Some Thoughts on 2016, as Expressed Through Spotify Playlists

I've had Spotify Premium since it left beta, and I don't regret it in the slightest. Recently I've grown somewhat wary of subscription services, from the ever-present fan-service monthly box-crates to Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop going subscription-based (which is just the worst). I don't want the internet to know that I'm photoshopping my face onto celebrities to shield my fragile ego.

Spotify, however, hasn't given me any trouble in the past years. I've known a handful of folks who've experienced issues with the mobile application, and while it took a while to really get its feet under it, I think recent updates have moved it from non-functional to at-least-it-plays-music.

This gif isn't particularly relevant, I just wanted to remind
everybody of that time Disney made the villain
a pipe organ.

One thing I particularly like about Spotify is its Discover Weekly playlist. This is an ever-changing list of roughly 30 songs based on the stuff you listen to, and in my experience it has proven itself time and time again as something capable of introducing me to new music. In May of 2016 I started saving each list to a Megalist so I could look back on the year and do a little bit of analysis on it. However, considering it only covers 7 months of music and I'm nothing if not a rigid completionist (lol yeah right) and I didn't want to lie to you fine people (all 4 of you), I was worried I'd have to wait until 2018 to do it. With the apocalypse constantly around the corner, who's willing to wait that long?

Lucky me, Spotify catered to my crippling self-analysis by providing a list of the 101 Top Songs, or as Spotify says, "all the songs you loved the most this year." In support of my efforts to fully deconstruct myself as a person based on my taste in popular culture, here are some arbitrary thoughts on the standout pieces I found this year. Now, full disclosure, I have no idea how Spotify determines these, whether it's through simple play count or some sort of Manatee-in-a-Ball-Pit method, but I don't really care so long as it's all provided for me and all I have to do is talk about it.

First, here's a link to the playlist itself. Looking back over it I seemed to have really dived into the hipster pool on this one...part of that is because I've finally stopped fighting it, and part of it is that I started volunteering at a music venue specializing in underground folk concerts, so quite a bit of it stemmed from those shows I helped with.

Some Thoughts on 2016, as Expressed Through What Spotify Calls my Top Songs of 2016

According to Spotify, my top 3 artists of 2016 were:

San Fermin (6 songs)

San Fermin is a band introduced to me by a good friend of mine, and good lord am I thankful to him for it. Started by a guy out of Yale with the absurd name Ellis Ludwig-Leone, San Fermin bills themselves as "baroque pop" and are exactly what you'd expect of a NY-based band created by a pop music fanatic who majored in music composition. There's a lot of horns, vocal harmonies, and albums which really benefit from a full-through listen.

Not pictured: Half the band.

Of the six songs from San Fermin on the list, my top is probably No Devil, a single they released just after their sophomore album Jackrabbit. While I would recommend Jackrabbit and their self-titled first release (also the only physical album I've bought in years), I think No Devil is probably the best place to start. Some of their stuff is a little esoteric, and considering they're the sort of ensemble to
place Interludes on their releases, it can be a bit weird to just jump in.

Of course, honorable mention goes to Sonsick which is one of my top songs of all time, but I've watched the Audiotree Live version on Youtube enough that it's softened the album version. One thing that stands out from their Youtube videos (and live shows) is just how much they enjoy performing. Watching them get into their music is infectious. Here's a link to probably my favorite live session from them.

Coheed & Cambria (5 songs)

You never forget your first. I stumbled onto Co&Ca's second studio album, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 when I was in seventh grade and it did for my taste in music what most kids go through when they find Led Zeppelin. My parents are both incredibly musically talented, and I had absorbed quite a bit of my father's taste in music through exposure to Zeppelin, Joe Satriani, and Rush. While I still appreciate those, I hadn't really moved outside that circle except for a bit of a foray into Green Day and Kansas.

Also, that time they sang Scalia's dissenting opinions
re: healthcare and gay marriage.

There was something about the band's sense of humor, approach to song-writing, and lead singer Claudio Sanchez's voice that immediately drove me to listen to whatever I could wrap my ears around. Listing my favorite song by this band is easy and immediate: A Favor House Atlantic, taken off the same album listed above. There wasn't anything like it's drive and sense of oomph to 13-year-old Dylan's ears, and it's still one of my go-to pump up songs. The only criticism I have is that Claudio's voice is so unique that it means I can't ever play the song because there's zero chance I'd be do the vocals justice.

Lil Dicky (4 songs)

Due to various circumstances both personal, public, and professional, I went through something of an angry white boy phase during 2016. Call it the suddenly open world thrust upon my shoulders, the realization that I would finish a full-length novel sometime during the year (finished it in June, score!), or the sense of political destruction and inevitable dystopia on the horizon, but there was a certain cynicism that took ahold of my mind for roughly the first 80% of the year.

Or when he raps about penis envy.

Anyway, Lil Dicky is a Jewish rapper based out of Philadelphia who exploded across the internet during 2015, which isn't much of a surprise when you learn he has a degree in marketing and
understands how to get his content noticed on the web. When you add in that he bills himself as an anti-rapper and spits bars about things like saving money, shitting your pants on a date, and the difficulties inherent in coordinating a night out, it's a no-brainer.

