This couldn't have happened at a better time.
For those unaware, my Jandy ("grandmother", for the layman) passed away earlier this week. While it is hard for someone to lose any family member, this loss has affected me greatly based upon my closeness to her. I love her very much and she will be deeply missed by my family. I have been spending the weeks before her passing and the days after preparing myself for the loss and the effect it will have on me in the time to come. Overall I think I'm OK, but that doesn't mean I don't want something to think about. Then, somehow, as if Jandy sensed I needed to focus on something else for a moment, she sent me this beautiful nugget of information. Ben Affleck is Batman.
Like many controversial decisions surrounding pop culture icons, this revelation has caused a bit of an uproar. The casting of Affleck in Zack Snyder's Batman/Superman follow up to Man Of Steel has its advocates, and a vast opposition. Lord knows, I understand where they're coming from. A Batfan of my caliber should be championing the opposition to the role being played by the star of such fare as Surviving Christmas, Pearl Harbour, Gigli, and Jersey Girl. And let's not even talk about 'Bennifer'.
So here's the twist: I like it.
Without going too far into it before getting to the list of reasons why this is going to work, I will say that Affleck is a controversial, if not inspired, choice for the role that NO ONE saw coming. In this way, it's much like the announcement of the film itself. A bold move that no one could have predicted, with everyone in tow ready to back it up. I shall dropeth the knowledge as to why both the film and Affleck's role therein will work. As I am an advocate of everyone's opinions, I assume that even after this there will remain an opposition and I welcome the arguments.
But I'm going to be right.
1. He's Not Christian Bale.
A couple of points here. First off, yes, I very much appreciated and enjoyed Bale's work in the Dark Knight Trilogy. I hold true to the belief that he's the best live action portrayal of the Caped Crusader (so far). But the rumours surrounding him taking up the role once again for the sake of a ridiculous payday fucking TERRIFIED me.
Keep in mind that this is probably not going to be a one-shot deal if it works. We might very well see a Justice League film or at the very least an Affleck-starring Batman film. Extending Bale's run to that length would only bring out the flaws in his performance that people loving throwing shade at. Do we really need that voice for another three films? The more significant problem with Bale's being Batman again is that it completely fucks the continuity of the DK trilogy. It was wrapped up nicely in the context of what it was and should exist by itself with no relation to a DCU franchise, which is also why casting Joseph Gordon Levitt wouldn't work either. We needed a clean break and now we have one.
Getting back to Affleck, not only do we have a fresh franchise, we have a completely unexpected star donning the cape and cowl. And he is SO different from Bale in many ways. Bale was a great Batman and a decent Bruce Wayne. I'm interested to see what Ben's Batman will be like, but he's going to be a fucking GREAT Bruce. He's much more charismatic on screen than Bale; charming, good looking, and can throw around sleaze like crazy when needed. Some are thrilled to bring up his turn as Daredevil as a reference to how he'll be as Bats, but I'll get to that later. Right now, I'm just happy that I no longer have to stress about my beloved Dark Knight Trilogy getting fucked with.
2. Affleck's A Big Guy.
It seems kind of trivial, but the physical presence of Batman is an important element of his character. His whole shtick is based upon striking fear into his enemies and it's hard to do that if you're not physically intimidating. It's one of the many, MANY reasons why Michael Keaton's turn as Batman has lost its luster for me (because he's a fucking midget). Affleck stands at over 6'3", the tallest actor to portray the Dark Knight to date.
Add to that, he's bulky as well. Films like Daredevil and, more recently, The Town show he's able to be in the shape he needs to be in to take on the job. Yeah, he's 41 years old, but in the last 20 years of making Batman films no one has really been young and been Batman at the same time. Besides, we don't know the context in which Batman will be brought into in the new film. He might be a bit older, with the Batman already an established presence in the world. I'm down with it.
One last thing, and it's kind of dumb, but you don't want him TOO big. There was big talk about Joe 'Alcide' Manganiello taking up the cowl, which by himself wouldn't be a bad choice. But he's almost half a foot taller than Henry Cavill and when fucking Superman has to fly just to make eye contact with you, a wrong message is being sent. Trust me, Affleck's got the right look for the job.
3. Affleck's A Nerd.
Nothing makes me happier than when I hear about an actor taking a job he wants because of appreciation for the original work. Affleck's an established and proud comic book geek, as per his friendship with patron saint of nerds, Kevin Smith. Before staring in Daredevil, Affleck wrote the introduction to Kevin Smith's Daredevil graphic novel 'Guardian Devil', and having read it several times over, I can say that Ben has an affection (Affleck-tion?) for the genre.
