Godzilla 2014 Eval

Okay, this is going to be very, very short because I don't want to give anything away.

I saw the new Godzilla movie.  I thought it was okay.

I loved Alexander Desplat's score, and I loved the special effects—there were plenty of moments where I jumped in my seat, or was in awe of how freaking amazing Godzilla was.  I liked the fact that a good portion of the movie was set in Japan and I liked Ken Watanabe's character a lot—I even liked his assistant.  They felt more real than typical hollywood scientists.

But I also liked Bryan Cranston's character a LOT, and I really wish he'd gotten more screen time.  Just as I wish Godzilla had gotten more screen time.  Like, seriously, I needed more Godzilla.  I feel like the movie started the kaiju hunt and never stopped to let me really wallow in how bad the situation was.  I also disliked the ending.  I will only forgive the ending if they make a sequel and have Godzilla lay waste to EVERYTHING.

Review: "The Fifth Estate"

So I recently watched the Dreamworks production "The Fifth Estate", which is loosely based on the books WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by the Guardian and Inside WikiLeaks by Daniel Domscheit-Berg:  I think I made my obsession interest with the website fairly clear back in October (if you haven't read the post, clear an hour of your time to do so); I think it's safe to say that I didn't go into this film flying blind.  And I feel pretty confident about what I liked and didn't like about it.

So, without further ado, I give you my critique:

The movie starts off on the right foot; it begins at the end, in the center of the chaos that is the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents, and it forces the audience to wonder "How did things ever get to this point?"

I can't think of a better way to begin such a movie, myself. It's sort of a no-brainer:  Being such recent history, the publication isn't a spoiler, and there's no way to get the audience excited about the movie to come without a lot of visible excitement.

Once the movie flashes back to 2007, though . . .

. . . it's all slush.

To begin with, the script was weak.  If you frequent WikiLeaks at all, you may be aware of a draft of the script that was leaked to the site and published there in full (along with plenty of commentary pointing out the film's inaccuracies).  Bill Condon, the director, addressed this in an interview prior to release, saying that the script bore little resemblance to the final draft that was used for filming.  Spoiler Alert:  He was lying.  The draft on WikiLeaks and the draft used in the movie are very, very similar.  I mean, some things were deleted, yes—the movie does not feature a scene with Assange idly sucking on a lemon—but nothing of significance.  If I'm perfectly honest, I have to say that Assange did moviegoers a favor leaking that script.

And, unfortunately, it's even worse in execution than in print.  The storytelling is messy, disorienting, and yet dull all at once.  It is genuinely hard to care about what's going on.  About forty minutes into the movie I found myself wondering, "Is it halfway through?" and then before the ninety minute mark had to restrain myself from skipping ahead.  The filmmakers took the story of WikiLeaks—WikiLeaks!!!—and made me not want to watch it.  That's not just embarrassing, that's criminal.

I think part of the problem is that no one in charge knew what they wanted the movie to be.  You watch it and wonder what it's really about.  Obviously it's not a documentary, and it's not supposed to be a judgment on Assange or his organization—so what is it?  Is it a thriller about whistleblowers versus big government?  Is it a bromance-gone-bad between Assange and Domscheit-Berg?  Is it a historical drama about political activism, freedom of speech, and/or the transparency movement?

No.  It's none of these things.  The movie is advertised as a thriller, but you can't really believe that—nor should you—given that the real action, up until the big finale, occurs in cyberspace.  And the story, more or less, is about two idealistic but very naïve computer nerds who go about exposing corruption till they bite off more than they can chew and the whole thing blows up in their faces—but that's okay because they've also unwittingly opened the door for a new era of journalism, a "fifth estate".

Right from the beginning you have a problem, and that's in the portrayal of the characters.  Assange and Domscheit-Berg (then Berg) are neither true to history nor believable on their own.  You see, the movie paints them as idealists—especially Berg—with little grasp of the repercussions their leaks could have.  It might work, and even be exciting, if they were in their early twenties.  But they're not, they're in their late thirties.  Grown men—the sort of men who ran WikiLeaks in real life—should understand the gravity of the situation.  It's an insult to the work of both Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg to depict them as clueless romantics.  The men who went up against Julius Baer, the church of Scientology and Kaupthing knew the weight of the risks involved, but went ahead anyway; that's part of the reason the real thing is more exciting than the movie.  It's almost as though the director, or writer, or whomever responsible didn't appreciate the consideration or strategy that went into WikiLeaks.  Plenty of geeks can set up a website; it takes cunning to defend it against international attacks.

