Tag Archives: Kick-ass!

AUFDRUCK (LABEL)

Last month, we got a Facebook message from a very brave filmmaker. Jaschar L Marktanner invited us to watch and review his short film, voluntarily facing the wrath of not one but three admitted Assholes. How fun it would be to pan AUFDRUCK (LABEL in English), from a writer-director so boldly putting themself in the hot seat.

Imagine my disappointment when I actually enjoyed it. LABEL is only four minutes long so a spoiler-free description is a unique challenge for me as a reviewer. I think (and hope) that Jaschar won’t mind me telling you that it’s shot in black and white, which is an excellent choice, partly because it adds to the French New Wave feel. In their first IMDB credits, Kira Mathis and Mary Krasnoperova play two women in a coffee shop describing a mutual acquaintance as a “son of a bitch”. Labelling and complaining with a friend over coffee may seem like a pretty universal experience but it soon becomes clear that these women use the label pretty liberally, as the conversation becomes more and more absurd.

LABEL is funny, gradually upping the ridiculousness as it follows the structure of a really good comedy sketch. Marktanner’s film has more to offer than just laughs though with what I read as an effective critique of modern fatalism. I am happy to report, however, that he has generously given this Asshole one thing to grumble about. Speaking no German, I was forced to watch LABEL with English subtitles which were colour-coded depending on who was speaking. I found the dark red to be difficult to read against the black and white background. Once or twice, I had to pause it to avoid missing a single word. There, I said it.

Overall, LABEL is well worth your time and I am grateful to Jaschar for sharing it with us.

The Big Short

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If you were one of the many Ron Burgundy fans who felt let down by Anchorman 2, the movie to blame is finally here. Adam McKay, Head Writer at Saturday Night Live during the late 90s and the director of all the most Will Ferrelly of Will Ferrell movies, was not the obvious choice to adapt such a serious book as The Big Short and reportedly only agreed to write a second Anchorman to sweeten the deal.

The Big Short, which I have not read, was written by Michael Lewis and documents the story of the small group of people who foresaw the collapse of the housing market in 2007 and took a giant gamble by betting against the banks. Now, I’ve seen Inside Job, 2010’s Oscar-winning documentary about the financial crisis and I’ve seen Wolf of Wall Street but still manage to get my dividends and my CDIs mixed up. With Inside Job going so far over my head, I couldn’t help but wonder how a writer best known for “Go fuck yourself, San Diego” would handle such potentially confusing material.

It turns out that McKay is the right guy to make a financial crisis movie for someone as financially illiterate as I am. He consistently finds creative ways to pause to explain the trickier concepts, often by breaking the fourth wall with outrageous celebrity cameos of which I wouldn’t dare spoil the surprise. There are enough jokes, often poking fun at the conventions of movies that are “based on a true story”, to hold our attention better than Inside Out or Wolf or Wall Street could hope to without ever abandoning the appropriate level of outrage at how so much greed could cause so much suffering.

How Hollywood could make a movie- a comedy no less- from Lewis’ book wasn’t the only reason to be curious about McKay’s film. It also boasts one of 2015’s most intriguing casts. Brad Pitt, one of The Big Short’s producers, has the smallest role of the four names above the title but stands out for his uncharacteristicallyy understated performance. I didn’t even recognize him in the preview. (I thought he was Peter Dinklage). I couldn’t help noticing though that casting himself as the one guy who gets that “this is just not right” is becoming a bit of a self-serving habit of his. (See: 12 Years a Slave). Ryan Gosling, last seen in 2013’s Only God Forgives, makes his triumphant return to the big screen. As Jared Vennett, he channels all the handsome-and-he-knows-it smugness that we saw in Crazy Stupid Love and The Ides of March. Come to think of it, he’s versatile enough to have played pretty much any of the major characters so his talents may have been better served with a better part but he plays it well and has some really funny lines.

