before green lighting the movie in the first place. While I enjoyed the movie, like I generally enjoy most media releases, I'm now looking at this project from a marketing standpoint. Who was supposed to be the target audience? While there are Marvel fangirls like Iman Vellani, a.k.a. Ms Marvel, herself, the vast majority of audience who throw money at MCU movies are the guys who drag their girlfriends and wives along to watch great high stakes superhero battles. Was the battle depicted in The Marvels high stakes enough? I suppose on the cosmic scale it was big, but it didn't hit hard emotionally. It was fun, yes, but it didn't feel like our heroes were going to lose at any point. It was cool, but it also felt like a missable chapter in the MCU timeline. Nothing changed -- until the movie was literally over.

If the target audience was supposed to be women, the characters of Captain Marvel, Ms Marvel, and Monica Rambeau, aren't particularly well known to most women besides the die-hard fangirls, whose audience share simply does not compare to the MCU's male audience demographic. Droves of women are not likely to drag their boyfriends and husbands to watch The Marvels just because three women they don't know, and have never grown up with are the main characters. The Barbie Movie was a very different vibe, and was a huge box office success because Barbie is a character familiar to almost every girl in this and even previous generations. Barbie told a story that resonated strongly with its female target audience, and surprised the males who accompanied their significant others with an absurdly relatable story as well. The Marvels, on the other hand told a story that might have resonated more with a male audience, with all the punching and shooting, but the protagonists were female. Perhaps this story might have done better if it featured Rocket, Groot, and maybe introduced a new character like Nova, or someone similar (Adam Warlock?). While I appreciate the attempt at representation and diversifying the audience pool, representation for the sake of representation does nothing for the box office.

Expecting a hit out of The Marvels with female characters who are relatively unknown to its paying audience is like making a movie featuring Ken as the main character, in hopes of attracting a male audience waving lots of cash, yelling 'take my money!!!' From the marketing perspective, The Marvels made little sense from the start.

The Marvels: Generally satisfying, with some inconsistencies

I didn't even know The Marvels had been released last week. With so much talk and rumours of release dates being pushed back, I stopped paying attention. If not for a chance mention on my socials, I might not even have got a ticket for today.

Warning: spoiler-y review ahead.

The Marvels unfortunately has had the lowest opening weekend of all MCU movies, and quite undeservedly so. It was a fun story (I liked it better than Quantumania), but perhaps the stakes were hugely disproportional to the battles that were mostly fought hand-to-hand in a champion takes all contest. And since there were three heroes against one villain, it didn't really seem like a fair fight. And for the most part, the villain was sort of fighting with one hand tied behind her (yes, her) back. Perhaps that was the point. Dar-Ben's backstory puts her in a position to want to do something to save her people, the Kree, from an impossible situation, but the odds are very much stacked against her. I understand the heroic courage that drives her, and the desperation plus revenge motivation behind her awful choices, but her approach to grand theft cosmos was doomed from the start. You can't save your people's homes by destroying other people's homes -- a very pertinent message for the crisis in Gaza right now.

The movie begins in utter confusion, reflecting the Marvels' own sense of what-is-going-on as they abruptly switch places with each other. Like us, they get dropped into situations with no context, either in the midst of hostilities, or bringing hostiles into previously peaceful locations -- specifically the Khans' living room which gets gratuitously wrecked in the process. It's fun to watch Mom and Dad Khan tag-teaming to fight off two fully trained Kree warriors, and not being very successful at it. In the aftermath, their house has a new skylight which wasn't there before. It's ok, Nick Fury's SABER will pay for the damage, I'm sure.

The confusion gets some clarity when people stop punching and shooting each other and start talking. Everything has to do with Kamala's family heirloom, the twin of which Dar-ben has found and is using to open unstable portals in space-time to aid her nefarious plan -- like Dr Strange stealing forbidden books from Wong's library, but on a much grander scale. It's the energy from these unstable portals that causes the location switching, which eventually they learn to coordinate and turn into a fighting advantage, leading to some interestingly choreographed fight scenes.

They are too late to save the first of Dar-Ben's targeted worlds, and it's uncertain if they do save the second or not -- a disturbingly unresolved plotline. It's also the world with what I felt as a silly, unnecessary Bollywood type culture thrown in just because. Gratuitous. Carol has personal ties with this planet just to raise the stakes a little, but I don't see that the Marvels did enough to save it. I hope we'll find out in time to come, but if that world perished, it'll be one more thing on Carol's conscience.

