Category: Marc’s Reviews

ALIEN: ROMULUS

By Marc S. Sanders

To make an effective horror film requires the necessary scares to startle an audience, but it doesn’t stop there.  The story has to work. Still, it doesn’t stop there.  You also have to care about the characters of the piece.

I guess one out of three is not bad for a new installment in a nearly fifty-year-old science fiction/monster movie, horror franchise.  However, with Fede Alvarez’ Alien: Romulus, I left wanting more.

I have no doubt I was the loudest, perhaps most frequent screamer in the Dolby theater last night.  Knowing what I know about Alien, I still get terribly nervous when watching a picture of these grotesque-like creatures, originally designed by H. R. Gigar.  The assortment of Xenomorphs in this film is a faithful treatment to what the monsters should look like.  Teeth, slime, black skeletal frames with scaly limbs and tails.  What these monsters do is another story. It is primarily the same old routine of the creatures from the other films.  Their quiet behavior ahead of their ritual attacks leaves me very nervous and anxious.  I’ve gotta scream at the screen to help me overcome what scare tactics Alvarez and his crew have in store for us.  

Alien: Romulus follows a Michael Myers/Friday The 13th blueprint.  In basic terms, a handful of twentysomethings board a deserted space station as a means to getting off a mining colony overseen by the franchise corporate antagonist Weyland/Yutani.  An audience familiar with the franchise knows this is not going to go well, and soon will expect the clawlike facehuggers, phallic shaped chestbursters and fully developed aliens, aka Xenomorphs, to run around trying to slash, eat, cocoon and build up their population.

Upon attending a screening with my Cinemaniac pals, the guys will testify to my shock and horror at what popped out on screen.  I was terrified for what was coming out of Fede Alvarez’ dark and disturbingly silent settings.  I was nervous when the cast crawled through narrow crevices or stepped into various labs, only to get stuck behind a jammed door or commit a clumsy trip into knee high, unclear water.  Cocooned bodies representing an aftermath of violent carnage sent a doomed message too.  The atmospheric sets alone work well at being terrifying.

Yet, for all of these technical achievements in luridly dark scenic design, jump scare editing, gross looking attacks along with alien “deliveries” and terrifying pursuits and chases, my friend Anthony said it best.  He didn’t care about one single character.  Same for me.  I can’t deny how accurate he is. Like a slasher movie, I could care less if any of the players lived or died.  Even with a periodic countdown during the course of the film, I also didn’t care if they got away from the deserted ship.  So, the suspense never sustained. I was only anxious for when the next monster was going to make an appearance. In the third act, many of the jump scares were nil and upstaged by machine gun shooting and acid (for blood) splashes.

I also didn’t care for the expository scenes either because the information presented was nothing new.  Anything that this gang learns they are suddenly up against has been told to me in all of the other films.  There’s some wink and nod material to salute the other pictures with famous line send ups and even one broad character salute.  It’s fun for a moment but what about this movie and this story? 

I was also quite bothered by the convenient “just made it out alive” encounters that the main character played by Cailee Spaeny survives over and over.  Anytime danger was knocking at her door her means of survival were not consistent with the long-established fiction of the Alien science of it all.  When I wasn’t screaming, I was asking myself, how is she getting away.  That’s the script not respecting the story elements, the universe or what is presented to an audience, and what they clearly know after almost a dozen pictures.

None of the characters have a personality.  One is Asian with a buzzcut, two are English, and one is pregnant.  The only interesting portrayal is an android named Andy (David Jonnson) who is a sidekick “brother” to Spaeny’s character, and behaves like an autistic savant, until a change comes over him, causing him later to operate like HAL 9000.  Jonnson is really good in this role, and it is unfair that his cast mates were not as fleshed out like most of the other franchise films depicted in portrayals by such actors Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton, Lance Henrickson, Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, and of course Sigourney Weaver. The characters in this new picture are entirely forgettable and carry no value.

Jump scares with things that come out of dark corners or when crusty hive like walls come alive only go so far.  To effectively win over horror, I need to also care when the next victim is taken down, or about to go through a near death experience on an even playing field.  Romulus comes up short in that department.

Alien: Romulus is decent, but not great as it opts to only think with one side of its brain primarily focused on sneaking up to shiver you in hopes that you’ll pee a little.

NOTE: I knew what not to expect out of this film.  My wish was to see a book end to the last two films that Ridley Scott helmed (Prometheus and Alien: Covenant).  Questions were presented within those films that seemed to promise answers with a later film installment that has yet to come to fruition.  So, the production company seems to have abandoned what they started in response to lackluster box office revenue and a divisive audience response.  Therefore, reinvention came into play once more.  I was always on the enthusiastic side of the divide with those two films. I carry great appreciation for what was done with them, and I was eager for how a prequel trilogy (now remaining incomplete) would wrap up. Alas…

As well, at close to fifty years, if you’re going to keep this up, I believe it’s time to reveal more about the villainous puppet masters, namely “The Company” or to be more specific, Weyland/Yutani.  It has always been supposed how people who work for them may be expendable. Researching and controlling weaponized biological organisms is the company’s main priority.  Yet, how, who and why are these ideas being set in motion?  Does anyone at the top question the company’s practices and look at the moral and ethics of their functions?  Even the Marvel Cinematic Universe has approached these kinds of angles already.  Star Wars as well.  Regrettably after several decades though, the Alien franchise segues away from those perspectives.  This is my take only of course. Yet, I think it’s time to show who else is performing within this house of horrors universe.  Prometheus and Covenant were moving in that direction but sadly they seemed to run out of road. 

WINGS

By Marc S. Sanders

The first film to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture actually didn’t win Best Picture.  The category was called Best Production in 1927.  A year later the title was changed.  Wings was the film in question, directed by actual World War I flying ace William A Wellman, only ten years after the worldwide conflict had ended.