Lil Dicky's section in this article would be far longer if his mixtape was on Spotify, but considering I have to listen to it on Soundcloud, I guess it doesn't count. The guy is legitimately clever, as well, as displayed by that time he shot a music video for roughly $20 and got T-Payne and a bunch of other notables involved. Hell, he's just an interesting guy to follow, even if you're not a fan of rap.

Anyway, those are my top three artists, but I'm fairly sure it's just a numbers game so I'm going to talk about some other stuff because this is my blog and if you don't like it you can leave. Your page-view's already registered, sucker!

Favorite Indie Artist Who Isn't Nearly As Indie As I'd Been Led to Believe

alt-J (3 songs)

alt-J is a band out of Leeds known for mumbling their nonsensical lyrics to really, really strange arrangements. Their first album, An Awesome Wave was released in 2012 and is fantastic front-to-back. It's another one of those with numerous interludes, an intro, and an outro, so listening to it on scramble isn't the best idea unless you like songs cutting off when they "end." It's essentially like a TV episode cutting out at a cliff-hanger, except the characters haven't actually reached the cliff yet, they're still running towards it.

Anyway, the songs on my list are Breezeblocks, Dissolve Me, and Intro, which is an interesting trio to include considering the entire album is fantastic. I don't have a lot to talk about here, except that if you want to get into a strange group that really shouldn't work, give them a listen. Just understand that they're a bit weird and often write about domestic violence and rape (not that you'd know from listening to them).

Favorite Artist that Showed Up After I'd Discovered Them On My Own

The Oh Hellos (3 songs)

As far as I know Nick Kroll doesn't have anything
to do with this band.

I was first exposed to this group through the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, where they took my breath away with their performances of Bitter Water and Exeunt, both from their 2015 album Dear Wormwood. The group is frontlined by a pair of siblings from Texas who took serious inspiration from CS Lewis, Patrick Rothfuss, and if those two names mean anything from you, you won't need a third example. It is apparently about a pair of ex-lovers writing letters to each other against the backdrop of an apocalypse, and it absolutely nails what I'd expect for tone.

Hell, I think Dear Wormwood is probably my favorite album I discovered in 2016. Give it a listen, they're great.

Favorite Song by an Artist I Otherwise Can't Get Into

"Like a Child" by Oketo

Oketo is an indie band out of Lincoln, Nebraska known for...well, I guess not a whole lot. They don't have a Wikipedia page and hit just under 50K monthly listeners on Spotify as of the time of this writing. I found this one through my weekly Spotify discover playlist and gave the rest of their stuff a listen, and...well, Like a Child is really good. They're another pop-rock-indie band using mellow guitar, brass, and woodwinds to create their own sounds, but I just can't do the rest of their discography. I think it boils down to Like a Child having a really good drive behind the guitar, which is something I've come to realize makes or breaks a song for me.

The Unexpected

Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (3 songs)

I fully fell onto the Hamilton hype train this year. My taste in musicals tends to gravitate towards the postmodern, with Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, Little Shop of Horrors, and the like, so when I heard there was a historical musical with rap and hip-hop as the primary styles, I decided to give it a try.

Good lord, Lin Manuel-Miranda is some sort of savant or something. The lyrical craftsmanship in these pieces is obscene. One of my greatest regrets is that I'm probably not going to see a live performance with LMM actually playing the lead role, but I guess I can live with that, considering he's been tagged to write the music for the upcoming Kingkiller Chronicles...

Miscellaneous Songs I Want To Mention Which Don't Deserve Their Own Bolded Partition

Here's some songs from the playlist with one or two lines explaining why I like them. Don't expect anything deep from this, it's more like a justification than anything else.

Jackie and Wilson by Hozier - I've never been quiet about the fact that I cannot stand Take Me to Church and for a while I let that decide my opinion of Hozier. But damn, this song (and the rest of the album, for the most part) is really, really good.

Thirsty Man by Blitzen Trapper - This band did a cover of I am a Man of Constant Sorrow for the TV show Fargo, but I think Thirsty Man is probably the best one they've put out. They're something of a bluegrass - punk - miscellaneous band that manages to freshen up their sound every so often while keeping their identity. It's pretty cool.

Apparently he's actually really smart with his money.

Good Morning by Chamillionaire - AKA definitely not Tom Petty. I find most songs calling out "haters" as really dumb and un-self-aware (self-unaware?) but I think Chamillionaire managed to at least make his feel upbeat...at least until the second half where it devolves into your standard ego booster.

Wait So Long by Trampled by Turtles - If I had to choose a favorite Trampled by Turtles song I would probably list Alone or Midnight on the Interstate, but as stated above you never forget the one who took you to the dance. Wait So Long is the song that probably best showcases TbT's ability to play blisteringly-fast bluegrass without losing the rhythm or melody of the song. Palomino is a great album, and their new one is just as good.

Stuntin' by The Floozies - If you're looking for something which fits the tag "funkstep," look no further. This song's groove is absurd.