Of course, Dar-Ben targets Earth next, and it's for all the marbles. Monica does a heroic thing, and Carol gets a redemption. I thought they might use Carol's redemption act to de-power her so that she can be less OP enough to fit into the new MCU team-up storylines moving forward, but she still looks none the worse for wear after her cosmic feat of strength. And while Kamala gets to go home with a souvenir after her space adventure, Nick Fury (especially after the events of Secret Invasion) is going to be very unhappy with two new alien populations living on Earth, one of which he knows about, and one which he doesn't... yet.

But it's Monica's epilogue that is probably going to trigger the next phase of the MCU, if you stay and watch the end credits. There is one final end credits scene, but in my screening the screen went into screen saver mode and there was only sound. I couldn't see a thing, but the sound was unmistakable. Was it important? Probably not. Stay for bladder-holding bragging rights, if you want.

The Black Panther: Lion King recycled?

Is it just me, or does The Black Panther seem like Disney's The Lion King in reverse?

Spoiler alert:

Mufasa (T'chaka) kills Scar (N'Jobu).

Scar's son (Killmonger) is exiled thereafter and makes friends with the Jackals (Ulysses Klaue and gang).

Meanwhile, Simba (T'chaka) becomes king, supported by his mom (Ramonda) and the spiritual Rafiki (Zuri).

Simba has a love interest in Nala (Nakia), and is friends with playful and inventive Timon (Shuri+Everett K Ross), and stubborn, charge-into-battle Pumbaa (Okoye).

Crisis happens when the exile returns to the tribe and challenges the incumbent for the throne.

In the end, House Mufasa still prevails over House Scar.

Not to take away from a great movie presenting strong nuance and food for thought, but perhaps there really aren't any new stories to tell.

Riddick (son) Crusoe

Did anyone read "Robinson Crusoe" by Defoe? If not the movie just came out, starring Vin Diesel as the titular hero, Riddick. Oops, did I just give away the plot?

Privileged individual becomes a castaway on an island far from human civilization. He learns to survive inhospitable terrain, avoiding predators using his wits and uber mad-skillz. He saves the life of a native who would have, in reversed circumstances, eaten him. Said native becomes a loyal friend and hunting partner. Castaway's distress signal gets picked up by renegades who also want to kill him, but they inadvertently provide him a ticket outtahere.

While the plot was predictable, following its precedent quite closely, the narrative in Riddick was arresting enough to make me forget the Crusoe tale. I only saw the parallels hours after. In Defoe's version, Crusoe had technological superiority on his side: guns against the cannibals' primitive melee weapons. Riddick has no weapons and has to improvise with materials scrounged from the landscape to survive the native predators and is vastly outclassed by the bounty hunters' weapons and gear.

That's it. Change one rule and the game becomes almost unrecognizable. Skillz, resourcefulness, terrain knowledge and psychology are Riddick's best assets. This is one movie in which you sympathize with and fear for the bad guys who have no idea what they are hunting. Riddick's mind games torment, frustrate and drive his hunters to breaking point, and watching the combined force crumble from its position of strength is what's fun about this movie.

This doesn't mean Riddick is invulnerable. If he was, it wouldn't be half as exciting to watch. He is mindful of an impending deadline, but rushes nothing. However, although he very carefully orchestrates every attack, not everything goes according to plan. Some nice 'oh, shit' moments keep us grounded with the presence of real danger for Riddick and friend.

I went in with no expectations, wasn't disappointed. The old classic stories were in themselves quite well written. A few cosmetic changes and an old story becomes new again.

Old grandmaster story

The next winning kung fu movie formula from HK will have to be an Ip Man vs Wong Fei Hong epic. The Ip Man story has been told too many times already and it's time to let the imagination do what it will with the characters left behind by these two martial arts greats -- the latter having been forgotten for quite a while and could be begging for a resurrection anytime soon.

In The Grandmaster, Wong Kar Wai's retelling of the Ip Man story, the intention seems more to document than dramatize the major events in Master Ip's life. The lead character, played by Stony Leung, carries the same stoic, long-suffering face throughout the movie. Not sure what he has to suffer since his wife, Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), does the major fighting for lost family honour and such while he goes about sampling the skills of the other fighting schools he is neighbours with.

