Month: November 2020

What? That isn’t enough?  In all seriousness, to call 2020 a massive dumpster fire of a year is an egregious understatement.  At this time of year, I would normally be going over what I would consider to be my favorite and least favorite movies of the year.  This is usually about the theatrically released films.  2020 started with some promise with films like The Invisible Man and Underwater, both of which I really enjoyed.  Unfortunately,  March happened and it brought the COVID-19 virus with it.  The shit really hit the fan.  The prospect of a potentially devastating pandemic sent the economy into a tail-spin.  This thing affected EVERYBODY.  The infection rates were starting to climb, so various industries started or tried to start implementing policies that would help keep the virus from spreading, i.e. wearing masks and social distancing.  At that point, we had no idea why or how quickly this thing was spreading.  Then the body count started rising.  It wasn’t just the United States that this was affecting.  It was the entire planet.  Restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters had to close to contain this thing.  This has been a brutal year for the global economy.  But I’m not here to discuss the other industries.  I’m here to discuss movies and the film industry in particular.

The film and movie theater industries are vital to the economy, at least from my point of view.  The amount of money that they bring in is incredibly substantial.  When the coronavirus hit, movies started getting pushed back further and further in hopes that we would get a handle on this issue.  When that didn’t happen, theater were forced to close and lay off employees just so that there could be theaters in the future.  As the year progressed, people began to get pissed off about the lockdowns and not being able to move about like they were able, so some lockdowns were defied by both the public and various companies, which led to massive spikes in infections and death around the United States.  This situation could’ve been handled better if our administration had the balls to take this virus seriously and force a lockdown on states that were in the red.  That’s how you deal with a virus like this.  You don’t wait it out, and you certainly don’t allow it spread in the hopes that people will eventually become immune to it.  We don’t know enough about the virus to guarantee that something like that would happen.  So, back to the movies.  Because people were not taking this thing seriously, most business were forced to close back down and some of them ended up closing permanently.  Certain movies like Fast and Furious 9 were moved back a full year.  Some were taken off the release schedule entirely while some were moved to the VOD and streaming services.  Towards the end of summer, some movie theaters and film studios were going to try and risk re-opening in September with STRICT COVID-19 guidelines.  The amount of people in the audiences was reduced to about half with social distancing.  With guidelines in place, the infection rate from movie theaters was cut down to ZERO.  The guidelines and policies were working.  Any infection didn’t come from movie theaters, but everywhere else.  As long as those guidelines were followed, movie theaters were actually safe.

It looked like movie theaters had a serious chance of coming back.  For a bit there, after September, they did.  Most movie theaters were starting to play older movies like The Empire Strikes Back and The Avengers to get people back into theaters.  There was only one really new movie that hit theaters during this period and that Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.  Given the situation, the movie did pretty well, but it wasn’t enough to really draw audiences back.  Because of that, some movie theater chains have closed back down until next year.  The good news is that there a couple of really promising vaccines that are being tested between 90 and 95 percent efficacy.  We probably won’t be seeing those for months however, but the work being done in those labs gives me and other hope that there will be something next year to stave off the worst pandemic in over a century.  With winter coming, things are bound to get much worse before they get better, so it is incumbent of us to obey social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines, not just for ourselves, but the people around us, especially the elderly.  The best Christmas gift you can give to your family this year is to be responsible and take this threat seriously.  Wearing a mask is your best defense.  Getting tested for the virus is paramount if you’ve been exposed to people who have it.  I can tell you from personal experience that this virus is no walk in the park.  Trust me when I tell you to wear your masks.  To the people that have been hospitalized with this thing, I hope for your quick recovery.  For those that have lost loved ones to the virus, no words of mine can assuage the pain and anguish that you feel, but you are in my thoughts along with the thousands and millions who have been afflicted.  To the people on the frontlines: The doctors, nurses and EMTs who put themselves in harm’s way to help others: Thank you.  The same goes to the retail workers who risk infection day in and day out to make sure that people get the supplies that they need for the dark days ahead.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s going to everybody’s cooperation to get us there.  To quote The Dark Knight’s Harvey Dent: “The night is darkest just before the dawn, but I promise you: The dawn is coming.”

