Hot Takes On Film

  Willow (1988-US) Ron Howard directs this classic sword and sorcery fantasy film about a young farmer who takes on the task of protecting a baby who was prophesized to destroy the evil queen. I just love this film . I have seen it many, many times. Is it the kind of film that wins awards? Nope! Does anyone really care? Also, nope! It is one of the most satisfying films out there. It’s like Hot Chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley make a very dynamic couple. Veteran Actor Warwick Davis is so compelling. It is really well paced. Howard is a master of pacing. He also likes to get the audience invested in characters and then gives them a finished ending. I do believe that is why his films are so addictive. Disney plus did a sequel series which I loved but apparently nobody else did and it was cancelled. Unfortunately, Kilmer was not in it. I would loved to have seen him reprise Madmartigan regardless of his health issues. So Kilmer if you are reading this, “we l

  Welcome to #FantasyJune. For those that have been with me for a bit you will remember that January was #SciFiJanuary. I wrote a bit about what SciFi actually is and essentially the big takeaway was that SciFi and Fantasy are opposite sides of a very similar coin. Whereas SciFi is all about science including the softer sciences. Fantasy is all about magic and what is not explained. What makes a film fantasy or SciFi hinges on what drives the story. Using a computer in a fantasy film does not make it SciFi and talking about religion in a SciFi does not make it fantasy. I submit that these two genres can’t mix. It’s like oil and water. When I see platforms such as Amazon or Netflix classify a film ScFi/Fantasy I get annoyed. It’s one or the other. So here are the subgenres that I will be discussing. Religion This is a tricky one and will ultimately lead to arguments. For many, religion is explained so it’s not magic. For others, just having an element of religion makes it fantasy. Dune

 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979 US, Klingon) Google has the language for this film as English and Klingon. That's how much Star Trek is part of our society. I am loving being able to talk about this first film in the franchise in context of the 1980 Oscars. Not my favorite Star Trek product but it is still Star Trek and I will watch it. After TOS went off the air in 1969 there was quite a movement of people missing the series. Hence the ST conventions were born. Paramount caught wind of this and decided to make a movie. They hired the insanely talented Robert Wise to direct (Westside Story, Andromeda Strain, The Day the Earth Stood Still) Wise was a once in a generation director with a strong SciFi background. Yay! This is gonna be great! The story was by veteran SciFi writer Alan Dean Foster. Double great! Script by newbie Harold Livingston with very little on his resume much less SciFi. Ooooh ummm. Decades later its pretty clear that it didn't hit the mark. I do think th

 Dune (2021 US) Adapted from the Frank Herbert novel of the same name. I have always found the 80's David Lynch version to be one of my most disliked films ever and I'm a Sci-Fi fan. So needless to say I, like many other people, was very skeptical of this Dennis Villenueava version. There is a lot going on and I totally think it was the right call to split the adaptation of the book into two films. Although many of the book purists had a lot to say, this film turned out pretty good. Its such a difficult story to tell and be faithful to Herbert's vision. I would consider it the "White Whale" of filmmaking: divisive as heck between the book purist and audience goers. So many opinions about it. So hard to please everyone.. Not sure you need mine so how about a reminder that part two is scheduled for release this year.  Although, it didn't get a lot of attention at last years Oscars it did get recognized. Dune won in the Production Design, Sound and Effects catego

  It came from Beneath the Sea (1955 US). Like I said earlier I’m a big Ray Harryhausen fan. I just love stop motion. So much so that I made a short film stop motion. This film is all about the # Kaiju and Harryhausen’s work and tbh there isn’t much else going for it. Harryhausen was just so good at what he did that it was enough to carry a film and propel it into legendary status. There is a theory floating about that his work resonates so much now because it was painstakingly hand crafted and not computerized. Yeah there were flaws but it was human flaws. Harryhausen talked about creating this beast. It only had six appendages instead of eight because eight was just too much to animate. He was doing the work one day and got a phone call. When he returned he forgot where he was and had to start all over again. Nowadays there is tech to help the animator but even then that happened to me several times. I stopped answering my phone. I have the Harryhausen box set which is awesome but y

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022 US) I know I posted this back in January but since its nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars I thought I would Comment on it some more. I am team Everywhere and here is why you should be too. I think the Academy has/d the best of intentions to elevate the best work. In reality that is not working out that way. To get a nomination a film producer has to expend a great deal of energy and money courting Academy voters with ads, mailers, billboards etc. Part of that includes in person, over a fancy meal, pitch sessions. There is an awful lot wrong with that and much that could and does lead to corruption. Getting even a nomination for your work whether it be Producer/writer or data wrangler increases your value by a lot. So when a rep sits down with a voter there is money on the table. Filmmakers have now been creating the "Oscar" film. A sort of signal to the Academy that they are open for biz. I think the "Oscar" film should

M3ghan (2023 US) I wanted to do this last month for SciFi January but didn't have time to get to the theaters. But Peacock now has the R rated version so Hurrah for not leaving the house. A new guardian of an orphaned 9 year old girl creates a robot AI doll for the girl to "play" with. Things don't go well. Some movies have unfortunate timing when it comes to releasing the film and world events can interfere with how much audiences will want to see it. This one had perfect timing. With the AI Bing chat box going bonkers AI is all people can talk about. I just love how Gemma, the engineer who designed M3ghan, shrugged her shoulders when colleagues brought up moral, philosophical and ethical questions about releasing this tech into the world. That would never happen in the real world. I didn't believe it. It took me right out of the film. Personally, I insisted that my daughter, the star chemistry major in college, take a philosophy class. Mother what are you on abo