I suppose any lesser man would be pissed that his wife left him to go fight another man to the death, but not Ip Man. His face says 'a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do' and on the odd occasions that he meets up with her again their interaction remains politely cordial, though I suppose the audience is probably meant to assume that the poor man is all torn up inside. Really.

The cinematography is just beautiful, with lots of slow-mo water splash; drip; ripple and reflect effects. The fight scenes are stunningly choreographed with lots of precision moves in both many-on-one and one-one-one battles, though often the killing blows happen so quickly we miss them completely and next thing you know, someone's dead or dying for no apparent reason.

Dialogue is poetic. Something like, 'That bread in your hand is the entire world to me' could mean 'You've already lost, but you don't know it yet'  Or, 'The night is dark, but the nightingale sings through till sunrise' could mean, 'I'm a'gonna rip your face off!' (not actual quoted dialogue, but just to illustrate the point). Sometimes, you wish they would talk like normal people.

There were Hollywood influences to a couple of scenes: the disciple banishment scene from Kung Fu Panda, and Spidey vs Sandman vs speeding train scene in Spider-Man 3... or maybe I was desperately looking for identifiable points of reference to keep from losing the coherence of the plotline, which was confusing with all the flashbacks and flash-forwards and long periods of nothing happening. That kind of story-telling needs a deft hand, and this one was no Cloud Atlas.

Perhaps I had my expectations too high for thinking a kung fu fest to be all action, but I was somewhat disappointed to get a philosophical commentary on the nature of mastery instead (which, I grant, IS an important learning point... but it just wasn't what I was looking for here). In my book, this movie rates four Zs.

What a rush of sugar

All hail Vanellope Von Schweetz, the latest addition to Disney's pantheon of princesses... although her political status as 'princess' is complicated. Also, unlike her pulchritudinous colleagues, Vanellope is not pursuing a male figure to define herself by but rather seeking to come to terms with herself and her flaws that keep her outcast from both her immediate and wider society.

Everyone calls Vanellope a 'glitch', an appellation she accepts as what makes her different from everyone else. In a game world, graphic integrity is a premium so a sprite that occasionally de-rezzes cues the gamer that the game is malfunctioning and should be trashed in favour of a better one.

It's not clear whether Vanellope understands this rationale keeping her from participating in the game her character is designed as an avatar for. All she is told by her fellow racers is that her existence is a mistake and as such, she is not permitted a space on the roster of playable characters.

Secondly, her game world's economic model is such that racers have to ante-up a gold token before racing, and she being outcast has no opportunity to earn tokens and is therefore priced out of her own employment market. In an economy of plenty, she represents the 1% destitute.

What's admirable about Vanellope is that she never loses hope. Although very clear in her mind who she is -- "racing's in my code!" -- her difficulty is in proving it to the other racers. She may have been unscrupulous in acquiring her first gold token and impossibly optimistic in self-building a pedal-operated cart to compete against powered engines, but such optimism in the face of impossible odds makes it easy for the audience to root for the underdog in this race.

The race itself, of course, is only a plot device. While ambition motivates us to do more than we think we can, it's in developing our "softer skills" such as love, friendship, trust, and making up our own minds about what is right and wrong rather than just having our moral sensibilities dictated to us that rounds us out as people instead of being merely 2D sprites fixated on a singular goal: winning at all cost.

What I really like about 'Wreck-it-Ralph' is how tightly the story is guided by its own internal rules and logic:
1) Bad guys (function of external perception based on one's prior actions) are not necessarily bad guys (function of personal character)
2) Sprites automatically respawn in their own game worlds, but are unable to respawn if they 'die' in another game world.
3) 'Pulling the plug' in the real world results in the annihilation of the game world. However, sprites who evacuate the endangered world in time can continue to live in Game Central Station, the nexus connecting all the game worlds in the arcade, though as homeless refugees.
4) Glitches lack the ability to leave their game worlds.
5) Cy-bugs are attracted to and are annihilated by lighted beacon towers. This procedure is necessary to eliminate all Cy-bugs after a game run ends as they are not characters as such but behave as viruses if they ever leave their game world.
6) 'Going Turbo' means to permanently jump a game world, resulting in the glitching of both worlds, the consequence being 'pulling the plug' (3).

By keeping to these rules, the story avoids fluff and arbitrariness, doing away with the need for a deus ex machina to save the day. Every scene and interaction is essential, providing enough exposition to advance the plot, yet not give too much away. They also provide context for the sight gags that come thick and fast; and for credible character and relationship development.

