SPIDER-MAN 2 — CLASSIC FILM PICK

       Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Since the phenomenal $820 million international success of the first Spider-Man movie, the filmmakers have gone back to the drawing board to improve on their technical shortcomings and, more importantly, generate a top-notch script by screenwriter Alvin Sargent ("Ordinary People").

The glorious result is a careful blend of subtext rich characters responding to one another and their surroundings in a colorful action movie embellished with musical grace notes from West Side Story, thanks to Danny Elfman’s subtle score.

Tobey Maguire again inhabits the role of the emotionally conflicted, web-slinging crime fighter, with Kirsten Dunst returning to her role as Peter Parker’s thespian love interest, Mary Jane Watson. There are plenty of surprises in this entertaining Hollywood cartoon-inspired movie that tops everything else in the genre.

Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) has become a more assured and patient director since he made the first Spider-Man movie. It’s a shift toward maturity that’s reflected in returning cast members Maguire, Dunst, and James Franco. Where the young actors had everything to prove in the first movie, they now have a confident handle on their characters’ personal objectives and outward goals.

Maguire’s Peter Parker spends much of Spider-Man 2 looking askance at his alter ego, and takes a hiatus from wall-crawling long enough to boost his college grades and sit in the audience for Mary Jane’s telling performance in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

The movie opens with an impoverished Peter Parker struggling to deliver time-limited pizzas around Manhattan on his aged moped. But even when Parker tries to use his Spidey powers to speed things along, he has to take time out to save a couple of children from being run over by a truck.

The computer-aided scenes of Spider-Man swinging from Manhattan high-rises are vastly improved since his last theatrical outing, and audiences will take special joy in the flawless acrobatics on display. The filmmakers make an obvious joke later in the movie about damage to Maguire’s back that threatened to table him from participating in the sequel. Spidey takes some pretty big falls.

Peter Parker’s college grades are suffering when he chooses to do a thesis paper on Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina, Frida), a genius scientist working on a source of perpetual energy through sustained fusion, thanks to funding from Harry Osborn (James Franco), whose father Spider-Man killed in the first movie. Osborn has since become consumed with capturing the web-crawling vigilante, to the point of becoming an alcoholic.

Spidey gets another enemy when Doc Ock’s exhibition of his new machine backfires, and the scientist is left with four enormous steel tentacles permanently attached to his spine — hence the name Dr. Octopus.

Peter Parker and his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) are interrupted during a visit to a bank for a loan when Doc Ock arrives to rob the place. The ensuing battle finds Aunt May in Doc Ock’s grip atop the tall building with Spider-Man battling gravity as he fearlessly fights the evil doctor to save his cherished aunt. The sequence is remarkable for its guiding elements of humor and pathos amid all of the eye-candy action.

A nagging question in the film arises from a problem Parker has with producing webbing. Spider-Man comes up short in the web department on several occasions, and even goes to a doctor about his waning supply of the sticky stuff. The question is never completely explained, and while it gives the character one more flaw for audiences to trouble over, it sits as unfinished business.

Nonetheless, the movie offers plenty of fantastic spectacles — see Spider-Man stop a speeding subway train — and more than a few subtle comic references. Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell does a cool stint as a bothersome theater usher, and Willem Dafoe makes a witty appearance as the ghost of his former self.

Even the budding romance between Peter and Mary Jane is handled with an eye toward the absurd. Spider-Man tells Mary Jane, as he protects her from a falling steel wall, “it’s heavy.” Indeed, there’s plenty of irony, surprises and cheeky fun in store in this satisfying sequel.

Rated PG-13. 127 mins.

BLACK PANTHER

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Like adults who read Harry Potter books as if they aren’t children’s books written on a sixth grade reading level, many grown audiences [knowingly or unknowingly] ignore the fact that superhero movies are a children’s genre.

Superhero movies such as “Black Panther” represent nothing more than a dubious method for indoctrinating kids into accepting and participating in violent behavior, with the help of their goose-stepping parents.

You need look no further than “Black Panther’s” repetitive return to “ritual combat” as its means of electing a leader for a fictional East African tribe to know that something is rotten in Denmark, or in this case “Wakanda.” Nevermind that Marvel comic book writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby lifted the term “Wakanda” from a Native American word for God.

Capitalist exploitation?

You bet.

For as boring as the movie is, and “Black Panther” is nothing if not an utter mind-numbing experience, here is yet another reminder of Hollywood’s lazy and persistent use of redundant comic book material to profit from marketing violence to kids while, in this case, spitting on the graves of native peoples. 

