Month: July 2020

Released: September 2000

Director: Craig Mazin

Rated R

Run Time: 82 Minutes

Distributor: Mindfire Entertainment

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Cast:
Thomas Haden Church: The Strobe
Jordan Ladd: Nightbird
Rob Lowe: The Weevil
Jamie Kennedy: Amok
Mike Schwartz: U.S. Bill
Paget Brewster: Ms. Indestructible
Kelly Coffield Park: Power Chick
Sean Gunn: Alien Orphan
James Gunn: Minute Man
Judy Greer: Deadly Girl
Jim Zulevic: Mr. Smart

When it comes to reviewing movies, comedies tend to be the hardest ones to review.  Trying to get a film’s sense of humor across to the audience isn’t something I’m particularly good at.  I generally don’t like comedies anyway, since 8 times of 10 they try too hard to make me laugh.  I end up rolling my eyes at the proceedings.  It’s not necessarily the actors’ fault or the director’s.  It come down to the writing.  What makes certain people laugh isn’t always going to work for somebody else.  Humor is one of the most subjective things in the known universe.  That being said, I do enjoy a good satire and/or spoof.  I love it when a movie pokes fun at the conventions of a specific genre or type of movie.  I’ve always been a fan of Mel Brooks and his style of comedy because his movies are cleverly written.  David Zucker is another with his Airplane! movies.  So, imagine my surprise when a little superhero movie called The Specials came across my desk.  A spoof on the superhero genre?  Color me intrigued.

The film follows a group of superheroes called The Specials.  They are the 6th or 7th greatest superhero team in the entire world.  This is unusual.  There really is no over-arching story to speak of here.  There are no super-villains to fight.  No, The Specials is a look into the life of a superhero team when they’re NOT fighting the bad guys.  First off, the headquarters for this particular team is located in a modest house in suburbia, which is funny in and of itself.  Second of all, you’ve got all these different personality types operating under the same roof together.  Now, we’ve all seen The Avengers, right?  What happens when you peel back the layers of that group?  You’re going to find a fairly dysfunctional group.  The leader of this group, The Strobe, is conceited with an over-inflated ego that can shoot lasers from his arms.  His wife, Ms. Indestructible has…well…indestructible skin.  Amok is a blue-skinned foul-mouthed former super-villain who has the ability to manipulate anti-matter.  U.S. Bill has super-strength, but his mental capacity is…lacking.  Minute Man(minute, as in small)can shrink to the size of an ant.  Alien Orphan can shape-shift, while Deadly Girl can communicate with the dead.  It’s certainly an interesting group of characters, that’s for sure.

I have to give James Gunn some serious credit for writing this movie, as it is the first movie that he’s actually written.  There’s a degree of subversion that’s taking place here.  You would expect there to be action in a superhero movie like this.  There really isn’t.  This movie has the audacity to actually focus on the characters’ lives instead of them fighting evil.  That also leads to the fact that you’re spending a majority of the film’s run-time wondering if those yokels actually have the superpowers that they say they do.  That’s not just funny, that’s actually pretty clever.  Some characters like the Weevil, you have no idea what their powers actually are.  Not only that, a lot of these “superheroes” behave pretty much like the rest of us.  Some of them end up sleeping around while others are obnoxious loud-mouthed whiners.

The acting here is actually pretty damn good.  Thomas Haden Church plays The Strobe, but he gives the character the right kind of conceit, making him somewhat unlikable.  Paget Brewster plays Ms. Indestructible, who has to put up with her husband’s ego on a daily basis.  The exasperation that you see on the character’s face at times is pure gold.  Rob Lowe plays the Weevil, a somewhat dim-witted superhero who wants to move on from The Specials.  The newcomer of the group, Nightbird, is played by Jordan Ladd, who gives the character a wide-eyed and excitable quality that makes her endearing.  I have to say that the guy that really steals the show here is Jamie Kennedy as Amok.  I’m not the biggest fan of Jamie’s at all.  I don’t necessarily dig his kind of humor, but here, I laugh every-time he’s on screen.  Why?  He’s basically out all the bullshit that’s going on, which is exactly what the audience would do.  In fact, when The Strobe is trying to tell his origin story, Amok just flat-out says that nobody cares.  That’s apropos, because in this day and age, we’ve had so many origin stories, nobody cares about them anymore.  So, this little gem in The Specials was a bit ahead of its time.  Amok is simply saying what the audience is thinking.  HE’S our conduit into this world, not Nightbird or anybody else.  Sean Gunn plays the Alien Orphan, and given Sean’s unique body movement really makes this character stand out.  James Gunn plays Minute Man(as in small, not the militia soldier).  He’s pretty weird.  Believe it or not, James’ hair actually grows that way, which is perfect.  Judy Greer is the other one that steals the show as Deadly Girl.