Christian Bale and Steve Carrell- believe it or not- are competing for the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Golden Globe. Bale plays Michael Burry, the brilliant hedge fund manager with Asperger’s who loves to air drum. He’s good but has been better. He plays the eccentric genius a little like he did the eccentric in American Hustle but he has some strong scenes, especially when he starts to let his humility show towards the end. It’s Carrell, though, who steals the show. With the other characters so impressed with their own coolnees or brilliance and so focused on how much money they’re going to make if their gamble pays off, Carrell brings the humanity. He plays money manager Mark Baum, based on Steve Eisman. He’s had it out for the banks ever since his brother lost all his money and jumped off the roof of a highrise. (I’m not sure if that happened to Eisman or not). His shock and anger is palpable in every scene. Because he’s played by Steve Carrell, he’s still funny. But McKay counts on him to remind us that, while laughing at the stupidity and recklessness of Wall Street can be a lot of fun, a lot of real people got hurt.

I’ll be cheering for him on Sunday.

The Hateful Eight!!!!!!!!

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Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has a date with a hangman’s noose and bounty hunter John Ruth, “The Hangman” (Kurt Russell), isn’t letting anyone stand in the way of his ten thousand dollar reward. Just to be safe, he’s got her chained to his wrist at all times and, to show her who’s boss, decks her any time she gives him any sass. Making their way through a blizzard, their stagecoach happens on a stranger stranded on the road: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson). “Got room for one more?” asks Marquis.

So begins The Hateful Eight, the eighth film from Quentin Tarantino. As the storm intensifies, Marquis and The Hangman are forced to wait it out in a tiny lodge with six other strangers. (It’s unclear to me which of these 9 Tarantino is excluding from being “Hateful”). I won’t attempt to describe the story that Tarantino weaves any further. No one in Hollywood tells a story quite like Quentin and for me to try to summarize the chain of events that follows in Minnie’s Haberdashery just wouldn’t be right. It’s best just to watch and let it unfold.

If you’ve been following the drama surrounding the 8th film from Quentin Tarantino, you may know that Daisy, Marquis, and The Hangman almost didn’t get to meet in snowy Wyoming. After a draft of the Hateful Eight script leaked online in early 2014, Tarantino felt so wounded that he vowed not to continue with the project. He got over it quick though. His enthusiasm was renewed three months later after a live read with the cast in Los Angeles.

His enthusiasm is contagious. I was almost giddy with excitement through the opening chapters of The Hateful Eight. It’s hard to tell quite where any Tarantino film is heading and the early scenes- with such wit, tension, and restraint- were full of promise. With each new character that he introduced, the more exciting and suspenseful the movie gets. Set in a confined space filled with people who can’t fully trust each other, The Hateful Eight is a welcome reminder of what it was like to see Resevoir Dogs for the first time. The first half is so deliberately paced that it’s tempting to think of it as the director’s most grown up film yet, tricking me into a false sense of security that left me completely unprepared for the second half.

Once the blood finally begins to spill, The Hateful Eight shows its true colours. By the end of its three-hour running time, Tarantino’s eighth film has revealed itself as his darkest, blood-thirstiest, meanest, nastiest and most pessimistic since Resevoir Dogs, a drastic shift from the tone of Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained. I still count The Hateful Eight among the best of both Quentin’s filmography and of 2015. But the enthusiasm that I felt for the first half of the film was mostly gone by the time I left the theater. I left feeling a little disheartened and even a little guilty for the briliant bit of sadism that I participated in by watching it.

Have you seen The Hateful Eight yet? Does it rank among Tarantino’s harshest or am I just getting soft?

The Revenant

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Jay: Zohmyfucking god have I ever been waiting a long time to see this movie.

Sean: It’s been a very long wait. This has been one I’ve been looking forward to all year, and the wait has increased my expectations, which were already sky-high!

Jay: The premise of this movie is pretty simple: a bunch of frontiersmen are out in the frigid north, hunting pelts. Native Americans attack. Everyone flees behind Hugh Glass (Leo), The Guy Who Knows The Land. Except Glass gets half-eaten by a bear. So then the men have a difficult choice to make: carry a stretcher over torturous, snowy terrain but retain their navigator (when he’s conscious), or put him out of his misery, lighten their load, but risk getting lost or wandering straight into enemy territory. Glass’s son is understandably on #TeamGlass but John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) is more #TeamFuckHim. But don’t underestimate DiCaprio: he’ll get his revenge, even if has to crawl on broken legs and light his own neck on fire to do it.

