The Red Band Redux is Yoda808’s recap of all the movies seen in theaters for the past month. Though not fully formed reviews, here are his off-the-cuff thoughts on movies playing in the past month.
The Avengers
The Avengers . . . the best summer movie ever assembled?
I can’t express how much I enjoyed this movie. Going in, I was definitely worried that anyone putting this thing together would have a hard time getting the combination of characters right in order for the story to feel real and give each character their due. Marvel definitely made the right decision when they turned the reigns over to Joss Whedon.
The moment the film had me was 30-45 minutes in when Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America fought each other . . . if I was going to make them battle each other, that’s exactly how I would have done it! From the reason why they started fighting, to the use of their powers; everything was just as I imagined. After that point the film had me. Every other fight after that was gravy and the climatic battle at the end was awesome.
Conversely though, I can understand some of the complaints/critiques from negative reviews of the film–the main one being that the “stakes” didn’t feel real or high enough for The Avengers. Granted, never at any point in the film did I feel that The Avengers might lose–there was never any doubt of that in my mind. So yes, how can a climatic battle feel real if you know who’s going to win? Well, it’s because I feel for The Avengers that’s why. What’s unique about them is that we’ve had four films all leading to this. I’ve invested in these characters and this world already formed from those films, so seeing what they can do together is more of the reason (and excitement) to see the film. Transformers – Dark of the Moon final battle porn aside, the fight at the end of Avengers had way more feeling than the end battle sequence of Dark of the Moon.
All in all, great movie and best time I’ve had at the movies in a while.
Rating – 4.5 stars
Dark Shadows
About all you can do after seeing Dark Shadows is throw your hands up in the air and wonder what happened to this Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration.
Nothing really to write home about for the latest Depp/Burton joint. Watching it the whole time, there really wasn’t anything that special about it. When I really think about it, I think both Depp and Burton were kind of toned down in this movie.
That’s not saying the film was bad. The film was definitely well shot and put together. The “look” of the film also had a number of Burton-esque touches which I appreciated.
In the end, there just wasn’t enough to draw me into the story. It was just ok.
Rating – 3 stars
Top Gun
You’ve gotta have the lovin’ feeling for Top Gun.
While nostalgia is definitely a part of it, I can’t help but love this movie. Seeing it again in a theater with people who enjoy it just as much as you do definitely makes the experience of watching it all that much more enjoyable.
Granted, some things don’t hold up (the look and feel of the 80s, military advancement, etc), but that’s part of the charm I think. It definitely takes me back to that time.
The film itself is just so much fun. You have these super cool guys trying to be “the best of the best”, flying fighter jets, saying really cool (and sometimes corny) lines; I can’t help but have a soft spot for Top Gun.
Rating – 4 stars
Back to the Future
Don’t tell me what you’re thinking . . . I know that you know Back to the Future is one of the all time greats.
I never really understood what makes a movie timeless and amazing until I watched Back to the Future again recently in a theater with other like minded people. Yeah sure, I always knew it was funny, but seeing it again on the big screen made me realize so much more.
For one thing, nothing is ever wasted. I’m hard pressed to pick out a scene that doesn’t serve the story in some way. Everything shown to the viewer adds to Marty trying to get home or affects the storyline with his parents in some way. Take the first five minutes . . . though you think it’s a bunch of random sweeping shots of Doc’s home, you are told more than just who he is. You get setup for events that send Marty back into the past.
Yes, the movie is so efficient and effortless in the way things are told that it makes the whole experience of watching the movie as great the first time as much as watching it for the 200th time. The great acting by Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, and Thomas Wilson all make their characters stand out.
Combine great performances with great storytelling, and some comedy and it’s no wonder that Back to the Future is so timeless.
Rating – 5 stars
Battleship
Spoiler Alert–No Taylor Kitsch is not uttering the classic Battleship line, “You sunk my battleship.” (nor does anyone else)
You know you’re having a good time in a movie when you know that even though what you’re seeing is most likely implausible; you still want to see more. That’s the feeling I had while watching Battleship.
We all know that the premise behind the movie is the navy taking on aliens in this movie adaptation of the board game (is Battleship really a “board game” since it doesn’t have a board?). Going in, you have to be wondering how much of this is going to be legit and how much will just be pretty images and gravity defying CGI. Well, most of it falls into the latter category–which isn’t a bad thing.
Battleship I feel, is one of those movies that isn’t afraid to have a good time with itself. The performances by the cast are all decent enough, but the situations that the characters are put in and the way they are resolved always got a good chuckle out of me; if not a good laugh or mind blowing “whoa” due to CGI-porn.
It’s not all that faithful to the game or work 100% as a film, but it gives you a damn fun time at the movies should you see it this summer.
Rating – 3.5 stars
Men in Black III
Neuralizers aside, we’ve seen these guys (and this type of movie) before.
