2018: A Week of Movies - March 12th to March 18th

71. Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) - March 12th

When I saw a Batman animated movie with a lower rating than The Killing Joke, I got curious. I wish I hadn't.

The voice acting is bad, the dialogue is atrocious, the animation is sloppy, and the story is weak camp. It's not clear who this is trying to appeal to, with a tone that's all over the place from moment to moment. This seemed like it was trying to pay homage to the Adam West era of Batman mixed with more 'adult themes' in the form of senseless sexualisation and puerile humour; however, it would also needlessly try for humanising moments that clash with the rest of the movie. Harley will be farting for a joke in one scene and comforting a dying man in the next, before swinging right back around to camp as she uses her tears to get Poison Ivy to start crying as well. The film is just useless at handling these tonal changes, and does a bad job of expressing either tone in the first place. This was awful, and I really don't want to think about it any more. - 3/10

72. Annihilation (2018) - March 13th

This was excellent sci-fi that I highly recommend. My full review can be found here. - 8/10






















73. Tomb Raider (2018) - March 15th

I really didn't have much of a reaction to this. I thought the way they grounded the story was interesting and I liked Vikander a lot, but I just didn't find much to make of it. - 5/10

My full review can be found here. Additionally, I recommend reading this word on it by Matt Zoller Seitz; he had a much more significant reaction to the film than me, and probably knows more about film than I ever will, so if there was an alternative take to consider, it would be his.

74. Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (1974) - March 16th

The Godzilla movie I was supposed to watch this week was originally Godzilla's Revenge, but considering that Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla came out this day in 1974, and considering that due to being one day behind this will be my 74th new film for the year, and considering that Godzilla's Revenge is by-and-large considered the worst Godzilla film ever made, I think I can stomach putting it off in favour of one of the better Showa-era Godzilla films.

When I was first discovering Godzilla as a child through the power of the internet, MechaGodzilla quickly became iconic to me. I think that because Godzilla had always been characterised as indestructible, it made sense to me at the time that the only creature that could pose him any real threat is a copy of him that also has missiles and lasers (plus, what's cooler than a giant dinosaur that breathes fire and also shoots missiles and laser?). In retrospect, the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen a lot of 'the hero with more stuff'-type villains and as a result the concept has gotten stale. However, the appeal is still obvious; it allows filmmakers to show off a character's destructive capabilities without turning the hero villainous, it saves time by allowing designs to be derivative, it can work in the context of an origin story by allowing the villain to act as a mirror to the weaknesses of the hero or a representation of the journey they've gone on, or if you're feeling particularly cheesy it allows a fight between two equals to be decided by personal qualities and sell the idea that good triumphs over evil. In the context of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, it's a little bit of all of these things. The use of MechaGodzilla allows the filmmakers to call on Godzilla's destructive origins without turning him in to a bad guy again, and it acts as a meta-commentary for how far Godzilla has come as a character in the twenty years since he first roared his way on to the big screen.  Plus, it's a Showa-era Godzilla film; cheesy is par for the course. Whether or not any of this is intentional, it's what I took away from it, and it makes me appreciate this far more than I have most of the Showa-era Godzilla films I have seen so far, almost as much as something like Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.

As it is, however, the film is completely nuts. Godzilla attacks once more, only for it be revealed that it's actually a cyborg dubbed MechaGodzilla that's controlled by ape-like aliens of the Third Planet from the Black Hole. Possibly my favourite thing about the movie is that the characters figure out that MechaGodzilla is an alien super weapon purely on the basis that they had discovered some 'Space Titanium'. The film essentially states "that's not Godzilla, it's a cyborg, I guess you could call it a MechaGodzilla, it must be a super weapon made by aliens from outer space, that's why we found that Space Titanium" all in the space of a few sentences while watching Godzilla and MechaGodzilla exchange atomic breath and laser eyes. It's all so frank and inelegant: "Of course! That makes total sense! Why would it be anything other than a super weapon constructed by space aliens?" There's also this weird mix of mystical elements with the sci-fi that start out interesting but never go anywhere save for the last fifteen minutes when the characters remember to revive King Caesar to help fight MechaGodzilla. Perhaps Caesar getting his ass handed to him by MechaGodzilla could be a metaphor for the growing appeal of scientific understanding over mystical understanding, but even I think that's a stretch at best.

The effects are hilariously cheap, even for being low-budget Showa-era schlock, with lots of painfully obvious cuts for the application of effects that are so bad it simply adds to the charm of these sorts of films for me, and when combined with the ridiculous story and sets that would be right at home on old Doctor Who, I can't dislike it even as I roll my eyes at it.