To watch this two-and-a-half-hour silent movie is an exhilarating experience.  The story focuses on two young men, Jack Powell and David Armstrong (Charles “Buddy” Rogers, William Arlen), who both pine for the affections of a local girl named Sylvia (Jobyna Rolston).  Their competition is put on hold as they enlist to train and serve as fighter pilots in biplanes against the German opposition.  A side relationship focuses on Mary (the adoring Clara Bow), and her affections for Jack who has no interest in her. 

Wellman’s film takes you through the regimen of enlistment with the calisthenics the men practice, through mentorship and then on to piloting the planes.  Jack and David set aside their differences to unite against the common enemy where they routinely say just before take-off “All set?” followed by “Okay!”  Reader, in a silent film with only a few frequent dialogue cards, this relationship was as effective as witnessing Maverick & Goose or Han & Luke.  (“I feel the need, the need for speed.” “Okay Chewie, punch it!”)

William Wellman captures outstanding dog fight footage and enormously vast battle scenes that look even more detailed than what I found in the graphically convincing 1917 from just a few years ago.  

Paramount Pictures invested in a 2012 restoration following the discovery of this film in a basement in France. I believe the restoration incorporated orange flames and sparks into the planes that get shot down, as well as from the cannons that fire from the pilots’ cockpits.  Yet, unlike CGI or quick edits, Wellman holds his camera in the skies above, often following the spiral trajectories of the downed planes with numerous ground crashes.  His camera is also teetered on the hull to capture engaging closeups of the pilots who are actually flying in air during the shooting of this picture.

Both Allied and German pilots get shot with blood pouring from wounds.  There are direct head shots as well as to the torso and appendages. Before Hitchcock, chocolate syrup was already being used as an effective substitute. Wings is action packed and one of the best war films I’ve ever seen.  These are not just random fight scenes captured on film.  A story comes from the developing dog fights. Suspense stems from what becomes of David while Jack wonders if his friend is even alive.

Wellmen’s film does not just resort to the battlefield and the skies above.  There’s a personal story going on for Mary, Jack and David.  Mary is enlisted as a traveling nurse for the troops and the director captures emotive moments from the silent film star Clara Bow as her character reunites with an intoxicated Jack on leave in Paris.  For a silent picture that must rely more on visuals, bubbles are incorporated to float away from the beverages as well as out of the actor’s mouths.  It looks silly like what Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy might include.  However, as Mary witnesses a drunken Jack, exhausted from the perils of war, there’s a sadness to seeing her literal despair for the one she loves. She’s even forgiving enough to accept Jack’s desperate need for immediate affections from a swinger girl.

Escapist comedy also comes into play. A character called Herman Schimpf (El Brendle) is the klutz of the regimen. He’s clumsy with the exercises and Brendle’s physical performance lives up to silliness of his character name. The drill sargeant can not even fathom a pilot named Herman Schimpf accomplishing the heroics expected of a world war flying ace. My extensive experience with late twentieth century films lent references to Goldie Hawn, John Candy and Bill Murray in an army lampoon like Private Benjamin or Stripes. Before these guys, there was Herman Schimpf.

I recommend you watch Wings like I did.  As with most silent films, there is a running loop of rag time piano music.  It’s terribly distracting and does not ever appropriately compliment the images on screen.  I turned my sound system off and watched in silence.  Oddly enough, there are so many explosive visuals to this piece with an enormous amount of artillery vehicles, planes and ammunition being fired, that I could subconsciously hear a sound system in my head as the film moved along with massive explosions, horrific crashes, rattling machine gun fire, and the screams of despair from the 5,000 American troops who were loaned by the United States military to complete the construction of the film. The U.S. hoped that Wings would serve as a recruitment piece for new enlistments.

I have no doubt Wings still serves as a seed for the future of filmmaking.  I easily found elements of hit modern films from Top Gun of course, to the romantic angles found in The Dark Knight, It’s A Wonderful Life, Titanic and It Happened One Night, and furthermore on to the regrets of serving in a destructive war as covered in Born On The Fourth Of July and 1917.

Standards in practice were also not enforced at this time. Wellman had the freedom to shoot graphic violence and even nudity that includes nude shots of Clara Bow and enlisted men going through their routine of living on an army base. Wellman had no hesitancy for offering the authentic.

It is a step back in time, when this film was produced just ten years after the first war ended. William Wellman provided convincing direct oversight from his experiences as an actual fighter pilot, practically reenacting what he went through.    He went so far as to relocate where he was shooting the aerial footage because the Texas skies had no clouds to offer clear composition of the acrobatically flying biplanes.  The clear blue skies could not highlight the planes well enough. He believed they looked like blobs on film. So, artistically, the director refused to settle.

Wellman also went so far as the shoot the actors up in the sky, actually flying the planes.  This allowed for a first-rate perspective as the hair blows in the breeze high above.  Forgive me as I do this again but it’s reminiscent of when I saw Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Much of this kind of footage is identically found in Nolan’s film save for the black and white photography and the absence of sound.

I also have to credit Wellman as a pioneering filmmaker with how novel his camera work is during a speakeasy sequence in Paris.  Though it was not a steady cam, a camera is attached below a harness to allow a one-shot zoom over a half dozen bar tables at once with a crowd of extras occupying the spaces.  Before Scorsese, Wellman had already thought of this eye-opening approach. It is a one shot moment that belongs on any highlight reel.

Simply, there is so much to appreciate technically and theatrically in Wings. There’s a lot of groundbreaking material to uncover. The aerial footage is stunning.  This cast is superb.  The writing is compelling.  Wings has to be one of the most pleasantly surprising films I can recall in a very long time.  The feats that were accomplished here are magnificent.  