The Specials is Craig Mazin’s directorial debut and it kinda shows.  The way certain shots linger on for longer than they should and the way that certain angles don’t necessarily work, is indicative of a first-timer.  Yet, despite some of these issues, there is a surprising coherence to what’s going on.  From what I understand, there were a lot of major issues behind the scenes with egos clashing.  The end result is a movie that wasn’t what some of the film-makers had intended, yet it ended up being better than it had any right to be.  As far special effects go, you don’t really see a lot until the end of the film.  The pacing of the movie is pretty quick too, running at only 82 minutes.  In spite of the film’s obvious problems, I found myself surprisingly engaged by the whole experience.  There’s a good amount of heart and genuinely emotional moments to be found here, and it works.  Thomas Haden Church would go on to star in a REAL superhero movies as Sandman in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, while James Gunn would write and direct the Guardians of the Galaxy films.  It’s surprising to see how The Specials would be the launching point of some people’s careers.  The Specials is more than just a send-up of the superhero genre.  It also pays homage to the genre, despite the fact that it came out at the same time as the original X-Men movie.  For a movie that’s 20 years old, it’s surprisingly relevant, especially with today’s superhero films.  This is a film that’s absolutely worth checking, especially if you’re a fan of the superhero genre.  Jamie Kennedy alone is worth checking this movie out.  He’s hilarious.  Yeah, there’s not much action here, but it’s quirky behind-the-scenes look at superhero groups.  Again, I’m not a big fan of comedies, but this one was definitely in my wheel-house.

My Final Recommendation: Nobody cares about origin stories. 8/10

For this new series of The Best, I want to do something a little different.  Something special.  Instead of just doing my basic list of what I feel is the best whatever, I want to really get specific about certain elements of on-screen fighting.  Specifically, I want to discuss the weaponry being used.  I’m not going to deal with guns because anyone can pull a trigger.  But when it comes to swords and other weapons of that sort, it requires a great degree of skill and training so that the practitioner doesn’t hurt themselves.  For this particular post, I’m going to post two videos per weapon.  One is going to feature a real-life demonstration of the weapon, and the second will be how it’s used in a movie.  For this post, I’m going to cover a number of weapons from China, which covers a lot of ground.  When it comes to the martial arts, China has the largest array of disciplines in the world.  From Southern styles like Wing Chun and Hung Ga to the Northern styles like Baguazhang and Eagle Claw, the number of styles of Kung Fu outnumber anything in any other country.  The weapons used are equally as diverse.  There’s a lot of ground to cover here, so I may be making this particular post into two parts…maybe.  All rights to the videos posted here belong to their respective owners.  Here we go:

Guan Dao – The Lost Bladesman

This weapon, as you can see pictured above, is a staff that has a large curved blade on top of it.  Now, according to the stories, this particular weapon was invented by General Guan Yu who fought alongside the warlord Lu Bei during the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty.  Because of the size of the blade, the guan dao appears to be pretty top heavy.  In the film, The Lost Bladesman, Donnie Yen plays said General Guan Yu, and the fight choreography is also done by Donnie Yen.

Jian(straight sword) – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The jian is a double-edged straight sword.  It’s usually a single-handed weapon, but there are variations where practitioners use two hands.  It’s a light weapon which allows for a great deal of fluidity in movement.  In demonstrations, it’s a spectacular weapons form.  In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the movie is somewhat centered around the Green Destiny, which is a jian that used to belong to the famous warrior Li Mu Bei(played by Chow Yun Fat).  However, it gets stolen and ends up in the possession of a beautiful aristocrat who has a few secrets of her own.  The jian is an incredibly elegant weapon and has been in use for over 2,500 years.  It’s got quite a history.