Problem-solving is up to the characters' innovativeness using game mechanics that are already present in their specific game worlds. While Felix has his magic hammer, it's more fun to watch Vanellope and Ralph fix-it themselves with trial-and-error, lots of elbow grease, out-of-the-box thinking, and a sense that if I don't help myself, no one will.

For Vanellope and Ralph, it really is suck it up and "make [their] mommas proud time". And they do.

Lost in translation

I really wanted to love Les Miserables, the movie, as much as I do the stage production. But despite some spectacular sets which were unreproduceable onstage such as the jaw-dropping manual dry-docking of the hulking warship in the opening sequence and the colossal barricade of the closing; and the palpable reality of the sewer escape sequence, the experience wasn't as emotionally impactful as it was onstage.

Perhaps some genres don't translate well into others. The script being originally written for stage assumes that most of the audience would not get close enough to the characters to empathize with them as individual people. It is the music that carries the emotion and from a distance therein lies the drama of the musical.

On film, it's quite different. On the 70mm screen, the action is literally in your face. Every tear, every frown, every wrinkle is there for all to see so the delivery has to become more realistic. The irony is that using nuances of spoken delivery takes away something of the emotive potential of the music and so the effect gets watered down.

There is also a problem using recognizable faces in the leading roles. At some point I was expecting Jean Valjean to sprout adamantium claws from his fists and eviscerate his tormentors; Fantine to grow pointy ears and a tail and bi*chslap with a bullwhip the sleazebuckets going after her. That they meekly rolled over and resigned themselves to their fate was mildly disappointing. Big names may help box-office receipts, but it's better to cast iconic roles with performers who themselves have not been cast in other iconic roles else the wrong images are likely to stick and confuse.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the movie, but that this experience is unlikely to be as memorable as the stage version, for me anyway. But at least I didn't have to pay an exorbitant sum for crappy seats in the theatre's nosebleed section for it.

(Not quite) Jack of all trades

Jack Neo can make light family drama; social satire and even some verbal comedy, but please do not let him make a war movie. Ever. The opening sequences of "Ah Boys to Men" depicted our beloved home city under attack by enemy forces. Neo went whole hog with the digital explosions and debris-littered ruins of once familiar local landmarks. I suppose our armed forces saw this movie as an opportunity to show off some of the latest military hardware in action. But the on-screen violence was a gratuitous pastiche of bangs, blood and... bad gags. There's too much showing off of the studio's spfx capabilities, but not much focus on what's holding the shots together. Yes, it's a case of trying too hard to wear too many hats that the narrative credibility just falls apart.

Besides, the unidentified OPFOR has no apparent objective. The logistics it brings to bear suggest a conventional invasion, but the tactics and doctrine are that of terrorists on a suicide mission. Taking out civilian targets and civilians themselves on the ground first, while leaving military response bases able to mobilize against the threat practically guarantees a short campaign. Yet, the sequence ends with no clear resolution. The invasion is still in progress, both sides are losing combat-capable troops then, abruptly, a new story begins. Even as propaganda, the pointless introduction fails. While it does set the tone for what turns out to be an emo "Army Daze" remake, the initial emotional impact is dulled by out-of-place humour and a poorly executed montage of people randomly trading shots with each other with various types of ordnance, collateral damage notwithstanding.

Fortunately, the rest of the movie -- which actually involves family drama; social satire and light verbal comedy -- plays to Neo's strengths. Apart from tracing the lead character's journey from Ah Boy to Man through his misadventures in Basic Training, the movie was also a nostalgic comparison of training philosophies past and present. Back then, it was a civilian ARMY; whereas now it is a CIVILIAN army. These sequences I can believe because we've all been there and they're part of our collective consciousness.

Neo again goes for the moralistic approach in the debate that follows: Priority to self, or priority to nation, the answer being pretty obvious. While exploring the humour that goes with various methods employed by malingering conscripts to escape training, ultimately selfish choices lead to nasty consequences that have an impact on wider society. That story of a boy's learning to take responsibility for his actions, though melodramatic, is clear. Though what he does with this new found responsibility is a lot less clear because of the sudden...

TO BE CONTINUED

The name's Little, Chicken Little

After "Skyfall" can anybody really justify why 007, James Bond, is still on the British taxpayers' payroll?

