Black Widow (Review for FilmFisher)

First things first: It was great to be inside a movie theater again. (That business of seeing Tenet in October and having the feeling Christopher Nolan would be the death of me doesn’t, doesn’t count.) If nothing else, I can always look back fondly on Black Widow as the occasion for my celebratory return to filmgoing with a large group of friends. (We filled half a center row.) Perhaps it was even the ideal film for the occasion. It is the kind of film that is best enjoyed with a big screen, loud speakers, and an auditorium filled with an enthusiastic audience, and I got all of that. It was a fun night. If that is what you are looking for, Black Widow will do fine.

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Wonder Woman and the Bronze Serpent (Article for FilmFisher)

Richard Donner, who became the grandfather of contemporary superhero cinema with 1978’s Superman, lamented in a recent interview, “There are so many people that make superheroes so cynical, it’s depressing. When they’re dark and bleak and angry with themselves and the world, I don’t find it entertaining. I think there’s enough reality going on for that.”

Donner doesn’t entirely disapprove of the surge in superheroes films his work spawned. In fact, “When you see it done right, by my standards, it’s so fulfilling. I’m very happy and proud when I see them.” If there’s one film that made him especially happy and proud, it was Patty Jenkins’ take on Superman’s crimefighting colleague, Wonder Woman. This is not surprising, because Jenkins deliberately patterned her 2017 Wonder Woman after Donner’s Superman. (Look no further than the sequence where Diana Prince struggles with a revolving door, then stops a bullet to save Steve Trevor from thugs in an alley.) Her 2020 sequel, Wonder Woman 1984 (WW84 for short), continues in the Donner tradition of effusive earnestness, calculated campiness, euphoric flight sequences, and above all, hope for humanity.

However, there is one crucial difference between the ethos of Donner’s Superman and the ethos of Jenkins’ Wonder Woman.

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Arsenic and Old Lace (Review for FilmFisher)

“What’s your favorite film?” It’s the question every cinephile delights to hear, yet also dreads. Delights, because finally someone made this social function less awkward — and besides, who doesn’t want to extol their loves before others? Dreads, because who can pick just one movie? Asking a film-lover to choose only one favorite out of dozens is like a landlord telling the lady in Apartment 108 she can only keep one of her 36 cats — and must decide in seconds.

When I am asked this question, I may haggle with my interrogator to expand the field the five films. But this evasion only works half the time, because most people aren’t asking for an article, just one recommendation for their watchlist. (They may also be trying to size up your taste and sort you into a group. You aren’t one of those people that liked Green Book, are you?) So sometime in middle or high school, realizing I’d be dogged by the question (and awkward social functions) for the rest of my life, I decided on a standby: Frank Capra’s 1944 adaptation of the Joseph Kesselring play, Arsenic and Old Lace, starring Cary Grant.

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Anatomy of an Animated Adventure: Atlantis and Treasure Planet (Article for FilmFisher)

This article has two aims and two parts. First, I want to enumerate the many ways that Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet are uncannily similar. Released only a year apart — Atlantis in 2001 and Treasure Planet in 2002 — both are 95-minute action-adventure animated films with a steampunk aesthetic. Both feature wonderful scores by James Newton Howard. Both are heavily influenced by Raiders of the Lost Ark (especially Atlantis) and Star Wars(especially Treasure Planet). However, what American audiences may not realize is just how much of that Spielberg-and-Lucas influence is channelled to both films through Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky. But these commonalities only scratch the surface. When the two films are analyzed side-by-side, it turns out there are few characters, elements, or story beats in the one that don’t have a counterpart in the other. The two films share the same DNA, and they are like the complementary strands of a DNA sequence. 