Wings is easily a must-see film for any film buff, and anyone who loves movies in general.

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.

TWISTERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Reader, often The Two Unpaid Critics will debate the merits or lack thereof in a film.  Usually, one likes the piece while the other does not.  It’s rare though when we both find fault with a movie but for entirely different reasons…and we argue about it.

Fair warning, a poorly constructed declaration is coming your way:

Twisters is better than Twister.  

However, this is like saying cat shit is tastier than dog shit.  

Understand, I had a grand ol’ time watching Twisters with Miguel by my side as the experience quickly gravitated to a Riff Trax viewing.  This apparent sequel to the stupidity that was released thirty years ago teaches us more about the nature of tornadoes.  Though when I insist that observation to Miguel, my comrade put me to the test and my giggles took hold of me because I couldn’t utter a single scientific fact.  Okay.  So it’s not that much brainier. Yet, it is brainier!!!

Twisters offers a background and a traumatic dimension to Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who loses all but one of her entire collection of friendly storm chasers in the film’s prologue, and then weepily monologues about it later.  That’s what I wanted from Helen Hunt in the first movie.  Miguel rightfully questioned why she even needed to speak.  We were firsthand witnesses to this early tragedy.  

CURSES!!!! You foiled me again, Mig.

Okay, so with my arguments shredded to pieces within our debate, I heed to the fact that I am no Jack Kennedy.  Yet, at least I could laugh at how utterly ridiculous Twisters is.

Kate is requested back to her home state of Oklahoma to locate powerful tornadoes that now can be studied with new triangular sensors, each respectively called Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion.  That garbage can called Dorothy has been put out to pasture.  There’s also a Wizard van. Cute wink and nod names.  No Glinda. No Witch. No Munchkin. No Flying Monkey. How lazy can a tornado movie get?

This corporation with the high-tech gear is competing against a convoy of redneck grunge daredevils led by Tyler, The Tornado Wrangler (Glen Powell).  He fits the persona with the cowboy hat that Brad Pitt wore in Thelma & Louise, along with the flannel shirts and a big ass belt buckle below his ripped chest.  

Tyler’s off road pickup is tricked out with anchors to drill in the ground holding his vehicle in place while he drives right into the middle of a storm.  He’ll also launch fireworks straight up into a funnel.  Whatever it takes to impress his You Tube followers.  

Get this!  Tyler is one of the most educated people in the world on meteorology.  Has to be true!!!! Absolutely has to be, because Glen Powell would never agree to portray a daredevil redneck without a brain to complement his chestnut hair and five o’clock shadow.

Twisters fails at suspense, but unintentionally wins at outrageous comedy when the movie opts to have its terrible tornadoes attack Americana.  As soon as they show small town USA with the little league softball game, I broke out laughing.  I was waiting for the homemaker to put out a pie on her windowsill.  Where’s Bob Seger singing “Like A Rock” from those Chevy commercials?  Tyler, Kate and the gang race to save everyone in town single-handedly without ever calling emergency services.  Only ONE COP appears in the whole movie. Fortunately, once the storm moves on from its devastation, there’s a complete clear road with absolutely no debris for the Tyler’s gang to drive on through. I mean does this movie think for itself or what?

We are treated to people flying away and a water tower toppling over.  A movie house rips apart while Frankenstein shows on the screen.  There’s the inevitable moment when a character gets a leg stuck under wreckage while the others try to get him free but can’t lift him out as the storm bears down.  But wait!!!! At just the last second– I saw this in episodes of The Incredible Hulk and CHiPs and…um…well…Twister!

Earlier in the film, Tyler and Kate have an opportunity to settle their differences while taking in a rodeo.  Of course, Tyler the redneck meteorologist and Tornado Wrangler used to be a rodeo clown as well.  

Then!!!!

What’s this?  

“We gotta get these people to safety??”  

“Is there a basement around here?”

Apparently, Oklahoma is running low on basements.  Not a single basement anywhere in the state where the wind comes sweeping down the plains!!!!!  

Twisters fails because it is paint by numbers, and it shouldn’t be.  It should never be this transparent. The most unpredictable of weather phenomena is so laughably unsurprising when it should be dazzling and frightening and nail biting.  None of it is new.  Everything you expect to happen, happens.

This picture even fails at lending a nasty bad guy to its screenplay.  The rich old guy with the bolo tie, a true indicator of villainy, tours around the devastation. He’s offering to buy the properties of people who have lost their homes so that further profitability can be made with ongoing research into tornado activity.  Yeah.  This guy is a regular Darth Vader or Hannibal Lechter, alright.  Hang him in the town square and then stone his rotting carcass.  Seriously, what’s so wrong with this guy’s intentions?  Kate is disgusted for some reason, but if I just lost my house and my farm and my crops and my flat screen and all my blu rays, heck yeah, I’ll take this fat cat’s money.  

Miguel refused to write a review for Twisters.  However, I’m taking free liberty to share his compounded thoughts. As the end credits rolled over home movie footage of the happy cast, he declared this film is devoid of any kind of suspense, whatsoever.  He’s not wrong, and neither am I.  

Twisters is better than Twister but for all the wrong reasons.

SOAPDISH

By Marc S. Sanders

To get inside the head of a character on a soap opera would best be portrayed by someone who’s literally living a soap opera off the set.  That’s the paramount theme of every member of the cast and crew of the daytime drama The Sun Also Sets.  Everyone is living through their own checkered background from the lead actress to the returning actor to the homeless deaf/mute extra on down to the trampy nurse and the buxom doctor on the show. By default, the program’s head writer and the producer fall into this category as well. 