Warning: SPOILERS follow

Let's do a run-down of the events that occur in this installment:

1. Save Agent Ronson's life -- Ronson dies
2. Retrieve stolen laptop hard disk -- gets hit by friendly fire, target escapes
3. Goes on unauthorised three-month vacation -- MI6 gets blown up
4. Reports back for duty -- fails every field agent test in the book
5. Captures Silva -- Macao contact killed
6. Holding Silva -- Silva escapes
7. Protect British public -- subway disaster; Wesminster gets heavily shot up
8. Protect M -- Bond ancestral home, "Skyfall", blown to smithereens; M doesn't make it
9. Receive M's legacy -- gets M's favourite paperweight... and new boss is Lord Voldemort himself!

So, did Bond even get one thing right in this story? No wonder they say civil servants live off an iron ricebowl.

"I am the Law!"

Dredd 3D skulked into the cinemas this week unannounced. I went in with no expectations, save for the earlier movie starring Stallone which was, shall we say, not too dreadful.

In this incarnation, Megacity One is brooding, colourless, and filthy like it's supposed to be. There's a lot of blue, grey tints and dark shadows, like the colour scheme of CSI:NY. Nasty place, don't wanna stay there and not even visit. Dredd's voice-over in the prologue tells us that the boundaries of MC1 stretch from DC to Boston. Reading the comic-book, I never knew the cityscape was that immense.

Karl Urban plays Dredd, all gravelly-voiced and serious. He is the embodiment of Justice: efficient, unflinching and blind. Next to him is Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) -- Justice with compassion and conscience. Their wardrobe reflects their characters. Dredd never removes his helmet, eyes permanently obscured by the tinted visor, while Anderson wears no helmet at all, all blonde and wide-eyed, first day on the job. It is Dredd's task to evaluate Anderson's performance and decide if she has what it takes to wear the badge.

Anderson's choice to investigate a gruesome triple homicide at the Peach Trees -- a huge residential tower complex -- pits the two Judges against the violent and resourceful Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and her gang. To keep the secret of the Peach Trees, Ma-Ma orders the lock-down of the entire building and issues an off-with-their-heads order against the Judges. The game from there is to survive the building, keep their suspect alive and find their way back to the Hall of Justice.

What more plot need there be? Dredd stories are all about dispensing justice with extreme prejudice and that's exactly what happens. In glorious slo-mo (there's even a reason why things happen in slo-mo and it ties into one of my favourite and most disturbing Dredd stories I've ever read), with blood spatter a la "300".

In every fight, the Judges appear to have the upper hand. I hate it when it seems like the protagonist looks like he's playing on God-mode (like in "Ghost Rider"). But to their credit, there's clearly flesh-and-blood underneath the armour so the danger for them is real. It's just too bad that the Ma-Ma Clan are such terrible shots.

The movie mostly plays out like a third-person shooter in which the Judges outsmart or outgun the grunts and face the occasional boss battle. Locked in the tower the only way to go is up, to confront Ma-Ma herself. It would be predictable to shoot it out with ultimate boss lady, but instead her threat involves a Hobson's choice, requiring Dredd to think out-of-the-box for a solution and deliver appropriate justice at the same time.

This movie incarnation of Dredd contains the two elements I like about the character: violence and irony. The storyline isn't too complex (survive, protect the innocents, live with your own judgements), but that means that the narrative is tight and focused leaving no room for self-indulgence. The essence of Dredd.

Kitty shelves and big balls

The cats have a new playground! They haven't yet figured out how to climb up to the top shelf, but they don't seem to have any trouble climbing down after being manually placed up there. The squarish thing at bottom right in the last pix is a corner of the sofa bed we moved below the top shelf as a safety precaution in case it rains cats and dogs.

Today we also took a turn to look after the nephews for the afternoon and evening. We took them to Slava's Snowshow, a bizarre anthology of non-narrative spectacles involving artistry in clowning, mime, lighting effects and big giant balls. Oh, and masses of materials such as "snow", simulated spider webbing and water blanketing the audience from time to time.

Yep, the audience is definitely a part of the show. Two words to describe the experience: play and imagination. It was such fun to gather handfuls of "snow" from the floor and dump them over your seat mate's head. It was a blast reaching up to grab an ever-expanding sheet of webbing and pass it along to the person behind just to see if there was enough of the stuff to cover the entire stall area. There was, and some...

