Category: Fantasy

WICKED PART ONE

By Marc S Sanders

The blessing of film is that it provides a channel to forms of entertainment that not everyone necessarily has access to.  I was never fascinated with the Tony Awards so much (even though I attended three live ceremonies) because the nominees were exclusive to what was performed in the last year on Broadway in New York City.  How can I or the rest of the country get enamored with the best of the best when we hardly have access to see any of the performances?  With movies, well you just go to the movies!

Wicked is one of the few musicals in the last twenty years that has taken on a worldwide fascination.  It was a very long novel before it became the touring stage production following a massive debut on Broadway. Perhaps because the story returns to a familiar setting, the fantastical land of Oz, the book and show carried a strong appeal.  Wicked arrived with an established brand.  Who doesn’t know The Wizard Of Oz?  Nevertheless, Wicked never needed magical ruby slippers (or rather silver as author L Frank Baum intended) to find its footing.  It’s always been worthy of its accolades apart from any other properties.  The new film, directed by John M Chu, will become a timeless classic all by itself.  Despite some technical issues, this cinematic adaptation is wondrous.

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is the green skinned awkward teen, who was rejected by her father and only served a purpose to tend to her wheelchair bound sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode).  She accompanies them to drop her sister off at the esteemed magical school known as Shiz.  However, the headmistress of the institution, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), requests that Elphaba stay on as a student that she will personally teach as well.  Elphaba is roomed with the self-absorbed Galinda (Ariana Grande), where their relationship is frictional at first and later adoringly empathetic.  Eventually, we come to realize the destinies of these young ladies will develop into what is all too familiar in L Frank Baum’s eternal The Wizard Of Oz – Elphaba becomes The Wicked Witch Of The West while Galinda is recognized as Glinda, the pinkishly tender Good Witch Of The North. 

This Part One iteration of Wicked is very faithful to the stage production.  Every recognizable number is included from the operatic “No One Mourns The Wicked” to the giddily cheerful “Popular” to the climaxing, fist pumping, take charge “Defying Gravity” that closes out Act One.  The latter number is arguably one of the most well recognized and beloved theatrical songs of the twenty-first century thus far.  The edits and choreography of every number is magnificent, full of energy, and the harmonies work like natural dialogue as opposed to something like West Side Story where it’s not crazy to ask exactly why rival street gangs suddenly break out into song while trying to knife one another. 

John M Chu makes sure that his cast use every prop and set piece available.  You can’t help but grin while Ariana Grande does a circular swan flight from a chandelier while making a case for why it’s best to be popular.  “One Short Day” is a massive declaration within narrow school courtyards and corridors that berth out toward wide open endless fields into a vast blue sky for Elphaba to declare what she yearns for.  Cynthia Erivo has that knack to sing and perform personally to her character’s own subconscious when she’s in these intimate, private moments.  She then bursts out with confident volume to show that as repulsive as she might appear to everyone around her, the soul inside is what is beautiful.  In order to cast Elphaba, you really need one of the most beautiful singing voices in the world because the character is most stunning when she is expressing herself vocally. 

Ariana Grande is good. Though I still prefer the two iterations of the character that I saw on stage prior to this film.  Her performance is a different interpretation than what is traditionally in a live production.  I especially noticed that change when her character attempts to explain how to properly pronounce her name of Galinda.  The stage version of this memorable moment induced the laughs from me more.  As beautiful as Grande is in her characterization and singing, she’s not so humorous as the live stage performances.  So, the humor of Galinda, the self-entitled spoiled rich girl with everything, is not as strong.  As well, at the top of the film, I had an issue with understanding precisely what Ariana Grande was singing at first.  Was she harmonizing or was she singing dialogue?  Perhaps, that is not so much a fault of the actress as it is the recording.  Yet, the issue does not last long, and soon you are treated to Galinda laying it all out there.  She might not be as funny this time, but she’s incredibly charming and loved by her surrounding entourage of student followers, especially from Bowen Yang (Saturday Night Live) and Bronwyn James. 

The sets are spectacular and I learned afterwards that they are mostly physically constructed.  So, there is a texture to the schoolgrounds of Shiz with bridges and babbling brooks as well as regal castle-like architecture.  This is a Universal picture and many may presume that Disney would have produced something like this musical fantasy.  However, in Disney’s hands, much of this film would have been polished in a grandiose, yet artificial, CGI.  John M Chu and his crew went the smart route and diminished the cartoon sheen that comes with CGI.

My issue though is in the cinematography.  Regrettably, I could not see Wicked in a Dolby cinema.  So, we settled for a traditional theatre at AMC which was fine.  Yet, I was wondering at first if there was something wrong with the projector.  A lot of the scenes taking place in the daytime seemed washed out, especially with close ups on Ariana Grande and her complexion.  Then I concluded that John M Chu’s cinematographer relied on a lot of blaring sunlight for many of the scenes.  I imagine it was used to contrast the dark green complexion of Elphaba, emphasizing how much she doesn’t belong in this environment and amping up what an eyesore the character must feel like within the world of Shiz.  When Elphaba dominates a scene or a caption or when the film arrives at the Emerald City, the photography is just right.  Elsewhere at Shiz, it’s very oversaturated with a fuzzy kind of look to it.  Was I wearing the wrong spectacles?  Wait, I don’t wear glasses or contacts!  I could not get past this for much of the film. There was just too much white light, and it didn’t compliment the pinks and pales that accompany Galinda and some of the environments and extras.

My wife and I agreed we are going to see it in theatres at least one more time within a Dolby surround sound.  You should too.  We missed the surround sound of the winning music blaring through the entire theatre.  In a traditional theatre, the sound feels as if it is only coming from the front, or behind the screen.  Dolby or IMAX enhance the audible as if your mind is right at the center of an orb with the most gorgeous, pitch perfect sounds accompanying you.  Dolby and IMAX will also enrich the colors, and Wicked is most certainly vibrant.  Every scene looks like a completed coloring book, despite my one noted imperfection.  A year after Barbie, and pink is still in.  Greens and blacks are just as impactful.

Wicked is magnificent entertainment, worth seeing again.  The music is enchanting and easy to catch on to.  It’s fun and dramatic and every lyric works to shape the characters.  The story is magnificent as well with eye opening twists while allegorically adopting a message demonstrating the harm of prejudice.  There’s also opportunity to show where life can be a disappointment at times when you encounter false idols and learn truths about yourself and those you have grown close to.  I speak in vague terms on these accounts so as not to spoil what this powerful story delivers.

The film is smart in invention as well.  There are good, solid moments that were never staged in the live performances, but thanks to the art of filmmaking new ideas seem totally appropriate where the classic 1939 film, The Wizard Of Oz, are referenced.  Though, I have yet to see Part Two, I can confidently say Wicked works as a solid prequel.