The character problems are also a big part of what makes the movie so hard to follow thematically.  Because the director, short of deciding what the movie should be, focuses almost exclusively on avoiding what it shouldn't:  Judging Assange.

It's a noble goal; if you're going to create a movie based on someone not only influential but still living, you should make some effort to portray them objectively.  What you should not do, however, is drive this idea into the ground till the character is inscrutable and inconsistent.

Certain things Assange does in the movie come straight from firsthand accounts, such as eating with his hands and then wiping them on his trousers, but other things are completely bogus.  Within a day of meeting Berg face to face, for example, he intimates an incredibly depressing anecdote in casual conversation.  The real Assange is known to share unnerving information about himself, often with the media, but it's almost always as a means of being funny or making himself sound more interesting, not to garner sympathy.  But the writer had to explain Assange's background somehow, and I guess flashbacks were just too difficult to work into the story.

But if the story is so important, why does it feel like so many scenes were written in with no other purpose but to put Assange in a sympathetic light?  And why do they have to be so inconsistent?  I mean, one minute he's telling Berg to buy a crypto phone, like he knows there's danger, and then the next he's horribly shocked that two of his associates are killed, as though it comes as a genuine surprise that there are risks involved.  And what was up with the whole dyeing-his-hair thing???

Is telling the real story of WikiLeaks so scary that it can't be done without leaving out anything that might spark a debate, or inventing things about the main character to keep him "balanced"?  A word of advice, then, to the filmmakers:  Next time you want to create a movie that won't upset anyone, DON'T BASE IT ON JULIAN ASSANGE.

"I know the film intends to depict me and my work in a negative light.
I believe it will distort events and subtract from public understanding."—Julian Assange

I can't fathom what the writer, or the director, were thinking.  I mean, do they have any storytelling talent?  Can't they tell when anything feels wrong??  Did they just not care???  Or did Assange somehow convince them to make a terrible movie just so he could talk smack about something?

. . . Actually, that sort of makes sense, considering how bored he must be right now.  (But I doubt he'd have the funds.)

Not all is terrible about the movie, though.  The visual analogies of the old WikiLeaks submission platform are interesting, and Carter Burwell's score is excellent—especially the piece played during the end scene.  And Benedict Cumberbatch is right to receive so much praise for playing Assange.

I still question the decision to cast him—his face is just so narrow—but if you can relax and watch the show without trying to reconcile Cumberbleach's profile to that of his character, the accuracy of the performance will sneak up on you.  Cumberbatch is already established as a master of body language, but the fact is especially clear portraying Assange.  And I'm not just referring to Assange's persistent blinking.  (If he couldn't duplicate that, the casting director would have to be shot.)  It's the walk, the poise, the shrug, the hand gestures, etc.  With little to no help from the script (or his own physicality), Cumberbatch captures the essence of his subject.

The best scene in the movie, by far, is the last one—and no, not just because it is the last.  The scene takes place in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange reflects on his situation, and the "WikiLeaks movie" to a silent, off-screen interviewer.  It allows movie-Assange to give real-Assange's views on the movie, which is an interesting (if creepy) irony; the music is perfect, both heartbreaking and haunting; and Cumberbatch has the floor for the entirety of the scene, giving a monologue on the real-life topics that make the story of WikiLeaks so interesting.  So it's all the strengths and none of the weaknesses.  The finale of the movie might have been botched, but at least the conclusion was well done.  Meh.

Sherlock, S3 Review

I've come to the conclusion that I must be the weirdest person on the planet.

Because the third series of Sherlock currently has a rating of 97% fresh from Rotten Tomatoes, and I find myself out in the cold with the missing 3%.