For that reason, the second part of this article aims to make the case that Treasure Planet can be viewed as a revised and improved version of Atlantis. While Atlantis is still a very good film, it has some weaknesses and limitations that Treasure Planet sidesteps and transcends. Did the two films develop interdependently, with the writers and directors sharing notes? Did the team making Treasure Planet see problems emerging as Atlantis developed that they deliberately avoided in their own project? I don’t know. But in any case, comparing the two films is an instructive lesson in storytelling. The films present two different ways to tell almost the same story, and anyone with an interest in filmmaking or film criticism could benefit from comparing their relative strengths and weaknesses. 

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What About Oscar? Some Thoughts on the Academy Awards (Article for FilmFisher)

It seems to happen every year now. After the Academy Awards telecast has ended and the names of the Oscar winners cease to echo across the internet a few days later, I make a belated New Year’s resolution I only half intend to keep: I will swear off Oscar-watching this year. 

By Oscar-watching, I mean much more than watching the awards ceremony itself. For many film critics, Oscar-watching is a year-round guessing game, much like how a political analyst would follow presidential primaries. But unlike the professionals who are paid to do so, I have no good reason for the absurd amounts of time I tend to devote to this game. I probably shouldn’t be playing at all, for although I have a decent track record when guessing the winners, accurately predicting the nominees is far more difficult — and more costly. It requires an obsessive amount of attention that borders on the unhealthy, and it takes far more than it could ever give back. No matter how attuned I might become to the winds and waves that sway voters, when the Academy announces its list of nominees every January, there are always shocking snubs and baffling inclusions. And that is usually the moment each year when I finally wake up. 

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Spider-Man: Far From Home (Review for FilmFisher)

Over the course of the past 15 months, I have written four FilmFisher articles — now five — on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Previously, I reviewed Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Avengers: Endgame, and I co-wrote a dialogue on the MCU with Timothy Lawrence). Obviously, I have devoted an absurd amount of hours (and pages!) to seriously considering and evaluating the MCU’s strengths and weaknesses. From the beginning of this long-term critical project until now, I have always sought to be both rigorously critical and persistently charitable, and I hope this has been evident to friends and foes of the franchise alike. I stand by what I said in my Infinity War review: “I so want this scrappy series of films to succeed.”

I begin with this apologetic disclaimer and review of my track record, because this review will be shorter than the previous ones, and my tone in it may well come across as exasperated or unforgiving.

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A Toy's Telos, Chapter 2: How the Vision Was Won, and Lost (Article for FilmFisher)

Thesis and Antithesis

In “A Toy’s Telos, Chapter 1,” I argued that the Toy Story trilogy presents a moral vision for what it means to be a toy, and I outlined the key tenets of this vision as they are embodied by Woody in his relationships with Andy and Buzz. Woody has a vertical telos: to be there for Andy. He also has a horizontal telos: to be there for Buzz and other toys so that they too can be there for Andy. But Toy Story, as a story, presents this moral vision through narrative, not exposition, and narratives require conflict and resolution. The films establish their moral vision through the challenges Woody faces as he seeks to live according to his telos. It is through Woody’s resilience in the midst of these challenges that the films vindicate the idea of a toy’s telos. Another way to put this is that Woody has a thesis, an argument. In each film, he is presented with an antithesis, a counter-argument. His ability to repudiate these objections are what prove the strength — and what is more, the goodness and beauty — of his argument.

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A Toy's Telos, Chapter 1: The Moral Vision of Toy Story (Article for FilmFisher)

Woody

We need to talk about Woody. No, not Woody Allen. Enough people have been talking about him. I mean Sheriff Woody. The Woody who is an intricately-crafted doll, complete with a cow-skin vest, a red bandana, a cowboy hat, and a voice box activated by a pull string. The Woody who displays a child’s name written in Sharpie on the sole of his plastic boot: ANDY — with the “N” written backwards. The Woody who is not just a toy but a soul, a soul that is fiercely devoted to this Andy. The Woody who is voiced by Tom Hanks, with a passion and gravitas that makes Woody rival his finest in-the-flesh performances. The Woody who is the star and beating heart at the center of Pixar’s signature cultural contribution, Toy Story, a film series that has been a staple of American animation (and American childhoods) for a quarter century.