Sean: I was on my own team: #TeamHolyShitThisIsAwesome! And I was all in.

Jay: This movie is balls-to-the-wall intense. It’s so relentlessly brutal, for more than two and a half hours, that it wasn’t until the 3 hour mark that I began to ask myself if it was good.

Sean: The momentum of The Revenant is absolutely unstoppable. It sweeps you up in its frenzy so that you don’t even get to think “big picture” until it’s over. It’s like a bear attack that way!

Jay: Well I can tell you right now: it’s beautiful. Stupid gorgeous. The vistas that they found in both Alberta and British Columbia are worth the crappy, harsh conditions the crew endured for the shoot. And these sweeping, stunning backdrops are a genius juxtaposition to the utter bleakness that is going on for the characters. It’s like heaven and hell on the screen at the same time.

Sean: I was struck by the beauty of the vistas as well and felt the same way as you did about them. They provide such a wonderful contrast between the bleakness facing Leo in his journey from worse, to even worse, to absolute hell. There was a quiet and peace about the wilderness that restores us, paces us, and upon reflection, ties into Leo’s story more than I realized at first glance. Is this peace and calm perhaps coming from Leo’s soulmate? At any rate, there’s something spiritual about the connection between the land and our protagonist, and I am still trying to unpack all that we saw. It all felt so god damned meaningful and important.

Jay: Whoa. Did you just italicize meaningful and important? This from the guy who dumped on Star Wars but praised Will Farrell’s new movie Daddy’s Home? Anyway. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki decided to shoot this movie entirely in natural light, which sometimes results in a picture dripping in golden sunshine, other times awash in the stark reflection of sun on snow, sometimes just a very small flame casting shadows on Leo’s busted face. It was a bold decision that meant very short shooting days (the sun takes forever to rise and sets so damn early during our Canadian winters) and an extended shooting schedule that forced Tom Hardy to lose out on Suicide Squad, and it caused Inarritu to forfeit film and shoot on digital since the former just couldn’t handle dim lighting. But it was worth it. Lubezki has won back to back Oscars for his work (Gravity, Birdman): can he threepeat? Can he not? This movie’s just soaked in glorious authenticity that made it difficult for me to breathe for 156 long minutes. It’s striking to me how different those three movies are from each other – Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant – and what flexibility and mastery Lubezki must have to have painted each world so beautifully and precisely.

Sean: The differences between this and Birdman were on my mind as well. This is not the movie I expected and it’s a completely different feel than either Gravity or Birdman. It’s night and day. The imagery in all three is incredible and what is most amazing to me is that these are not at all similar – they are each their own masterpiece. Inarritu gives us something new, again, and I wasn’t expecting that he could possibly be capable of that. I may not have connected with Birdman as much as you did, but it was such a unique piece of filmmaking that I did not think Inarritu would be able to come back with something that feels this fresh and unique.

Jay: Well I do remember us fighting about Birdman last year (I guess Star Wars is this year’s Birdman) but at any rate I’m glad we both fell in love with this one. It’s so awkward when we don’t.

Inarritu’s direction is amazing. From the very first attack scene (that makes the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan feel like a pillow fight), the camera swirls around the way a panicked eye would, taking in surroundings choppily, and a little too quickly. It ratchets up the anxiety in us: where is the danger? Where’s in coming from? Where is safety? Where is the enemy? How do we get out? The wide lenses make this shit immersive, so like it or not, you’re getting dragged into the fray (and thank you, Inarritu, for not making me wear 3D glasses to get this effect). But the camera can also be quite intimate: sometimes just Leo’s anguished face, the hand-held camera so close it gets condensation from his breath. But it’s this intimacy which also makes the movie’s craziest scene, the bear attack, its most interesting, and its most ballsy. Our mind knows we should never be this close to a bear, and definitely not a bear as angry as this one. We see Leo’s blood on her teeth and how many inches of claw get sunk into his flesh. ~~Both of them are sweating~~. The three of us are sweating! It’s the most brutal thing, unrelenting thing I’ve seen in a long time and I couldn’t look away (warning: the audio alone is nightmare-inducing).