—Warning.  Spoilers for Series Three.—

Now, I liked the Empty Hearse.  The Fall theories were brilliantly funny (I did catch on in the first run:  I can accept bungee cords, if the writers are desperate, and even masks, but Sherlock did not kiss Molly.  That will never happen and if it does I'm tuning in to a different channel.)  The reunion was everything it needed to be and more.  (Special praise goes to Martin Freeman, who was absolutely riveting in his reactions, and to Amanda Abbington, who was charming and lovable.)  I also loved the scene with Mycroft and Sherlock, in which we get a brief, subtle, poignant look into what sets Sherlock apart from the rest of his family.  The mystery wasn't terrific, but it wasn't bad, either; and I it set my teeth on edge that Sherlock's ending apology proved a feint, but all in all it was great to see Sherlock come back.  It felt like old times . . .

. . . Except it wasn't.

Some people, I understand, enjoyed The Sign of Three.  And some of us did not.  I enjoyed parts of it, but I was still aching for a good case.  Not only were the mysteries in the episode below average, Sherlock's detective skills were sorely lacking.  I might have been able to forgive him for being an eccentric idiot throughout the wedding reception if it weren't for the fact that he got even worse when a potential murder presented itself.  You'd think he'd suddenly become cool, confident, and awesome—the Holmes we all remember from A Study in Pink and A Scandal in Belgravia—but no, he scampers around like a bonehead making goofy freudian slips and generally making a fool of himself.  The ending felt contrived and Major Sholto's presence totally out of place.  It was the first time I ever watched an episode of Sherlock and wanted to walk out early.  It wasn't a good feeling.

Then there was His Last Vow.  It was . . . gosh, I dunno.  It kept me engaged, I guess.  CAM was definitely a good villain.  He added a lot of dimension.  . . . And then Sherlock shot him.  So I guess we'll never get to find out what sort of character development he could have provoked.

Okay, my real problem with the last two episodes is that they feel like they're just there to appease fans. We keep getting reminded of past jokes, like Sherlock not knowing Lestrade's first name, just because they turned out to be funny once.  I wish the writers would go back to making things good for their own sake instead of pandering to what has become popular.

Moffat, Gatiss, let me fill you in on a little secret:  Fans are idiots.  We spend months and months pining after fictional characters and waste hours writing ridiculous fan fiction and pointless reviews like this just to feel a connection to something cooler than ourselves.  So stop feeding the fans and go back to making ART.

Series One and Two were so gorgeously intelligent and original.  They were insightful and passionate and made you think.  Sherlock Holmes was a genius who gloried in the mechanics of logic and reason and made you want to be just like him—or, you know, to marry him.  Now he's an emotional retard with some observational skills.  It sickens me.

Remember A Study in Pink?  Remember, when Sherlock and John first met, how he knew all about his sister?  I watched Sherlock tell John all about himself and thought, "The writers are bluffing.  Nobody could be that clever."  And then it turned out that he could.  Tan lines, some casual conversation, and one look at a man's phone.  That was all it took.  It quickly became very clear:  This isn't some american CSI, identifying that one unique speck of that one unique substance conveniently dotting your collar and testing it in a lab to find one isolated clue.  This is Sherlock Freaking Holmes.  The man who can see the mundane minutiae, put it all together, and piece together your life's story without batting an eye.

But now, apparently, it's just funny to watch Sherlock be stupid.  "Oh, look, he still can't figure out Lestrade's first name even though he would've made a point of remembering it ages ago to save face after his first mistake!  Haha!"  "Oh, look, Sherlock thinks he's helping John and doesn't even realize Mary's manipulating both of them to get them on a case, isn't it cute."  "Haha, Sherlock didn't even know Mrs. Hudson was the one who brought him tea every morning."  It's a miracle this guy has managed to solve anything.  What's next, a fez?  All my life I've been searching for distractions!  And Sherlock was the best distraction and now I don't even have it!  Because it's gone commercial!

In short, the writers have broken my heart and left me wondering why everything has to be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator.  What, was A Scandal in Belgravia too subtle for everyone?  Were there some people in the back row going, "Uhhhhh, why's his phone make that noise?"  Was The Hounds of Baskerville too original?  The Reichenbach Fall too involved?  I'm starting to think they're just complete sell-outs.  Especially with their joke, "You should put that on a T-shirt"—you know, the moment they say it, fans will be out to buy/create said T-shirt.  It's cheap and disgusting.

Hopefully someone will be able to stimulate some brainpower in our hero next series. . .