Tag Archives: Movies

Review: Maleficent

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Maleficent tries to do for Sleeping Beauty what Wicked did for The Wizard of Oz.  It strives to take a villain and reexamine her life, giving us context and an explanation for her actions and making us question our preconceptions.  Yet it lacks the grace and power of Wicked.  Maleficent is occasionally shockingly old-fashioned, it has a mediocre script and an inconsistent tone, and it trades one shallow villain for another while leaving few of the characters with any depth.  Yet Maleficent shines in spite of all that, defying expectations and rising above the things that might hold it back.  It’s truly more than the sum of its parts, and it owes any success it finds to its two charismatic lead actresses.

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Trailer Tuesday: Earth to Echo

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

Normally here on Trailer Tuesday I like to do a deep dive into an individual trailer for a movie, with screencaps and some thoughts/analysis of what that trailer holds.  But every now and then, I prefer instead to show you all of the trailers for one film in one post, hopefully giving a broader view of a film instead of a deeper one.  So today, take a look at the three trailers for Earth to Echo, which comes out July 2:

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Jurassic World director responds to spoilers in an interesting way

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Spoilers have become an increasingly big problem for filmmakers, and most tend to overcompensate for them in one way or another.  Movie shoots are often incredibly secretive places, with scripts numbered and collected at the end of the day and excessive at filming locations.  This makes some sense, as any set photo or leaked plot details might affect the public’s desire to see a film.  Of course, leaks are bound to happen and there are a variety of ways to respond to them.  You can completely ignore them, which is the most common tactic.  You can take the J.J. Abrams route and deny them even though Benedict Cumberbatch is obviously playing Khan.  You can simply shut down your movie before it ever gets started, like Quentin Tarantino did after the entire script for his film The Hateful Eight leaked earlier this year.  Or, you can do what Colin Trevorrow, the director of Jurassic World, the upcoming fourth entry in the Jurassic Park series, did when the general plot of his film leaked.  He confirmed the rumors about his film, while taking time to lament the era of the spoiler.

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Trailer Tuesday: Big Hero 6

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

Last week we looked at the latest trailer for Marvel’s next movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.  This week, we’ve got our first teaser trailer for the Marvel movie that’s coming after Guardians.  No, it’s not Avengers: Age of Ultron, it’s Big Hero 6, an animated film from Disney Animation Studios based on the Marvel comics of the same name.  Take a look below and read on for my thoughts.

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Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past

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X-Men: Days of Future Past is the best X-Men film in over a decade and one of the biggest and most ambitious film events since The Avengers.  It’s technically the seventh film in the series, including the original trilogy, two Wolverine spin offs and one prequel/reboot, and it pulls from all of those films to create a complex, interesting conglomeration featuring almost every actor who’s ever had anything to do with X-Men in any way.  It’s based on one of the most popular stories from the comics, and it borrows heavily from films like The Terminator and Back to the Future.  And while Days of Future Past is generally a success, it tries to include so much that it often loses focus and isn’t as compelling as those first X-Men films years ago.  It’s great to see so many familiar faces, and the film has moments of brilliance, but I couldn’t help feeling while I watched it like I would have preferred something different.

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Trailer Tuesday: Guardians of the Galaxy (Trailer #2)

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

It’s been three months since we got our first, crazy look at Guardians of the Galaxy, and we finally got a second trailer yesterday (along with this new poster, which lacks the perfect “You’re Welcome” tagline from the previous poster).  The second trailer for a film like this is always the one that gives us the best look at the film.  By this time, more of the visual effects have been completed, more dialogue has been recorded, and the trailer takes a deeper look at the film’s story.  The first trailer’s goal was to establish the film’s unique tone and give us an intro to the characters, but this time around we got to see a lot more.  Take a look at the trailer below and read on for my thoughts and highlights:

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What it means to have a gay character in How to Train Your Dragon 2

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For those who haven’t seen the news, it’s been revealed that How to Train Your Dragon 2 will feature one of the characters from the first film coming out as gay.  In an interview with E! Online, the film’s director, Dean DeBlois, explained that one character will be coming out and told the interviewer which character that was.  (I’m not going to spoil that here, but if you want to read the interview which does spoil it, you can find it here.)  The moment comes as an offhand comment, ad-libbed by the character’s voice actor, and was not a part of DeBlois’ original script, however the openly gay DeBlois said, “I think that’s a really fun [and] daring move to put in.”

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Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

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I’ve been trying to write a review of The Grand Budapest Hotel for over a month, but it’s given me an unusual amount of trouble.  It has made me curious about what this very specific writer’s block means in terms of my opinion of the film.  I certainly enjoyed it, as I’ve enjoyed all Wes Anderson films, but it seems like I just don’t have much to say about it.  My overriding opinion from a review standpoint is that if you like Wes Anderson’s other movies, you’ll like The Grand Budapest Hotel, if you dislike them then you’ll want to skip it, and if you’re indifferent it’s worth checking out but probably not as worthy of attention as some of Anderson’s other works.

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Friday Favorites: Favorite Speech – Jaws

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

I haven’t done a Friday Favorite in a while, mostly because no one reads them, but I felt in the mood to revive it for at least one more week.  I was recently listening to one of the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcasts which parodied sections of Jaws, and like most references to my favorite films it triggered a lot of emotions and memories about the classic 1975 film.  Jaws is truly a masterpiece, far more than just its legacy of propelling Steven Spielberg to the big time and creating the modern idea of a summer blockbuster.  Some highlights of the film are obvious, from John Williams’ iconic score, to Spielberg’s Hitchcockian vision for the film, to some of the all-time best scares, to lines like “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  Other things are more subtle, like the genius editing by Verna Fields who does some truly creative things to build tension, or the script’s ability to make a film about a killer shark with the film’s real villain being the town’s mayor.  For me, however, the best part of the film might be this:

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Do women prefer “tortured” villains to “boring” heroes?

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Recently I received a message from my fellow blogger/friend, Teanna (find her online here or here), and she had this to say:

You, honored Pirate Blogger, need to write a blog about why women swoon over Dark Heroes (Wolverine, Batman, Hawkeye, Sherlock, Thorin) and Tortured Villains (Loki, Loki, Loki, Bucky, Loki) and find Nice Golden Hero types (Cap, Coulson, Superman… OK, that’s a weird set right there, but…) boring.

As a guy, I don’t feel like I have the right to speculate over what women find attractive or the characters they’re interested in, and the last thing I want to do is say something that comes off as judgmental or sexist, so I thought I’d open this question up to you.  If I get enough feedback, I’ll post some of the most interesting things I heard.  If not, I might write my own article from the perspective of whether these types of characters are more popular in society on a more general level.

You can of course leave me a comment right here on my blog, or if you don’t want to post something publicly you can send me a message via my feedback page.  You can tweet me @lovepirate77 or find me on tumblr or send me a message there.

So I’ll leave you with some possible questions, not intending to make any judgments about the question, but just to get the conversation flowing.  Do women really prefer tortured heroes to boring villains?  If not, why is there a perception that they do?  If true, why is that?  Is it simply a reflection of the popularity of these characters generally, regardless of the fan’s gender?  Is it because of they types of actors who generally play tortured villains?  Are those characters simply better written?  Is the mere question offensive?  Is there any danger in being attracted to villainous characters when it translates into real life relationships?  Is it a reflection of living in a more forgiving or less black-and-white time period?

I look forward to hearing from you, as I’m sure there are a wide range of opinions about this topic.