Tag Archives: Warner Bros.

Monthly Roundup – May 2017

01 Thursday Jun 2017

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USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016) / D: Mario Van Peebles / 130m

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Matt Lanter, James Remar, Thomas Jane, Brian Presley, Yutaka Takeuchi, Johnny Wactor, Adam Scott Miller, Cody Walker, Weronika Rosati, Currie Graham

Rating: 4/10 – five days after it delivers the atomic weaponry that would be used against Japan, the USS Indianapolis is torpedoed and sunk, leaving around three hundred crewmen hundreds of miles from land and at the mercy of starvation, dehydration and worst of all, marauding sharks; the true story that gave rise to that monologue in Jaws (1975), USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage betrays its low budget and scaled back production values at almost every turn, and lacks the necessary intensity to make it work properly, though it does allow Cage the chance to give a slightly better performance than we’ve recently been used to.

His Lordship Goes to Press (1938) / D: Maclean Rogers / 80m

Cast: June Clyde, Hugh Williams, Leslie Perrins, Louise Hampton, Romney Brent, Aubrey Mallalieu

Rating: 4/10 – an American journalist (Clyde) travels to England to write a story about farming, and while she’s en route, insults an Earl (Williams) who decides to teach her a lesson, one that involves his posing as a farmer on his own estate; what could and should have been a light-hearted romantic comedy gets bogged by the mechanics of its plot, and two lead performances that aren’t as interesting to watch as those of the supporting cast, all of which, unfortunately, makes His Lordship Goes to Press easily forgettable.

Scooby-Doo! Shaggy’s Showdown (2017) / D: Matt Peters / 79m

Cast: Frank Welker, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Kate Micucci, Melissa Villasenor, Carlos Alazraqui, Gary Cole, Kari Wahlgren, Stephen Tobolowsky, Max Charles

Rating: 7/10 – the latest outing for the Mystery Gang sees them head out west to a small town haunted by the terrifying ghost of Dapper Jack – who just happens to be one of Shaggy’s ancestors; one of the better entries in Warner Bros. ongoing series, Scooby-Doo! Shaggy’s Showdown is sharp, funny, has an intriguing storyline, and throws in more suspects than usual, making it slightly more difficult than usual to spot the villain (though you might argue it’s the person who gave the go ahead for two songs to be included).

Love Is the Perfect Crime (2013) / D: Jean-Marie Larrieu, Arnaud Larrieu / 110m

Original title: L’amour est un crime parfait

Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Karin Viard, Maïwenn, Sara Forestier, Denis Podalydès

Rating: 7/10 – Marc (Amalric) is a literature professor at the University of Lausanne who first becomes embroiled in the disappearance of a student, and then finds himself falling in love with her stepmother (Maïwenn); Amalric’s arrogant but often childish professor is matched by Viard’s casual malevolence as his sister, and while Love Is the Perfect Crime plays out like a mystery (that’s actually quite easy to solve), it’s really a drama about one man’s initially unwitting, then complicit attempt at self-destruction, a storyline that offers much in the way of subdued Gallic charm.

Contract to Kill (2016) / D: Keoni Waxman / 90m

Cast: Steven Seagal, Russell Wong, Jemma Dallender, Mircea Drambareanu, Sergiu Costache, Ghassan Bouz, Andrei Stanciu

Rating: 3/10 – a Mexican drug cartel helps Arab terrorists smuggle weapons and personnel into America, but they don’t reckon on CIA/DEA agent John Harmon (Seagal) and his team interfering with their plans; Contract to Kill is a Steven Seagal movie, with all that that entails, including Seagal himself reciting dialogue as if he was reading it off the back of a cereal box, the same tired, poorly edited actions sequences we’ve seen a dozen times or more in the past, and a plot that makes no coherent sense no matter how closely you examine it.

Aloha Scooby-Doo! (2005) / D: Tim Maltby / 74m

Cast: Frank Welker, Casey Kasem, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Ray Bumatai, Tia Carrere, Teri Garr, Mario Lopez, Adam West

Rating: 5/10 – when Daphne (DeLisle) gets the chance to be a clothes designer for a company based in Hawaii, inevitably the rest of the gang go with her – and find themselves investigating the mystery of the ghostly Wiki Tiki; not the best movie in the series (the villain is so obvious it’s almost insulting), Aloha Scooby-Doo! strives to have Daphne in a bikini as often as possible, struggles to make its central mystery interesting, features little Tiki monsters that are funny rather than scary, and direction by Maltby that makes you wonder how involved he was throughout.

A (Very) Brief Word About the Justice League (2017) Trailer

25 Saturday Mar 2017

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(This could also qualify as a Question of the Week.)

If you’ve seen the trailer for Justice League (2017) – and it appears millions of you have – then ask yourself this: did you spot anything that gave you an idea as to the actual storyline? Or did it seem like just another Warner Bros./DCEU trailer that was only concerned with showing off how much action will be included? And lastly, does anyone at this stage hold out any hope that this will be an improvement on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)?

(Nope, no trailer this time. Did you really expect one?)

“Meh” Movies and Me

08 Thursday Sep 2016

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If you type in the words “meh meaning” into Google, it’ll give you 762,000 results in 0.59 seconds. The first result will include the following definitions:

exclamation
1.
expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm.
“meh, I’m not impressed so far”
adjective
1.
uninspiring; unexceptional.
“a lot of his movies are … meh”

It’s appropriate (and a little unsurprising) that one of the examples mentions movies. Recently, I’ve watched a few movies that have prompted that very response: meh. The movies in question have been Mechanic: Resurrection, Bastille Day, and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (all 2016). These are all very bad movies, movies so bad that they carry their own aura of awfulness about them. They are to moviemaking what Donald Trump is to race relations, or Liam Hemsworth is to Method acting (yes, that bad). And they, along with many other movies reviewed here this year, all have one thing in common: their makers (apparently) didn’t seem to care that they were so bad. How else can you explain the dire nature of all three movies? And not just those movies, but the myriad others that have been released this year? Movies such as Grimsby, Independence Day: Resurgence, and Misconduct? All featuring big names in their casts, all made by well-regarded moviemakers, and all with the potential to surprise, reward and entertain us.