Sean: When we are dragged into this world, we see and feel the terror that the characters are dealing with. The Revenant is such a visceral experience from beginning to end. The camera work sucks the viewer in so much I was short of breath at times. The bear attack in particular is just spectacular in its intimacy. You are right there with Leo, you are shouting at him to stay down. Literally, Jay, you were shouting! And how could you not when it feels so real?

Jay: Yes, I was shouting. Sorry, Ottawa. But seriously, Leo should learn to take my advice. Remember that, Sean: I was right. But let’s talk about what really matters: will Cinderella finally find her glass slipper? Leo’s been invited to the ball 5 times, but has never taken home a statue come Oscar night. Will this finally be his year? Leo’s as ferocious as the bear, and maybe more so, in this role. He’s committed, and you can see it in his darting bloodshot eyes and his flaking, chapped lips. I can’t shut out Tom Hardy, because he’s stellar also; reunited again since appearing in Inception, Leo begged and convinced Hardy to take the role and though they may be friends and respect each other as colleagues in real life, in this movie there is a fascinating hatred between them that reminded me of Leo and Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. Hardy looks dodgy and cornered every bit of the way. But this is undeniably Leo’s film – it’s his bloody trail we’re following. Since he takes a bear to the throat early on in the film, a good portion of the film is nearly dialogue-free, just grunts and bellows and silent agony. It’s unlike anything you’ve seen before from him (and I’m not even talking about the bear rape rumour). If he gets the Oscar, it won’t be a “sorry we missed you last time” make-up award, it’ll be legit. He’s earning it on every frame.

Sean: Leo has to get the Oscar. HAS TO. He’s masterful. He doesn’t even need words here. Tom Hardy better be nominated for supporting actor as well. Give him something! He’s had an incredible year and he’s another guy who is so versatile, so absorbed in this role that I would not have recognized him unless I was looking for him. He’s a force of nature in this movie. Both of them are and the anticipation of their final showdown builds to a point where it can’t possibly live up to what you are expecting, and then it does!

Jay: Did I love this movie? Yes I did. Did I nearly die from a heart attack watching it? Yes I did. Is it perfect? No it is not.

Sean: The Revenant isn’t perfect but it’s so forceful and committed, I didn’t care. I still don’t. It exceeded my expectations, I loved every minute and I’m still trying to digest it all. It’s such a tough movie to take but I think that’s what I liked best about it.

Jay: You interrupted me, dear. I wasn’t finished. I think the problem that I had with the movie is that it was straight revenge saga. And I get that this is the wild, wild west where punishment is doled out swiftly, savagely, without the law or due process. But Glass was a husband and a father and something of maverick. Was there really nothing to him but revenge lust? Actually, Inarritu’s attempt at spirituality, if I may call it that, with the ghostly visitations and whatnot, was my least favourite part. The movie is so grounded and real that those apparitions felt jarring and unnecessary.

But that’s in retrospect. And you’ll need retrospect up the wazoo in order to come to terms with the movie. While watching, you’re just holding on for dear life, and all that desperate grasping for survival on-screen makes your life seem all the more dear when it’s over.

“Pew, made it!” I said as the credits rolled.

“Who did?” Sean asked.

“I did!” I said. Yes, I did.

One Proud Canadian at the Whistler Film Festival

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If you’ve glanced at our chaotic Comments section on Jay’s Golden Globes post, you may have noticed that I am a big supporter of Todd Haynes’ Carol, which had its Canadian premiere at the opening gala of this year’s Whistler Film Festival. It was the best by far of the films I saw at the festival but- my love for this Hollywood indie aside- I am as proud as I am surprised to announced that the Canadian films I saw outshone every other American entry. Here are my thoughts on the three most pleasant surprises from my side of the border.