A while back, I did an op-ed on film marketing and movie trailers and how important those are to getting people to theaters to see movies.  The idea of a movie trailer is almost as old as the industry itself.  The importance of a movie trailer cannot be understated.  It is one of the most, if not the most important aspect of film marketing, especially in today’s world.  With the advent of the World Wide Web and modern social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook, it’s a lot easier for trailers to be seen.  Back in the days before YouTube, you had to actually go to the theater in order to see them or wait until the film came out on video.  Trailers are used for one thing: Get the audience excited about a movie.  You want to show them enough to get a taste for what they’re about to see, but keep enough hidden for them to want more.  It’s a balancing act that sometimes doesn’t work, but when it does, it can move mountains.  But what movie trailer out there can claim to change how movie marketing is consumed?  I bring you to this:

Let me set the stage:  Back in November of 1998, a new Star Trek movie had been released.  Star Trek: Insurrection was the latest in the Next Generation-era of Star Trek films.  My parents and I had decided to go see this movie at the Water Gardens movie theater in Pleasant Grove, Utah.  After sitting down, the lights dimmed and the trailers started playing.  What was the first one?  Star Wars – Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.  At that point, Star Trek had become irrelevant.  Here we were sitting, having just watched the teaser trailer for the 1st Star Wars movie in 15-16 years.  As soon as the Lucasfilm logo appeared and the music from the original film started playing, the game had changed.  Sure, we stayed and watched Star Trek, but we couldn’t get that Star Wars trailer out of our minds.  This is why this particular trailer was so important.  We weren’t the only ones that were hooked by it.  People around the world bought tickets to movies that they wouldn’t have seen otherwise to see this trailer.  From Star Trek: Insurrection to Meet Joe Black, this trailer alone boosted sales of tickets to the films that it was attached to, making them successful, even if the movies themselves weren’t that great.

For Star Wars nerds such as myself, this was a mind-blowing trailer.  When it came to internet marketing at the time, most people were still on those old 56k modems.  If you remember those, those weren’t great days, because it took hours to load the trailer for everybody else to see.  That’s where Apple came in and offered downloadable versions of these big blockbuster trailers.  Again, it took a Star Wars movie to change the game.  Instead of movie-making, it was marketing.  I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many times I watched the trailers for this movie.  Up until the film’s release in May of 1999, the trailers for The Phantom Menace were watched million upon millions of times, making it one of the most-watched trailers in cinematic history.  Now, did the final film live up to expectations?  Initially, yes.  Over time, however, people got over the excitement of a new Star Wars movie and began to notice the issues that the film had in terms of dialogue and acting.  It was not a great movie and was quickly over-shadowed by the likes of The Matrix.  Personally, I enjoyed the movie, and I still do.  It was the first Star Wars movie I had seen in theaters, so it was special to me in that regard.  I was 16 years old, and I was already a huge fan of Star Wars.

That initial excitement over a trailer is what drove the film’s success, ultimately.  The people behind the marketing of the film knew exactly what buttons to push and what not to do.  The original trailer was absolutely brilliant.  It touched on people’s nostalgia for the property while exciting them for the prospect of an entire new series of films.  I mean, the film would have been successful based on name recognition alone, but that one trailer sent people’s anticipation into the stratosphere.  Outside of Avengers: Endgame, very few movies have had trailers that generated that much excitement for a single movie.  Normally, I wouldn’t dedicate an entire post to a single trailer, but I had watched a newly-released documentary today, Movie Trailers: A Love Story that was directed by John Campea, a YouTuber that I watch on a regular basis.  I’ll talk about the documentary in a different post, but it was a film that got me thinking about THIS particular trailer and how significant it was and still is in the film industry.  While The Phantom Menace isn’t the greatest movie ever made, the trailer that sold it is still one of the best trailers I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.  THIS is how you do a movie trailer.  Even the Sequel Trilogy understands how to market a movie.  To me, the teaser trailer for The Phantom Menace is the gold-standard for movie trailers.