I thought the first MIB was a pretty fun movie. Will Smith was on the rise and was paired greatly with Tommy Lee Jones in an odd couple buddy cop movie with aliens. The sequel definitely tread on typical sequel ground and to this day doesn’t remain all that memorable. And now comes the third installment of the Men in Black series, MIB3.
Going in I knew that the production of the film had its problems, but I also heard good things about the 3D which didn’t give me high expectations, but definitely warmed me to seeing the film.
What really shines about MIB3 is the interaction between Will Smith‘s “J” and Josh Brolin as the younger “K.” J expects young K to act a certain way when the reality is that the younger K isn’t as old or as gruff as his older self, so, of course he’s more receptive to what J has to say . . . which makes the relationship between the two characters pretty fun to watch.
Sadly though, there isn’t much more to the film than that. As with MIB2, MIB3 follows the standard formula of most sequels (more of the same). The time traveling retro aliens all are fun and cool, but at the end of the day the story is the same . . . save the world (or in this case the future) by stopping the big bad alien. Oh, and as for the great 3D I was hoping for; it wasn’t hardly noticeable at all and I actually felt at times the 3D was nonexistent.
So while I enjoyed the time traveling romp with aliens, I didn’t enjoy it enough to get really excited about it. Nothing great, but nothing totally bad; you could just watch the first one again and you’d be fine.
Rating – 3 stars
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Have you seen any of these movies lately? Let us know what you thought in the comments.
The Red Band Project 
Peter Berg on KCRW’s The Business
Tags: Battleship, KCRW's The Business, Peter Berg, podcast
Director Peter Berg on the set of his latest film Battleship.
One of the movie podcasts that I listen to is KCRW’s The Business. It’s predominantly an interview show where host Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter interviews actors, directors, producers, and creators “about the business of show business. It goes beyond the glitz and glamour to the who, what, why and how of making movies and TV.” In honor of RIMPAC 2012 starting last week, I wanted to look at a recent episode of The Business where director Peter Berg was on the show and talked about some of the fallout on his latest film Battleship.
Battleship as you may recall, did not do well here in the United States and currently has only brought in about $63 million. However, Battleship’s silver lining is that it made $239 million overseas for a combined total of about $300 million. Not bad, though not great when you consider the budget for Battleship was $209 million.
Number crunching aside, what I found really interesting about Berg’s interview is how calculating and “assembly-line” like making Hollywood blockbusters are. Schedules are locked in, release dates are locked in, and everything along the way needs to contribute in some way to making sure the film comes out on time. If not, money could be lost on a film as millions of dollars are at stake.
“We sunk your Battleship.” No, not The Avengers . . . aliens.
Though Berg never shies away from the fact that Battleship did have its share of problems and obstacles that needed to be overcome, his major conceit is that the film had a bad release date:
While being beaten down by The Avengers is exactly what happened, there are definitely other reasons why Battleship didn’t do too well–first and foremost being, the movie was about frigging aliens. Getting people to buy in to an adaptation of a board game such as Battleship was definitely a big enough challenge to begin with, but when it was announced that the antagonists of the film were aliens . . . that in my opinion, turned the movie from something curious, into something preposterous (and not in a good way). As much as I liked the film (3.5/5 stars, Red Band Redux), it definitely was no Avengers killer–something that a better movie would have been able to do.
Peter Berg with lead actor Taylor Kitsch.
Putting the premise of the movie aside, I do think Berg is onto something when he talks about releasing the film internationally three weeks before its domestic debut, especially in China where he thinks some money was left on the table:
On why Battleship couldn’t follow it’s international release strategy:
As always, marketing seems to always play a big role in movies . . . sometimes to the detriment of a film. But would a different release date (something before Avengers in April or a few weeks later in June) have helped? Maybe, but it’s really hard to say. For whatever reason, Americans do tend to frequent the cineplex more in summer than other time of the year so unless you have a surefire hit (à la The Hunger Games), releasing before summer is a calculated risk. On the other side of that if you release later in summer, you still have to contend with the other summer movies.
What’s wrong with Hollywood blockbusters in development right now? Both Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna try to get to the bottom of that.
The scariest part of the interview though, came when Berg was asked about what he thought was going on with studio blockbusters that have been running into problems as of late and have been pushing their release dates back (GI Joe: Retaliation, World War Z):
He then goes on to talk about how with smaller films, dramas with just a few actors, a reshoot could cost just a couple of days for maybe $40,000 whereas a visual effect shot for something like Battleship could cost a couple of millions of dollars and take weeks to months to redo.
All scary thoughts when there’s a movie you want to see that’s not finished till the week before it comes out. And even then, just the decision to go with footage that you have–even though it may not be great footage or what’s best for your film; that’s gotta be tough for any filmmaker to swallow. For these big Hollywood movies though, that’s life. You have to make the release date or loose millions of dollars.
If you do have some time, I really encourage you to listen to the podcast to hear Berg talk about more in detail about the film. A lot of it might sound like he’s defending his film, but there are some good nuggets in there that are interesting to hear. You can find out more about KCRW’s The Business here and download this specific podcast episode here.