I don’t know why why I was so surprised that How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town was exactly what it sounds like. Maybe knowing that it was Canadian, I was expecting it to be more polite and restrained. But, no, the second sex comedy from director Jeremy Lalonde does not skimp on the orgy. Having been labelled the town slut as a teenager, sex columnist and closet virgin Cassie returns to her conservative small town for her mother’s funeral. No one is particularly happy to see her until several townspeople- each one having reasons of their own- decide they need to have an orgy and beg her to facilitate it for them. Lalonde, on hand to introduce the film and to answer audience questions, packs Cassie’s living room with likable characters you’d never experience to show up to an orgy. The implausibility of the situation- especially that they’d keep coming back after every increasingly hilarious false start, is part of the fun. The jokes are mostly lowbrow (a montage of cum faces being one highlight) but rarely cross the line into juvenility.

In The Steps, Marla (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Jeff (Jason Ritter) are brother and sister living in New York who are called to their estranged father’s (James Brolin) cottage in Ontario to meet his new Canadian wife Sherry (Christine Lahti) and her three kids. Truthfully, things haven’t been going great for Jeff lately. He’s lost his fancy New York job and his fancy New York girlfriend and he watches a little too much porn. But that doesn’t stop him from judging the shit out of his new step family; Sherry loves lame icebreaker games, David (Benjamin Arthur) owns the third largest paintball course in the province and loves hair metal and Nicolas Cage movies, Keith (Steve McCarthy) is a depressed former indie rock musician, and Sam (Vinay Virmany) keeps sneaking away to smoke pot. Obviously, this isn’t going to be one big happy family right away but (spoiler alert) they’ll be backing each other up in bar fights in no time. Obviously, it’s hard to watch this movie without knowing where it’s going and each character seems plucked from the Handbook for Movies About Dysfunctional Families. But the casting, both in how they inhabit their own characters as well as how they interact with the others, is bang on. It got big laughs from a small 9 am crowd at Whistler and was well worth getting up so early for.

The Steps was a perfect example of how a familiar story, when told well, can feel new. This is just as true of Forsaken, which had its Western Canada premiere at the festival. Kiefer Sutherland (who stood like 20 feet from me when introducing the film) plays gunslinger John Henry Clayton who returns home to his Reverend father (Donald Sutherland, sharing the screen with his son for the first time). As a pacifist, Rev. Clayton is none too happy to see his boy and is skeptical that he is sincere in his vow to hang up his guns for good. John Henry’s abstinence from the way of the gun is tested when some bullies ride into town forcing people off their land and threaten his long-lost love (Demi Moore).

They don’t make westerns like this anymore. Forsaken is neither revisionist nor homage. Instead, it follows the tradition of the great westerns of the 50s that understood the excitement of watching a hero getting his revenge just as well as they did the importance of making us wait for it. John Henry takes a lot of abuse and witnesses a lot of injustice before finally unleashing hell. We’ve seen this character before and know how it’s all going to turn out but it’s fun to see it all play out, especially with first-time feature director Jon Cassar taking his time with telling the story. If there’s one thing Kiefer knows , it’s how to play a killer who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in and plays John Henry with just the right mix of badass and bashful. Both Sutherlands play their parts well, although the accent Kiefer tries out in some scenes doesn’t suit him, and the two are at their best when onscreen together. Even more effortless, however, are the bad guys played by the great Brian Cox, Sean’s high school buddy Aaron Poole, and the amazing but underrated Michael Wincott. It’s a blast watching these three be despicable and even more fun knowing that, by the end, their uppance will come.

Daddy’s Home

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One of the things that made Will Ferrell so great on Saturday Night Live was his versatility. For every out-there cheerleader, there was a guy who drove a Dodge Stratus (for the record, the Dodge Stratus guy is one of my all-time favourites, the cheerleaders, not so much). But even the Dodge Stratus guy ended up being over-the-top, you just didn’t know it at first. The one thing we never really saw was low-key Will Ferrell.

His movie roles continued that trend with only one or two exceptions (like Stranger than Fiction and judging from the trailer, Bewitched). Of course, with those low-key movies being flops, in almost everything else we have gotten from Ferrell he’s a cartoon (Anchorman, Zoolander, Blades of Glory), a cliche (Get Hard, The Other Guys, A Deadly Adoption), or both (Semi-Pro, Talladega Nights). And more often than not, those movies have disappointed.