The hilarity found in Soapdish gave me remembrances of classic films like All About Eve and Sunset Blvd. Ego and stardom are treasured commodities above all else and an actress’s greatest fear is being aged out of fandom and replaced by the new girl in town. 

Celeste Talbert (Sally Field) is a star actress with dozens of career awards but an insecurity with becoming past her prime. A diva concern is that the stories written for her are not worthy of her importance to the show.  David (Robert Downey Jr) is the young producer feeling the pressure to come up with something to boost the ratings before his boss, the always naturally funny Garry Marshall, replaces the program with game shows.  On David’s side for her own ulterior motives is Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty) who plays the resident nurse and is ready to take the reins from Celeste and make the show her own.  She’ll seductively manipulate David into getting things to work out her way. 

In the meantime, Lori Craven (Elisabeth Shue) sneaks onto the set seeking an opportunity by way of Aunt Celeste.  Best she can get is to portray a deaf/mute homeless woman extra.  Head writer Rose (Whoopi Goldberg) has devised a new plot where Celeste’s character will be tried for murdering Lori’s homeless mute character.  Lastly, at least through the first thirty minutes of the film, Jeffrey Anderson’s (Kevin Kline) character who died on the show twenty years prior by an unfortunate beheading is recruited out of dinner theater by David to return to the program.  Both Lori and Jeffrey’s unexpected arrivals do not sit well with Celeste.

Following along okay, so far? Well…

SECRETS ABOUND on Soapdish!

This film was developed by the powers who delivered Steel Magnolias to the big screen a few years prior.  The original playwright and screenwriter, Robert Harling, teamed up with Andrew Bergman, to satirize the weepy material that daytime drama promises and which he embraced seriously with his beloved play.  The director of Magnolias, Herbert Ross, also serves as an executive producer on this film.  To add some extra authentic spice, Aaron Spelling is producer.  That’s right.  The guy who produced Dynasty, 90210 and Melrose Place.  Michael Hoffman directs. 

The look of this film is so odd and has a garish blood coated red appearance to the television studio where the show within the movie is set, as well as to the offices that hover above.  The set designer for the film, Eugenio Zanetti was inspired by Dante’s Inferno.  Makes sense really because no one is ever satisfied with how The Sun Also Sets develops from one atrociously delicious storyline to the next, and how it makes them look in the public eye.  Zanetti is quoted as saying the offices of the producers and writers hover above the set for the soap opera.  So, it looks as if the powers that be are staring down into the depths of hell that the cast and crew must work and reside in.  While it looks odd, after having seen the film, I can’t help but believe Zanetti makes sense.

There are moments here that are outright hilarious.  As a community theater actor and director, I can totally relate to Kline’s character being stuck in a retirement community steak/playhouse performing as Willie Loman in Death Of A Salesman while elderly patrons call for their waiters.  Poor Jeffrey also has to project that much louder for the old folks to hear him.  This scene stands as gold on its own. A whole farcical film could be developed on this side story alone. 

Soapdish does lose some of its comedic appeal before it reaches the middle of the picture when secrets are uncovered related to Celeste, Jeffrey, Lori and so on.  Sally Field goes for great physical comedy that lands perfectly with the skeletons that Celeste pulls out of the closet.  Kevin Kline makes for a hysterical arguing scene partner, and the craziness just gets bigger from there. 

Whoopi Goldberg is also very funny as the one with common sense and brains behind her character.  For once, she’s not going for the female Eddie Murphy equivalent.  I’m with Rose when she vents to David about how she’s supposed to write a believable return from the dead of a character who was killed when he lost his head.  Maybe a brain transplant?

Cathy Moriarty does a fine job of being the conniving seductress.  She’s a full-bodied intimidator of teased, frizzy blond hair and a buxom nurse’s uniform costume against Robert Downey, Jr.’s nervous preppy producer.

There’s satisfying moments for cameos from Carrie Fisher as a casting director as well as Teri Hatcher and Costas Mandylor as bubbleheaded supporting characters.  However, the best scene stealer is Garry Marshall. I don’t think a single line he’s given would be as funny if he was not providing them.  He’s just got that Neil Simon kind of delivery as the studio boss.  “The nurse is in the restaurant?  Was there a meeting I missed?”

Other than a few F bombs, I think Soapdish works as movie the whole family could watch the next time they are snowed in or hunkering down from a blizzard or hurricane.  Soap operas are designed for escape and the outrageous comedy of Michael Hoffman’s film reaches into outrageous areas that work with surprise and big laughs. 

This nonpaid critic, who endures his loving wife’s adoration for General Hospital each night before bed, is at least a fan of The Sun Also Sets and Death Of A Salesman dinner theater. 

TWISTER

By Marc S. Sanders

About twenty minutes into Twister, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton crash their pickup truck while trying to outrun the title character.  Amid the high wind, mud and rain, they take cover under a narrow bridge.  Then Hunt’s character, Jo Harding, becomes enamored, almost hypnotized, with what she sees of the powerful storm and steps out saying she wants to see more while reaching with her hand.  Paxton’s character, Bill Harding, pulls her back down.  Reader, why did Bill have to pull Jo back down?  I don’t care about Jo.  I don’t care about Bill.  They’re not characters.  They’re talking objects.  The only character given any kind of care and treatment is the twister.  The next most important character is the next twister and then after that it is the next twister.

Jan De Bont’s Twister is devoid of a brain with a big head full of wind.

A thin story is inserted to connect these talking props.  Bill needs to convince Jo to sign divorce papers.  Jo is focused on getting a tin can thing named Dorothy into the center of a tornado so it can release sensors and thus their team will be able to study the characteristics of a tornado’s behavior like wind velocity for example.  With each new tornado, their attempts fail and somehow the team has another tin can ready to go.  Where are they hauling these things?  As well, how can such a clunky thing that looks less sturdy than a beer keg offer up so much information?  Dorothy looks like it can easily get its ass kicked by R2-D2.