Released: November 2020

Director: Dimitri Logothetis

Rated R

Run Time: 102 Minutes

Distributor: Highland Film Group

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
Alain Moussi: Jake
Frank Grillo: Harrigan
Rick Yune: Capt. Sand
Nicolas Cage: Wylie
Myra Averopoulus: Myra
Tony Jaa: Kueng
Marrese Crump: Forbes

2020 has been absolute grinder of a year.  Between this being an election year coupled with the worst pandemic in a century, it’s been incredibly brutal.  The film industry has gotten torn to shreds.  Movies have been pushed back months, with some being knocked into next year, while others have been pulled entirely from the schedule until the pandemic is over.  While theaters have reopened to a certain degree, the stuff that’s been put out over the past couple of months have either been older movies like Empire Strikes Back or really weak movies like Ava.  Most of the movies that been released this year have been direct-to-video, be it Premium Video on Demand or on standard streaming services like Netflix or Amazon.  There were quite a few movies that were released over the past few months like I Am Vengeance: Retaliation and Tremors: Shrieker Island.  As with most direct-to-video movies, the quality runs the line between fantastic and awful.  That brings me to Jiu Jitsu, a movie that was hyped over the past year because of its cast, and why it’s awful.

Jiu Jitsu follows Jake, a warrior on the run from a mysterious alien threat when he’s knocked unconscious and wakes up with amnesia.  As it turns out, the alien that Jake encountered shows up on Earth every six years to take on 9 of the world’s best warriors.  If they refuse, the world dies.  That’s the story in a nutshell.  It’s a meager thread tying all the action sequences together.  In certain cases, I’m okay with that.  Sometimes all I want is people beating the living daylights out of each other.  If I had to compare this movie to something, it would be Enter the Dragon meets Predator, but worse than both.  There’s this ridiculous idea in the film that it was aliens that gave us jiu jitsu.  For those of you not in the know, jiu jitsu is a style of Japanese martial arts that involves kicking, striking, immobilization, joint-locking and forms of grappling.  I’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s just that some of the ideas in this film are absolutely ridiculous.  You’ve got a guy that has amnesia but still knows how to fight, but not much else, strikes me as a little odd, but whatever.  You’ve also got this group of fighters trained in jiu jitsu that find Jake and end up running afoul of the United States Army.  The purpose of the US military is waved away by a single line of dialogue towards the end of the film, so the entire subplot of the Army is just nonsense.  Yeah, don’t go into this movie for the story.  It’s bonkers.

For fans of action movies, Jiu Jitsu sports a pretty decent roster of action stars.  Tony Jaa, who you might recognize from Ong-Bak has a decent presence here.  You’ve also got Marrese Crump, who made his debut on Protector 2, also with Tony Jaa.  Frank Grillo is pretty good as Harrigan.  Unfortunately, Rick Yune is largely wasted in a thankless role as a US soldier.  He doesn’t even throw a punch.  Jake is played by Alain Moussi, who played Kurt Sloane in the new Kickboxer movies.  I’ll get back to him in a moment.  Last, but not least, we have Nicolas Cage as Wylie, a crazy old hippie.  I have to give credit where it’s due.  Nic Cage is one of the most spectacular actors alive.  When he gives it his all, you really can’t take your eyes off of him.  He plays crazy like it’s nobody’s business, and he can switch on a dime from calm to berserker without much warning.  Cage has put out some pretty good movies lately, including Color out of Space and Mandy.  So, when he’s given the right material, you’re along for the ride.  Let’s get back to the main star of the film, Alain Moussi.  Look, the guy is a talented martial artist and stunt-man, but an actor he really is not.  He was passable in the Kickboxer films, but here he’s completely wooden and one note.  Normally, that wouldn’t bother me in a movie like this, but his character has the personality of a rock.  The only reason that I see that he’s passable is because of the people he’s surrounded by.  Outside of Nicolas Cage, the acting here isn’t that great.