With all that in mind, and especially in light of the awfulness that was Get Hard, my expectations for Daddy’s Home could not have been lower, because a half-assed Will Ferrell riff on a loser step-dad is one of the least-funny characters I could picture.

But you know what? Will Ferrell’s step-dad in Daddy’s Home isn’t a cartoon or a cliche. Maybe he’s a bit of a loser but he’s also a sweet and genuine guy that is loved by everyone around him (even his step-kids are warming up to him). And then the kids’ sleazy, deadbeat biological dad (Mark Wahlberg) appears and throws everything into chaos.

For the first time in years, we finally get something fresh from Ferrell. He is clearly using his whole ass in Daddy’s Home and it’s glorious. With Ferrell bringing his A-game, everyone else steps up as well. Mark Wahlberg plays (or is?) a fantastic charming asshole, and I also thoroughly enjoyed Thomas Haden Church as Ferrell’s boss and Hannibal Burress as Ferrell’s contractor/unwanted houseguest.

Daddy’s Home deserves praise as well for a script that avoids the easy way out and sets up something greater. It is wonderful to see jokes come together the way they do in Daddy’s Home. A perfect example is the daddy-daughter dance sequence, which has to be seen to be believed. It’s set up so well that in hindsight it’s obvious but I didn’t see it coming until it happened. Daddy’s Home delivers these types of scenes again and again, right until the credits roll, and will keep you laughing the whole time.

Daddy’s Home gets a score of nine long and shiny broadswords out of ten. Be sure to catch it when it opens on December 25.

Her Composition

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I’ve yet to comment on my Whistler experience because Jay has already written in detail about our first two days and was so spot on with her reviews of Carol, The Life and Death of an Unhappily Married Man, How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town, and Love that I felt I had nothing to add. It was Friday (or, as I kept calling it, “Sunday”) that I dared to separate from the other Assholes and brave the Whistler Film Festival alone.

Whistler itself proved easy enough to navigate. I managed to explore almost the entire village on foot in about half an hour and is structured in such a way that even I would find it difficult (though not impossible) to get lost. Her Composition was a different story. After a chance encounter with director Stephan Littger earlier that day, I had the rare and awkward treat of sitting next to him at the Canadian premiere of his debut feature. Littger had already expressed some apprehension about the disappointing speakers at the Village 8 Theater and made a point of encouraging us all to move up to the front of the theater to get the full effect. Sitting so close to him made his anxiety contagious and we both shifted in our seats when the DVD began to skip only a minute into the screening. The problem soon corrected itself though and I was able to relax and enjoy this fascinating and challenging film.

Her Composition is, thankfully, not a comedy, sparing me the pressure of laughing on cue. Malorie (Joslyn Jensen), like Natalie Portman’s character in Black Swan, is an artist who wants to please her instructor so badly that she has trouble truly letting go. With her thesis composition due in a matter of weeks, she decides to start over. Finally getting out of her head, Malorie starts working as an escort and drawing inspiration from the sounds of the city and of her encounters with her clients. Her new unorthodox approach to songwriting feels empowering at first but the narrative begins to get darker and darker as her experiences as a sex worker get more and more dangerous and as her obsession with her masterpiece begins to border on madness.

Littger’s frustration with the house speakers is understandable. The sound mixing makes or breaks a film like this and Littger and his team have clearly put a lot of thought into how to communicate texture through sound. Malorie hears music in her head which, of course, is inspired by the sound and rhythm of the world around her. To communicate this to the audience- the relation between a man’s grunts during climax and the song in her head- is the hard part. It’s a work of exceptional editing and sound mixing.

Even if all the subtleties of the sound weren’t showcased as well as Littger would have liked, he’s still got Jensen- whose performance is nothing short of captivating. Her transition from teacher’s pet to tortured genius is believable every step of the way. I was disappointed that she was unable to attend the Canadian premiere last week because I would have been happy to meet her and congratulate her.

I hope a lot of people see this in theaters with speakers that would make Littger proud.

Creed

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This is shaping up to be a rough movie season for Jay. First, she got dragged to SPECTRE (which by all accounts is a spectacular movie). Second, she’s been dreading Star Wars: The Force Awakens since it was a twinkle in J.J. Abrams’ eye. And third, a whole other Sean-approved franchise makes a return and potentially gets rebooted into a whole new series of movies. Dun Na NAAAAAA, Dun Na NAAAAAA!