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But they all fell short of that ambition, and horribly so. And it’s these movies that the multiplexes offer us year after year, week after week, and no matter how many times we’re disappointed and made to feel that we’ve wasted our money on tickets, we still go back, year after year, and week after week. And nothing changes.

Well, thedullwoodexperiment, in its own small way, is calling time on the credibility-free blockbuster; the unnecessary, lacklustre sequel; the poorly executed original concept movie; and any movie that attempts to fool people into believing that it’s better than it is just because it has a couple of big names heading up the cast list (and especially if their roles only amount to cameos). These movies will no longer get the exposure that a main review would give them – they already get enough of that from other blogs and websites, critics, and a wide variety of journalistic outlets. As of today, these movies’ presence on this site will be reduced to the standard mentions given to movies in the Monthly Roundups.

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Instead, thedullwoodexperiment will focus on bringing more thoughtful and thought-provoking movies to a wider audience, and from a wide variety of genres and sources. Some may be dramas, some may be comedies, some may be documentaries or defy easy categorisation – some will definitely be foreign language movies. But all of them will be chosen with the intention of bringing something a little different to the table, and giving exposure to movies that might not otherwise get as much of a look-in as they deserve. I’m pretty sure that I’ll get it wrong from time to time, and some of these more thoughtful and thought-provoking movies will turn out to be anything but. But they will have been chosen because they don’t follow the standard formulas and predictable plotting of more mainstream features. Until Hollywood and the large independent production companies and distributors, e.g. Warner Bros. and Lionsgate, realise that they need to up their game considerably, then this site will boycott them as much as possible until they do.

Who cares? you might ask. Well, increasingly, I do. And as the song has it (kind of), “It’s my party, and I’ll review what I want to”. Now, let’s see where that takes us…

Suicide Squad (2016)

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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Suicide Squad

D: David Ayer / 123m

Cast: Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Karen Fukuhara, Scott Eastwood, Adam Beach, Ike Barinholtz, David Harbour, Common, Alain Chanoine, Ben Affleck, Ezra Miller

At the beginning of 2016, DC Comics fans had two movies to look forward to in the coming year: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Anticipation for both these movies was almost stratospherically high. But Batman v Superman proved to be a messy affair that lacked coherence and couldn’t even give audiences a rousing showdown between the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel. Critically pounded, and causing a division between fans that in some quarters got way too heated, the movie fell short of making a billion dollars at the box office, and was judged a disappointment. Earlier this month, an extended cut of the film was released on home video, and though the extra footage tidied up a few things left adrift in the theatrical cut, the general consensus was that the additional thirty minutes didn’t make it a better movie.

Fans quickly turned their attention to Suicide Squad to save the day, and the hype began all over again. In development since 2009, the movie arrives now with all the fanfare of a Second Coming. Promoted and advertised and pushed for all it’s worth (IMAX screenings feature a new, Suicide Squad-inspired countdown that’s a nice but unnecessary gimmick), this was Warner Bros.’ chance to prove that they were listening when critics and fans alike said Batman v Superman was too dark and sombre. Director David Ayer promised there would be humour, and the tone would be lighter. Has he delivered? Predictably, the answer is yes and no.

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Suicide Squad is, first and foremost, just as messy as it’s DC Extended Universe predecessor. Its plotting is murky and frustratingly lacking in detail, character motivations vary wildly (sometimes in the same scene), there’s the usual over-reliance on a surfeit of destruction-porn, and no one to root for or care about, even though the script does try its best to make Deadshot (Smith) and El Diablo (Hernandez) at least halfway sympathetic. What fun there is to be had can be found in the opening twenty minutes as we’re introduced to each member of the squad, from the assassin who never misses with a gun, Deadshot, to meta-humans such as Killer Croc (Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and El Diablo, wicked witch Enchantress (Delevingne) and her human host June Moone (also Delevingne), thief extraordinaire Captain Boomerang (Courtney), and brain-fried Daddy’s Lil Monster, Harley Quinn (Robbie). Watching these characters interact with and defy authority at every turn gives hope to the direction the movie is heading in, but that hope is short-lived.

Assembled by government spook Amanda Waller (Davis), the squad is a fail-safe option if someone were to come along with Superman’s abilities and use them for evil. With explosive devices implanted in their necks to stop them absconding, the squad, led by Colonel Rick Flag (Kinnaman), are tasked with a mission in Midway City when Enchantress and her brother Incubus (Chanoine) begin building a machine that will destroy all other weapons on the planet and – well, this is one of those plot points that sounds great but is actually quite lame and badly thought out. With Flag and the squad further augmented by expert swordswoman Katana (Fukuhara), escape specialist Slipknot (Beach), and two teams of soldiers, they venture into the randomly destroyed city in search of a High Value Target to rescue. But Waller and Flag have been less than honest about the mission, and the squad must decide if working together is a more appropriate way forward than going their own ways.

Suicide Squad - scene2

It’s clear from the start that Suicide Squad wants to be edgy and smart, caustic and irreverent, and provide a great time for its audience. But as the movie progresses, and once the introductions are over, it soon becomes clear that these so-called supervillains are going to be trapped by the demands of a script that wants to show that, deep down, they’re all really good guys at heart. As a result, this leads to a watering down of the original concept – Worst.Heroes.Ever. – that should be revised to read Best.Antiheroes.Ever. Yes, they’re largely antisocial, and yes they have their issues with authority, and yes they haven’t got a problem with killing people (mostly), but by the end they’ve all bonded and are like one big happy dysfunctional family. It’s enough to tug at the heart strings.