I guess for escapist humor, Bill brings along his fiancé Melissa (Jami Gertz).  Melissa is here for a couple of lame reasons.  One, to wear a white suit with a fashionable hairdo that you know is bound to get messed up (but actually really doesn’t).  Two, to be used as the device for the rest of the cast to explain where they are going next and what they are seeing.  After whatever explanations have been exhausted, the script literally has her exit the picture in a quick announcement. 

I have not seen the new follow up film, Twisters, but I want to and I’m embarrassed to admit that.  It’s the special effects my dear reader.  The visual effects are all that is to be cared about in these movies.  Visually and audibly these effects are unbelievably impressive and I can only expect some enhancements in the new film.  Unfortunately, once I see one twister, I’ve seen them all.  I’m risking cavities for the five minutes of flavor I get in a Starburst.

What’s regrettable about Twister is that with a good collection of actors that also include Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cary Elwes, Alan Ruck and Jeremy Davies, the acclaimed author Michael Chrichton and Anne-Marie Martin hardly attempt to insert any intelligence into the science of weather phenomena or the trauma that goes with it.  I know just as little about tornadoes as I did before I saw this film. 

A prologue scene has Helen Hunt’s character witness her father being violently taken away in a sudden storm.  However, it is never referenced again.  I started to think about that monologue from Jaws performed by Robert Shaw about his experience aboard the sunken vessel the USS Indianapolis.  The scene is an actor’s dream, but it also makes the nature of the world we live in much more personal for that character.  Shaw’s character has a personal vendetta against sharks based on experience.  That’s what is missing from Twister.  None of it looks personal. Helen Hunt is an Oscar and Emmy winning actor.  She could have had a brilliant monologue that demonstrated her need to follow tornados and learn more about their unforgiving nature.  Chrichton even lent more passion to John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) in the film adaptation of Jurassic Park.  The entrepreneur talked of aspirations for a dinosaur zoo.  Jo Harding possess neither passion nor animosity for her purpose in life.  Twister could have operated better as an observational documentary than a special effects action picture.

Since a tornado cannot have an evil laugh or a handlebar mustache, there must be another source for villainy and that falls on Elwes and his crew.  Jo, Bill and the rest of the gang do not like Bill because he leads a convoy of black (black like Darth Vader) SUVs with the most up to date technology around to study weather patterns.  Yet, what is so wrong with any of that?  We have to hate these guys because they drive shiny SUVs.  Is that all it takes?  At best, the competition heats up as the two convoys nearly sideswipe each other or cut each other off on multiple occasions.  None of this is exciting.

A beloved elderly aunt is conveniently nearby so the gang can chow down and disgust Melissa with their eating habits.  Later, the aunt’s house happens to be in the path of a storm and then a sequence is devoted to rescuing her amid the crashing debris.  We get to see the beautiful mid-west house crash upon itself because to see another twister would just be more of the same.  I hardly got to know the aunt.  So, I don’t care if she lives or dies or becomes catatonic or turns into a superhero named Storm.  This is extra cream filling in an over expired Twinkie. 

The mouth pieces of Twister just don’t matter and while I’m dazzled by seeing a tractor, a cow, another cow (or was it the same cow?), and a house fly around and topple all over the roads amid the wind and the rain, I’m just not taken with any kind of suspense or care. 

Special effects only work if they are ingredients to a story, and not just the story. 

THE COLOR OF MONEY

By Marc S. Sanders

The Color Of Money is the first and only time that director Martin Scorsese tackled a sequel of sorts.  Paul Newman returned to the screen as Fast Eddie Felson, the hustling pool shark from thirty years prior in The Hustler.  That movie established his career on a bigger scale going forward.

Fast Eddie is older now, and wiser.  He’s much more humbled as a bar owner with a conservative amount of cash on the table to stake younger pool players for small time wagers.  A young John Turturro is who he relies on and quickly loses faith in when a brash, cocky kid named Vincent Lauria (a perfectly cast Tom Cruise) easily undoes his opponent. 

Eddie sees the talent in the kid.  He’s got a helluva break and clears a game of nine ball with as much speed as he has conceit.  What he lacks for in brains and instinct is made up in Vincent’s cool and mature girlfriend Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in an Oscar nominated role).  It does not take long for Eddie to coach her into realizing that together they can make a lot of money off of what Vincent can do in pool halls across the country.  If only he’d listen to them and do what they tell him to do. Vincent can’t comprehend how sometimes you win a whole lot more, when you lose first.

Scorsese works his camera like a swinging Steadicam.  When he gets close ups of this trio of actors, it’s never just a close up.  He’ll position his lens in a northward direction and then swing around east.  Newman, Cruise and Mastrantonio trust the eye of the camera to follow their performances.  There’s an energy to this kind of shooting.  It makes for a great style.  Scorsese was doing this novel kind of filmmaking, going all the way back to 1971 with Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.  The director is so favored because as typical as a script might seem by its title or its prose, he’s going to find an exhilaration to its narrative.

Along with the director’s resident editor Thelma Schoonmaker, there’s a crackle and quickness to the many variations of pool play – much more playing than I believe was featured in The Hustler.  Schoonmaker makes sure to cut in the cracks of the pool balls as they collide with one another.  The blue cue chalk snows off the tip of the cue sticks.  Reflections of the players appear in the shine of the balls.  Close up profiles of Cruise and Newman lower down into frame just before they take their shots.  Before the kinetic energy found in later films like Goodfellas and The Departed, Scorsese and Schoonmaker were already putting their tag team best at play in The Color Of Money.