That’s right, Rocky is back again, for the seventh time. It seemed over after IV, V, and VI, but some studio exec decided we could handle more! And it was clearly the right decision because I think MGM/Warner Brothers now has a whole new franchise on its hands, featuring Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Creed (Apollo Creed’s son).

I have always loved this franchise. From the moment I saw Rocky III, I was hooked (yes, I started with III and have never regretted it – as recently discussed in my defence of SPECTRE, plot and character are pretty much unnecessary in franchises and here’s more proof that’s a good thing). Based on my love for the franchise, I had high hopes for this movie but I was also nervous at how this would all turn out. After seeing Creed, I am happy to report that this franchise’s record is still unblemished as long as we agree that Rocky V never happened.

One of my favourite things about Rocky VI (a.k.a. Rocky Balboa) was how much love it showed to the franchise as a whole. Creed takes the same approach. There are a number of nods to the past and they’re great to see. The best part is that Rocky, as trainer, takes all that history and imbues Adonis with the style of boxing we’ve grown to love in these movies, namely trading head shots until both boxers’ faces look like ground beef. Head trauma be damned, these boxers just have so much heart that they have to leave it all in the ring. And do they ever!

As for the cast, Michael B. Jordan is great as Creed and Stallone is better than ever as Rocky. The two characters come together naturally and it’s a great relationship to see play out, as uncle and nephew take on the world together and give us some classic Rocky moments along the way. Especially Stallone, who really plays the old man well the whole way through (although at this point he’s almost 70 so it may not even be acting). Either way there are some very funny moments to be found as the two leads interact with each other.
CARL

Overall, the only way this movie could have been any better is if they had worked in some Carl Weathers flashbacks where he got his stew on. I can see how that was tricky to work in to Creed since Apollo died before Adonis was born, but still, it would have been a nice touch.

Want to know who won this fight? Creed has the answer!

Other than that one shortcoming, Creed is perfect. It delivers a great story, feels like a natural extension of the Rocky franchise, gives us a ton of nice call-backs to past events, and even answers some burning questions (including who wins the fight at the end of Rocky III). Those fan-service moments were definitely my favourite aspect of the movie and they added so much to it. They’re not just winks and nods, they are tools used successfully to remind us of Rocky’s mindset as he tries to pass on his winning ways to a new contender.

As the credits rolled, I reminisced about all the other great Rocky moments (see my list HERE but be warned, it contains tons of spoilers) and at the same time was excited for Creed II. And mark it down, there will be a Creed II. The seeds are sown here for at least two more movies and I hope they come to pass, because Creed is not just a great addition to the Rocky franchise, it is an excellent movie in its own right.

Creed scores a knockout: ten triumphant underdogs out of ten.

Dope

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You might not know Shameik Moore yet, but you will.

He’s not the only reason why I was grabbed by this movie: the script is smart, the soundtrack is awesomesauce, and the angle is fresh. But Moore, unknown to me, turns in an A+ performance while writer-director Rick Famuyiwa is making choices I’m quickly becoming addicted to.

The story: Malcolm is a good student in a bad school, a good kid in a bad neighbourhood. He dreams of Harvard and 90s hip hop but on his way to his admissions interview he winds up with a bookbag full of dope. He’s got two friends, Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) and Jib (Tony Revolori – the little bellhop from The Grand Budapest Hotel), and though this charming trio is made up of teacher’s pets and band geeks, they resolve to navigate the dark web and treat their reluctant drug dealing like a 21st century enterprise.

This movie is tonally inconsistent, but it’s not because the film doesn’t know what it is, it’s because it aims to be a bit of everything, and I kind of liked that about it. Famuyiwa means to challenge our notion of what a drug dealer looks like – or what a Harvard applicant looks like, for that matter, but even the film itself defies expectations. It manages to seamlessly integrate these 90s throwbacks into a world where these kids have never bought nor owned a CD. They idolize rap but they play in a punk band. Welcome to 2015. Pharrell Williams and Sean (Diddy) Combs are listed as producers, so you know that shit is solid.