Anyway, that's generally how Spotify classified my year in music. I'm sure I forgot to mention something, so if you feel like I treated a group unfairly, want to point out my inconsistent use of bolding, leave a comment because this blog is how I validate myself.

Mediocre Movie Month 2016 Palate Cleanser: Some Thoughts on "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (spoiler-lite)

Go see Rogue One, but don't take your kids.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Directed by Gareth Edwards
Produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Allison Shearmur, Simon Emanuel
Written by Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy, Story by John Knoll, Gary Whitta

Starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker

Budget: $200M

Before I get any distance into this post, I'll just put up a totally spoiler-free opinion:

Go see Rogue One, but think twice about taking your kids. This is not necessarily a Star Wars movie for children.

Okay, now that that's out of the way.

When Disney bought the Star Wars IP (actually Lucasfilm entirely) for a monstrous $4B back in 2012 there was a somewhat understandable outcry across the Internet Outrage Machine. People were wary of merging the entertainment MegaCorp with a beloved childhood franchise, ignoring the fact that Star Wars was George Lucas's personal whore for nearly 30 years already at that point. Of course, there was some fear that Disney would insert their characters into the Galaxy Far Away, or vice versa, but Disney didn't fasten its white-gloved fist around the world's popular culture output by being stupid.

Unrelated photo compilation.

After fairly warm reception of The Force Awakens most of the naysayers retreated to their webforums where they complained about the Sue-ness of Rey, the fact that Finn was black, and failed to realize their inability to enjoy a movie that's more an homage than a remake (or a soft reboot). I liked EpVII and I have high hopes for the next installment of the Saga.

And some things are better left buried in the dark places
of the world.

When Disney announced plans to release new Star Wars movies every year until the lights go out, there was more backlash. People complained that Disney was milking their childhood while simultaneously calling for more Star Wars movies. The cognitive dissonance went unnoticed and continues to this day, where you'll find any number of competing opinions on whether Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie ever made, or whether it's an affront to all things good and worth fighting for.

I personally thought it was somewhere in between, but closer to the latter.

Rogue One has a fairly simple story: there are plans for a superweapon capable of ending all resistance to the Galactic Empire, and we've gotta get them. We follow Jyn (Jones), Cassian (Luna), and various other characters across the galaxy as they fight the Imperials, argue amongst each other, and generally act sad as things unfold around them.

That's pretty much the only thing I can really say without spoiling large portions of the movie. While I try to avoid major spoilers, there are minor ones listed here.

This movie has been hyped as a darker turn for the Star Wars universe, which is something I am 100% in support of. While I think the Saga films following the Skywalkers should definitely be lighter space-adventure stuff, I am fine showing a more boots-on-the-ground approach to the Galaxy, and I think Rogue One does a very good job. One of my favorite sequences was an action scene where it's a bunch of revolutionaries fighting some storm troopers in a city street, and an AT-ST arrives to mop up the fight. Awesome!

I always thought the Star Wars universe was fairly limited, considering we follow the Skywalker clan across two generations (maybe three?) and generally stay limited on this single family. The expansion of the universe here...mostly works. My main criticism comes from the fact that it's a little hard to reconcile the appearance of these well-known Star Wars images in a movie where people are getting murdered by grenades, interred in forced-labor camps, and getting mowed down by laser fire as they leave a building.

The Original Trilogy
I've always liked Gareth Edwards, and I think he does a fine job directing here. The action scenes are competent, the gunfights are tense, if a little long at points, and the space stuff is well executed. The third act in general is fantastic, taking place on a tropical planet as a group of rebels is attempting to win the day and things just go from grim to dark. There's enough new stuff that it feels like a story taking place in a different place in the Galaxy, while there's enough old stuff that it doesn't feel like the prequels where everything had a strange sense of disconnect.

The sets look practical, the droids look good, and when there's CGI sequences they don't stand out as obviously green-screened or cartoony.

The Prequels
This section is a bit longer, but you probably shouldn't take that as a condemnation of the film as a whole. As I said above I liked the movie quite a bit after thinking about it, and I suspect I'll enjoy it even more on a second view. That said, the movie falls short in quite a few areas which I totally understand as being deal-breakers for people who are a little more discerning in their choice of science fiction (Specifically Star Wars).

First, there are minimal attempts to develop characters. We get several different conversations where they'll talk about how they've lost a lot, but we never get any explicit detail. Jyn's backstory is relegated to a fifteen-minute opening, after which is jumps forward in time without telling us anything that happened in-between. There's a single line she says to a character she spent a long time with, but we never actually see it. I thought there were three scenes in particular which should have been added that would have really, really solidified the characters. The script could have easily cut out all of the scenes taking place on the Death Star in order to make time.

And that's another thing. There are two instances of CGI de-aging in the film, and while both are technically spectacular it doesn't do anything to eliminate the Uncanny Valley effect. Grand Moff Tarkin  shows up several times and has lines, and every time he's on screen it's like watching a high-quality Blizzard Cinematic. In both cases I would have vastly preferred seeing the character only in reflection, from behind, or not alt all. The other instance is one of the last shots of the movie, which is a whole other problem:

Just the absolute worst.
Also, spoilers.