Yet, all of this is style with not so much substance.  What kind of story does this next installment in the legacy of Fast Eddie Felson have to say?  Not much really.  While the three actors are doing top notch work, the conversations run very repetitive and do not build toward higher stakes or developments.  Time and again they argue over Vincent’s refusal or naivety to understand the hustling strategies that Eddie has in mind.  Carmen gets it but she goes her own way more often than cooperating with Eddie.  Simply, this is a story of the protégé not grasping what the mentor is trying to teach, and it never evolves from that problem.  It gets stagnant.

What changes within the second half of the film is the introduction of a championship pool tournament in Atlantic City.  Therefore, it’s easy to expect a showdown between Vincent and Eddie.  It happens and there is a twist of a dagger included, but then when the real competition is about to begin, Scorsese concludes his film.  Does it matter who is the better player?  I don’t know, but as the film is wrapping itself up, one character gets short changed.  When that’s discovered, the film opts to also shortchange the audience.  I didn’t think that was very fair.

I think about the notorious ending to the HBO series The Sopranos.  Sure, it’s an ending no one will ever forget but for all the wrong reasons, and I defiantly believe it is because the storyteller ran out of imagination or lost his confidence in upholding an ending that he really wanted.  I feel the same way with The Color Of Money.  The film establishes the skills, intelligence and capabilities of these characters.  Yet, when you take the tool kits away from them, the building never gets completed; only left abandoned.

I’m drawn to watch The Color Of Money.  Michael Ballhaus’ photography is smokey and colorful. I can’t get enough of Paul Newman’s gravelly vocal inflections or even how he unfolds hundred dollar bills from the roll in his pocket.  Tom Cruise humbles himself to look like an idiotic jerk and it works well against the maturity of his scene partners.  Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio oozes sexual appeal with a lot of brains to uphold the cons.  She has sensational scenes with Paul Newman.  There’s a coolness to the picture because of the cast, the settings, the sounds, the visuals, the editing and the direction. 

This film arrived in 1986 with rock music from the likes of Eric Clapton and Phil Collins.  Beyond Miami Vice and an assortment of John Hughes teen flicks, these artists were making for effective needle drops of atmosphere in films from the 1980s.  Scorsese’s use of the camera keeps me engaged, but when I look at what the characters are anchored to only do, and never rise above, the film does not hold the weight of other character studies that several of Newman’s and Scorsese’s pictures were so astute at achieving.

One scene transcends the arc of Newman’s character and it works beautifully within or out of the context of the picture.  A relatively unknown Forest Whittaker portrays an unlikely kid who goes up against Fast Eddie. As the long scene evolves over their pool competition, the writing hearkens back to the weaknesses and torment that defined Eddie Felson’s character in The Hustler.  If you watch the first film and then jump over to this scene, you recognize a connection for the protagonist of both pictures.  Beyond that The Hustler and The Color Of Money stand a long distance apart from each other.  This scene though is always a favorite of mine for the eventual Oscar winner, Forest Whittaker.  Watch how Whitaker holds his cue stick when he exits the scene.  Think about how he picks the cash up from the table after Newman drops it.  Consider, what his character Amos really means when he asks Eddie: “Do you think I need to lose some weight?”

Had The Color Of Money used more of Whitaker’s character in the film along with the other three, there might have been something more solid to say and introduce within the world of pool hustling with a 1980s barroom vibe.  Same could be said if John Turturro’s character was utilized more.

Paul Newman received the Oscar for this picture.  The actor was nominated seven times before, having never won and the irony is by the time this nomination arrived, Newman opted not to attend the ceremony.  Roles in films like The Verdict (for which he should have won the award) and Cool Hand Luke were much more memorable and fleshed out.  I’d argue Newman likely knew this was not his best performance because it was not the best written of his long-established career, and so he genuinely did not expect to win.  Because he won, it became a celebration of his legendary status as an actor who should have been taken much more seriously, much sooner.   (Two more nominations would follow in Newman’s career.)

JACOB’S LADDER

By Marc S. Sanders

When a movie works beyond formulaic conventions, it takes risks.  A storyteller will either really impress their audience, or they will leave them feeling shortchanged.  You’ll either get a “Whoa!  Now that’s cool.” (The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, but I did call that ending when I saw it in theatres.  Ask my wife if you don’t believe me.) On the contrary, you’ll arrive at “That’s it?” (The Happening, Signs or any other M Night Shyamalan reach for the rafters but come up foul kind of flick.)

A movie like Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder is anything but standard and it asks you to trust in its ambiguity in order to arrive at its big payoff.  For most of the picture it is unclear what you’re watching.  What keeps you engaged is Lyne’s approach to atmospheric indicators, like dark tunnels, dim bulbs, distant echoes and a disturbingly scared and depressed Tim Robbins.  The creepier the film looks and the more ominous it feels, then perhaps it will lead to a conclusion that will leave you satisfied.  Jacob’s Ladder functions like an M Night Shyamalan film where you just want to arrive at the twist.  When it finally reached its destination though, I was ready to turn the car around and go home.

Tim Robbins is Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran.  The picture opens up with Jacob returning from the dense jungles to reunite with his squad after what was his like hundredth bowel movement, it seems.  The squad jokes about with men’s locker room talk and then a disturbing occurrence takes place.  The next scene, thereafter, has Jacob dressed in a mailman uniform awakening from a nightmare aboard a New York subway train.  He gets off at his stop, but then he cannot find his way out of the subway station and then he encounters unsettling images like perhaps a demon or two on board a train that just misses running him down.