The cast is exceptionally good, and you need them to be to make this story work. Comedy-drama-crime: the film covers a lot of ground, but at its heart it’s an identity crisis, an acknowledgement of our many selves. Famuyiwa is not a newbie but this is his first film where I feel like I actually know him. You can’t infuse a script with this many pop culture references and not reveal yourself. Famuyiwa, I think I’m on to you.

In Defense of SPECTRE: A Review For the BEST of Us.

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You may have read Matt’s review of SPECTRE. He seemed to like it but still called it the “dullest, most phoned-in Bond movie” since Casino Royale. That’s a bit ambiguous but I think he liked SPECTRE and Casino Royale and just hated everything that came between Sir Sean Connery and Dr. Daniel Craig.

Real knight.

Not a real doctor. As far as I know.

You may also have read Jay’s review of SPECTRE. You probably should read it just for context.

Jay and I have been together for over six years now. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met and that’s one of the things I love about her. But it also drives me crazy because I have never been able to prove her wrong. Until now.

Jay is right that she was never going to like this movie. She hates everything I like on principle. But that doesn’t make it bad. Obviously I have fantastic taste in movies. Exhibit A: The Rock. Exhibit B: Transformers. Exhibit C: Bad Boys. Not coincidentally, those are all Michael Bay movies and two of them turned into franchises precisely bec nicolas cage the rock ause they were so good (the Rock probably would have been a franchise as well if not for the curse of Nicholas Cage). Because people loved them. You don’t get a franchise any other way, and everyone knows that sequels always live up to the original movie. That’s just a fact.

Score: SEAN 1, JAY 0

Jay also hates franchises on principle. But franchises make action movies better! With franchises, we don’t have to worry about plot, or character development, or other boring things like that. We can get straight to the action! So when we open with the awesome Day of the Dead sequence, we don’t have to have title cards or anything to let us know that the guy who pulls off the mask is the world’s best spy, because the preceding five decades of Bond movies have already set that up. Thank you, franchises, for simplifying our lives.

Score: SEAN 2, JAY 0

And okay, the helicopter sequence in SPECTRE is terrible. Absolutely terrible. But to say it’s worse than a bucket of army guys? That’s just hyperbole. And that’s a logical fallacy. So therefore Jay’s dislike of the helicopter sequence(s) is invalid.

Score: SEAN 3, JAY 0

Jay also hated the train sequence. Because it got destroyed. But that’s actually entirely realistic when you consider who was doing the destruction. Dave Bautista a.k.a. Drax the Destroyer. Just look at how strong he is in the WWE (six time champion) or in Guardians of the Galaxy (where he singlehandedly fought a guy who later survived a spaceship crash). That train was not only real, it was probably very well built, maybe even German. It just didn’t matter because of how hard Bautista can punch. If you want some sort of arthouse surrealism that’s fine, Jay, we can go to the Bytowne this weekend and watch a movie where two people can’t get out of a shed. But don’t blame SPECTRE for your weird preferences.

Score: SEAN 4, JAY 0

Another criticism Jay made was that James Bond had different jackets all the time. Well, that’s the whole point! He’s not just a spy, he’s a fashionable guy with a watch that blows up and a car with an ejector seat. Obviously he also has some sort of flying or floating wardrobe machine as well. They probably covered that in one of the earlier Bond movies, so there was just no need to explain it this time. Again, thank you franchises!

Score: SEAN 5, JAY 0

I think I’ve proven my point. I’ll even give Jay the sockless loafers, Christoph Waltz in general, and the weirdness/creepiness/wasted potential of the whole Monica Bellucci thing, since I’m feeling generous.

Score: SEAN 5, JAY 3

And as for Michael Bay, you already have all the proof you need (The Rock, Transformers, Bad Boys) to rest assured that he’s Hollywood’s greatest living director.

Case closed.

Winner: SEAN

HOLD THE FREAKIN PHONE, MISTER!!!

It seems our math doesn’t quite agree. Over at MY post, there’s a lot more nodding going on. I think we can count Mark, Joel, the other J, and Hammy as all #TeamJay.