And then there’s the Joker (Leto). Much has been made of Leto’s insistence on staying in character for the duration of the shoot – Smith has quipped that he didn’t meet Leto until after filming was completed – and the Joker’s heavily tattooed look. But it’s all immaterial as Leto is on screen for around fifteen to twenty minutes in total, in a subplot that sees him try to rescue Harley Quinn from being part of the squad. With the Joker reduced to a supporting role it’s hard to qualify Leto’s performance. Yes it’s mannered, heavily so, and completely different from any previous interpretations, but the script depicts him as a lunatic gangster figure rather than the Clown Prince of Chaos. The character has room for development, then, but right now his need to rescue Quinn keeps him working to a standard plotline and any antic diversions seem forced.

Suicide Squad - scene3

In what is fast becoming the one area in which Warner Bros. seems unable to act on the recommendations of others, Suicide Squad ramps up the destruction on offer, with endless gunfights and property devastation the order of the day. It’s all accompanied by one of recent cinema’s more overwhelming and intrusive scores (courtesy of Steven Price), a blaring cacophony of dramatic musical cues and declamatory passages that reinforce just how much the movie is like being hit repeatedly over the head (and by Harley Quinn’s mallet at that). Ayer can’t stop things from getting too overwrought in the movie’s final half hour, and inevitably any subtlety is made to hide in the shadows where it can’t interfere with anything.

Against all this the cast do their best, with Smith atoning for some recent poor choices by making Deadshot likeable and charismatic. Robbie has the most fun, and is the most fun to watch, but after a while the chirpy attitude and cheesy wisecracks begin to grate, and Ayer does away with any development the character has made as if it never happened, leaving her no different from how she was at the start. Davis essays the real villain of the piece, but once that particular “surprise” is established the character stops being interesting, as does her motivation, and she’s wisely sidelined. Kinnaman does stolid with ease but fails to make Flag memorable, while Hernandez makes El Diablo a surprisingly well-rounded character, less of a supervillain, and more Hulk-like in terms of his anger issues.

The movie is further hampered by Ayer’s insistence on giving the movie a noir feel instead of a comic book feel, and John Gilroy’s haphazard, wayward approach to the editing. Other odd moments/decisions stand out: Deadshot looking like a pimp when he’s out with his daughter; Enchantress swaying like a woman trying to keep up an invisible hula hoop; several flashbacks that slow the movie’s rhythm; a scene where El Diablo reveals a tragic consequence to his ability that feels out of place; and an origin story for Quinn that involves falling into a chemical vat for the sake of it.

Rating: 5/10 – slightly better than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (but only slightly), Suicide Squad still has enough problems to stop it from becoming the first DC Extended Universe movie to overcome the series’ usual pitfalls; shedding its claim to being edgy and different with every minute that passes, the movie is further proof that Warner Bros. and DC need to work harder on their game plan, and that copying Marvel isn’t necessarily the right idea.

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Batman The Killing Joke

D: Sam Liu / 76m

Cast: Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, Ray Wise, John DiMaggio, Robin Atkin Downes, Maury Sterling, Anna Vocino

The latest in Warner Bros. series of direct-to-video animated movies to feature the Caped Crusader, Batman: The Killing Joke is a movie Harvey Dent would appreciate as it compromises two separate stories that are welded together to make a full-length feature. Fans will have their own feelings about which one of the two stories is the more effective, but taken on its own merits, the movie does have some distinctive moments that warrant more than a cursory acknowledgment.

The first “half” concerns Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl (Strong). As an occasional “partner” to Batman, Batgirl still feels the need to prove herself. The opportunity arises when she helps Batman in stopping a group of criminals led by Paris Franz (Sterling), escaping after a robbery. Franz gets away, but in the process he becomes obsessed with Batgirl, and when his plans to take over his father’s criminal empire begin to come to fruition, he drags her into it. This leads to Batgirl putting herself increasingly at risk, a situation that Batman is unhappy about. He tells her not to continue her involvement, but instead she rounds on him. Matters take an unexpected turn, and their relationship becomes even more strained. Later, Batman is lured into a trap by Franz, prompting Batgirl to go to his aid, and in doing so, she learns a valuable lesson – one that leads to her making a life-changing decision.

BTKJ - scene2

This storyline is more reminiscent of previous Batman outings, both tonally and visually, with compact, multi-angled scenes that remind viewers of Batman’s comic book origins, and which serve as dramatic enhancements of the narrative. The animation here is a key component, serving to reassure returning viewers to the series, and maintaining a style that Warner Bros. have made their own. But the storyline itself isn’t as impressive, or as well thought out. Batgirl is made to look too dependent on Batman’s sanctioning her actions, and there’s a hint of a daughter seeking approval from her father that is terribly at odds with the “unexpected turn” that alters their relationship (this moment in the movie has been widely reported and talked about elsewhere, and caused a fair degree of controversy). It’s a brave move on  Warner Bros.’ part, but while there is some justification for it happening, it’s the way in which the movie fails to properly address it afterwards that spoils things, preferring instead to finish on an action sequence.

But as one door closes – as they say – another door opens, and the meat of the movie is thrust front and centre. The Killing Joke is a justly celebrated graphic novel by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland that was first published in 1988. An adaptation has been anticipated ever since Mark Hamill announced his willingness to play the Joker in a movie of The Killing Joke back in 2011. Now that it’s here, fans can relax somewhat, but not entirely, as there are elements in this “half” that don’t work as well as they should.

It begins with Batman being called to a crime scene that could only have been the work of the Joker. But the Joker is being held at Arkham Asylum – or at least, that’s what everybody thinks. When Batman pays his arch-enemy a visit, he discovers that the Joker has escaped and left a decoy in his place. Meanwhile, the Joker has bought an old, rundown amusement park as part of his plan to hurt Batman and those he cares about. To this end, he shoots Barbara Gordon and abducts her father (Wise). Invited to the amusement park’s reopening, Batman rescues Commissioner Gordon and goes after the Joker – but not before Gordon insists that Batman brings him in “by the book”.