By the time they rolled the big balls into the audience, we were already on our feet, anticipating our turn to take a swipe or bat at one of these colourful spheres as we tossed them around the auditorium. A great reminder of what pointless, unstructured play used to be for us [older] folk. XD

Took the kids to watch Paranorman in the evening. This animated movie was strong in the use of horror elements, yet managed to keep a light, humorous touch to quite a dark tale. Early in the movie, I wondered if some scenes might have been too intense for the young 'uns, but since I heard more laughter than screams (of which there were none from them... though there was an audible gasp at one point from the grown man sitting beside me) I kinda' figured I didn't have to drag everyone home prematurely. Turned out the plot addressed the issue of bullying and the irrationality of hysteria, so the psychological perspectives were interesting; and it ended on a sweet, if sad note. Go watch it! It's good!

Tripping hazard

While director, Chris Nolan, spins a ripping yarn about the downfall of the Bat at the hands the Bane of his life and is able to tie what seem like unconnected loose ends of this trilogy together, I can't help but get distracted by the awkwardness of the cowl and the cape, especially in the fight sequences.

The fact that everyone else is dressed more or less normally, even Bane and his oversized retainer (I bet he got that way because the kids in school kept picking on him), Batman with his literally over-the-top mask and unwieldy cape, far from making him look inconspicuous as it's supposed to, instead made him stick out like a sore thumb in company. What's the point, anyway, since anyone who can't figure out that Bruce Wayne is the fabled Dark Knight has to be the densest material on the planet?

At some point, I wish he'd lose the darned things and just fight in his armour. Since this movie seems to have been marketed as the most realistic of all the other superhero movies this season, there's little call for the protagonist doing his thing in a silly outfit. It looks impractical and gets in the way of the action. Even in the shot with the Batman standing on a perch overlooking the city, the cape just... drapes over his shoulders, adding nothing to the drama apart from a distraction. I was more worried about it being a tripping hazard than as an awe inspiring device that the comic book genre makes it out to be.

But perhaps Wayne's inner struggle is right there. While the Batman persona relies on theatricality, technology and training, Rises is Wayne's story about his arduous climb back from the dark into light; from losing everything to finding happiness against all odds. The two personas are irrevocably separate, yet together. And that's the odd thing: the Bat survives when times are tough -- nothing makes the Bat come out stronger than when he is suffering. Make him happy, though, and you just might see the end of the Bat. Who'd have thought?

Does the trilogy end on a happy note, as all good legends should? I can't really say. Though Nolan may have directed his third and final installment in this trilogy, the producers seem intent on keeping the Wayne legacy and the franchise alive.

Return to sender

Took the nephews with us to watch The Amazing Spider-Man. While I enjoyed the movie -- and considering it's reboot of a familiar story, it still manages a fresh, new perspective on the character and motivations of Peter Parker without looking like a rehash -- it was more significant for me that the few hours spent with the boys taught me a little bit about parenting, and how terrible I would be at it.

Two parameters clearly set this situation from a normal night of parental supervision: the first is the short-term contact with the promise of return-to-sender at the end of it, and second, there's no biological imperative to particularly look after their welfare. Social obligation, maybe, but definitely not biological.

The evening went more or less like this: as soon as they got into the car, our conversation turned mainly towards me questioning their every utterance and making them think about what they had just said, examine their assumptions and evaluate their conclusions. Note that they are still in elementary school, but still they were quite game to engage in logical thrust-and-parry. Now everybody's more appreciative of the criteria determining the difference between "near" and "far" as diametrically oppositional yet relative concepts, or more confused... I'm not really sure.

It took a neutral third-party to ask if I had considered the rating of the movie for which I was bringing kids to. I just assumed they'd be let in with no trouble, and indeed they were, but a more conscientious parent would have done some checking first, wouldn't they?

Fortunately, they had a wholesome dinner prepared by their grandma. I was prepared to stuff them with a burger and fries if they were hungry. I still stuffed them, anyway, with a Wendy's vanilla Frosty while we waited for the cinema to let us in. The boys were trying to outdo one another shovelling increasingly bigger spoonsful of frozen dessert into their mouths until the inevitable occurred. They experienced brain-freeze, I had a laugh. And that was before the medium caramel popcorn and Coke that I let them share during the movie.

On hindsight, that extra sugar that late at night might have sent them bouncing off the walls until the wee hours, so perhaps that wasn't really a good parenting strategy either. Not if I wanted unbroken sleep and not have to deal with nightmares and beasties-under-the-bed every five minutes or so. Wonder how their parents handled it after I deposited them at their doorstep and waved goodbye-thanks-for-a-lovely-evening-hope-yours-went-well-too?