Okay. So because this movie is set between EpIII and EpIV it makes sense that the end of Rogue One will run up against the beginning of A New Hope. But the last two minutes of this movie are entirely unnecessary. There's a hack convention where, in an attempt to shoe-horn a new entry of a series into the old one, it'll be forced to rub shoulders with old entries in the series. You see this a lot in bad fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero novels where time travel is used to reveal a new, hip character is
responsible for all the events of the series. You know who you are, Moffat.

At least it had the restraint to keep Luke from appearing.

The Expanded Universe
Where were the bothans? Bothan used to be cat-people, but did they change it to mean Chinese? Or was that simply because Disney wanted the movie to play in China?

There's been some bizarre talk online about the diversity of the cast, and...I mean, the movie is the most diverse Star Wars movie yet released. We've got a white girl, Hispanic man, blind Chinese guy, big Chinese guy, British-born Pakistani guy, and two people who, combined, form a full black guy (75% Whitaker, 25% James Earl Jones). I am totally cool with that, considering Star Wars is a diverse galaxy and it would be unreasonable to expect humanity to be all white. But the internet is the internet, so expect that sort of nonsense rhetoric about how straight white males are getting left behind by inclucivity.

The Verdict
I would recommend it, with some caveats. Don't go in expecting a light-hearted space adventure film. This is far closer to being a war film, though it still bears a lot of the Star Wars tone. While it may not always work, and while there are a few too many callbacks to keep me firmly rooted (my immersiooooooon!), I think it's a worthy entry to the series that proves Disney is willing to take risks, even if it's not risky enough.

No more posts until the 26th!

Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Beastly"

*sigh*

Beastly (2016)

Directed by Daniel Barnz
Produced by Susan Cartsonis, Roz Weisberg, Michael Flynn
Written by Daniel Barnz

Starring Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary-Kate Olsen, Peter Krause, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Neil Patrick Harris

Budget: $17M

I've specifically held off on watching Twilight for these posts. There's a number of reasons for that decision, but the primary ones are that it's a large time commitment to watch the whole series, and I would rather commit to a bit deeper look when (if) I ever do.

However, that doesn't rule out watching the movies who've tried to capitalize on the success of young adult supernatural romance sub-sub-genre. I remember joking about there being romantic versions of zombies, aliens, and mummies, and so far 2/3 of those are real.

Might as well toss Beauty & the Beast on the pile. Nothing's sacred, let's do young-adult Mary Poppins next.

Make Buckeston Academy High School great again.

Originally written in 2007 as a novel of the same title, Beastly tells the story of Pretty Jerkass (Pettyfer) and Love Interest (Hudgens). When Jarkass is cursed by the resident high-school witch (Olsen), he has a year to find true love or be stuck with a bunch of scars and tree tattoos you'd only find outside Portland's hippest coffee shops. From there it follows the story of Beauty & the Beast beat-for-beat while contemporary pop songs tell you how to feel. The production studio is CBS films, which means it looks bland, sounds bland, and feels bland.

We start off in New York High School where every student is an attractive early-twenty-something. There's some sort of student body political campaign going on which requires these huge speeches. Oh, and it turns out it's not for something like Student Body President, it's for...president of the Student Green Committee...hey, maybe this place just takes the environment super-serious.

Chiseled jawline, perfect teeth and six-pack abs don't count.

Anyway, he's a dick to the wrong people and later on Mary-Kate Olsen turns him into the lead singer for a punk-house fusion band. He gets some tree patterns inked on his skin, silver...jewelry(?) on his nose, and what looks like Black Speech tattooed on his eyebrows. It's very unattractive...except that the actor is underneath some prosthesis which really only alter his facial features. He's still young, broad-shouldered, and his bone structure is still what most people would kill for.

He goes about trying to woo Hudgens by stalking her, blackmailing her father into making her move in with him, and generally creeping in order to fake a personality she'll like. The movie ends with a kiss and him transforming back into his beautiful self, which is a relief because ugly people don't deserve love.

Not pictured: a mediocre movie.

It's pretty much another one of those shallow films where there's a big deal made out about the beauty within people all along, which turns out to be nonsense when the badness gets reversed at the end anyway. Along the way it relies on some really heavy contrivances to twist the plot into a B&tB story, in the same way Michael Jordan got twisted into a basketball in Space Jam.

Take, for example, the meet-cute, or the moment where the two leads interact and we see a glimpse of their chemistry. In this movie it takes place at...Beast's victory party at a club? He's won the election for an unimportant position and there's a massive high school party in a packed club with a live DJ and everything, and the two have a little flirtation which ends in a picture. Hudgens pretty much only exists in this movie to be wooed by the main character.

Myspace Non-Copyright Website game on point

Now, I'm obviously not in the demographic for this movie, but I always try to look at these on some objective level. At certain points I actually wondered whether there wasn't supposed to be a more...self-aware version of this, because every so often it feels like they try and move beyond the expected tropes and romance. Welp, it turns out there were reshoots before the movie's release made in order to further emphasize the romantic relationships.