Much of Adrian Lyne’s film sets up sequences like this where the unexplainable cannot be explained.  Jacob now lives with a girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña), who is growing frustrated with Jacob’s unusual behavior.  It seems he suffers from PTSD following his time in the war, but also he mourns the death of one of his three sons (Macaulay Culkin) from his first marriage.

Robbins is especially good at not going for big moments in his role.  He’s a quiet, cheerless individual working with very little dialogue.  That’s impressive but it’s also a little boring, especially considering that for most of the film it’s near impossible to decipher what is going on, nor what is the exact story to uncover in Jacob’s Ladder.  My patience was trying, up until a stand at attention moment that came from nowhere.  Still, not much arrives thereafter. 

Jacob receives a call out the blue from one of his old army buddies.  When they meet up, it dawns on Jacob that his friend is encountering similar kinds of feelings.  When he reunites with the rest of the squad it occurs to them to sue the United States government for experimental drug treatments that were administered to them while serving in the war.  They turn to an attorney played by Jason Alexander in a role far off from his Seinfeld sitcom days to later come in his career.  This lawsuit may uncover a link for Jacob.  Unfortunately, I think it diverts away from Adrian Lyne’s intended lack of clarity for another kind of movie altogether.  The movie goes in this detour with Alexander’s attorney role and then finds its way back on the main road for the third act.  Hardly any new mileage was to be gained from this rerouting though.

This new development may give a more literal understanding into Jacob’s psyche and condition. However, I think the film fails to pounce on a new opportunity to attack a topical storyline that had become suspect during the actual timeline of the war.  As the film arrives at its conclusion, the script seems to rush to the surprise ending it wanted to garner.

Frankly, an early conversation with a Jacob’s chiropractor (Danny Aiello) easily spelled out the twist for me.  Alas, perhaps that took me out of the film early on. 

There are good ideas and good performances to be had in Jacob’s Ladder.  Yet, I don’t think the film entirely works because of Adrian Lyne’s attempt to push it’s vagueness.  Demons that come out of nowhere during Jacob’s hallucinations should be scary and have a fright shock to them, but instead these moments come off like abstract art that only frustrated me. 

I always thought I knew the ending, and I was right for the most part, but why does a runaway car have to chase Jacob down an alleyway to deliver the point?  Arguably, a boogeyman like Freddy Krueger might have done a better job at disturbing a threat of death than what was ever going on in Jacob’s Ladder.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING. THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING.

By Marc S. Sanders

Farce works best when the serious explodes into the outrageously absurd.  When Jonathan Winters is a lawman who insists to Brian Keith “We gotta do something! I mean we really gotta do something!” you should know that whatever needs to be done has got to be out of unreasonable paranoia.   Yet, the desperation and nonsensical fear is something you can empathize with because if I were told the states were being invaded, I’d surely think twice as I reach for the tennis racket in the back of my closet to use as a weapon.

Norman Jewison set aside his penchant for intense drama, socially reflected in films like In The Heat Of The Night, to direct a madcap satire imagined from the very real threats of The Cold War of the 1960s.  At a time when submarines were being used for silent spying and espionage, a Russian sub gets stuck on a sand dune within the shallow ocean waters just beyond the New England town of Gloucester.

Alan Arkin as Rozanov leads a squad expedition off the vessel and intrudes upon the vacation home of Walt and Elspeth Whitaker (Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint).  With a pistol pointing at the family of four, all that is really needed is a boat to nudge the helpless submarine back into the water.  Yet, as word spreads of who has arrived, that’s not what the townsfolk will have you believe.

Before the age of the internet, hysteria still managed to catch fire with word of mouth.  Reader, perhaps you heard of what happened when Orson Welles aired his radio show of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds.  Yes!  Apparently, an alien invasion was really happening.  What amuses me about Jewison’s film is that only a very few people even get an opportunity to see the Russians in person.  Still, the fear overcomes everyone in town.  The battle crazed old codger named Fendall (Paul Ford) dons his sword, and because he carries said sword, he seems most fitting to lead the charged brigade.  

The Russians Are Coming. The Russians Are Coming. works like a pre-cursor picture to what the team of ZAZ would later do with Airplane! and The Naked Gun.  The town switch board gets overrun.  The men take hold of their rifles, but stop at the bar for a belt first. Two of the wives board a motorcycle with a side cab waving a poster that says “Alert” in front of their faces so they can’t see where they’re going.  What’s anyone supposed to gather from saying “Alert,” anyway?  It’s ridiculous, but the palpable tension of these fine folks is convincing when they come alive on this sleepy Sunday morning off the northeast coastline.

As comedic as Jonathan Winters always was, he takes it seriously as a deputy who does his best to lead while wearing his badge.  Brian Keith is great at just being Brian Keith, the grump who tries to keep things in perspective but can’t because everyone else is ready to take up arms.  Carl Reiner doesn’t have to do anything but occupy the screen and he’s funny.  He’s the antsy father to an eleven-year-old boy who he chooses not to believe.  In all seriousness, are we ever to take Carl Reiner seriously when he tries to offer a sound explanation for the Ruskies’ arrival?

Alan Arkin is just lovably speaking fluent Russian at times while trying to navigate his team around the island with no idea of what to do or what to say.  He might be the most sound character of the whole picture. He’s lovable and hilarious.

The film takes place in one day and it’ll leave you curious with how it all gets resolved among the two misunderstood factions.  Just when Norman Jewison ably reaches the highest summit of intensity, the oddest occurrence happens to shift the tide of the film’s characters and comedy.

Like other satire, particularly Sidney Lumet’s Network, The Russians Are Coming.  The Russians Are Coming. stands prophetically.  It was released in 1966, at the height of The Cold War with very fearful circumstances occurring in the news such as The Bay Of Pigs invasion.  Earlier this year, a sense of nervousness arrived when it was announced that Russian submarines have docked themselves outside of Cuba, seemingly lined up with Florida.  Anything could suddenly turn into a sad reality.  Still, how we respond to scary possibilities is how we live through these moments.  