3 Section Staff – Fearless

The 3 section staff is exactly what it sounds like.  It’s a staff with 3 sections.  Each section is connected by a small chain.  To most people, this looks like a nunchuck with an extra piece.  However, it’s a very different kind of weapon that is nothing like a staff or nunchucks.  Because of the nature of the 3 section staff, it can be a very dangerous weapon for the practitioner if they aren’t paying attention or if you’re a novice.  This thing requires precise control and that comes with years of experience.  There are moments when you can see this thing being swung around like a staff, but when it slows down it becomes another weapon.  In Fearless, Jet Li takes on a number of opponents in a tournament to prove that the Chinese people are strong.  One of the final rounds has Jet Li using a 3 section staff against a Japanese opponent wielding a katana.  At a certain point, they end up switching weapons, but you can definitely tell that the Japanese swordsman is inexperienced and ends up hitting himself with the staff.

Chain Whip – Iron Monkey

Widely considered to be among the deadliest weapons in Kung Fu, the chain whip is fearsome indeed.  The weapon’s speed and flexibility only add to the whip’s ferocity.  It tends to be metal chain, traditionally up to 9 sections.  What separates this weapon from a lot of others is the fact that there is usually a small dagger attached to the end of the whip.  This weapon has a tendency to keep people at bay because of how fast it is.  An experienced user can use this thing one handed or they can use it to trap an opponent using the full length of the whip.  The variety of techniques available to a master of the chain whip is massive.  In Iron Monkey, the title character uses a chain whip against a group of corrupt Shaolin Monks.

Meteor Hammer – Shanghai Noon

Now, here’s a weapon that confuses the hell out of me, and I believe that’s the point.  The meteor hammer and to a lesser extent, the rope dart doesn’t appear to be an effective weapon.  At close range, no.  At medium to long range, that’s a different story.  The whipping motions that you see in people using these weapons allow the dart or the blunt object at the end of the rope to build up speed, so when the hammer or dart are launched at an opponent, it’ll hit them with devastating velocity.  The meteor hammer in particular will cause more damage because it’s heavier and builds up speed faster.  This is another weapon that can be dangerous to the practitioner if their hand-eye co-ordination isn’t where it needs to be.  That’s also why in certain circles of wushu, the chain whip is required in order to learn the rope dart or meteor hammer.  In Shanghai Noon, Jackie Chan’s character ties a horse shoe to the end of the rope and uses it as a meteor hammer to take down a bunch of goons.

Butterfly Swords – The Final Master

These particular weapons come in pairs, one sword for each hand.  The hilt has one side that looks like a hook.  The length of these short swords averages about 11.5 inches, but each sword set is different.  The butterfly swords are believed to have originated in southern China around the beginning of the 19th century.  These weapons tend to be favored more by southern kung fu styles like Hung Ga and Wing Chun.  These are very short range blades, with that hook that I mentioned that can trap another blade or handle allowing the practitioner to disarm the opponent rather quickly.  Because of their size, the butterfly swords can be used to block other weapons and get in close to cause serious damage.  The Final Master follows a Wing Chun master as he tries to establish a school only to come into conflict with a group of kung fu masters.  The final battle has the master engaging multiple opponents in an alley way using butterfly swords.

Tiger Hook Swords – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The hook swords are probably the most problematic weapons on this list.  There are claims that these are ancient weapons, but the earliest descriptions and illustrations of the hook swords are from the early 19th century, so it’s logical to assume that these swords probably weren’t invented until then.  I could be wrong,though, as there’s not a lot of information there.  Another problem I have with these weapons is that they don’t strike me as practical.  Usually with swords, you can thrust and stab, as well as slice.  You can’t stab with these things as the tip of the sword is a hook.  The only thing that you could really use things for is to…well…hook things.  Outside of that, though, any use of these weapons is strictly for show.  Outside of the cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the only use of these swords in movies that I found was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, when Michelle Yeoh’s character confronts Zhang Ziyi’s character about the Green Destiny and they get into a fight, during which Michelle Yeoh grabs a pair of hook swords.  That’s all I could find.

Well, that was VERY interesting.  There really aren’t many classes of weapons to be found here, but there are MULTIPLE variations for each class.  Not only that, each style of Kung Fu utilizes a different and use of each weapon.  Hung Ga uses the butterfly swords in a different method than Wing Chun does.  The variations of martial arts in China alone are staggering.  I have to say, though, that my research into these different weapons has been eye opening and I managed to learn a lot.  It was a lot of fun finding these different weapons, the demonstrations, and the movies that use them.  Hopefully, you’re as excited about continuing this journey as I am.  I think I’m going to tackle Japanese weaponry next.  That should be a lot of fun.  Until then, this is Major Tom, signing off.