BTKJ - scene3

The Killing Joke is primarily about the Joker, his origin and the psychology that he shares with Batman. But while the movie embraces this idea, and does its best to reflect the graphic novel’s content, it’s not as successful in exploring the notion of Batman and the Joker being two sides of the same coin, or brothers cut from the same emotionally disturbed cloth. Aside from a surprise musical interlude sung by the Joker (I’m Looney), the emphasis rests firmly on setting up the inevitable confrontation between the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime. In between all this, we get to see the Joker’s origin story, a tale designed to provide the character with a degree of built-in sympathy, and which leads to the conclusion that we’re all “only one bad day away from being him”. It’s a neat idea, but fatally at odds with the fact that Batman has chosen to fight crime, while the Joker actively embraces it. Yes, both characters are psychologically disturbed, but in ways that are more different than similar.

With the psychological content failing to make as much of an impact as it needed to, there’s also the matter of what happens to Barbara Gordon. Again, much has been made of this elsewhere, and there is an implication that the Joker is responsible for much more than just shooting her, but it’s at odds with the character and his history, and while this is an animated Batman movie that is trying hard to be more adult in its themes and approach, it’s unlikely that the producers would have allowed this interpretation to be included deliberately (and producer Bruce Timm has confirmed this). Clumsy writing seems to be the culprit here, rather than an attempt at pushing any boundaries.

BTKJ - scene1

And then there’s the animation. While it’s a perfect fit for the first “half” and the preceeding entries in the series, here it fails to recreate Brian Bolland’s intense artistic vision with anything approaching the effect he conceived. There are enough iconic images retained from the source to keep fans happy but overall it would have been better to have made The Killing Joke as a true stand-alone movie, with maybe a bigger budget, and a visual style that reflects the graphic novel. There are too many moments where the Joker looks cartoonish rather than scary, and too many moments where the sparse visual details on offer leave the viewer with too little to look at. In the end, it all helps to devalue the impact of the story, and makes the movie look a little under-developed.

But there are still plenty of good things to be savoured, from the re-casting of Conroy and Hamill, to the energy expressed in the action sequences (which are all expertly designed and choreographed), the decision to explore darker and more disturbing material (even if it doesn’t always work out), and returning director Sam Liu’s confident direction. Fans of the series will be delighted to see the references to this story made in Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) expanded on here, and the future of Batgirl is foreshadowed in an epilogue that, again, should please fans of the character.

Rating: 6/10 – too many bad decisions at a creative level scupper what could have been – potentially – the best animated Batman movie ever, but unfortunately Batman: The Killing Joke remains a slightly above average entry in the series; it’s great to have Hamill back in the fold, though, and his usual exemplary work as the Joker is highlighted by an impressively told joke at the movie’s end, a moment of class that the movie is sometimes sorely in need of elsewhere.

Question of the Week – 5 May 2016

05 Thursday May 2016

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Another in the weekly series designed to encourage debate on thedullwoodexperiment, where readers/followers/first-timers/anyone can air their opinions/views/thoughts on the topic/subject/idea in question. (Apologies for the lack of a Question of the Week last week.)

With the recent release of Captain America: Civil War there has been no end of renewed/continuing criticism of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. So this week’s question is an easy one:

Does anyone believe that Suicide Squad will be the movie to lift DC/Warner Bros. out of the grim, destruction-porn dead end they seem to be embedded in?

For One Week Only: Women Directors – 2. Ida Lupino

07 Saturday Nov 2015

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Introduction

The Golden Age of Hollywood, regarded as the years between 1928 and 1943, was also the period in which there was only one female director working in Hollywood, and that was Dorothy Arzner. Although she never made a movie that was a complete box office and/or critical success, Arzner was respected by her male peers, and worked with some of the biggest stars of the era. But she made her last feature in 1943, after which there were no female directors working in Hollywood. Until 1949 that is…

Ida Lupino (1918-1995)

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA --- Hollywood, CA: Ida Lupino directs one of the scenes from her latest picture, "Mother of a Champion." She is shown peering through the movie camera. Undated photograph. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Ida Lupino’s importance as a female director can’t be downplayed. Although she only made eight movies (two of which she didn’t receive an on-screen credit for), Lupino’s rise from studio starlet to challenging actress – at Warner Bros. she was often suspended for refusing roles she was offered – to respected director came about by a strange combination of happenstance and good/bad luck.

During the occasions when she was suspended, Lupino would spend her free time observing other directors as they worked on set, and also how movies were edited. To her it seemed as if everyone else was “doing the interesting work” on a movie while she sat around bored between takes. She learnt the basics of directing throughout the Forties, but still didn’t attempt to get a directing job. When she left Warner Bros. in 1947, it was to become a freelance artist, and while she continued to work as an actress, she and her husband, Collier Young, formed a production company called The Filmakers.

In 1949, she and Paul Jarrico collaborated on a script for the company’s first production, a (for the time) searing drama about pregnancy out of wedlock and the psychological impact on the young mother when she gives up her baby. The movie was called Not Wanted and it was to be directed by Elmer Clifton. But when Clifton suffered a heart attack part way through filming, Lupino stepped in to finish the movie (Lupino refused a screen credit out of respect for Clifton). The result was a controversial movie that drew attention to the problem of unwed mothers, garnered a huge amount of public debate, and made people aware of Lupino’s role behind the camera.

Ida Lupino 2

In the same year, Lupino co-wrote, co-produced and directed Never Fear, another drama, but this time about an aspiring dancer who contracts polio. It was a modest movie, effective in its way, and enough for the Screen Directors Guild to offer her membership in 1950, which she accepted, becoming only the second female director in its ranks (after Dorothy Arzner). Her acceptance within the industry as a director was rapid though well-deserved, and Lupino continued to make challenging social dramas that cemented her reputation and were successful both commercially and critically.