To be honest, I did have a good time with the boys, but probably because I could stick to my nutty uncle mode without the need to be a parent. Hat's off to you if you are one! :)

Best Exotic

The best movies aren't the ones with the biggest explosions or the eye-poppingest 3D effects. As much as superhero movies supply ever-increasing bangs for our bucks, movies about real people facing real problems with good humour, gumption and a sense of unrealistic optimism told with a touch of charm are the true nourishment between the candy fillers.

"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" in Jaipur, India, is just the place to be, if your eyes are the type that can see into the future. For now, the structure is ramshackle, the facilities are barely functional, the rooms are pest-ridden, the food... takes some getting used to. The whole place runs on a dream that one day it will be great, but in the meantime, just put up with it, it will get better. Soon.

The guests are a diverse set of retirees with an assortment of health problems, empty-nest syndrome, regrets of one sort or another, and they've come to get away from it all. People who don't have much future left, as far as they can see. And so begins the mismatch of English elderly middle-class expectations versus ambitious youthful Indian struggling-against-tradition hospitality.

Much of the charm taps on our desire to run away from everything and everyone in order to start afresh somewhere new, exotic and unfamiliar. But then, life always puts us in unfamiliar situations anyway, wherever we are. Retirement, long-term illness, loneliness and ageing are aspects of our lives that are inevitable, yet we never think that they will happen to us -- that is until they are already on top of us and we realize that the bridge we were going to cross when we get there is already behind us. Omg. Question is, is there life after that?

Is it still possible to find love or remain relevant and useful to society once we've turned a certain chronological milestone? Is it possible for a dream to come true even if no one else but the dreamer believes in it? The BEMH has brought everyone together to find out.

Two maxims keep the action flowing:

1) The only failure is the failure to try; and
2) It will be all right in the end. If it is not all right, it is not the end.

Words to live by.

With great power

Superhero overload at the movies? Tired of storylines in which ordinary people gaining extraordinary abilities suddenly feel obliged to save the world? Reality check: chances are, if I was to somehow inexplicably gain powers beyond mortal ken, I'd probably use them to screw around and entertain myself all day long. Wearing tights and a cape is really entertaining other people at my own expense, anyway.

So when three high school buddies develop powers when exploring an unnatural phenomenon together, let's just say great power + juvenile irresponsibility = tragedy + citywide collateral damage. Throw in a video camera the kids use to record all their superpowered shenanegans and you have "Chronicle", a story of human falliability and hyper hubris.

I was a bit worried about how a 90 minute movie shot on a handheld cam would turn out. Fortunately, apart from some abrupt pans and jump cuts to suggest amateur shooting and editing, the shots remained stable. No Blair Witch syndrome here. The shots from the main handheld cam were montaged together with footage from other cameras: news and security cams, mostly, so there is a closeness and intimacy to the characters which emphasizes the 'reality' of what we're watching.

My first movie of the year, and though it anticipates a whole new crop of  men in tights movies yet to come this summer, this one reminds us that maybe the 'Superhuman Registration Act' might not be such a bad idea after all.

And if you're wondering why I'm still watching movies after my call to boycott Hollywood, I bought my tix with complementary vouchers. So there.

Whose Internet is it?

I am watching some watershed events unfolding now that may have long term repercussions on the Internet and how it is to be used to share information.Where once the online community freely traded, bartered and "appropriated" information, what we are looking at today is that suddenly the market has dropped in to regulate the chaos.

Although SOPA and PIPA were bloodied by an online revolt last week, they have in effect taken a time-out to regroup and figure out how to come out swinging again. But while we were distracted with the rhetoric, big business and the feds acted and took down Megaupload -- hardware, software, wetware and all. And, as the online rebels predicted would happen, similar file-sharing sites have opted to self-censor in order to evade the copyright avengers' threat radar.

The message is clear. Henceforth, no one will transact information with anyone else without the exchange of hard currency. The market has come to the 'net and, whether directly or indirectly, we will pay for what we wish to share and for what we wish to take. It may not have gone that far yet, but if the free users of the 'net don't make their voices heard, that will be the direction it'll go once we accept this incident as a legal precedent.

Here's the thing: who owns the interwebs and can hence act with impunity on it? Can we free users continue to flout legally established copyrights and enjoy others' works without paying them their due; or can big business take away what we claim is our right to share any kind of information as we please?