I was one of the skeptics who believed breaking this film into two parts was a shameless studio cash grab.  It certainly seems that way and maybe it is, but considering how good this new musical film adaptation is, I am eager for another installment.  So, I will happily fork over more admission money a year from now and I am confident that I’ll wholeheartedly enjoy Wicked Part Two.  This is a brilliantly creative story with a strong cast, sensational music and eye-popping invention.  I may know what becomes of the characters and how this story ends, but I can’t wait to see it reenacted for its latter half, and I am eager to see what new creations present themselves in its next chapter. 

Wicked is one of the best films of the year.  A triumphing soar through the skies on a magical broomstick.

TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA (FRANCE)

By Marc S. Sanders

For a short film with a running time of only thirty-five minutes, Two People Exchanging Saliva (aka DEUX PERSONNES ÉCHANGEANT DE LA SALIVE) offers a lot to tell within its absurdist universe thanks to writers/directors Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh.  Reflecting on the film, which I saw during the After Dark collection of shorts at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, my list of imagery grows longer and longer and I am grateful for it.  There’s much to remember, even nearly a full week after seeing the film.

Shot within a department store located off the Champs-Élysées within the heart of Paris, the film is a gorgeous black and white presentation with striking lighting to illuminate a wide collection of settings.  Shoe racks never looked so ethereal.  A staircase leading upward feels very curious.  Piles of cardboard boxes feels terrifying before I even know what they are to personify.  Yet, the oddities that Musteata and Singh introduce are what tempts you to learn more about the rules they have set up for this fictional cosmos.

Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) is a salesperson at this store and like the rest of the staff, she must exhale her breath directly into the nose of a security guard before starting her shift.  She is suppressed by a domineering supervisor, Pétulante (Aurélie Boquien).  It cannot be more apparent that Pétulante feels threatened by her best customer’s favorability for Malaise.  That customer is Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi).  Among these three ladies, this comes off like a common soap opera love triangle that has been seen many times before.  Yet, the writers/directors throw some spice at this centerpiece.

Within this world, kissing is outlawed, punishable by death.  Hence the necessary requirement for a breath smell.  Ingest some garlic or other reprehensible aromatic food to divert any temptation from breaking the law.  Furthermore, products are sold at a cost of slaps to the face.  Several players exhibit the scabs and bruises, as well as nosebleeds, that evidence their purchases.  Looking at Angine it’s easy to see she is certainly a high-priced shopper.

With these set ups in place, the story can take off and rely on bold imagery.  We witness Malaise’s fear of what can happen if she commits to her attraction for Angine when the apparent crime of kissing occurs within the store.  We fear that Pétulante will pounce on prohibitive kissing in order to win her prized client back while getting her underling, Malaise, permanently out of the picture.  We see the great lengths of tormented slapping Angine endures in order to have another shopping experience with the innocent Malaise. 

The film serves reminders of the nature of punishment if a kiss is committed between two people.  The criminals are literally boxed up and disposed in a junk heap of other boxes that encase people just like them.  Musteata and Singh’s most powerful shots are of this pile of boxes dumped into a landfill toppling one over the other.  It’s like something from George A Romero film, like Night Of The Living Dead.  No big effects here.  Nothing that looks like a large expense beyond collecting a enormous supply of cardboard boxes.  Yet, when piled together in an outdoor area under the shine of their black and white cinematography from Alexandra de Saint Blanquat, it’s terribly haunting.

My wife and I got to speak with Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh on a few occasions during the 2024 AFI Film Festival.  They explained how the idea of this dystopian universe came to them while quarantining in their New York home during Covid.  They went through the steps of obtaining financial backing and they discovered that it would be more cost effective to shoot the picture in France than in the United States.  As well, they had access to a department store in Paris after it had closed for the night.  They went through the process of setting their scenes, rehearsing their actors, coordinating lighting and camera positioning within the few hours available to them before sunrise when the store would reopen.  Listening to them, I could envision the tight scheduling pressures they must have experienced in making this film.

I also find it interesting that they assembled this film during Covid. Simply shaking hands with others was highly discouraged to avoid a spread of disease. Highly charged debates on reproductive rights are so prominent right now too.  In Two People Exchanging Saliva, it’s not hand shaking that is impermissible, it’s something much worse, but also more intimate – kissing.  As well, in order to live off of materialism, one must fall victim to an abuse of their bodies, and they have the marks to show for it just beneath their eyes and across their profiles.  In this world, people are limited and exposed to the will of a domineering enforcement.  I salute the allegories found in the short film.  It may sound silly on the surface.  Natalie and Alex even laughed while explaining the plot of their film before we had a chance to see it.  Still, it is not altogether farfetched.  When can we live truly independently without a threat of punishment, when all we want is a will to live and love with one another?

Two People Exchanging Saliva was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, and I could not be happier for the filmmakers’ accolades.  It’s worthy of its merits.  If you can find this outstanding short film I highly encourage you to take a little over a half hour out of your day to experience something entirely unique, while beautifully presented. 

Seek out your local art houses for a film short festival coming soon.  Two People Exchanging Saliva should be included in any collection that’s being offered.  Now I’m hoping an Oscar nomination is on the horizon for Natalie and Alex.  Bon Chance!!!!

MEGALOPOLIS

By Marc S. Sanders

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is undeniably the director’s most ambitious project of his long career.  Like other films, Coppola put up the entire $120 million to finally make the picture, including selling his well-known vineyard to make it happen.  Every penny he invested is well spent.  Especially seeing it on IMAX, this is an absolutely gorgeous motion picture, like James Cameron’s Avatar films.  I mean…wow do the colors pop and shine.  

However, as beautiful as the visuals are in Coppola’s self-described “Fable” (it literally says that in the title card), it is mostly devoid of substance beyond the paint by numbers debates that cause conflict among these very strange characters.

In New Rome City, an alternative reality to the Big Apple (the Statue of Liberty holds the torch in her left hand), Caesar Catalina (Adam Driver) is a “designer” who recently invented Megalon, a substance that he believes is the answer to a utopian future.  It’s indestructible and it can be molded to serve practically any purpose.  For example, you don’t even have to walk to where you’re going.  Step on the Megalon puddle and it will move you there.  Not much of a departure from the flat movable floors you find in nationwide airports.  This is one of Megalon’s major innovations, designed to impress me?

Megalon can also be used for healing, and it has the ability of transparency.  It is more durable than wood, steel or concrete.  It’s truly the next greatest wonder of resources.  Frankly, I was more dazzled by the Vibranium found in Wakanda.

As Caesar the artist pushes his agenda for absolute Utopia, the hardened Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is the opposing side of the argument declaring Utopia to be an impossibility.  Caught in between the two figures is Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of Cicero and in love with Caesar.  Gotta have a soap opera element to this piece so the stubborn divide between these two men remains firmly in place.

Just as in typical political rings, the Mayor works to smear Caesar the idealist who is solely focused on his end goal design.

Outside the boundaries of their public quarrel are other overly colorful and garish looking characters such as the banker Hamilton Cressus III (Jon Voight), his wife, the gossip reporter Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Constance Cassius Catalina who is Caesar’s mother (Talia Shire), a lone, crazed revolutionist and nephew to the Mayor called Clodio Pulcher (Shia LeBeouf) and Nush “The Fixer” Berman (Dustin Hoffman).