The Beauty
You could count me surprised when I saw Neil Patrick Harris had a moderate role in this as Beast's blind tutor, Will, and you could count me even more surprised that he puts in a fine performance. While I like Harris, he's often wasted when he's not playing himself (whether exaggerated or not). An example would be in A Million Ways to Die in the West where he's mugging for the camera in such a way that it's really easy to confuse with him simply being a bad actor. His performance here is

"Nelson & Murdock, avocados at law."

actually pretty subdued and grounded, and any time we see him the scene is elevated. This is true right up until the end, which felt like it might have been one of his reshoot scenes because he looks like he does not give a damn.

I guess Mary-Kate Olsen looks appropriately witchy, but the henna tattoo on her eyebrow might be a bit much. At least Beast's prosthetics look alright.

The Brutish
So one of the main plot points from B&tB is that Belle goes to live with the Beast and is stuck with him. This being an aping of that fairy tale, we've gotta get Hudgens into the guy's house for an extended period of time. Well, the script's solution is to have her father owe some money to drug dealers, have one of them threaten her, and have Kyle blackmail her father into making her move in with him. The logic is so bonkers that the characters in the movies are openly questioning it and sound just as baffled as I do.

I mean...was there not a better way to manage this? In a genre that's come under increased scrutiny for the weirdness of its romance (Twilight and The Host come to mind [by the same authors, funny that]) and sometimes-abuse-subtext, it's a little strange that they chose this one. Hell, considering the entire movie is Kyle's attempt to make Hudgens love him only due to the witch's spell, it's a weird little metaphor for using women as tools. I'm sure there's some deeper sort of commentary I could make about gender roles and cultural shoe-horning, but this weaksauce movie is not the sort of thing that should prompt that discussion.

The witch gives Harris his eyesight, which he's lacked since he was 15. His only reaction is to stare at his driver's license saying, "Wake up" in a really non-committal tone.

The Unfortunate
Apparently the original ending featured one of the drug dealers hunting Hudgens down and shooting Kyle. As he bled out on her floor she confessed her love to him and he transformed and healed (so Gaston was supposed to be replaced by drug dealers, I guess). Considering the actual movie ends outside the train-station on a really sudden note, this might not have been a good option.

The Verdict
Ha, what? Don't watch this. What's wrong with you?

Hell, what's wrong with me?

Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Suicide Squad"

Insert Hot Topic joke.

Suicide Squad (2016)

Directed by David Ayer
Produced by Charles Roven, Richard Suckle
Written by David Ayer

Starring Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne

Budget: $175M

Let's talk a little bit about Deadpool. After wallowing in development hell for just over a decade, Ryan Reynolds finally managed to drag Fox Studios, kicking and screaming, towards one of the most successful box office releases ever, with an insane return securing it as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, high-grossing X-Men film of all time, and the first Marvel film nominated for Best Musical or Comedy.

That's insane, especially for a character who was, until the movie released, primarily known from those gifs of people dressing up as him at conventions and goofing off.

And when I say Reynolds dragged Fox into making the film, I almost mean it literally. Reynolds was a massive fan of the 'Pool and after the disaster that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he was determined to see it done properly. None of this PG-13 lowest-common-denominator garbage, he pushed and pushed until a proper film was made, and delivered one of the best superhero movies of the decade.

Of course, that kind of success breeds imitation, and imitation almost never rises to the occasion.

Jobs like rescuing imitation Messiahs.

The proper Suicide Squad team from the comics seems like the perfect fit for a low-to-the-ground gritty superhero film: a squad of low-powered supervillains is recruited by the US government to carry out wetwork various covert operations. They're outfitted with brain-poppers so if they go off-script they can be disposed of easily, and the fact that they're villains means they're really easy to disavow.

Well DC seemed to have shot themselves in the foot with this, because not only does the logic not work, the movie falls apart pretty much immediately. Blame this on the supposedly large-scale reshoots post-Deadpool, blame it on the supposed numerous rewrites and edits made to differentiate the film from Batman v Superman, blame it on the fact that seemingly none of the people involved in this movie's production understood why Deadpool worked.

Here's a short summary of the movie: government...person Amanda Waller doesn't like that Superman could level a city with a flick of his wrist, so she decides to collect a bunch of bad people with powers to serve as an insurance policy. Considering Superman is impervious to bullets and really freaking strong, she only goes for the best of the best, like a guy who can shoot good, a fire-bender, a guy who throws boomerangs, and a woman with a baseball bat.

Also, she recruits the world's worst archaeologist, who turns out to be an ancient demon-witch. She breaks out, starts up a doomsday weapon, and shoots a beam of light into the sky. The heroes slaughter a bunch of faceless CGI goons so we don't have to feel compromised about rooting for a band of murderers, there's some forced sentimentality, and you leave the theater with a bad taste in your mouth.

The Good
There's some redeeming qualities about this film. For the most part I thought the acting was fine where it mattered, particularly with Will Smith and Jae Courtney (I know, I can't believe it either). Courtney in particular was actually pretty fun as Captain Boomerang, and I thought his introduction scene where we see him get caught by the Flash was a nice little universe-expanding moment.