Lupino’s attraction to “difficult” subject matters was confirmed with the release of Outrage (1950), about the rape of a young woman and the problems that arise because she doesn’t tell anyone what’s happened to her. It shows Lupino still learning her craft as a director, but also growing in confidence, and her decision to tackle such a topic is entirely laudable: it’s a movie that Hollywood would never have made at the time, and which was only possible because of Lupino’s independence from the studio system. (By coincidence, Akira Kurosawa tackled the same subject, but from a different angle, in the same year’s Rashômon.)

Outrage

Lupino’s next movie seemed, at first glance, to be a step back from the powerful social dramas she’d already made, but Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) was a deceptively intriguing look at female jealousy and longing as experienced by the mother of a tennis prodigy. It features a great performance from Claire Trevor, and shows that Lupino was entirely capable of making the subtext of a movie more interesting than the main storyline. It was also Lupino’s first time directing a movie that was written by someone else.

Lupino’s next directorial stint was filling in for Nicholas Ray when he fell ill during the filming of film noir thriller On Dangerous Ground (1951), a movie Lupino had a role in. It’s a measure of Lupino’s regard within the industry at that time that she was asked to do this, and though it’s difficult when watching the movie to work out which scenes she shot specifically, that in itself is a tribute to Lupino’s skill as a director in that she was able to mimic Ray’s idiosyncratic style of directing.

The film noir approach of On Dangerous Ground may well have prompted Lupino to seek out a similar project for her next movie as a director. If so, the result was perhaps her most well-received movie yet, the tense and menacing The Hitch-Hiker (1953). With its claustrophobic car interiors and bleak desert vistas, Lupino’s strong visual style served as a compelling background to the psychological battle occurring between fishermen Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy, and psychotic William Talman (never better). It may be a short movie, a lean seventy-one minutes, but it’s one of the most compelling crime dramas of the Fifties, and Lupino’s grip on the material is so assured that her increasing skill behind the camera can no longer be questioned.

Hitch-Hiker, The

With audiences and critics alike impressed by The Hitch-Hiker, their response to Lupino’s next movie should have been even more emphatic, but despite being widely regarded now as her masterpiece, The Bigamist (1953) was coolly received. And yet it’s a movie that addresses its subject matter head on and is still as uncompromising in its approach even today. It was a first for Lupino in that she directed herself – as the object of the main character’s bigamous relationship – but her confidence as a director ensures that each character gets the screen exposure they need. The ending is particularly impressive, and has an emotional impact that is as unexpected as it is effective.

Sadly, Lupino’s short career as an independent producer/director came to an end after The Bigamist. Budgets had always been tight, and though Lupino was always well prepared and planned ahead on all her movies, the returns on her movies weren’t enough to keep The Filmakers going. Fortunately, in 1952, Lupino had been approached by Dick Powell who had started up a television production company called Four Star Productions; he wanted her to replace Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell after they’d dropped out. Lupino began working in television in earnest, and it wasn’t until 1966 that Lupino made what would be her final movie as a director, The Trouble With Angels. A comedy about the students at an all-girls’ school who challenge the nuns that run it (including, ironically, Rosalind Russell), the movie received a mixed to negative reaction, but viewed today holds up remarkably well. Afterwards, Lupino continued acting and directing in television until her death, and along the way took supporting roles in horror movies such as The Devil’s Rain (1975) and The Food of the Gods (1976) (as many of her contemporaries did in the Seventies).

Trouble With Angels, The

Lupino’s importance in the history of women directors is due to the fact that she did it all by herself: she founded the production company to make the movies she wanted to make, she wrote (at first) the screenplays for those movies, and she tackled topics that her male peers would have run a mile from (or just not been allowed to make). If she couldn’t completely undermine the conservative values of the time, it was enough that she challenged them and held a mirror up to some of the more uncomfortable social issues of the day. She was a tough, determined director who didn’t short change her audience, and she achieved industry and public approval on her own terms, as well as long-lasting respect. And more importantly, she helped inspire a new generation of female movie makers, a generation that would tackle many of the same issues Lupino had, and with the same sense of propriety.

The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? (2015)

17 Friday Jul 2015

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Death of Superman Lives

D: Jon Schnepp / 104m

With: Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, Jon Peters, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Colleen Atwood, Wesley Strick, Dan Gilroy, Steve Johnson, Rick Heinrichs, Derek Frey, Nicolas Cage (archive footage), Jon Schnepp

In 1993, producer Jon Peters purchased the rights to Superman from the Salkinds (makers of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies), and approached Warner Bros about making a new movie entitled Superman Reborn, from a script by Jonathan Lemkin. Lemkin’s script was later rewritten by Gregory Poirier, but although Warner Bros were happy with it, in 1996 Kevin Smith, creator of Clerks (1994), was asked by Peters to write a script for “the fans” – but with three provisos: Superman couldn’t be seen flying, he wasn’t to wear his usual outfit, and he had to battle with a giant spider in the final act. Smith agreed to Peters’ terms and produced a script he titled Superman Lives, and which was based on The Death of Superman comic book storyline.

Smith’s script was accepted and Tim Burton, Peters’ first choice as director, came on board. He immediately jettisoned Smith’s script and brought in Wesley Strick to rewrite it. Nicolas Cage signed on to play Clark Kent/Superman, while Peters sought Kevin Spacey for the part of Lex Luthor, Courteney Cox for Lois Lane, and Chris Rock for Jimmy Olsen. The movie went into pre-production in June 1997, with Rick Heinrichs brought in as production designer. While various artists were hired to provide drawings of alien beasts, Krypton, and the main characters, Cage attended a costume fitting that was overseen by Colleen Atwood and Burton, and which brought an entirely new look to the character of Superman.