These names are exhausting.  Coppola’s film is even more tiresome.  The filmmaker truly must believe he is the second comings of both Nostradamus and William Shakespeare.  The ego of this picture could not be more apparent.  The director’s head must be THAT BIG to believe he has the nerve to tell this story of such biblical proportions.

Much of those character names, and the actors who play them, are here for show and tell.  Their value to this piece is nowhere near as prized as anyone living in Harry Potter’s world, though. Megalopolis only takes time to calm itself down when the three principal players have scenes isolated to themselves or when they only occupy the screen together.  Otherwise, this movie serves as vehicles for much of the cast to be adorned with updated and trendy Roman costume wear, from fig leaf crowns to golden armored chest plates.  At times, LeBeouf is so unrecognizable in hair, makeup and clothes you don’t even realize you’re looking at him.  

The performances are all over the place.  I never once believed that whatever Dustin Hoffman was talking about that he knew what he was even saying or representing.  Shia LeBeouf mostly runs with the privilege of getting to say “Fuck Caesar!” while finding motivation only in whatever weird appearance he’s dressed in.  Adam Driver can lead a picture for sure, but here he looks like he showed up for filming with a bewitching overnight hangover.  

This is a film that cannot be ignored for its technical achievements at Oscar time.  For no reason other than aesthetics, Driver and Emmanuel will share a scene while balancing themselves on swinging steel construction beams high above the city. The view is spectacular.  All undeniably eye opening.  You also cannot look away from the costumes or scenic art direction.  The sound mixing in an IMAX theater totally envelops you in this weird world.  It’s a digital film’s dream just like James Cameron banks on.  

Still, maybe none of these efforts will be recognized because frankly much of the visuals, audio and physical construction make zero sense or relevance to the central storyline that Coppola is striving for.  Namely, the possibility for Utopia versus the practicality of simply living through life with the necessity for economics, technology, healthcare, fuel and on and on and on.

Of all films I thought about while watching Megalopolis, my mind went to William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  Shatner had the idea to have the Enterprise crew meet face to face with the almighty God.  Well, if you’re going to deliver God to a movie house, without George Burns or Morgan Freeman in the role, you’re setting yourself up to disappoint at least half or maybe even one hundred percent of your audience.  When you factor in the tremendous assortments of beliefs and religions, I’d argue no two people who believe in God, see the ethereal, omnipotent entity in the same way.  The same goes for Utopia.  How can Francis Ford Coppola be so audacious as to believe audiences will accept Caesar’s vision of a perfect land?  

Reader, he can’t!

My Utopia is different than your Utopia.  This is practically an untouchable subject and Francis Ford Coppola is far from the fabled prophet that the world needs or will draw their attention to.

Still, I remained as open minded as I could with Megalopolis all the way towards the ending that finally arrived.  The Utopia shown on this giant IMAX screen was told by the film’s narrator (Laurence Fishburne, also paying Caesar’s chauffeur) that the world was showered in gold dust.  A far cry from the Bible’s claim of arriving upon a land of milk and honey.  Why should I ever need the nourishment of milk and honey when I can have gold dust?

Think about that for a second.  Gold Dust.  I know.  The narrator is being allegorical.  Still, couldn’t that be interpreted as a little too materialistic for the Utopia we yearn for?  Gold is only a precious metal the same way a diamond is only a precious stone, or the Atari 2600 is now an expired precious commodity among former twelve year old kids in the 1980s.  

I have little shame.  I’m an admitted materialistic kind of guy.  My Mustang and my flat screen TV and my Star Wars collectibles mandate that I am. Yet, none of these possessions have ever delivered me into a paradise of perfection.  The Mustang needs precious fuel to operate.  Try as I might, I can’t collect everything.  My flat screen TV is still on the fritz.  (DAMN YOU BEST BUY GEEK SQUAD!!!)

Coppola contradicts himself with the conclusion of his fantasy opus.  He pans over the extras who occupy this film with big toothy grins of enormous gratitude while the very well dressed and bejeweled surviving characters of his story seem to be shot from an elevated stage above me, the viewer, and all who occupy a brightly lit Times Square located within the heart of New Rome City.  I am meant to look up to these giants!!! 

THIS IS UTOPIA???  

No!  I could never accept this interpretation of grand decadence as the enigmatic paradise we have all envisioned in dreams and discussion and literature.  Shouldn’t Utopia consist of a life where stress is absent, and pain is a foreign unfamiliar word and feeling? I’m not even giving Utopia its fair due.  It’s practically impossible to describe, but I’m at least certain that the rich shades of gold and black glamours within a Times Square shopping district is not the way to go.  Yet, Francis Ford Coppola is suggesting this is all that it is.  A Times Square showered in gold dust.

Frankly, I normally would give much more credit to the man who pioneered the stellar Godfather films along with the bombastic Apocalypse Now and the intimate The Conversation.  He’s never been more short sighted though, than when he finally made his “fable,” Megalopolis.

The greatest flaw and tragedy of Megalopolis is the very broad contradiction that Francis Ford Coppola declares within his fictional, fantasy-like prophecy.  Once the “fable” is all over, I feel like I paid an enormous amount of money for a cult like weekend seminar meant to brainwash me into broadening heights of positivity and awareness, showered in gold dust of course.  

Where’s The High-Level Minister Coppola?  

I’d like my money back because this preach is no more believable than an L Ron Hubbard doctrine.  Battlefield Earth just might be a little more convincing Megalopolis.

GHOST

By Marc S. Sanders

For a perfect blend of the supernatural, suspense, mystery, drama, romance and comedy, the first film that will always come to mind is the surprise hit film Ghost from 1990.  One of the zany Zucker brothers, Jerry to be more precise, who introduced the world to slapstick spoof (Airplane!, The Naked Gun) directed this film turning Demi Moore into a ten-million-dollar actress, placing Patrick Swayze ahead of his Dirty Dancing looks and earning Whoopi Goldberg a very well-deserved Academy Award.  Ghost was a film for all kinds of movie goers.

Sam Wheat (Swayze) is an up-and-coming New York City business executive who loves his new live-in girlfriend, Molly (Moore) even if he can only say “Ditto!” when she tells him she loves him.  Shortly after the picture begins Sam is gunned down following an evening at the theatre.  Unbeknownst to Molly and anyone else living on earth, Sam’s spirit lives on though, and he realizes that he was not the victim of some random mugging/murder.  Now, Sam must find out who arranged to have him killed and why, while also protecting Molly from becoming a victim.

Along the way, Sam crosses paths with a phony con artist, working as a medium, named Oda Mae Brown (Goldberg) who turns out to be the real thing when she can actually hear Sam’s voice and communicate with him.  Sam must recruit Oda Mae to be a go between for him with Molly and everyone else necessary to follow up on in order to resolve the mystery of his sudden death.