Released: February 7(Poland)

Directors: Barbara Bialowas and Tomasz Mandes

Rated TV-MA

Run Time: 114 Minutes

Distributor: Netflix(USA)

Genre: Drama/Romance

Cast:
Michele Morrone: Massimo
Anna Maria Sieklucka: Laura
Bronislaw Wroclawski: Mario
Otar Saralidze: Domenico
Magdalena Lamparska: Olga
Natasza Urbanska: Anna

I’ve seen a lot of movies over the course of my life.  A lot.  I’ve seen all kinds of films from kids movies to extreme horror.  There is a line that I definitely don’t cross when it comes to movies, but it’s so far out there that very few movies can either offend me, piss me off, or both.  I can count on one hand how many times that’s happened.  I tend to be very tolerant of even the most absurd and offensive horror movie, mostly because I know it’s just that: A movie.  People have different kinds of tolerance when it comes to movies, and that’s fine.  People were pissed when movies like The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave were released.  Rightly so as the content of those movies was pretty extreme. especially for the 70s.  It was certainly a different time.  When the 50 Shades of Grey movie came out, people got into a hissy-fit about the whole thing and how it treated women.  I was more pissed because 50 Shades of Grey, which started out as shit fan-fiction of Twilight, managed to get made into movie.  It was poorly written, poorly acted, and quite frankly, stupid on all levels.  But I didn’t find it overly offensive.  I’ll get into why in a bit, because it brings me to the Polish equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey, 365 Days.

365 Days tells the story of a Polish woman, Laura, as she gets kidnapped by the head of the Sicilian mob, Massimo.  Massimo gives Laura 365 days to fall in love with him or….something happens.  That’s it.  That’s the plot of the whole movie.  It’s really pathetic when I can sum up the plot of an entire movie in one sentence.  But let’s be honest: The story is NOT why people go to see a movie like this.  It garnered a lot of controversy and it’s been slammed by critics left and right.  I’m no expert on relationships, and even less so on women, but I’m pretty sure you don’t get a woman to fall in love with you by kidnapping her.  IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!  This is what I find offensive about this movie:  It romanticizes kidnapping and everything that seems to go along with it.  Here’s the reality: Kidnapping is a traumatic event.  There’s nothing romantic about that.  Let me list off the crimes perpetrated against Laura in this movie: Kidnapping for starters.  That’s bad enough, but she also suffers from emotional, physical AND sexual abuse.  Even though she wasn’t actually raped, she was forced to witness sexual acts performed, so it still counts.  What makes this worse is that the writers and directors had Laura provoking Massimo to the point where he would react.  So, the movie blames the victim.  The toxic masculinity in the film is unbelievable.  The story was written by a WOMAN, of all people.  50 Shades of Grey kind of gets away with it because it’s TWO consenting adults agreeing to the relationship.  That doesn’t happen here.  What happens is Stockholm Syndrome taken to an extreme.  I’m picky when it comes to political correctness, but given today’s climate, 365 Days comes across as misogynistic.  Oh, and that ending is a cliffhanger, because they plan on a sequel.  God help us.

The story isn’t the only thing seriously wrong with this movie.  The acting is dreadful.  Michele Morrone constantly walks around with his chest puffed out thinking he’s all that, when he mostly comes across as a spoiled and conceited dirt-bag.  He makes Christian Grey look like Casanova.  I don’t necessarily think that the actor is at fault here as the direction of the film is banal and bland.  Honestly, the only person that managed to be pretty good was Anna Maria Sieklucka as Laura.  There were some moments where I thought she was kind of laying it on pretty thick, but for the most part, she was fairly convincing.  Everybody else was awful.  Look, I’m actually not blaming the actors here.  The directors are obviously inexperienced and they tried to ride on the coat-tails of the 50 Shades movies.  If you’re watching this movie for a lot of skin and steamy stuff, you’re definitely going to get it.  It gets pretty explicit.  I will say this for the cinematography, it’s good enough to see everything happening, but the question you should be asking yourself is:  Is all that sex really necessary?  Most of it takes place in the second half of the movie, where it basically becomes a glorified porno.  If you’re not buying into the relationship between the two main characters, and most of us don’t, the sex comes across as sleazy and exploitative.