Strick produced his rewrite, emphasising Burton and Cage’s idea of Superman as an outsider, making him more of an existentialist. However, the cost of making Strick’s script was prohibitive, and Warner Bros asked Dan Gilroy to contribute a further version that would reduce the cost. Gilroy did so, but by this time Warner Bros were having a less than successful time at the box office, with many of their movies failing to make their money back. By this time, April 1998 (two months before the movie’s original planned release), $30 million had been spent on the production without anything to show for it. Warner Bros decided to put the film on hold, and Burton left to make Sleepy Hollow (1999).

Peters continued to try and get the project resurrected and offered it to several directors, none of whom accepted the challenge. In 1999 another script was written by William Wisher Jr with input from Cage, but in June 2000, Cage withdrew from the project, and despite further efforts by Peters to get his Superman movie made, the whole idea was abandoned in favour of a new approach in 2002.

Death of Superman Lives - scene

The question in the title, The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?, is surprisingly easy to answer: Peters and Warner Bros wanted to repeat the success of Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) while at the same time abandoning the very special qualities that made Superman so unique a character. It was a movie doomed to fail from the beginning because, as Smith correctly asserts, it was being made by people who had no feel for Superman or his place in comic book history. By taking Superman, one of the most iconic superhero figures of all time, and removing most of the traits that made him so iconic, Peters et al were practically guaranteeing their movie’s failure.

Those of you who have seen Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) will know just how bad a Superman movie can be, but under the auspices of Peters, a man who thinks giving Superman a makeover is an acceptable way forward, Superman Lives was always bound to founder. Hearing him talk about the movie it’s clear that whatever previous success Peters may have had in the past it’s of no relevance to the project at all. At one point he instructed Smith to include a scene at the Fortress of Solitude where Brainiac, the movie’s villain, would fight two polar bears. When Smith asked the reason for this, Peters’ response was, “They could be Superman’s guards” (Smith and Schnepp’s reaction to this is priceless).

Here, Smith is a vocal critic of Peters and the script he was asked to write (and he’s been equally critical elsewhere), and he makes several important points about the production’s inherent flaws. But nothing can prepare you for the sheer absurdity of Nicolas Cage’s costume fitting, where he and Burton try to make insightful remarks into the character but without ever finishing any of their thoughts or sentences. While Cage sports an awful shoulder-length wig as Superman, it’s actually nothing compared to the brief scene in which we see him as Clark Kent, dressed as if he’d just stepped out of a thrift store and looking like a beachcomber.

Atwood talks at length about the difficulties in coming up with a new costume for Superman, and the movie looks at this process in some depth, along with interviews with several of the concept design artists (many of whom did their work with little in the way of context to go by) that illuminates the ramshackle nature of the pre-production period. Burton, wearing his customary sunglasses, and still unable to finish a sentence that contains more than ten words, is a frustrating interviewee, vague on several points and misunderstanding several of Schnepp’s questions. Against this, everyone else, even the dreadfully misguided Peters, responds to Schnepp’s enquiries with candour and sincerity, all of which makes this examination of one of recent cinema’s most well-known follies an absorbing and fascinating watch.

Rating: 8/10 – there’s more to Peters’ doomed project than is covered here, but The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? covers the salient points with admirable clarity; having Cage’s recollections as well would have rounded things off nicely but considering Burton’s reticence, it’s maybe not much of a surprise that he didn’t take part.

Poster of the Week – The Girl from 10th Avenue (1935)

22 Monday Dec 2014

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Girl from 10th Avenue, The

The Girl from 10th Avenue (1935)

The poster for this romantic drama from Warner Bros. is surprising in many ways. As a vehicle for Bette Davis, it’s appropriate for her to be front and centre in the design, but the way in which she’s depicted is a little offbeat. The early to mid-Thirties was a period when Davis was still a long way from being the forceful actress we all know today. A lot of her early roles were in movies such as this one, but this was the first time she was pictured as the type of hard-boiled, predatory character more suited to, say, Jean Harlow.

The image is also at odds with the character she plays, a shopgirl who marries a man on the rebound from a failed relationship. The challenging stare, the casual draping of the arm over the back of the chair, the cigarette caught between two fingers, the red gloves and hat (hints towards her being a “scarlet woman”), and the shapely legs so prominently displayed – all these point to a character who knows what she wants and how to get it. It’s an almost defiant image, daring the viewer to have an opinion about the character before seeing the movie.

The background is surprising as well, its heavy combination of black and brown almost swallowing the chair and Davis within it, only the well-chosen colours of Davis’s outfit keeping her from disappearing altogether. But then there’s the choice of yellow for the title, a bright distraction from the rest of the image, and making for a strangely effective contrast with the grey used for Davis’s name. With the other credits in orange on the opposite side, the overwhelming dourness of the design is undercut a little further, but all eyes will still be on the image of Davis, staring out at you with all the intensity of a woman from 10th Avenue, and not the girl she’s meant to portray.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to let me know.

Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy (2014)

31 Sunday Aug 2014

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Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy

D: Paul McEvoy / 74m

Cast: Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, Diedrich Bader, Jeff Glen Bennett, Kevin Michael Richardson, Dee Bradley Baker, Corey Burton

A surprise call from the Dinckley family lawyer, Cuthbert Crawley (Richardson), leads the Mystery Inc. gang into another spook-filled adventure when Velma (Cohn) inherits her great-great uncle’s castle in Transylvania, Pennsylvania.  Surprised by the revelation that Velma is related to the infamous Baron Von Dinckenstein (Burton), who was believed to have created a monster (in a similar fashion to Victor Frankenstein), the gang are even more shocked when they leave Crawley’s office and the Mystery Machine is blown up by the ghost of the Baron.  Undeterred by this setback (which has left Fred (Welker) sad and depressed), the gang travel to Transylvania to investigate Velma’s family history and to find out if there really is a curse on the family – and anyone who gets involved – as the Baron’s ghost has predicted.