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Avengers: Endgame (Review for FilmFisher)

One of the many, many things the Marvel Cinematic Universe has severely lacked is a sense of poetry — visually, verbally, thematically, or otherwise. But what strikes me about Avengers: Endgame is that it is a small but significant step toward reversing that trend. The film contains a surprising number of poetic touches and grace notes, and it also — in a “meta” move fitting for a time-travel movie — retroactively casts the rest of the MCU into something of a poetic form. Of course, like so many of its predecessors in this massive franchise of franchises, Endgame is still a seriously flawed film — and likely never could have been anything but flawed. Even so, I would argue Endgame is one of the finest films in the MCU, mainly because of its poetry.

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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Review for FilmFisher)

I have dreaded writing this review ever since I left the theater, and don’t think I will get much enjoyment out of it. There is no pleasure to be had in speaking against a group of artists whose work you have always enjoyed — and even been shaped by — in the past. Some take out their frustration on a bad film by hurling ever more clever and cruel epithets at it and its creators, as if to try and get even for an offense. I can relate, and I’m guilty, too. Bad films tend to insult my intelligence, offend my beliefs, take advantage of my goodwill, or all the above. But while I could easily respond with similar invectives, I will refrain out of my respect for writer J. K. Rowling, director David Yates, and their company of talented cast and crew members. I know they have done great work in the past, and I maintain the hope that they may yet do better — at least better than this. (Indeed, as a Christian called to love all his neighbors as God’s image-bearers unconditionally, I should refrain from heaping scorn on any artist, regardless of whether I esteem their previous work or not.)

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In Search of True Justice: A Conversation on the Dark Knight Trilogy (Article for FilmFisher, Co-Written with Timothy Lawrence)

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight – still the unchallenged zenith of bold and brainy blockbuster filmmaking in the 21st century – turned 10 years old this summer. FilmFisher’s own Joel Bourgeois just published a retrospective on the film, and doubtless there are dozens if not hundreds of similar appreciations and analyses popping up all over the internet – and rightly so. However, this is also an ideal time to revisit and discuss The Dark Knight’s less popular and less accomplished older and younger siblings, Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Certainly, The Dark Knight is by far the best of the trilogy, but even so, it is all the more striking when framed between the bookends of its prequel and sequel. Taken together, in themes and in story beats, Begins and Rises form a rhyming pair to contrast with The Dark Knight’s singular line – the three form an A-B-A rhyme scheme, if you will. To change the metaphor, the first and third films are like major chords placed before and after the dissonant minor chord of the second film. The hopeful ending of the first film deepens the tragedy of the second, and the third film brings needed resolution and closure.

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An Ode to Po: Celebrating Goodness in the Kung Fu Panda Trilogy (Article for FilmFisher)

How’s this for a youth group or team meeting icebreaker: If you could bring one action hero to life, in the belief that their existence in the real world would make it a better place, who would you choose?

Actually, let’s make the question more challenging: If you could bring one action hero to life, solely on the basis of their character, not their fighting skills, who would you choose?

My answer is that — if someone in the room has already picked the Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire iteration of Spider-Man — I would choose Po the Panda from DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda trilogy.

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Ant-Man and the Wasp (Review for FilmFisher)

When the first Ant-Man was released three summers ago, it was a refreshing breeze that aired out an increasingly stuffy and stultifying superhero atmosphere. After the previous four MCU entries all ended with a large population barely escaping decimation from some magic stone or tech-turned-terror — and especially after the heady philosophy, jumbled plotting, and visual mayhem of Age of Ultron — it was a relief and a delight to watch a game cast and a novel superpower excel in the service of a simple yet emotionally resonant story. After original director Edgar Wright was replaced by Peyton Reed, apocalyptic predictions ensued, and Ant-Man dropped from being the most anticipated Marvel film to the least. Those lowered expectations, and its own modest aims, actually worked in the film’s favor. While in hindsight I would argue that Age of Ultron was the better Marvel film that summer, there is something praise-worthy about any film that recognizes what it is, accepts what it is not, and then proceeds with quiet confidence to be itself.  