Ghost succeeded in every category of filmmaking.  Rewatching the film decades later, I believe Demi Moore should have gotten an Oscar nomination.  Her close ups on camera with beautiful, muted colors from Adam Greenberg’s cinematography are masterful.  Greenberg should have been nominated too.  He’s got perfect tints of pearl whites both on the cobble stone streets of New York with the outer architecture of the apartment buildings, as well as within the studio apartment where the couple lives.  He strives for an ethereal look with his lens. Gold often occupies Molly’s close ups with dim lighting.  Blues and blacks and steel glinting shines follow Sam’s trajectory. 

Look at the lonely scenes that Moore occupies in the couple’s apartment.  There’s a haunting image of isolation with no dialogue capturing the young actress at the top of a staircase when she eventually rolls a glass jar off the top and it shatters below.  It’s one of the moments that defines a sorrowful character, and not many cry on screen better than Demi Moore.  Later, Sam is engaging in a pursuit through the subway system and races down a steep blue escalator in the dead of night.  Zucker places Greenberg’s camera at the bottom of the escalator to show the depth of hell that Sam may be risking continuing his chase.  The images and transitions of this whole movie from scene to scene are stunning.

I mistakenly recall Whoopi Goldberg as just a comedienne doing her stand up schtick in this film.  Not so.  Goldberg looks radiant on film and while she starts out comically as the script calls for, she eventually resorts to sensitive fear of what her paranormal partner demonstrates as real within this fantasy.  There are so many dimensions to this character.  She’s silly.  She’s exact in her nature for what’s at stake and the dialogue handed to her from Bruce Joel Rubin’s Oscar winning script compliments the actress so well. Goldberg never looks like she’s working for the awards accolades. Yet, she earned every bit of recognition that followed her.

Patrick Swayze makes more out of the straight man role than what could have been left as simple vanilla.  His spirit character uncovers more and more about his afterlife and what happened to him as the film moves along. With each discovery, you’re convinced of Sam’s surprises and what he becomes capable of as a ghost.  Long before superhero films became the novelty, Sam Wheat operates like one who has to learn of his origin and then acquire his new talents and powers to fend off the bad guys.

Jerry Zucker, working with Rubin’s script, Greenberg’s photography and Oscar nominated editing from Walter Murch, along with haunting yet sweet scoring from Maurice Jarre, builds a near perfect film.  The narrative of Ghost shifts so often from comedy to crime to drama to romance and the various natures of the piece hinge so well off each other.  That’s due to storytelling and the editing necessary to smooth out any wrinkles.  You become absorbed in Jerry Zucker’s direction, especially with the movie’s most famous scene where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are sensually doing pottery together accompanied by Bill Medley’s rendition of “Unchained Melody.”  Watch that scene with someone you love or take it in on a late Saturday night by yourself with no one to distract you with cackles and eye rolls.  You’ll see how effective Zucker’s work is along with Swayze and Moore upholding the scene in a dark, empty apartment.  Take it as seriously as the scene was originally constructed.  (Then go watch Zucker’s Naked Gun 2 ½ for a chuckle.)

The mystery of Ghost works well with surprises if you are watching it for the first time.  You build trust with a character only to realize it is a ruse for something else.  I do not want to give too much away.  For viewers who have never seen the film, maybe you’ll see an early twist as soon as the film begins.  Maybe not.  Either way, Ghost performs very naturally, unlike a forced kind of twist that M Night Shyamalan too often relies upon.  I do advise that you not watch the trailer that was used for Ghost as I believe it deals out too many of the film’s secrets.

There are movies that I watch over and over again because I love to relive the special moments they offer.  Ghost has those kinds of gifts and yet I have not seen it in ages.  I’m glad.  To experience the picture again was such a treat.  While I recalled all of its secrets, this time I was able to take in the various technical achievements and the assembly of the piece, along with outstanding performances. 

I have no problem saying that Ghost possesses the best performances within the vast careers of Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg.  Ghost still holds up. It deserves a rewatch and an introduction to new generations.

SUPERMAN II

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s time for the man in the red cape and blue tights to fall in love with Lois Lane, but wouldn’t you know it?  Three Krytonian criminals possessing the same powers as our hero have arrived on Earth with a means to dominate the planet and exact revenge on the son of their jailer.  Superman II picks up where Richard Donner’s original 1978 smash left off.  It remains a fantastically fun and breathless sequel.

Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night) gets the directing credit on this film following one of Hollywood’s most infamous behind-the-scenes stories.  While I’m a big admirer of Donner’s body of work, I think it was a blessing that Lester finished the job.  I’ve seen what Donner was intending to do on a special Blu Ray cut, and it just does not work. The characters make odd choices that seem inconsistent with how they were perceived in the first film.  That’s all I need to say about that comparison right now, though. 

In the original theatrical release, the story expands on the relationship between Superman & Lois (Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder) as well as Clark Kent and Lois.  Eventually, both relationships intersect with one another, and Lois realizes the man she’s been admiring and the one she hardly takes notice of are one and the same.  The problem for Superman, known by his krypton name Kal-El, son of Jor-El, is if it is acceptable to be intimate with an earthling. 

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has escaped prison to entice three villains from Krypton into a partnership that will allow them to take over the Earth and destroy Superman.  The trio is led by General Zod (Terence Stamp) with the wicked Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and the mindless and mute Non (Jack O’Halloran).  Following their attack on Houston, or as they call it the “Planet Huuston,” and the White House, it is on to Metropolis in search of Kal-El.

I’ve offered up quite a bit of what Superman II provides and I am not even close to sharing all it’s adventurous features and character dynamics.  This is a solid picture all the way through, and it begins with the casting.

I’ll be bold by declaring that Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Superman is one of the best casting decisions in film history.  Think about this for a moment.  As good as Henry Cavill was in Zach Snyder’s films, thirty years later, and how well some of the WB iterations have been, the contrary point that most people make is that none of them are Christopher Reeve.  From the smile, his handsome face, clear voice with perfect enunciation and even the signature hair curl over the forehead, no one has looked as good as a superhero come to life better than Mr. Reeve.  When he’s flying, even with outdated visual effect backgrounds, you are still convinced that Christopher Reeve knows exactly how to fly.

Following the director shake up on this picture, it is said Gene Hackman refused to shoot some scenes or do follow up edits.  You can tell when there is a double in place for him and you can hear the different vocal sound bites from Lex Luthor.  Nevertheless, what survived from Hackman’s participation is silly and twisted like you would expect from a modern-day, dastardly villain or as he declares himself to be “the greatest criminal mind of our age.” Some of these lines look hokey on paper, but Hackman invests his showmanship once again in the character.  I love it.  On all of those top ten lists, Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor is the one that everyone is regrettably forgetting about.

Margot Kidder is just as committed.  Lois Lane is best when she is the go-getter and Kidder is thoroughly convincing at not just being seen in the stunts and action but actually performing through Lois’ fears, sense of daring, and adoration for the love of her life.  Near the beginning of the film, there’s a great close up of Kidder looking up into the heights of the Eiffel Tower as Superman flies a hydrogen bomb out of danger.  No dialogue, but you can read it all over Margot Kidder’s face.  There goes my hero.  Watch him as he goes.  Few love interests in superhero films have ever matched what Margot Kidder accomplished in these pictures.