Once in Transylvania it soon becomes obvious that the townsfolk are deeply suspicious of Velma and her family’s history, and as represented by Inspector Krunch (Richardson) and the mayor, Mr Burger (Baker), they try to warn them off, but aided by Iago (Bennett), a hunchback, they head for the castle where they are welcomed by housekeeper Mrs Vanders (Bader).  While Fred continues to mourn the Mystery Machine’s passing, and Velma attempts to replicate the experiments of the Baron in order to debunk the stories of his creating a monster, Daphne (DeLisle), Shaggy (Lillard) and Scooby (Welker) head into town where a fare is taking place.  There, Shaggy and Scooby win an eating competition that sees them lose their appetites soon after, while Daphne tries on a dress that sees her balloon in size.  They return to the castle to find that Velma has become fanatical about the Baron’s work and is close to reviving the monster that has been kept frozen there since his death.

With the monster reawakened, Shaggy and Scooby reveal a more courageous attitude than they’ve ever displayed previously, Daphne continues to bemoan her change in size, and Fred sinks ever deeper into depression over the loss of his beloved Mystery Machine.  When Daphne encounters the Baron’s ghost in a subterranean tunnel, the mystery deepens, but now Velma has become crazed and sets the monster on the rest of the gang.  Things reach a crisis point when Fred et al. realise that the castle has been built on a huge reserve of natural gas, and the whole place is in danger of exploding at any minute.  Will the gang return to their normal selves?  Will they escape from the castle in time?  Will they unmask the villain behind the Baron’s ghostly appearances?  Will someone call them “meddling kids”?

Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy - scene

With the series showing no sign of slowing down in terms of releases, the Scooby-Doo franchise also continues to show signs of stretching – if not exactly pushing – the envelope, with perhaps one of the best outings for the gang in recent years.  The previous entry – Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (2014) – was pretty underwhelming, but here, and thanks to a very amusing script by James Krieg, this mash up of classic horror tropes and characters proves to be more entertaining than might at first be expected.  The script also tries to do several different things with the characters in an attempt to spice things up: from the changes Daphne undergoes to the unexpected destruction of the Mystery Machine (and which leads to a great running joke involving Fred and how he misses it), Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy does its best to subvert its audience’s expectations from the outset.  Add in Velma going to the dark side (and getting a sexy makeover in the process), Shaggy and Scooby being brave and fearless, and the inclusion of a priceless fart joke, and you have the makings of one of the series’ best entries yet.

There are plenty of sight gags to be had, and for those with an eagle eye, plenty of clues to the villain’s identity that makes this outing less about working out which of the supporting characters is behind the Baron’s mask, and more about the ways in which the Mystery Inc. team are changed by the “curse”.  It’s fun to see such established characters given a dramatic new lease of life, and while it might be argued that Daphne’s angst at being several sizes larger than she usually is is a little insulting to women who aren’t a size eight or smaller, it’s actually a clever way of reinforcing just how shallow Daphne is as a character (plus Fred doesn’t even realise she looks any different; he loves her no matter how she looks, and isn’t that how it should be?).

Ably directed by McEvoy and replete with unexpected camera angles and some surprising compositions, the movie zips along at a steady pace, and is bolstered by strong performances from its regular cast – Welker remains a standout – and features equally strong support from voice talent stalwarts such as Bennett and Richardson.  The allusions to Universal’s horror movies from the Thirties and Forties helps ground the action – look out for Inspector Krunch, an homage to Inspector Krogh from Son of Frankenstein (1939) – and there’s further fun to be had from Transylvania’s proud claim to being the flaming torch capital of the world, and Mrs Vanders’ resemblance to the notorious Frau Blücher from Young Frankenstein (1974).

Rating: 8/10 – great fun, and displaying an obvious affection for the movies that have inspired it, Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy (shame about the title) is a hugely rewarding entry in the series; stick around for the end credits sequence as well, for some self-reflexive laughs at the filmmakers’ expense.

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (2014)

13 Sunday Apr 2014

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Scooby Doo! WrestleMania Mystery

D: Brandon Vietti / 83m

Cast: Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, Charles S. Dutton, Mary McCormack, Bumper Robinson, John Cena, Vince McMahon

Scooby-Doo’s animated features are now in their thirty-fifth year, and by this year’s end there will be thirty-five movies in the series.  With three other features still to come this year, Scooby Doo! WrestleMania Mystery is number thirty-two, and while you might expect a drop off in quality after so long, and while the movie isn’t one of the best in the series, it’s still entertaining enough.

Strange things are occurring at WWE City – naturally – and they involve a ghost bear that is hell-bent on sabotaging the WWE facilities.  When Scooby wins a video game competition where the prize is a trip to WWE City and tickets to WrestleMania, he and Shaggy persuade the rest of the gang (who are less than enthusiastic) to go with them.  112 miles later, the gang arrive at WWE City only to run off the road avoiding a raccoon.  They’re helped by John Cena, and two WWE employees, Cookie (Dutton) and his nephew Ruben (Robinson).  Cookie used to be a wrestler until an injury cut short his career; Ruben is an IT wizard but wants to be a WWE superstar.  An encounter with local landowner Bayard (Corey Burton), who is against the amount of land that WWE City has taken over, also reveals more about the ghost bear.