For a movie called Jiu Jitsu, you don’t really see a lot of it’s namesake in the movie.  No, you see a lot of taekwondo, muay thai, and capoeira.  There IS some jiu jitsu, but it’s used at a minimum.  Aside from that issue, there is definitely a lot of talent on display here.  Alain Moussi can handle the action with the best of them, despite his acting ability, Tony Jaa is always fun to watch.  Marrese Crump is constantly surprising me with how fast he is.  Most of the folks here are martial artists of one sort or another.  The one that surprised me was Nicolas Cage himself, who actually has a black belt in jiu jitsu.  He does most of his own fighting in the film with some stunts he had to be doubled for.  Unfortunately, there are issues with the action.  There’s a point in the film where some of the fighting takes place in first-person perspective, and it really doesn’t work.  You can’t see what’s going on.  On top of that, a lot of the action is tempered with slow motion.  I don’t mind slow motion when it’s used properly, but when it’s used to THIS extent, it’s usually to hide bad choreography, kind of like shaky-cam.  It also pads out the film quite a bit.  A lot of the action is grounded, with most of the fights being wireless, which is a good thing.  Sadly, it’s not enough to save an action film from action that feels….well….pedestrian.

Jiu Jitsu reminds me of an older DTV action flick called Ninja Apocalypse, and not in a good way.  For one, the visual effects are awful.  I haven’t seen DTV CGI this bad in years.  These are PlayStation ONE level visual effects.  Again, I have to credit the film-makers of actually having a guy in a suit for the main villain, Brax.  But the suit is lame and the design is weak.  The costume designs are really bizarre.  The army uniforms don’t look like army uniforms.  They look like something you get from the discount rack at Kohl’s.  The stuff that the fighters wear is equally strange.  The wear a kind of hoodie/cloak that can hide them from the alien.  Alrighty, then.  There’s some decent cinematography, but this is not a great-looking movie.  There are scene transitions here that are basically ripped from a comic-book, which is ironic, because this movie is based on a comic book that was co-written by the film’s director.  It just one of the many elements that take you right out of the film.

Jiu Jitsu is NOT a good movie, by any standard.  There are elements here that could have worked, but are hampered by some really questionable decision-making, especially in terms of the action.  There’s a lot of action, but the constant slow motion almost ruins it.  Is this the worst movie I’ve seen this year?  Not really, but as far as action movies go, it’s nowhere near as good as something like Triple Threat.  Alain Moussi has yet to prove that he can carry a movie, while Nicolas Cage steals the show from anybody that might have a chance.  Honestly?  Skip this one.

My Final Recommendation: 3/10.

Released: September 2020(VOD)

Directors: Gerard Bush, Christopher Rentz

Rated R

Run Time: 104 Minutes

Genre: Horror/Drama/Mystery

Distributor: LionsGate Studios

Cast:
Janelle Monae: Veronica/Eden
Eric Lange: Him/Senator Denton
Jena Malone: Elizabeth
Jack Huston: Captain Jasper
Tongayi Chirisa: Eli/Professor Tarasai
Gabourey Sidibe: Dawn
Kiersey Clemons: Julia

First of all, I would like to apologize for not being around as of late.  I had politics on the brain.  2020 has been quite the year, hasn’t it?  It really has, but not in a good way.  I can literally count on two hands how many movies I’ve seen in theaters this year.  That’s not a lot.  The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the entire globe, both economically and in human lives.  It certainly doesn’t help that the country was run by an administration that just didn’t care.  Because of everything that’s been happening, I wasn’t able to do my Best of October 2020, because there really wasn’t a whole lot to talk about.  Some of the movies that were scheduled to hit theaters this year have either been moved to next year or sent to VOD.  Among those films was a little thriller called Antebellum, which was originally supposed to be released back in April, but the onset of a global pandemic kind of put plans on hold.  That is the film I’m going to talk about today.