The action scenes are great set ups.  I get a chill down my spine every time I watch the showdown in Metropolis between the three baddies against the man in blue and red.  However, Richard Lester never neglects the acting throughout the whole two hours, particularly by the leads, as well as the Shakespearean maniacal performances from Stamp and Douglas.  Furthermore, the extras throughout Metropolis, Houston and even in Niagara Falls are performing very well and therefore turning the various settings into characters themselves.  Just as the fight over Metropolis is to begin, a cabbie declares “Man, this is gonna be good!”  Isn’t that guy speaking for the audience?  I remember the room applauding in the theater at that line.  When Superman rescues a child in Niagara Falls, a woman utters “What a nice man!” Clifton James, from a couple of James Bond movies, resurrects that redneck persona and it works better here as the guy who clashes with the imposing new visitors.  All of these walk on characters further shape the purpose of the visitors from space.  None of it depends on B-movie tripe like declaring “Peace!”  The personality of the folks meet the strangers from a strange land.  Sometimes it is done for means of slapstick, but it is always very entertaining.

Superman II is a perfect complement to the original film thanks especially to the cast.  Reeve gives multiple performances of Clark and Kal-El that could not be more different.  Kidder takes her character in new directions upon learning the surprises the script has in store for Lois.  Hackman is doing the same routine, but fortunately it’s welcome because I can not get enough of his antics.

This sequel really set the bar high and the next installments for Reeve came nowhere close. Though I actually have an affection for Superman III with that internal struggle depicted in the junk yard scene; one for the ages. 

The first two movies are legendary and Warner Bros/DC films realize they still have not superseded what was done over forty years ago.  The studios are not trying hard enough. However, more to the point, the filmmakers back then got it absolutely perfect, and you cannot beat Superman, nor can you beat perfection.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Woody Allen
CAST: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Dianne Wiest, and…Jeff Daniels
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 93% Fresh

PLOT: In 1935 New Jersey, a movie character walks off the screen and into the real-world life of a lonely, unhappily married woman.


I can imagine that it would be absurdly easy to poke holes in The Purple Rose of Cairo.  The premise is outlandish, taking place in the real world but firmly in the realm of fantasy.  It stretches the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, then goes a little further.  It asks the audience member to forget cynicism and snark for eighty-two minutes and give in to the kind of hopeless romanticism that exists only on the movie screen.  And then, amid all that glorious make-believe, it abruptly confronts you with the knowledge that, yes, this kind of thing really does only happen in the movies, and the real world can be messy and unforgiving and sad.  Yes…but at our lowest points, we can always turn to Fred and Ginger, and Bogey and Bacall, and Luke and Leia, and Gene Kelly, and Hogwarts and the Emerald City.  The Purple Rose of Cairo reminds us that the movies allow us to escape reality for an hour or three.  Sign me up.

This movie’s plot is the embodiment of the “high-concept pitch.”  What if a movie character walked off the movie screen and tried to live in the real world?  I don’t have any statistics to support this, but I’m pretty sure there are at least 18,337 other films with variations of this fish-out-of-water scenario, most memorably Splash, Last Action Hero, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

In this version, Mia Farrow plays Cecilia, a semi-depressed housewife in 1935 New Jersey, living in a small town still in the grips of the Great Depression.  Her husband, Monk (Danny Aiello), claims he’s looking for work, but we only ever see him pitching pennies with his buddies or making life miserable for Cecilia at home.  Her wages from her waitressing job go directly to rent and groceries, and anything left over goes to Monk.  Amid this bleakness, Cecilia goes to see the new film opening at the local theater, The Purple Rose of Cairo, starring a dashingly handsome actor named Gil Shepherd in the supporting role of archaeologist Tom Baxter (both roles played by a young Jeff Daniels).  She is swept away by the glitter, glamour, and romance of the film.

Imagine her surprise when, during one of the many screenings she attends, Tom Baxter abruptly stops mid-sentence, breaks the fourth wall, and speaks directly to Cecilia from up on the screen.  “My God, you must really love this picture…I gotta speak to you.”  And he simply walks off the screen, much to the consternation of the movie audience, and walks out of the theater, arm in arm with Cecilia.  The wit with which Woody Allen handles the reactions of the audience AND the movie characters Tom leaves behind is priceless.  The characters and the real people react with perfect logic, so the effect is not one of slapstick (I can see an Adam Sandler version of this movie beating the joke to death), but one of a strange mixture of high and low comedy.  To relate the scenes here word for word would ruin the magic.  (An African-American maid steals every scene she’s in.)  Tom and Cecilia go off together, and the rest of the film is, from a plot perspective, fairly predictable.

What makes this movie unique is how it tells the story.  Tom knows what an amusement park is, but he has no clue what popcorn tastes like.  (“Been watching people eat it for all those performances.  When they rattle those bags, though, that’s annoying.”)  He has fallen instantly in love with Cecilia…love at first sight.  Tom hides in the city, and Cecilia lies to Monk to go back and see Tom the next night.  A nice touch comes when calls start coming in to RKO that the Tom Baxter character in prints being shown in other cities is also trying to escape his gilded silver-screen cage.  (“He almost made it in Detroit.”)  There’s the inevitable showdown between Tom and Monk.  Tom only knows the moves he uses on film, but Monk fights dirty.  However, the fight still doesn’t end quite as I expected…another nice touch.

The real crisis occurs when the studio calls in Gil Shepherd, the actor who PLAYS Tom Baxter, to New Jersey so he can try to wrangle his creation back into the movie where he belongs.  There is the expected confusion when Cecilia bumps into Gil, mistaking him for Tom.  The plot thickens even more when Gil starts falling in love with Cecilia herself, and she finds herself in a pickle.  She tells Gil, “I just met a wonderful new man.  He’s fictional, but you can’t have everything.”

The commentary being made here regarding our fascination with movie characters (and the movies themselves) as opposed to the actors who play them seems simple, but in trying to analyze it like a “real” critic, I feel helpless in the face of the ingenuity of the situation.  My words aren’t doing justice to the almost poetic elegance on display.  The more you love movies, the more you’ll appreciate what I’m desperately trying to convey.

There are two moments/sequences that elevate The Purple Rose of Cairo from a dramatic exercise into the realm of genuine movie magic.  One is when Tom wants to show Cecilia a night on the town, but they have no money (Cecilia is broke, and all of Tom’s movie money is fake).  But he remembers that, in the “fake” Purple Rose movie, the scene coming up after the one he abandoned takes all the characters to the Copacabana.  It’s here that the viewer simply must suspend what little disbelief remains and give in to the simple but grand gesture of watching Cecilia herself appear on the black-and-white screen with all of the people she’s been watching night after night.  They go to the Copa, and after watching the singer who’s supposed to be Tom Baxter’s love interest, Tom and Cecilia head out for a night on the town, as only 1930’s movies could provide.  (The maître d’ provides one of the movies biggest laughs when he suddenly realizes he can do whatever he wants…and does.)