Personally I thought El Diablo was the highlight of the film. While Smith's Deadshot has some minor development where he loves his kid, El Diablo has a full-on character arc with actual sympathy behind it. Plus, when he goes full-on Aztec Fire God at the end is actually really cool.

Aside from that some of the other design work was neat. I was actually a fan of the Enchantress look before she leveled up into her CGI costume (it's all CGI, but the bright blue is far more obvious).

BUT
The rest of the movie falls apart pretty quick once you apply any logic to the situation. I don't know what Amanda Waller thinks these people are going to do (except for Enchantress and El Diablo) but considering she's 100% responsible for the movie's disaster I can't find a whole lot of sympathy. While those two get some development that almost works, the rest of the Squad is kind of glossed over. Sure, Smith loves his daughter, but when he's shown his deepest desire it isn't living a peaceful life with her, it's killing Batman. Katana hardly speaks until she starts crying at her sword about her dead husband.

3-2-3-4, 4-2-3-and!

While some of the design is fun (I'm all for unorthodox portrayals of spellcasting) some of the decisions might have been...a bit much. Of course, I'm talking about the Enchantress's dance number.

Otherwise the movie is too dark, too grungy, and doesn't justify its excessive pop-culture sound track. There wasn't any reason for the Now! That's What I Call a Superhero Movie list of obvious choices.

The Joker
Jared Leto's Joker is really bad. That is all.

Verdict
I thought it was at least more coherent than Batman v Superman. While that's not high praise, we can always hope DC will learn from their mistakes, because Marvel needs some competition that isn't X-Men.

Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Dragons of Camelot"

Watch out, Game of Thrones

Dragons of Camelot (2014)

Directed by Mark L. Lester
Produced by Mark L. Lester
Written by Erik Estenberg

Starring Mark Griffin, Alex Evans, James Nitti, Selina Giles, Sandra Darnell

Budget: $6M gold dragons in debt to Tywin Lannister

This'll be a short one because there's really not a whole lot to cover.

Camelot's in trouble. With King Arthur on his deathbed and Morgan Le Fay renting out some dragons, it's up to Sir Galahad to find his true father, Lancelot, so he can return and set things right. After Arthur dies and Merlin is imprisoned, we follow a band of LARPers around the woods as they get sent from spot to spot and occasionally swing mildly at the air.

They find Lancelot in a tavern, recite their lines, and save the day. It's all very heroic.

"Nyah! What a lovely day!"

Yeah, this is another one of those movies on Amazon produced with a shoestring budget, no-name cast (except for Sir Bors, played by professional wrestler Tom Latimer), and laughable effects. The dragons themselves move fine (usually CGI beasts move like really, really bad puppets) but look the part of a low-budget computer creature.

Magical effects on swords are done in an overlay, with Excalibur glowing green at certain points to signify its magicness. Morgan Le Fay's own spellcasting is represented by a red glow with requisite shaky camera work to hide the low quality. The sword fights feature plenty of cuts between hits so production could save money on red dye and corn syrup.

Not pictured: the actor standing completely still for
too long so they can "convincingly" remove his head.

The score is the usual faux-epic orchestra at appropriate points. The cast is your standard assortment of pretty people without any dirt on their faces, and despite Lancelot's script consisting primarily of "I need a drink" (delivered with increasing sincerity) it's not enough to make you like anyone. Other than Bors, who dies halfway through, no one stands out from the rest of the stubbly white guys. Giles as Morgan Le Fay delivers some measure of entertainment because I am certain she was drunk for most of her scenes (her accent consists of slurring her words together and grinning like a madwoman), but the hangover sets in fairly quickly as she grimaces into a solid-black palantir.

Obligatory "it's only a model" except it's bad CGI instead

Hell, the costuming is even your standard cheap fantasy stuff. The heroes all wear rough earth tones (it looks like Lancelot is even wearing jeans) and Le Fay's outfit is black leather, raven feathers, and a staff topped with the largest black plastic gemstone I have ever seen. Merlin shows up for a bit to wave a crystal around then spends most of his time in Camelot's dungeon.

The Eh?
Strangely enough the most motivation assigned to a character is to Le Fay, who imprisons Guinevere after she usurps the throne. She delivers a few bits about how Guinevere's a whore (she was Lancelot's lady, then married Arthur), and you know what? She actually sounds righteously upset about how this woman treated her brother. Yeah, I get it. Be a strong, independent woman who ensorcels three dragons to take the throne.

Maybe not.

Similarly, the actor who plays Merlin does it with enough conviction that his arc of rediscovering his magic is almost compelling. It doesn't quite work because the movie seems to forget about him for most of it and when he does it's mostly him just shouting at someone off-camera...but then it turns into a low-rent light show. You know, the usual.

Your fire! Use your fire!

The Expected
There's your usual "Dragon attacks the heroes and decides not to actually try and kill them" scenes that populate work by mediocre writers. Why have a dragon attack if its only going to paw ineffectually at your characters before flying off?