This ties back in with what I said about the story, but the writing in this movie is dreadful.  I haven’t read the book that this movie is based on, but most people outside of Poland haven’t and aren’t likely to anytime soon.  If the book is anything like the movie, then it’s probably a good thing that it’s not available in English-speaking countries.  The idea behind the movie is really offensive.  Basically, it blames the victim at points, and has the victim falling in love with her captor.  It’s not that the idea couldn’t work, it could.  It just needed a better writer, director and more respect for women.  There was a lot of hubbub about this film glorifying kidnapping and sexual assault.  For once, I’m actually in agreement, as the film makes both men and women look really bad.  365 Days is essentially the Polish version of Fifty Shades of Grey, only pornier(is that even a word, if not, it should be).  I have no problems with romantic films.  I really don’t.  There are some like A Star is Born that I enjoy very much and THAT movie handled the romance very well.  It felt genuine and heartfelt.  Here, it’s more exploitative and raunchy.

I hate coming down on movies so hard, but when a movie is as offensive as 365 Days, I have to be honest about it.  This movie sucks and not even on a “so bad it’s good” level.  It’s just bad.  The worst part is that the film is based on a book that has two sequels.  There are plans for a sequel, but it’s on hold because of the current pandemic, so people are stuck with a movie that ends on a cliffhanger.  I hate it when movies do that anyway, but for a movie as bad as this to do that is unforgivable.  It’s sloppy and it’s lazy.  There are one or two things that I like here.  For one, I like the lead actress.  I thought she pretty good.  Some of the cinematography is decent, but the rest of the movie is an unmitigated disaster.  It’s like watching a train-wreck catch fire and then explode before it gets out of the hanger.  Does that expression make any sense?  No, and neither does this movie.  Avoid it.  If you’re curious about it, I’m sure it’ll end up on Pornhub or one of those other sites….not that I profess to have any special knowledge about such things.

Since the beginning of cinema, there have been movies that have caused massive uproars throughout various communities.  Some of those controversies are well-deserved, while others may not.  D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation was one of the first feature-length films that was impressive on a technical.  The content of the film, however, led to groups of people like the NAACP to boycott the film and it was banned in certain regions of the country.  When you have a film that portrays the KKK as the good guys?  Yeah, that’s going to cause problems.  1932 saw the release of Howard Hawkes’ Scarface which was considered to be one of the most violent movies of the time.  It was banned in several countries, but ended up being one of the greatest movies of its kind decades later.  Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho wasn’t without it’s own controversies.  The stabbing in the shower scene became notorious, but the film also featured the first on-screen flushing of a toilet.  It sounds ridiculous, but the codes that were in place for Hollywood prevented anything like that from appearing on screen.  By today’s standards, those moments are relatively tame.  It wouldn’t be until the 1970s when the real heavy stuff started coming like The Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I Spit on Your Grave.  Oh, we can’t forget Cannibal Holocaust in 1979/1980, either.  THOSE movies earned their notorious reputation for….extreme content.  The movies that I’ll be discussing today appear to controversial on the surface, but when you start peeling away the layers, they really aren’t.

The Hunt

I figured I’d better start off with this one, because the controversy surrounding this film is the result of unbelievable stupidity.  The Hunt is about a group of right-wingers that were kidnapped and taken to what appears to be Arkansas so they could be hunted by the “elite” liberals.  This movie was supposed to be released in September of last year, but when the preschool dropout in the White House heard about the film, threats were issued against the film and the industry.  That was all without actually seeing the movie.  See, The Hunt is a satire.  It’s lampooning the left AND the right, and everybody in between.  Granted, it could be a little on the nose at times, but it never took itself too seriously.  It exposed the ridiculous extremes of both sides jumping to conclusions without actually learning about the situation or the people.  Everybody’s guilty of doing that, myself included.  Even the level of violence in the film is not as extreme as certain parties would have you believe.  It’s still a pretty gory movie, but I’ve seen much worse.  I think it’s worth taking a look.

Rambo: Last Blood

I know, I know:  I keep bringing up Rambo: Last Blood.  It’s shown up on a number of my lists for sure, but I’ve had good reason to bring it up.  When Last Blood was announced, it was to take place in Mexico with the character of John Rambo trying to rescue his niece from a notorious Mexican cartel.  The controversy seems to come from the fact that people saw this movie as an attack on immigration and portraying this movie as pro-Trump propaganda.  I honestly didn’t see any of that.  The Mexican bad guys in this film are part of a cartel.  These are not nice people.  Not in the movie and not in real life.  The film doesn’t portray all Mexicans as cartel enforcers or rapists.  Not only that, a great deal of the film’s cast and crew are Latino or Spanish in origin.  My only real complaint with the film is that the narrative feels very derivative of other films that have done it better.  Granted, this is a film that probably should have come out years ago, but I’m not seeing anything controversial here.  It’s a Rambo movie, for crying out loud.  It’s over-the-top.  It’s violent.  So, uh….get over it?