But the greatest moment is the very ending, which I will try desperately not to spoil here.  It’s here where we get to the heart of what Woody Allen is really trying to say: The movies are here and real life is there, and never the twain shall meet.  Is this a depressing point of view?  Well, I mean…yeah, a little.  But it’s also indisputably true.  If we walked around like we were actually in a movie, we’d never lock our doors behind us when we walked into our apartment.  Everyone’s phone numbers would begin with “555”.  We’d turn on the light when answering the phone at night (who does that, really?).  But in the real world, none of that is true.  In the real world, hearts get broken, sometimes for good.  We get fired.  People die.  WE die.  Love the movies, Allen is saying, but never forget that you’re flesh and bone, and that actions have consequences.  I’m reminded of a good line from Ready Player One: “As terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place that you can get a decent meal.”

The final shot of the movie, of Cecilia smiling through her tears, moved me like I’ve rarely been moved before.  It reminded me, perversely, of some of the worst times in my life because it was at those dark times that the movies came to my aid.  I went through a fair episode of depression in my twenties; a friend showed me Harold and Maude, and it literally changed my life.  During the Covid lockdown, I was furloughed, and the maddening Florida unemployment website sapped my will to live, figuratively speaking; my best friend, out of the blue, bought me a copy of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker just to cheer me up…and it did.  During that same period, several different films were in constant rotation in my movie room, all of which provided spectacular ways of escaping real life: Blade Runner 2049, Prometheus, The Martian, Interstellar, Gravity, and Sunshine [2007].  Not all laugh riots, to be sure, but they were excellent tonics against the constant worry of unemployment and disease.

And in 2017, Hurricane Irma threatened Florida.  For the first time, I was genuinely frightened that we would finally see real danger from a hurricane.  Miraculously, a local multiplex chose to stay open until almost the eleventh hour, and to get our minds off the approaching storm, I took my girlfriend to see the new remake of Stephen King’s It.  For two hours, we got scared out of our wits in the best way possible.  We escaped reality, and collectively we had our real-world fears literally exorcised.  I cannot tell you how grateful we were to have that brief respite from our troubles.

Those are the memories that came back to me in the final sequence of The Purple Rose of Cairo.  Yes, the real world is still the only place to get a decent meal, and it remains imperfect and sometimes painful.  But the movies are as close as a button click or a car ride.  They’re implausible and sometimes unrealistic and not always perfectly written.  But The Purple Rose of Cairo just wants to remind us of their power to cheer us up and transport us.

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (2023)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: James Wan
CAST: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 35%

PLOT: When Black Manta seeks revenge on Aquaman for his father’s death, Aquaman forges an uneasy alliance with his imprisoned brother to defend Atlantis and his family.


“They say everybody’s good at something.  Me?  I talk to fish.  …Some people think that makes me a joke.  But I don’t care.”

Those lines, spoken in narration by Aquaman at the beginning of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, admirably sum up just about every comic book fan’s opinion of Aquaman and his dubious powers over the course of his existence.  The genius move on the part of the DC Extended Universe was casting Jason Momoa as the King of Atlantis.  As I wrote in my review of Aquaman (2018): “Hell, I wouldn’t laugh at a guy who looks like that.  ‘You talkin’ to fish?  Ping away, Muscles!’”

So, you’ve got the right guy for the role, no worries there.  The problem now is how to use him.  Based on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, it would seem they used up all the best ideas in the first movie.  I wouldn’t call Lost Kingdom a rehash of Aquaman, necessarily, but it doesn’t exactly stake out new territory.  (Well, except for when they visit the underwater version of the Star Wars cantina, complete with a live band, seedy characters, and a pirate overlord who looks like Jabba the Hutt with fins for hands.  That was new.  I mean, sort of.)

Putting it another way, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom does not transcend, or even seem to ATTEMPT to transcend, the boundaries of the comic-book-movie genre.  The filmmakers did add some witty banter between Arthur and his imprisoned brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), that was a nice source of comic relief.  Orm’s almost complete ignorance of life on the surface world leads to some funny scenes involving such basic concepts of what to eat and how to run.  But aside from that, a rundown of the plot seems redundant because you’ve heard and seen it all before.  “Bad guy from first movie shows up, more powerful than before, threatens life on Earth for personal vendetta against good guy.  Good guy learns to get along with semi-bad-guy brother to defeat good guy.”

With that in mind, though, knowing full well that the movie followed the comic-book-movie formula step-by-step…I must truthfully report that I had a good time.  I enjoyed it.  I could intellectualize endlessly about the bankruptcy of the story, the bloated visual effects, the overly-preachy finger-wagging to climate-change deniers (Black Manta’s plan is to raise global temperatures in order to release an army of mutant henchmen from their icy prison in Antarctica; he has a line where he says something like, “I’m only continuing what we’ve been doing for decades.”  Shaaaame on us).  But…again, I must admit, I had fun.

At some point, when it comes to comic book movies, I have to start asking myself: what more do I want from a comic book movie?  If I expected every single comic book film to be as good as Superman or The Dark Knight or The Batman or even the first Shazam!, I would be sorely disappointed.  It’s impossible to have that kind of track record, quality-wise.  To be sure, there have been disappointments (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Venom, Wonder Woman 1984, and many others).  But none of those films were even close to being as much fun as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.  Others will no doubt disagree.  Understandable.

But I still had fun, and no amount of critical dismantling of the plot will change that.

POOR THINGS

By Marc S. Sanders

A sexually explicit rendering of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is brought to life by Yorgos Lanthimos’ film, Poor Things.  The strongest element of the picture is certainly Emma Stone’s uncompromising performance as Bella Baxter.  It’ll at least get an Oscar nomination.  The film will likely collect an abundance of nominations as well for it’s fantastical imagination in art direction, garish costuming and makeup and directing.  Maybe there will be some accolades for Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo as well.  The adapted screenplay of Alasdair Gray’s novel, written by Tony McNamara, is a contender too.  It’s already being hailed by many outlets as a top 10 picture for 2023.  Yet, I grew tired of the novelty, and bored with the excessive sexual exploits of Bella.

Bella was once a pregnant woman who deliberately plunged herself off a London bridge to escape her misery.  Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who Bella appropriately recognizes as simply God, discovers her lifeless body in time to conduct an experimental procedure.  Replace Bella’s brain with that of the unborn child she carries and raise her from there.  God is scarred and altogether bizarre, and recruits a medical student named Max (Ramy Youssef) to observe the reborn girl’s progression and behavior; a grown woman with that of an infant who is learning to speak, walk, eat, and behave for herself.  After a while it is decided by God that Max will become engaged to Bella.  However, another man enters the picture, Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), who convinces Bella to accompany him on a sojourn.  God permits the idea as an opportunity for Bella to learn what is out there and not restrict her.  It is at this point, that Lanthimos’ film transitions from a blue tinge monochrome photography to vibrant color as Bella and Duncan travel to destinations such as Lisbon, Alexandria, and Paris, where Bella abandons a destitute Duncan to join a Parisian brothel.  Bella sees opportunity.  She can earn money for allowing men to put their things inside her.