This sort of plot-stupidity extends to Le Fay as well (because of course it does). You have your enemies tied up to a pyre and are capable of setting it on fire with your magic at any time. A bunch of spells, maybe those fireballs you were conjuring, you know...nah, she just lets them show up and doesn't really do anything.

The Rest
Yeah, there's nothing else.

The Verdict
While I can give it an A for effort (they made a movie, at least), but it's not bad enough to really laugh at and there's not enough to save it from wasting away in your streaming queue.

Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Spectral"

*Now with 98% less white highlighting! What a hack!

As far as I know this is streaming only, so no box art.

Spectral (2016)

Directed by Nic Mathieu
Produced by Jon Jashni, Thomas Tull
Written by Ian Fried, John Gatins, George Nolfi, Story by Ian Fried

Starring James Badge Dale, Max Martini, Emily Mortimer, Bruce Greenwood

Budget: $70M (supposedly)

The Netflix definition of "original" seems to differ somewhat from my own. Not only was this not produced by the streaming service (it was originally produced by Legendary and Universal, who were unsatisfied with the final cut and sold the rights to the 'Flix), but this movie isn't really an original premise. Of course, I'm not asking for 100% originality in my near-future science fiction (because that's impossible), but maybe cool it on the claims.

Spectral is essentially a B-movie with A-list cast and production design and C-list science, averaging it firmly in B-movie territory. Here's the premise: there's a problem in Moldova, some soldiers and DARPA engineers go to check it out, and then they fight ghosts. Then spoilers:

Except they're not really ghosts. They're molecularly-scanned copies of human beings 3D printed out of Bose-Einstein condensate and controlled by some brains-in-jars.

I spoilered that because I think this movie is good enough for action-sci-fi geeks that it's worth seeing it out. Just a warning, it features some of the worst Hollywood techno-jargon, and not like Primer.

We start off with Kirk Cameron James Badge Dale playing DARPA genius who invented hyperspectral headsets for soldiers. He's called in by General Orland (Greenwood) after soldiers start dying under mysterious circumstances. After a disastrous attempt at rescuing a stranded team, they have to get back to friendly territory while avoiding the "Spectrals" who can one-hit-kill people and aren't hurt by conventional weaponry.

Like I said, a B-movie concept. However, there's plenty of stuff here that clashes with what should be a light action movie: the visual design is really, really good, from the ruined cityscape to the makeshift plasma weaponry at the end. The acting isn't terrible, not on the level of Battle: L.A. There's some moderately clever stuff done by the main characters and the action scenes are cohesive and mildly effective (at first).

And then Dale says he'll reverse the polarity of his camera to turn it into a spotlight and things go downhill from there. If you want me to take your movie seriously, you should put a little more work into the science than "none at all."

The Good
Like I said above, the movie looks good. From the near-future gear to the robo-rottweiler to the weapons facility near the end of the movie it manages to put forward a consistent vision of near-horizon tech. If you're able to forgive significant plot details for the sake of the setting, this might work out.

Similarly, the acting is functional. While that might not sound like high praise it's more than you can sometimes expect. I'm going to draw another parallel to Battle: L.A. and how all the acting in that film was flat as hell, particularly the Survivor Children which populate both films (it's either kids or animals, but it packs a harder punch if you kill children).

For most of the movie I totally bought into the premise of these battlefield ghosts messing things up. The first real fight between the squad and this semi-invisible, incredibly deadly creature feels tense, follows a logical series of events, and even if most of the dead guys were expendable it's still effective watching them poof.

The Bad
Unfortunately, when the movie hit the halfway point things started falling apart. It starts with really lazy science nonsense, some attempts at sentimentality that don't quite scan, and the plot getting ahold of the Spectrals and giving them a power-up for the hell of it. Hell, the logic of what the Spectrals can do kind of breaks apart at roughly the hour mark. It reminds me of those movies with vaporizer weapons that simply knock the hero back instead of dusting him.

While the production is really neat, there are some points with some really obvious ADR without regard to the portrayed tone, volume, or, yes, actual words. This was primarily noticeable during the big science-exposition scene where we get the reveal of what the Spectrals are, which leads into my next spoiler:

The brains-in-jars are actually full nervous systems which are...used to control the Spectrals? But were the nervous systems removed from the original human or from the 3D printed Condensate version? Why do they make a big dumb tornado at the end? Why do they explode? There's just enough information to jog my suspension of disbelief but never enough to settle it back down.

The Rest

I really like Westworld.

I think the most damning thing about the movie is that I don't have anything for this section. It's a shrug of a movie. While the tech stuff is neat and the action is competent, just don't go in expecting anything brilliant.

Oh, the 3D printing stuff reminded me a lot of Westworld.

The Verdict
I thought it was fine, on the level that I actually tried to avoid spoilers. Maybe I would have been more open to the movie if the "reveal" had been revealed to me.

It's probably worth a watch if you're looking for a video-game style story to watch.

Mediocre Movie Month 2016: Some Thoughts on "Journey to Promethea"

Wonderful.