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Inside A Scene: The Bourne Supremacy (Article for FilmFisher)

I’m going to cheat a little and write about two scenes. When Timothy asked if I could write an article for FilmFisher’s “Inside a Scene” series, I automatically thought of the Moscow apartment scene at the end of Paul Greengrass’ 2004 espionage-thriller sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. I’ve always been intrigued and moved by this scene, and it continues to be one of the reasons why I’d argue that Supremacy is much more than a serviceable genre exercise. The Bourne trilogy is typically remembered as the brainy, grounded alternative to James Bond, as an action-hero vehicle for Matt Damon, as the proving ground for Paul Greengrass’ later critical hits (United 93, Captain Phillips), or as the series that either reinvigorated Hollywood action films or ruined them forever, depending on who you ask. However, I don’t think there’s been as much discussion about how the trilogy — especially Supremacy, the middle film — is rooted in ex-assassin Jason Bourne’s very human struggle to change his ways and make restitution for past sins. This is what elevates The Bourne Supremacy and makes the quiet and understated apartment scene — not a car chase or fistfight — the high point of the franchise.

However, as I began to revisit the film in my mind, I realized that the scene between Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and Irena Neski (Oksana Akinshina), though powerful in itself, is even more significant when viewed as the mirror image — in purpose, staging, visuals, and themes — of an earlier scene: the Berlin hotel room scene between Ward Abbott (Brian Cox) and Pamela Landy (Joan Allen). The two scenes are halves of a single, cohesive unit.

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Peace In Our Time: A Conversation on Marvel and Star Wars (Article for FilmFisher, Co-Written with Timothy Lawrence)

The premise of this conversation is that there are a number of intriguing similarities between the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU for short) and what I’ll call the Star Wars Revival. Hollywood is obsessed with creating cinematic universes right now, and the obsession began with the success of Marvel’s multi-film set-up of the 2012 blockbuster hit, The Avengers. However, so far the only other attempted cinematic universe that has been able to imitate Marvel’s financial and critical success has been the return of Star Wars to the big screen, beginning with 2015’s The Force Awakens.

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Avengers: Infinity War (Review for FilmFisher)

I’m going to hazard a generalization. Whenever a new Marvel movie hits theaters—or for that matter any film based on an Intellectual Property™ with a zealous fanbase—the critical responses congregate overwhelmingly in two opposing camps. The first group is the professional critics, the serious auteurs, and the intellectual viewers who decry Marvel as a prime suspect in the corporatization of filmmaking and the infantilization of audiences. The second group is the aforementioned zealous fans, a number of whom grew up reading the comics and are ecstatic that their beloved heroes are no longer only two-dimensional drawings on panels but also (real or CGI) flesh-and-blood giants on IMAX screens. I’m sure there are some fans who don’t like the homogenizing cost of Marvel’s entry into the cultural mainstream, but overall it seems fans are grateful that the rest of the world has finally caught up with them and now embraces what was once niche and only for nerds. Whereas the first group prophesies the death of cinema, the second longs with eschatological fervor for every new chapter and sees a bright future. The first dismisses the second as shallow. The second dismisses the first as snobbish.

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Brother Bear (Review for FilmFisher)

I’ll begin with the bold claim that Brother Bear is one of the finest animated films Disney has produced in the past quarter century. At least, it is one of their most underrated and unappreciated. 

Granted, I tend to favor a handful of Disney’s supposed flops over a number of their “canonical” hits. I tend to root for underdogs, and perhaps I’m too loyal to films that left a deep impression on me in my childhood. Even so, I will attempt to make a case for the film’s greatness, not for the sake of nostalgia or to be contrarian, but because I believe the film’s craftsmanship, and the surprising richness of its many thematic preoccupations, ought to be recognized and discussed.

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