I could not help but think of films like Forrest Gump, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and even Pinocchio while watching Poor Things.  An unwise subject discovers an independence to witness how a world around her functions.  As she learns, she matures, and she realizes she does not need to be held down by any party.  Shelley’s monster also broke free of its master’s clutches, tried to acclimate itself, but was revolted against for its grotesqueness on the outside and simply for being misunderstood.  Bella does not encounter such a fate.  Instead, she discovers acceptance but only at what she’s worth monetarily speaking with a simple attraction limited to individual thought.

Poor Things is constructed in the narrative themes of Yorgos Lanthimos’ preferred way of filmmaking.  Just like The Favorite, it’s deliberately weird and proud of it.  Nothing appears conventional.  You could substitute the settings for Paris, London and even the cruise ship that Bella and Duncan travel on for set pieces in Wonka.  It’s all fantasy with an adoption of real-world locales.  I surmise Lanthimos excuses these outlooks as a perception of Bella.  The settings look like they were spawned from a pop-up children’s book.  It’s all so different but I found it to be tiring. If someone were to argue that it is inventive as opposed to another stale backdrop of London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower, I wouldn’t debate them. Yet, I was growing tired of the piece. 

Moreover, the second act of the film concentrates abundantly on Bella’s adventures within the brothel.  Bella discovers the comfort of self-pleasure.  Later, the sensation is enhanced by the possibilities of getting satisfied by the company of a man.  The audience chuckled.  So did I, but I also squirmed quite a bit.  Bella insists to God that she wants to “go adventure,” and God allows her his blessing.  Yet, I found these series of sexual encounters to be overly exploitive.  Nothing is held back on what Emma Stone performs for the camera as a concubine for one needy, stinky, and ugly gentleman caller after another.  She takes it the traditional way, the oral way, the way from behind and much more.  She is captured with S & M straps across her nude body and the Oscar winning actress goes all the way to sending the scenes home.  It’s as if Yorgos Lanthimos needs to deliver his point, but it’s not enough to try it once, twice, or even three times.  I get it already.  Bella is used for whatever fetishistic imagination the male mind can fathom and more importantly she thrives off of the stimulation. She happily recounts how a pineapple can be used in the bedroom.  It’s even better that she can get paid for this lifestyle.  It sounds amusing while I type this all out, but I was not entirely comfortable watching it either.  I’ve seen enough porn in my day to not be shocked, and I wasn’t shocked.  Yes, I was amused at times.  Look, I don’t have ice water running through my veins.  Eventually, though, I was just bored.

Godwin Baxter is an interesting character as played by an always reliable Willem Dafoe.  Early on, we see how in addition to his experiment with Bella, God has toyed with the ideas of blending different breeds of animals together.  Roaming his estate are the likes of a dog crossed with a chicken and a pig crossed with…you know what I can’t even remember after seeing the film only once.  There was also a duck crossed with something.  Kind of sophomoric material and I think Lanthimos would accept that observation as a compliment.  Oh yeah, there was a goat crossed with something too; was that the pig?  What I think lacks from Poor Things, however, is to probe if these kinds of experiments should even be conducted and I cannot recall a conversation that goes in that direction.  Max seems taken aback by what he witnesses but he never investigates further.  This is all most unusual (a serious understatement) and it’s hardly ever questioned. Even Jeff Goldblum tossed a contrary opinion at the idea of Jurassic Park.

I suppose I wanted more from Poor Things.  Beyond sexual pleasure and what can be gained from it, isn’t there anything else that naïve Bella has to learn about?  I guess in conjunction, she also learns how to earn a wage and a gumption to stand up for herself.  What about love and the fear of death?  What about what else occurs within the world around her?  What about loss, or betrayal?  As well, Godwin’s occupations never go further than what we see he is capable and daring enough to do.  How do others consider his experiments?  What residual effects stem from his accomplishments?

I’m glad I saw Poor Things.  I think I’d like to see it again actually because I may gain a greater understanding from the attempts the script strives for in accordance with Lanthimos’ vision.  I know this film is not for everyone, though.  It’s proudly peculiar, but its plodding in its glee to step very far over a line that most filmmakers wouldn’t dare go.  It has my salute for what it has set out to do.  Nonetheless, I’m not sure I’m a fan of the material it served, though.

THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

By Marc S. Sanders

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes is a stellar prequel to Suzanne Collins’ well-known franchise approach to reality television within a barbaric dystopian setting.  Francis Lawerence returns to direct this characterization of the would-be antagonist Coriolanus Snow played by unknown Tom Blyth in a blazing performance of innocence eventually corrupted by a warped environment of law.

The story takes place just over sixty years before Collins’ first trilogy that centered on the heroine archer Katniss Everdeen.  A vicious annual tournament known as “The Hunger Games” has reached its tenth year and interest in the programming has waned.  Rebellion throughout the twelve districts of Panem is getting stronger and the idea of selecting children to compete in a battle royale to the death is frowned upon. 

The elite students, which include Coriolanus and his best friend Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera), have been assigned to a new development in the Games.  They are to serve as mentors to the selected contestants.  Sejanus, who is the son of one of Panem’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, protests the games altogether.  He’s outspoken and determined in his efforts to put an end to the event.  Yet, his father’s wealth always bails him out.  Coriolanus does not seem to have an opinion on the matter.  He’s more curious about the showmanship of the contestant that he’s been assigned from District 12, a wildcat by the name of Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler, giving a magnificent presence to her role).

Lucy Gray is a free-thinking troublemaker wearing a wardrobe of colors and design.  She is a bursting talent with a guitar as well and an attitude to boot.  While the other contestants appear malnourished, poor, sad and legitimately pitiful, Lucy has a guise of confidence and independence.  She certainly stands apart from her competition when they are all locked up in a zoo cage for the public and press to look upon as hype ahead of the grand tournament.  Lucy is not a skilled fighter, but even without Coriolanus’ guidance she knows how to develop a following.

Elsewhere, there are the puppet masters.  There’s Dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), the inventor of the games, and teacher to the mentors.  He stresses a promising future for the best mentor performance, but there is to be absolutely no cheating.  As well, Viola Davis plays a devil of a villain as a Dr. Volumnia Gaul.  Think of her as the equivalent to the Nazis’ Dr. Mengele who experiments with new inventions of hideous creatures and process.  Her towering canister of colorful snakes is chilling anytime it appears on screen.

The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes has a long running time for a science fiction piece catered for young adults.  However, it confirms the error that was made with Collins’ film adaptation of her third novel, Mockingjay, which was split it into two films for the sake of greedy revenue commercialization to line Lionsgate’s pockets.  Because this prequel is contained as one piece, Tom Blyth is invited to perform a thrilling character arc of a poor, but intuitive, and good-natured young man who is eventually transformed into an evil personification. 