Journey to Promethea (2010)

Directed by Daniel Garcia
Produced by Daniel Garcia, Michael Thompson
Written by Daniel Garcia

Starring Billy Zane, Scott L. Schwartz, Louis Herthum, Jessica Heap, James DuMont

Budget: $2M (estimated)

After a few days of Sandler-inspired meltdowns, I decided to cleanse my palate with some of the incredibly cheap fantasy fare populating Amazon Prime. In an effort to match Netflix in simple quantity, the retail giant has snatched up as many cheap titles as it could, regardless of quality.

And what a blessing it is.

Allegedly this movie was originally made for TV, which I 100% believe. From the goofy acting to the cheap Ren Faire costumes to the Windows Movie Maker special effects, Journey to Promethea shouts "amateur" from the moment you hear the title (Promethea? Come on) to the final second of the end credits, done in the always-professional Papyrus font.

We start with some narration about the Samillian Tribe, a proud people who were conquered by the evil King Laypach (Zane) and cursed to wander aimlessly for eternity. This consists of walking around a forest with half-hearted looks of defeat on their faces. After a failed rebellion led by the warrior Draden, the man is executed. Before his head is removed, he says his spirit will enter one of the Samillians and lead them to Promethea.

A few years later we meet Magnus, a farm boy. King Billy Zane hears a prophecy that if the descendant of Draden sticks the sword in a magic rock, he'll turn to dust.

Can you spot the cut?

Yeah, this movie follows the Hero's Journey, filtered through the lens of an absolute madman. The director is a computer animator and graphic designer who I am convinced is actually an alien. The best way I can describe this film is that it's an alien's attempt at producing a cookie-cutter epic fantasy movie, from the wise mentor to the princess to the chosen one absurdity...but it's done with such a misunderstanding of why those tropes originally worked that it becomes a hilarious comedy from pretty much the first shot.

Seriously, from the first shot, which is a really, really bad rendered fly-over of a lush waterfall jungle and a textureless castle. Cut to King Billy Zane listening to his jester tell jokes. "What did the ocean say to the sand? Nothing, it just waved" is the first thing out of his mouth.

Daniel Garcia knows that jesters didn't tell literal jokes, right?

Oh nooooo...

Cut to Magnus, who watches his father die and brother get captures by King Billy Zane's soldiers. At the funeral pyre he encounters a magical chicken (yes, really) who turns out to be the...sorcerer Gydro? It's a little-person actor in yellow makeup with the worst three-fingered posthetics you can get and a pitch-adjust on his voice that makes him sound like a smurf. Anyway, this chicken-wizard tells Magnus he's got a destiny, then wanders through the woods for a bit before he finds a princess and tells her about Magnus. She and her band of scantily-dressed handmaidens wander out into the woods to find the guy.

Magnus meets up with Ari (Herthum, who played Dolores's father in Westworld in a hilarious "that guy" moment) who fulfills the part of the Obi-Wan, but he's far closer to Bran from Eragon. They train a bit, get into some fights with King Billy Zane's minions, and the movie lurches forward on a tread of misunderstood cliches.

"Sup."

Really, the story here doesn't matter so much because the individual scenes play more like a series of loosely-connected nonsense. Billy Zane never leaves the throne-room set (I don't think he ever actually stands up), the movie takes place almost entirely in the forest, and the production design is staggeringly inept. At one point we get a close-up of one of the king's soldiers and their chain-mail is represented by grey sweaters.

Hell, the film quality looks like a VHS despite the fact that it was made in 2010. This isn't an exaggeration, there are spots where it looks like everything's been run through a filter, and I was questioning whether it was intentional or not.

This movie is wonderful. I haven't even mentioned one of the Princess's handmaidens trying to seduce Magnus literally in front of the Princess, nor the disfigured prisoner with the Sloth-from-Goonies makeup, nor the jpeg sword-fight effects. Beautiful.

The Wonderful

"Year 31: We are running low on detergent."

Oh man, these effects are brilliant. At one point Magnus has a vision of the magical sword which appears as a static image with the background twisting around it in an obvious Whirl filter. The fire on the chicken-wizard looks like an animated .gif superimposed over the footage. When King Billy Zane turns to dust at the end it's accomplished with the most basic of "disintegrate" filters. In order to make the chicken-wizard sound appropriately inhuman they did a really basic pitch-adjust on his dialogue.

Hell, the costumes are so crisp and clean they look like they were sewn from cloth bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Everything is so bright. These people have supposedly been walking through the wilderness for over thirty years and there's not a speck of dirt on them anywhere. All of the swords are the same style of prop and look like plastic. At certain spots we see "wise men" who have the most absurd flesh prosthetics on their faces. Billy Zane is wearing an obviously plastic crown and his harem is the least committed I've ever seen.

The Eragon
Of course, this isn't meant to be taken as an endorsement of the movie. It's definitely something to watch if you want to question Billy Zane's decision making processes. I've sent him a few messages over Twitter asking him whether he had as much fun as it looks while filming, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. I suspect this is something he wants to forget. After all, he was in Titanic.

By most mechanical and dirty hand, I shall have such revenges on you...

The Verdict
If you want to see a Martian take on our Earth-like epic fantasy movies, give this a shot.

Otherwise, go watch Westworld. It's been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama and if it doesn't win we should riot.