Sad to say, it is the latter to whom our digital playground belongs. Unless we have been able to build our Internet access infrastructure ourselves from scratch, our computers, operating systems, browsers and even our networks are store-bought (or subscribed to) from big business. While it served them to let us in and play for free, or at least cheap, they've decided that now we can't get enough of what we have, it's time to start making us pay for the privilege. Oldest marketing trick in the book.

'Revenge!' scream the hacks of Anonymous, who activate their LOIC to down the websites of the Authorities like the DOJ, MPAA and RIAA with DDoS attacks. Juvenile, and hurts no one that matters. No one visits those websites voluntarily, anyway. It's all just vandalism and venting.

There's one way we free users can take back the 'net, though. Last week's revolt showed us the way. But I doubt many of us would like it. If a 24-hour Internet strike worked well enough to make the legislative body rethink we'd sheepishly accept their hare-brained scheme to take away our freedom; think of what a whole summer's boycott of Hollywood blockbusters would do to make the moguls see what our freedom is worth.

Yes, I'm saying the heck with all the delicious, to salivate over, fanboy-orgasmic blockbusters! Though we may once have been frothing at the mouth downloading their trailers while waiting for opening day, now we won't even buy their pathetic 3D high-def Blu-Ray DVD releases after they bomb at the box-office.

But what will we do for entertainment then, you ask? I say, support all indie productions, all low-budget, freely-distributed online content made by amateurs who don't expect to be paid for their work but are happy enough just to be watched or heard. Lots of that around, since the Internet can make us media producers in one way or another. A few stalwarts still even blog text. Ahem.

So, Hollywood blockbuster boycott that will bankrupt the greedy major studios in 2012 and show them who the Internet really belongs to? Anyone?

The cat, the other cat, and the egg

Although Puss spins off from the Shrek franchise, the look and feel of the movie starring the feline in the floppy footwear is very different from that of Far, Far Away. Here, we have the origin backstory of the unlikely partnership between Puss and misfit egghead, Humpty Alexander Dumpty. It's a childhood bonding taking the two through a story of crime, duplicity, betrayal and vengeance -- though not necessarily in that order. And a quest for redemption is in there too, holding the whole narrative together.

Where Puss hails from is realistic: people are people, not fantasy backdrops. It's a place where magic doesn't occur on a regular basis; but of course a talking cat with stylish skillz and a walking egg are bound to bring their own fantastic elements with them wherever they go. Magic beans, giant beanstalk, stolen golden egg-laying golden gosling are all part of this Mother Goose mashup, though the stoic residents of San Ricardo accept it all unquestioningly.

Overall, quite a fun romp, though not quite as laugh-out-loud in humour as Shrek. Despite the logic, the fairy-tale elements feel awkward in this mix, and rather than accepting them as natural, there is more effort taken to explain the connections than it's worth. And in the case of Kitty Softpaws, there is no fantasy precedent at all but a sad morality tale about how inhumane it is to declaw your cat. Nevertheless, the story is just about clever and engaging enough to follow through its twists and turns to the end.

Trapped with Norwegian dudes

Trapped on a research station during a blizzard in the Antarctic along with a small handful of fellow shut-ins, one or more of whom may not be what they appear to be. The Thing (2011), as did its previous two makes explores human paranoia in a castaway society, where predator and prey switch roles in a heartbeat.

A movie like this relies on constantly rising tension, building up moments of anticipation which it does quite well initially, both in the surprising attacks by the predator and by what human beings will do to each other when they're terrified out of their wits.

However, once the Thing has fully revealed itself, the tension drops off somewhat as it becomes a game of cat-and-mouse, with both parties equally capable of putting the hurt on each other. The cast list also suffers from having one too many Olafs -- Norwegian dudes who aren't so distinct from each other that it's hard to keep track of who's who before they fall victim to the madness of an alien first contact gone terribly wrong.

When the Thing starts rampaging around like a bull in a China shop, that's pretty much the end of the tension, turning a horror classic into something of an action movie with the diminutive character of Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) being the quick-thinking survivalist who makes it to the end (eh, that's not really a spoiler, is it?).

But it's during the scenes interspersed with the closing credits that all the clues start falling into place, and the significance of the events that had just taken place is revealed. Because it was hidden in plain sight, the last surprise was for me the biggest surprise of all.

... wait. What? You knew it all along? Well, I didn't read the literature on the movie before I watched it. Who asked you?