Summer Not-Busters: Fantastic Four (2015)

Director: Josh Trank
Starring: Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell
Domestic Box Office: $56,117,548

It's always interesting to go back and watch a film that came out not just to bad reviews, but to the kind of critical pile on that makes reviewers seem less like people and more like sharks who smell blood in the water. When Fantastic Four was released at the end of the summer of 2015, rebooting the lackluster two film series that starred a pre-Captain America Chris Evans, people didn't just dislike it; they reacted to it as if its very existence was offensive to them. Seeds of contempt had already been planted long before the film's premiere, when the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch inspired racially tinged ranting from the corner of the internet where all of the most special and sensitive snowflakes reside, and it's possible that some of those people went into the film wanting to hate it merely to justify their own entitled idiocy, while others merely swam with the tide and then floated along the currents of disdain. By the time 2015 came to a close, Fantastic Four had been counted as one of the worst movies of the year, coming in at #614 out of 639 films ranked by Metacritic for the year. Seeing the film in 2016 is to wonder what all that fuss was about. Fantastic Four is not a good movie but, good lord, it is not quite the abomination its reputation might have you believe.

Review: Deadpool (2016)

* * *
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Ryan Reynolds

Every time a superhero movie comes out (so, uh, every week lately) and becomes either a massive hit or a massive failure, scores of articles end up being written of the "What X can learn from Y" variety. Batman & Robin taught Hollywood that superhero movies shouldn't be so campy and nakedly geared towards selling toys; Batman Begins taught Hollywood that superhero movies should be gritty and "realistic;" Marvel's run from Iron Man through The Avengers taught Hollywood that shared universes are a recipe for continuing success; and now there's Deadpool to teach Hollywood that superhero movies should be funny and graphically violent. The thing is, if there was a blueprint for success, then everything would be a success. What works for one film isn't necessarily going to work for another; it's all a matter of finding the right tone and style for the right character and the right franchise and finding them at the right time for the right audience. That's not the lesson that Hollywood is going to learn from Deadpool, a film that goes fantastically against the grain of other superhero movies (until all the copycats come along in the next couple of years), but it's a set of variables worth keeping in mind the next time whatever is trendy at the moment takes a would-be franchise completely off the rails.

Review: High-Rise (2016)

* * 1/2
Director: Ben Wheatley
Starring: Tom Hiddleston

Ben Wheatley's take on J.G. Ballard's High-Rise comes so very close to working that it's tempting to suggest that he just take it back, tweak it some more, and try again. But that's not how it works, and the film is what is it, which is a stylishly crafted and executed piece that is visually engaging and even, at times, daring, but which never offers much more than a surface perspective on its allegorical tale of income disparity and social inequity. It gets off to a good enough start, leading with the dark humor and element of the grotesque that will define so much of what is about to unfold, but somewhere around the middle it starts to sag, its storytelling style leaving its lack of depth exposed, and by the end it actually starts to feel a bit tiresome. There are a number of great images and individual scenes and moments in High-Rise, but taken as a whole it ultimately doesn't amount to very much.

Review: The Nice Guys (2016)

* * *
Director: Shane Black
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe

There are moments in The Nice Guys where you watch Ryan Gosling's performance and think, "Is this about to go too far?" The performance is so broadly comedic that it threatens at times to cross the line from being genuinely funny to trying too hard to be funny to actually be funny. Fortunately director (and co-writer) Shane Black is always able to keep him on the right side of that line, reeling him back in whenever it seems like he's about to drift away. The performance is ridiculous, but it's ridiculous in exactly the right way and in what is ultimately a very funny and very good comedy/noir/buddy movie mashup.

Review: Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

* * * *
Director: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li

Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower is an intimate family tragedy played at the level of spectacular, operatic grandeur. Telling a story of revenge, divided loyalties, forbidden loves, and power, and involving a husband, a wife, their sons, and another family that exists in the shadow of theirs and contains explosive secrets that, once brought to light, might destroy everything, Curse of the Golden Flower has a little bit of everything packed into its narrative. It also has a more is more (is more!) aesthetic informing its visuals, including enormous, elaborate sets and scenes which involve a massive number of extras, Curse of the Golden Flower is one of the great cinema spectacles, right up there with those old Hollywood films that played on an almost impossible scale, such as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra and Intolerance.