Lawrence’s film has multiple opportunities to end and roll the credits.  However, it carries on and becomes a journey for its principal characters, Lucy Gray and Coriolanus Snow are much like in the same vein as Vito and Michael Corleone in The Godfather.  Novels often have the luxury of spanning a wide berth of time to inch their way towards a protagonist’s destiny.  Movies tend to want to hurry things along.  With Francis Lawrence’s film we are granted the time to see how Lucy Gray performs during the leadup to the games as a character of confidence that a public is willing to follow and bet on, but most importantly care about.  Accompanying her is Lucy’s mentor, Coriolanus Snow, who is curious and concerned for Lucy’s wellbeing.  While being separated from one another for large portions of time, the two characters convincingly fall in love. 

The second act of the film is the sport in an arena, far from the technologically sophisticated nature found in the other films.  In this prequel chapter, it is simply an in the round stone coliseum of wreckage following a rebellion strike with barbaric weapons left in the center to grasp for advantage. 

The third act, which in another director’s hands might have been saved for a churned-out sequel, follows the aftermath of where the characters go from here.  Coriolanus becomes an infantryman in District 12 along with Sejanus.  A whole new design is introduced late into the film, and it is as if we’ve begun a brand-new episode of a franchise series.  What keeps The Hunger Games installments feeling fresh is that we are granted both the events preceding the games as well as what’s occurring thereafter. 

The cast is outstanding.  Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage have those jaded and unusual appearances suitable for this disturbing setting.  Davis especially absorbs the scenery whenever she is on screen.  Her costume wear, hair and makeup only enhance her chilling performance.  Jason Schwartzman does a superb interpretation of Lucky Flickerman, an ancestor of Stanley Tucci’s flamboyant character from the other films, and the MC for the games.

Rachel Zegler lends her talents for song and guitar to the film, and I loved every second of it.  I know she is currently not favorable in the public eye based on comments she has made.  However, if she continues to follow a course of picking smart roles and playing them as well as she does here, and like she did in Spielberg’s West Side Story, then she is destined to becoming an elite leading actor in the likes of Julia Roberts and then later Anne Hathaway.  I loved every song she performed in the film as well.  She lends a twang to her vocals that blend beautifully with her guitar strings.

Tom Blyth is so trusting with his boyish complexion and bleach blond curly mop top.  He fits well into the destitute role of the son of a dead would have been tyrant.  His wardrobes are described as hand made at home, even with small bathroom tile pieces serving as fashionable buttons on his dress shirt.  Blyth, while humble, wears everything with confidence, remaining the exact opposite of the President Snow we knew from Donald Sutherland’s performance in earlier films.  This Coriolanus is someone I can trust.  Someone I do not question.  Yet, when the end of the film arrives, I’m left surprised by the outcome of the character even though I know what’s expected of him.  It’s a positively inventive characterization from Suzanne Collins, interpreted with a subtle balance between protagonist and antagonist from Tom Blyth.  This guy might have been a better casting choice for Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel films. 

I’m angry at myself for not having yet read The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes.  I imagine it’s a crackling good read.  The film concludes with doors open for questions that leave me curiously thinking, four days after having seen the picture.  I can only hope there are additional films to come that explore even more deeply into Suzanne Collins’ rich tapestry of dystopia and the complex characters that occupy it.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes is one of the best pictures of the year.

FIELD OF DREAMS

By Marc S. Sanders

Fantasy can be a real challenge.  The audience must convincingly accept what could never possibly be real.  The Wizard Of Oz from 1939 will always be the best of all fantasy films.  The most visually significant element was bookending the film in black and white, with illuminating color in the center for the Land of Oz to come to life.  You feel transported.

Phil Alden Robinson’s screen adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s novel, Shoeless Joe, had a big challenge.  The film became known as Field Of Dreams.  How would any of us believe that an Iowa corn crop farmer hears voices and gets the inspiration to throw all common sense out the window and build a baseball field in the middle of his property?  It’s absurd.  Maybe only Kevin Costner, a modern-day innocent Jimmy Stewart of the time in the late 1980s, would convince any of us that this is something that needs to be accomplished.  Robinson’s script offers no logic that any of this should be done.  Re-watching the film, I was still skeptical of accepting the outrageousness.  Then again this is Kevin Costner in his mid-thirties with a toothy grin on his face, chestnut hair, beat up jeans, and an adorable 8-year-old Gaby Hoffman for a daughter and a spitfire Amy Madigan for a wife.  I can’t explain it any more than Ray can explain to his wife why he needs to tear down acres and acres of valuable crops for a baseball field that’ll run him into enormous debt. You just gotta roll with it, I guess, even if your suspension of disbelief isn’t there. 

Thankfully, the authenticity of the fantasy welcomes itself as Field Of Dreams moves on. 

Costner plays Ray Kinsella who had a very estranged relationship with his father who only briefly played in the minor leagues before aging quickly and working himself towards a premature death.  Ray went on to Berkeley in the ‘60s and got caught up in the hippie movement leaving his father’s baseball heroes of Ty Cobb, Rusty Miller and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson behind. 

After Ray builds the beautiful field and waits months and months for something, anything, to happen, the ghost of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, (Ray Liotta) donned in his White Sox uniform, appears.  Jackson was part of the infamous Black Sox scandal and was denied of ever playing professional baseball again, following being caught accepting bribes to fix games with seven other teammates.  Ray spends the evening with Joe pitching and fielding together.  Now, whatever hasn’t made sense to the viewer suddenly presents some light on this outrageous feat we’ve been witnessing.  Dorothy has met the Scarecrow.

Ray has dreams to find a recluse author named Terance Mann (a superb James Earl Jones who should’ve gotten an Oscar nomination; just an astonishing actor).  Later, he meets a ball player who only played one inning in the major leagues, Archie “Moonlight” Graham – portrayed charmingly by an elderly Burt Lancaster and a spry Frank Whaley.  How they both play the role is a surprise I’ll withhold from this write up.

I share this summary because Field Of Dreams improves itself as it progresses.  The ghosts, the fantasy, and the sheer nerve that Robinson (director and writer) grants to Costner and the cast send you into the imaginary.  You’ll be twenty minutes into the picture and ready to give up.  Thankfully, the storyteller who made the film introduces something unworldly that encourages us to learn more and more.  That’s what happens every time you watch The Wizard Of Oz.  Not just the color, but the décor and strangely adorable munchkins draw you in with curiosity and you want to discover more about this place you’ve never visited before. 

With Field Of Dreams, you don’t have to know anything about baseball.  What you need to understand is that people of a past enter Ray’s life when he never expected them. Now, he’s destined to aid them in fulfilling what they were denied of during a time gone by. 

We all wish to take advantage of our dreams gone by.  Fantasy makes that possible.

Perhaps Ray Kinsella was denied an experience, as well.  You’ll have to watch Field Of Dreams to find out.