The DaVinci Code

Here’s another film where I feel the controversy is more trumped up than it needed to be.  The DaVinci Code is based on Dan Brown’s novel, which I have also read.  It’s one of my favorite books.  The story is about a professor who gets caught up in a conspiracy that spans centuries.  This conspiracy involves the Catholic Church trying to keep the location of the Holy Grail a secret.  The story is really good and the film is a blast to watch.  The controversy is more about how the Catholic Church feels how it was portrayed and how it abhors the idea that Jesus Christ had a family and a bloodline that continues to this day.  Soooo….pedophile priests are fine but the idea that Jesus was not only NOT a supernatural being, but also had a family somehow is NOT okay?  Granted, the Church was never one for logic, they never are, but this just seemed kind of out there.

Aladdin(2019)

Okay, the real controversy surrounding this film was casting and the look of Will Smith as the Genie in the live-action remake of Aladdin.  When the film was announced, people were skeptical, and rightfully so, about who would be cast as the Genie.  Who could replace Robin Williams?  The answer was nobody.  Robin Williams was iconic as the Genie in the animated film.  Whenever that character was on screen, he stole the show.  I always felt that the only person that could actually be up to the task of playing the Genie was Will Smith.  No other actor came to mind.  Smith was and still is one of the most talented actors in the business.  I had hoped that Smith would bring his own quirks and eccentricities to the character and not try and duplicate what Robin Williams had done.  Thankfully, Will Smith nailed it.  He’s the best part of the movie.  Well, him and Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine.  Unfortunately, the rest of the film wasn’t that good.  The guy who played Jafar was NOT the right person and he didn’t play it the right way.

Casino Royale

Here’s another movie where the controversy surrounding it was completely unfounded.  For decades, the actors who played the legendary James Bond all had dark hair.  Not this one.  Oh, no.  Daniel Craig, in his first film as 007, is blonde.  The idea that a blonde Bond was bad evaporated when people final saw the film.  Not only is Casino Royale an excellent film in its own right, it’s one of the best James Bond ever made.  Daniel Craig gives the character a much darker and harder edge that we haven’t seen since Timothy Dalton.  You know what?  It works.  Daniel Craig has proved not only that he’s an excellent James Bond, he’s one of the best actors to take on the role.  I would put him up there with Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan.  I know THAT’S probably going to blow some gaskets, but it’s the truth from my point of view.

The Dark Knight

Here’s another movie where the casting of a certain character rustled some jimmies.  The Dark Knight sees Batman taking on his most dangerous enemy yet, The Joker in a battle for the soul of Gotham City.  That’s an oversimplification, I grant you, but the actual story is really good.  Now, you already had two great Jokers in Cesar Romero from the Adam West show and Jack Nicholson from Tim Burton’s 1989 film.  For this iteration of the Joker, Christopher Nolan cast the late heartthrob Heath Ledger as the main villain.  People really got up in arms about how he wasn’t going to be as good as Nicholson or Mark Hamill or Cesar Romero.  No.  Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was very different, but it was no less iconic.  The introduction of the Joker is spine-tingling.  Not only do you NOT see Heath Ledger at all, his voice is different.  Heath Ledger BECAME the Joker.  This particular Joker embodies chaos and anarchy in the scariest of ways.  He’s not the kind of guy you want to meet in a dark alley.  Heath Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award AND Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.  The Dark Knight would become one of the greatest comic-book movies of all time, in no small part due to Heath Ledger.

Well, those are some movies that I found to not be as controversial as the initially appeared to be.  A lot of it seems to come down to casting and potentially pissing off a particular group of people.  Again, I didn’t really see anything of that sort, with the exception of The DaVinci Code, but even then, I don’t think they were deliberately trying to get a rise out of the Church.  Getting all huffy over a movie because it might potentially be controversial is like judging a book by its cover.  There’s more there than what you see on the surface.  Judge for yourself whether or not certain movies are controversial.  Don’t listen to anyone else, not even me.  Think for yourself.  This is Major Tom, signing off.