Antebellum starts in what appears to be a Civil War-era southern plantation with Confederate soldiers and African-American slaves.  A small group of run-away slaves have been caught by the Confederate soldiers.  One of the slaves is shot and killed and the main one, Eden is later whipped and branded by the commanding officer of the plantation.  Cut to modern times as successful author Veronica wakes up in a cold sweat.  After breakfast, Veronica flies to Louisiana for a book tour and a panel talking about systemic racism.  To say anymore about the plot would spoil everything, but I absolutely love the way this movie unfolds.  Normally, I usually don’t look at other reviews before I do my own, but I got curious as to what other people thought about the film.  It’s been pretty mixed, but some of the more negative ones complain using racism as a plot device in a horror movie.  What?  Antebellum isn’t the first horror movie to address the issue of America’s original sin and it won’t be the last.  I get it:  Tackling racism in a movie is a very tricky proposition, because you either don’t delve into it enough to really address the issue, or you go so overboard that it desensitizes people to it.  I don’t think Antebellum goes overboard with it.  It’s depicting one of the worst atrocities that America has ever committed.  Is it heavy-handed?  Yeah, but when it comes to the topic of slavery and racism, you can’t handle it with kid gloves.  You have to expose the horrible reality that slaves were facing on a daily basis back then, and Antebellum does a pretty good job with that.  The movie also sends a very clear message about how damaging systemic racism is, even in the modern world.

Let’s talk a little bit about the acting.  First off, I have to give high praise for the African-American cast who were willing to put themselves through a pretty rigorous production and story.  The real stand-out of the film has to be Janelle Monae as Eden and Veronica.  Janelle is incredible as she actually two very different kinds of performances in the film, and both of them are great.  You don’t really see a lot of actors delivering such vastly different performances in the same film.  The fact that she did it so well speaks volumes about her talent.  Tongayi Chirisa plays Eli and he’s just as good as Janelle.  That being said, I’ve got a bit of an issue with the villains.  These guys are portrayed as mustache-twirling sadists that can do whatever they want.  They’re pretty over the top, although, I will give Eric Lange credit for playing a total scumbag.  Jena Malone plays Elizabeth, a total bitch in her own right, but Jena chews the scenery just enough to really make you hate her.  Overall, the acting really isn’t that bad.  This is Janelle’s film, through and through, however.

I have to say that the first 40 minutes of the film are definitely the most compelling as it sets the tone for the rest of the film.  It’s a pretty harrowing experience, but it’s a necessary one.  Unfortunately, the movie kind of slows down a bit when it hits 40 minute mark when it takes us to what appears to be the present day.  I really like the transition between time periods though.  It’s jarring, but on a technical level, it’s pretty simple.

So, what kind of movie IS Antebellum?  Is it horror? Drama? Mystery?  Yes, to all three, although I would not personally call this a traditional horror movie.  As I mentioned above, we’re dealing with a depiction a very real and ugly period in American history.  So, for a lot of folks this would be a horror movie.  The idea of the film is actually pretty horrific, but again, I’m not going to spoil it.  The marketing for this film is strange.  It kind of had a bizarre time-travel aspect to it, but that really isn’t the case.  And again, it’s marketed as a straight-forward horror movie, and it really isn’t.  There’s been complaints about the film being extremely violent.  I guess they’ve never seen Django Unchained, because Antebellum is nowhere near as violent.  It’s definitely violent at times, but it’s never to the point of being an exploitation movie.  Another thing I have to credit for is the cinematography.  This is a gorgeous looking movie which belies the horrific elements at the center of the film.  The movie was shot on location at a plantation in Louisiana so there is definitely a level of authenticity on display here.  Like-wise the Civil War-era costumes and set designs are immaculate.  It’s very period-specific and very well made.  For a film that was made for about 15 million dollars, it looks like it was made for nearly 5 times that.  That’s how good it looks.

We currently live in some troubled times.  Not only do we have a pandemic, but we are also dealing with a lot of different social issues that includes systemic racism.  Antebellum couldn’t have come at a better time, really.  While the film isn’t perfect, with some bizarre casting and acting issues as well as some story points that kind of get jumbled up here and there, Antebellum is a film that strikes at the heart of racism and the marginalization of minorities.  As we’ve just witnessed over the last couple of days, minorities have stood up against it.  I don’t think Antebellum is the best film to deal with slavery and racism.  It’s definitely not 12 Years A Slave.  What Antebellum is a solid thriller that does pack some surprises and I think it’s definitely worth a watch.

My Final Recommendation: 8.5/10