What's the point of competent filmmaking if there isn't a shred of originality or narrative inspiration anywhere to be found? "Black Panther" isn't a movie, it's military propaganda pushed through a corporate system (in this case Hollywood) built on the same economic model as America's military industrial complex that protects the corporate elite. 

These movies aren’t about ideas, such as civilized discussion or compatible behavior, they are about greed and instilling vengeful behavior in kids who grow up instilled with oversimplified notions about wars, fighting, and taking revenge on fellow human beings.  

Just as the “Star Wars” movies have made many times over their box office profits on toys, so too does Hollywood deal in superhero merchandising to elevate profit margins to astronomical levels. Follow the money. You might think it’s a big deal for a movie like “Black Panther” to employ so many black actors, but you can bet the film’s producers are not sharing any product revenues with those same thespians. To put it simply, superhero movies are nothing more than very long commercials. Think about it when Halloween rolls around and every other nine-year-old is wearing a Black Panther costume. You can’t call that Cinema.

“Black Panther” is forgettable as it is toxic. To pretend otherwise is pure folly. As for the popularity of superhero movies, keep in mind their relation to a lowest common denominator cashed in on by faceless corporations. All you have to do is follow the money. Go ahead; buy a toy. But remember to think about what it really represents.  

Rated PG-13. 134 mins.

ZERO STARS

_{I know a thing or two about diversity.}

Treehouse Brewing's American Brown Ale BEAR is the beer of choice for Mike and Cole to hash out the first (and hopefully only) superhero movie to make it into the Feast. We also have our first food-fight as a result.

Do superhero hero movies indoctrinate children into violent behavior? Cole thinks so. Could this be the movie that breaks LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST)? Superhero movies do indeed teach confrontation after all. Get out the electric knife for this one Bouffers, and don't worry about the mess. 

_{This is what badass black social commentary looks and sounds like.}

 

LOGAN

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot pal!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

 

If indoctrinating child audiences into accepting, and enjoying, brutal deadly violence was the intent of the filmmakers responsible for making “Logan,” then their mission is accomplished. Audiences not wanting to be party to such a disgusting cause will want to avoid this cinematic abomination like the plague.

How much senseless killing can an audience member be expected to endure, especially when it's committed by a child? You’ll be asking yourself that question when “Logan’s” third act slips into gear after a black family are brutally murdered in their plantation-posited home after they have the bad luck of receiving charity from Hugh Jackman’s Logan and Patrick Stewart’s Charles during a runaway horse episode on a local highway.

As superhero movies go, this one seems poised to put a final nail in their long overdue coffin. Where spectacle was once the genre of song-and-dance musicals, superhero movies have turned Hollywood into a profit-fueled anti-Cinema war zone. Profit does not equal quality, and in the case of superhero movies it doesn't equate as Cinema because their storylines are dumbed down to the point of being amoral. You never have to worry about being talked down to as an audience member in this arena of blood for blood's sake. This is pro-violence propaganda for the masses. 

In 2029, long suffering mutant Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine) cares for his wheelchair bound mentor Professor X (a.k.a. Charles) in a fenced off compound somewhere near the Mexican border. Logan drives a limo to provide a meager financial backing for the ailing Charles, whose weird episodes can have far-reaching negative effects on the people and atmosphere around him when they strike. Things get especially strange when Logan takes over caring for a similarly hand-blade equipped child, the [seemingly mute] mutant named Laura (Dafne Keen) who desperately wants/needs to be transported to the Canadian border where “Eden” awaits. The “Antichrist” reference seems apropos as there is far more graphic violence in this film than there is in Lars von Trier’s psychological thriller. Breaking character is etched in stone as a rule of dramaturgy to never cross, and yet it occurs in this movie like a fart that can't be held in. Screenwriting teachers take note. This is a sure-fire way to make your cinematic cake fall. 

Naturally our of trio limo-ensconced travelers are pursued by a militarized gang of soldiers overseen by an evil doctor (played by Richard E. Grant). Chase scene after redundant chase scene gives way to repetitive sequences of decapitating violence. Blood spews, characters yell in monstrous glee after bringing mutilation and death to their victims. There are more murders committed by a child (Laura) than in any film I can think of.

Logan speaks the film's theme when he says, You have to learn to live with hurting people. Kids aren't the only audiences this film seeks to indoctrinate into a sociopathic mindset. How anyone could think this is a responsible message to teach young people is beyond me. 

“Logan” is a film that will scar your psyche. I cannot in good conscious recommend that any peace-loving person expose yourself or your children to viewing “Logan.” There is nothing to be gained; it’s not entertaining, and it will leave you with memories you don’t need to have rolling around in your brain.  

Rated R. 137 mins.

ZERO STARS