With WrestleMania just two days away, WWE boss Mr McMahon shows the gang the WWE Championship belt, made from gold and inlaid with precious jewels.  Kept under guard and with a sophisticated security system in place to deter any thieves, the belt is regarded as completely safe from harm by WWE head of security Ms Richards (McCormack).  However, later that night, the belt is stolen and CCTV footage shows that Scooby-Doo is the thief.  Given a chance to prove Scooby’s innocence – or at best, unwitting involvement – the rest of the gang have until the start of WrestleMania to find the real culprit or Scooby and Shaggy will have to fight Kane in the opening match.  In the process they find out more about the ghost bear, discover a plan to detonate an EMP device during the show, receive the help of various WWE superstars including the reticent Sin Cara, and hatch a plan to find the real culprit.  But unfortunately for Scooby and Shaggy, not in time to avoid facing Kane…

Scooby Doo! WrestleMania Mystery - scene

The combination of Scooby-Doo and WWE is, in some ways, an obvious choice, with the larger than life exploits of the WWE superstars providing a good backdrop for the adventures of Scooby and the gang.  With the participation of a number of wrestlers – Cena, The Miz, Triple H, AJ Lee, Kane, Brodus Clay, Santino Marella, as well as commentator Michael Cole – Scooby Doo! WrestleMania Mystery strives to give equal screen time to both camps and thanks to Michael Ryan’s adroit screenplay, succeeds with a minimum of effort.  The mystery itself isn’t too difficult to work out – though anyone expecting the villain to be revealed as Mr McMahon has probably watched too many episodes of Raw and Smackdown! – and the villain’s motive is entirely obvious, but this is a Scooby-Doo movie and as anyone who’s watched even one other in the series, or any of the TV shows will know, these aspects are entirely irrelevant.  As always, it’s the antics that Scooby and the gang get up to that are the focus, and here, Shaggy and Scooby’s love of WWE is lampooned affectionately and provides most of the laughs.

The usual predictable nature of things still allows for some fun moments: a running gag involving The Miz, working out which WWE superstar is which (Triple H looks nothing like himself), Cena being able to speak luchador, a cave chase, and Shaggy persuading Fred (Welker), Velma (Cohn) and Daphne (DeLisle) to go to WWE City by showing them photos of some of the embarrassing costumes he and Scooby have had to wear over the years (complete with appropriately alliterative titles for the cases they relate to).  The wrestling matches are well choreographed, and include a few moves that would be cool to see attempted for real, and the ghost bear is an unlikely, but impressive, antagonist.

As expected, the principal voice cast give good performances – as well they should with the number of times they’ve done this – and Dutton adds a clearly defined level of sadness and regret to his role.  Of the wrestlers, only Cena is given more than a few lines to cope with, while McMahon reprises his brash TV character with mixed results (sometimes he doesn’t even sound like himself).  Brandon Vietti’s direction is confident though at times a little too sincere in its depiction of the WWE universe, the animation is of an acceptable standard but rarely breaks free of its own restrictions, and the songs added here and there are sadly annoying rather than an effective addition to the proceedings.  And the times spent on the production is given away by the prominence given to Sin Cara; now his current status is very much that of a second-string wrestler.

Rating: 6/10 – a middling entry in the series with its predictable plot proving particularly weak; a mash-up that still works by and large, but which will probably please fans of WWE more than those of Scooby-Doo.

Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon (2012)

02 Saturday Nov 2013

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Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon

D: Michael Goguen / 78m

Cast: Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey DeLisle, Matthew Lillard, Jeff Bennett, Diedrich Bader, John Di Maggio, Kevin Michael Richardson

With Warner Bros. animation being a joy to watch these days*, you just know that the latest in the series of Scooby-Doo! movies is going to be a visual treat if nothing else.  (The company’s Batman movies are worth checking out too.)

Mask of the Blue Falcon opens with the Mystery Team investigating a haunting by the Manic Minotaur of Mainsley Manor.  Once that mystery is solved, they head off to a fantasy convention in San de Pedro, California.  Shaggy (Lillard) and Scooby (Welker) are excited to go as it will mean they get to meet their hero, Owen Garrison (Bennett).  Garrison played the character of Blue Falcon years before on TV with his canine sidekick Dynomutt.  To Shaggy and Scooby the original Blue Falcon shows are much better than the new high-tech film version that’s being premiered at the convention.  And it seems a character from the old series agrees with them: Mr Hyde, Blue Falcon’s arch-nemesis.  He causes chaos using bats, a devil hound, and a toxic green goo.  With the film premiere under threat, it’s up to the Mystery Team to get to the bottom of things and unmask Mr Hyde.  Naturally this involves Shaggy and Scooby dressing up as their heroes.

Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon - scene

It’s fun to see the Mystery Team back in action in a movie that actually works.  The last few movies, by general consensus, have been below par, but this outing is the best for some time, mixing the right amount of comedy, thrills and spectacle.  The storyline holds the attention and although the identity of the villain is never in doubt to anyone who’s seen a Scooby-Doo movie or TV episode before, it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment the movie provides.

The animation is crisp, the colours rich and realistic, and the voice work is exemplary; Jeff Bennett in particular merits a mention.  His Owen Garrison sounds so much like Adam West that it makes the verisimilitude between Blue Falcon and Batman almost surreal.  If it was the producers’ intention to sound like that then full marks to them, it was an inspired idea.  The script, by Marly Halpern-Graser and Michael F. Ryan, is full of one-liners (Velma: We solve mysteries.  Shaggy: And run away a lot.), credible motivations for the chief suspects, exciting chases and villainous characters, and pulls the wool over everyone’s eyes by seeming to end the movie ten minutes before the end is actually due.  If Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll keep these guys on the payroll for the next Scooby-Doo! movie.

For those with a sharp eye there are cameos – walk-ons really – by Bram from Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire and Wulfric von Rydingsvard from Big Top Scooby-Doo!, and that’s beside the fun to be had from spotting other cartoon characters such as Space Ghost at the convention (I’ll let you search out the others).

Rating: 8/10 – a welcome return to form for the series and a reminder that when he’s on top form there is only one Scooby-Doo – accept no substitutes!

*This review was originally written in January 2013, and posted on thedullwoodexperiment website.