The one thing that stands out to me as being of genuine quality in the film is the music (not the King Caesar song, that's just overlong and unpleasant). There's a certain goofy, jazzy funk to the film's score that seems so hilariously out of place next to the whirring sci-fi sound effects, but the actual composition of the pieces is competent enough that it baffles me why it's playing alongside the movie. It reinforces the campy nature of the film with its dissonance, with a genuine focus on silly fun, and more to the point the MechaGodzilla reveal theme is reminiscent of Sing, Sing, Sing. It's all so silly, and for all its flaws I kind of love it. - 5/10  

75. The Wind Rises (2013)

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are some of the most consistent producers of great animation in history. Every Miyazaki film I've seen so far has been excellent; they have incredible animation with a consistently warm, flowing and imaginative art style, and tell stories centred on emotionally resonant stories that seek human truths. The Wind Rises is less fantastical than the other work I've seen so far, but it still incorporates it in its emphasis on the importance of being a dreamer, and especially the necessity of it despite the fact that even what we find to be most innocent and beautiful will inevitably be corrupted. It's kind, and melancholic, and believes in its honesty as it eschews facts for the sake of theme in ways that only great stories can; it's less a historical drama, and more a look at history through the eyes of a man that hates what happened and can't change it, but wants to think of it in the most honourable way despite this, so wish that the individual will always have the best of intentions and respect craft and art even when its use destroys its purpose. It's wonderful, and I'm glad that even though I didn't get all my movies in this week that I got to cap it off with this. - 8/10


Re-watches

14. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - March 14th

After months of reading criticisms and complaints, from the reasonable to the downright toxic, my opinion of The Last Jedi, despite much re-consideration, is ultimately still extremely positive. - 9/10

There's too many arguments going around for me to try and address all of them in a little journal entry. However, if at an individual level you understand, regardless of how you feel about the film, that your opinion is your own and not some impossibly objective truth, then you are welcome to it.

What I'd rather do is weigh in on a scene in the film that I haven't seen anyone discuss the meaning of, and that is the scene in which Rey enters the darkness on the island and tries to understand who she is. From a thematic standpoint, this is completely in-character for her, as her entire arc is about finding her place in the universe; the result makes sense thematically as well, because it tells her that in order to find her place in the universe she must find it within herself. That said, I thought that the scene was communicating something more than that, not just theme and emotion but also an actual plot point relevant to the lore of the Rey's lineage. I'm not usually one for fan theories, but as of the first time I saw the scene in question I thought that it was communicating to me visually that Rey is another embodiment of the force, in a similar fashion to Anakin Skywalker, not a reincarnation but a spiritual successor in both the thematic and literal senses of the word. This doesn't make her a 'chosen one' of some prophecy, but it facilitates the idea that the force ebbs and flows with the balance of the universe, only seeking to necessitate great light when there is great darkness. Considering that the image of the scene is Rey going on and on forever in both directions, it seems to suggest that she has no beginning and no end; when she asks the force to show her parents, it shows only herself. She is her own progenitor, made from the will of the force. This is supported by the way Snoke talks about her; Ren was the raw potential, the darkness that rose, and Rey is the light that meets him. As for the revelation that Rey's parents were junkie slaves from a backwater planet, it's no less an indictment of this idea than the fact that Anakin's mother was a slave from a backwater planet. We still don't really know the logistics of her lineage, what we have is scant detail. It might be a reach, but it's something that's been on my mind for a while and I never really wrote it down.

That said, part of me hopes I'm wrong; as much as that would be a nice throwback to the lore, part of what makes Rey a compelling character is that she represents the potential within any and every person to find power in the force, specifically if you are a fan of Star Wars. Her character is literally a fan of Star Wars that takes to the force like second nature because she's been hearing about actual events in her universe and appreciating them her whole life. As cool as it would be to have a tangible reason for her powers, there's never needed to be in Star Wars; stuff works the way that it does largely because of feelings. This has been true since A New Hope, from the first moment Luke trains with a lightsaber to his use of the force to blow up the Death Star. This was also true throughout all of the original trilogy and the current entries in the sequel trilogy, and most importantly it's the final message of The Last Jedi, this idea that Star Wars is a legend that will endure and that anyone can harness what the universe offers.

15. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

This was how I learned of Sum 41's popularity in Japan.

Godzilla: Final Wars is a celebration of Godzilla as a pop culture icon. There's no real substance here, no metaphor for atomic destruction or meditation on environment, remembering the dead or governmental bureaucracy; the film is just about monster-on-monster action, Godzilla with an updated look taking on re-imagined versions of almost every other monster he's fought. It's an extravaganza of extinction, as every creature from Rodan to Gigan to Anguirus to lesser-known creatures like Ebirah and even the 1998 American Godzilla 'Zilla' all wrecking the world before getting summarily destroyed by the Big G himself. It's far less serious than previous entries in the Millennium Series, owing more to the Showa era for its goofiness, but it's generally speaking a stylistic gumbo that takes a little from all that came before it and otherwise lives by the 'rule of cool'. It's a tonal and editing nightmare as it tries to keep up with everything Kaiju while also adding in the most action-heavy human story of the series, with mutant alien super soldiers fighting one another to stop an evil plot to control the Earth, with some humorous and shallow attempts at satirising Japanese pop culture and political climate with discussion of the aliens . It's fantastic and awful in all the right ways. - 6/10

Published March 18th, 2018