You can laugh at The Bay Of Pigs crisis now.    Could you do it back when it was actually happening?  I wouldn’t know.  Yet, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make light of the situation.  Hogan’s Heroes, The Three Stooges, Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin and even the Looney Tunes ably served the purpose of needing to self deprecate our innate fears that would get all of us into nonsensical tizzies.  The Russians Are Coming.  The Russians Are Coming. was one of the best films to accomplish that feat.  

We gotta do something! I mean we really gotta do something!

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

By Marc S. Sanders

Hollywood back stories have created a quandary for the studios’ celebrated film franchises, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Disney has purchased the properties and copyrights belonging to 20th Century Fox and now, at last the X-Men can properly meet Captain America and the Hulk and Spider-Man…well only if Sony will let the wall crawler come out and play.  So, how should all these guys meet one another, especially now that some of these actors who play these superheroes have received their AARP cards?  Furthermore, some of these characters are dead…at least for now.  Marvel producer Kevin Feige has the answer.  Only Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), the Merc With The Mouth who breaks the fourth wall at any given moment, can bring this all together.

Deadpool & Wolverine is the best of the smart aleck hero’s three movies.  Yet, it’s more of just a gimmicky flick than anything else.  This proudly excessive two-hour tentpole picture operates like a solid collection of Saturday Night Live skits, with buckets of blood to splatter instead of The Three Stooges’ cream pies.

Allow me to break down this very thin storyline.  Matthew MacFadyen is Mr. Paradox in a three-piece suit.  He informs Mr. Deadpool that his timeline is about to fizzle out of existence.  Somehow, our hero has to locate help from a Wolverine variant of another universe (Hugh Jackman, of course) to make things right again.  

There’s your open door into the silliness that normally comes with Deadpool.  Our title characters are tossed into a Mad Max kind of wasteland called the Void and an abundance of cameos commence from here on out.  The suprise appearances are a lot of fun and I dare not spoil a single one of them.  The rest of the internet did that the night before the film actually opened. I shan’t lend to that egregious violation. (I’m looking at you Variety, Yahoo and Entertainment Weekly. Was it truly necessary to go in that direction?)

I could never relate to the other Deadpool movies.  Sure, they had some hilarious wink and nod gags, at the expense of Reynolds’ career experiences with past superhero franchises.  Yet, those other films were also trying to work too hard with storylines weaved in as well.  They became tiresome and Ryan Reynolds is not the Bill Murray of yesteryear or even Robert Downey Jr. His schtick in this element was overdone.

With this third installment, the approach works with an Airplane! or Naked Gun finish.  That being said, it takes a lot of knowledge from prior Marvel films within the 20th Century Fox warehouse to get every gag.  It helps to know what other super hero movies missed out on getting green lit, which ones tanked at the box office and who are some of these very obscure characters that were churned out of the meat grinder.  If you know these guys, then you’ll applaud the purpose they serve to of any jokes or story references that allow this new picture to operate.

I found it fun.  I think most lovers of Marvel movies will too.  Yet would someone like my sixteen-year-old daughter catch every reference or cameo that walks into frame? Some characters have not appeared on screen in over twenty years.  Reynolds and company also toss out one-liners that reference dated Hollywood gossip.  There was a lot of explanation that I had to fill in for my wife on the drive home.

Beyond all this, Deadpool and Wolverine, played by Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, work really well together like a good buddy cop picture.  Get these guys back together again in a Lethal Weapon or 48 Hrs kind of movie and I’m there.  Honda might not be too fond of these guys, but their pairing is an overdue welcome to the big screen.  Why Honda? See the movie and you’ll know what I mean, but I am eternally grateful for the automaker’s contribution to this picture.

As expected, the violence is excessive.  I think I’ve had my fill of knives and claws being thrust into men’s crotches.  Seems to happen literally every five minutes.  Beheadings abound too.  Slow mo flips and bullets and bullet casings flying and dropping out of guns is never enough for these filmmakers either.  

Some will try to convince me of how tender hearted the picture is too.  Bah!!!! I know what you’re talking about, but go watch Terms Of Endearment or even Avengers: Endgame to get your tear ducts exercising.  The Hallmark moments here never carried much weight for me.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a grand time at the movies, worth seeing with an enthusiastic crowd over settling for a lonely night at home with Disney Plus.  The movie is a little too long, though.  None of the material belongs on the cutting room floor, but a good chunk of it could have been preserved for the next Deadpool blood spattered, slapsticky flick. I just didn’t need to consume all of the eggs in the basket.

My Personal Edit for the MCU: While I toss out my bravo on Marvel’s willingness for self-depreciation on a celebrity roast level with Reynolds and Jackman at the helm, it’s time to get serious again.  

Please get off this multi verse kick.  Director James Mangold (Logan, …Dial Of Destiny, 3:10 To Yuma) said it best that multi verse approaches produce lazy writing.  There’s no stakes anymore.  Hard to believe a character is dead when we watch him/her/they die.  They’ll just come back in the multi verse!!! Enough already.  

Bring back the villains who work based on sound logic like Thanos, Eric Killmonger and Obadiah Stane.  When these guys commit their worst misdeeds, know they did it for a greater purpose than just a mustache twirl and an evil laugh.  I could get behind their arguments.

More importantly, when the job is done, let it stay done.  Treat the audience fairly.  

As Annie Wilkes passionately declared: “Are you blind? They just cheated us.  HE DIDN’T GET OUT OF THE COCKADOODIE CAR!!!!”  I know exactly what you’re talking about Annie. Where’s that sledgehammer?