That's a game-changer when you compare Affleck with someone like Bale or say, Tim Burton. Making art and practicing your craft is one thing, but doing it with the enthusiasm and motivations of a fanboy are so much more. You know who the character is, and moreover you want to do him justice. Burton gave not a fuck about that and turned Batman into a fucking terrorist (see: the last 20 minutes of Batman '89). Nor will it be a Clooney situation where he's just stroking his own ego. Affleck will care about doing a good job, and I feel like the character is safe in his hands.
4. He's An Accomplished Veteran Actor.
Stay with me, here.
Once upon a time, in the long ago, Ben Affleck was Daredevil. It is one of the least liked superhero films that Marvel has ever put out, and the guiltiest of pleasures for me. I love this film, through and through. But I understand why it gets all of the shit. It's not all Ben's fault, but he's the star so some blame will inevitably fall on him. It doesn't help that the early 2000's saw Affleck dump shit movie after shit movie all over the world. His career was spiraling out of control at this time and I was afraid he would never get his shit together.
That was ten god damn years ago, and he has pulled his shit together.
The past few years has seen Affleck rise up as a star actor and a fucking Oscar-winning director. I mentioned before why he'd be a great Bruce Wayne. Well, we also know he can do action in roles like The Town, and his performances in that and Argo show he has a gravitas that is absolutely necessary to be Batman. Clooney comes off like a fucking oaf because he never took anything seriously as Batman. Affleck has the ability to come off as a normal guy, but also has a grimmer, serious tone and look about him when the situation is appropriate.
As mentioned, Daredevil will be a talking point when discussing Ben as Batman, but the circumstances could not be more different. We have an experienced crew in Snyder and company as opposed to Mark Steven Johnson, who's claim to fame includes directing Ghost Rider and not much else. The Superhero film genre is stupidly popular right now when ten years ago, all we had was X-Men, Spider-Man, and Hulk to base our context on. Most importantly, Affleck is ten years older, and thus more experienced in life and film. He turned a spiralling career and addiction problem into a huge comeback story. You don't do what he's done without talent. The combination of that talent and experience will be huge advantages to his being Batman over a lot of the younger talent that everyone assumed would be taking up the role in the new film. And yeah, he has the added experience of being a superhero in a failed franchise. I don't see that hurting. He knows the character. He has the acting chops and physical presence. He has a personal struggle and dark past full of failures, drug abuse, and actresses named Jennifer to pull from. All he needs is the benefit (Ben-efit?) of the doubt. Give it to him, he deserves it.
5. He NEEDS To Be OK.
Lastly, let's take Ben out of the equation for a minute. This is DC/Warner's last ditch effort of catching up or trumping the Marvel/Disney empire of Superhero films. Man Of Steel was a lackluster performance when compared to The Avengers or even Iron Man 3. The Batman/Superman announcement was the kick in the pants everyone needed to get some momentum going for the next few years, and the casting of Batman was the next most important decision to make. This film will make or break the competition between DC and Marvel and the success will heavily depend on the stars of the film. So knowing that, do you really think they came to this decision lightly?
Henry Cavill is still a new face, and while The Avengers had fresh faces like Hemsworth and Renner, it also had Robert Downey Jr., an accomplished actor whose turn in Iron Man launched the whole Marvel line. When he was cast, no one was sure what to think. He went from '???' to 'Best in the world' overnight. Same thing happened when Heath Ledger was chosen as The Joker. He won a goddam Oscar. Inspired casting has made this genre what it is; and now, we have Affleck as Batman. He can very well be the RDJ of the DC movie line. He's popular, successful, on a ridiculous hot streak, and a success story that people can identify with. Ben's the face people will recognize and want to see. Christ, the announcement happened less than a day ago and literally everyone is talking about it. Love it or hate it, this is a big deal, much bigger than if Alcide or Karl 'Bones' Urban got the gig. This is the momentum that the film needs to be as big as Avengers. Yeah, people were going to see the movie because Batman is awesome but NOW more people will be paying attention because no one knows how this will go, and everyone wants to. The only way to capitalize on it is by having it be the right decision. Sure, I would have been OK with someone else being cast. No, I did not see this coming nor would Ben even be on my list of people to cast. But here he is.
In conclusion, I strongly believe as a movie buff and as a Batman devotee, that this is a good decision. Call me in 2015 and we'll see where we are. If I'm right, you're welcome. If I'm wrong, and Affleck just Clooneys the fuck out of this thing, feel free to berate my tombstone. Because I will be dead of sadness and stress-induced aneurysm.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, thank you Jandy, and I love you.
Knight Owl
Saturday 24 August 2013
Monday 12 August 2013
The Best And Worst Of July 2013; The Highs, And The Oh-So Lows.
Yeah, so I've fallen a little bit behind on my posts for the simple reason that July sucked for the most part; and going through an entire month of suck can really take the wind out of your sails. But here I stand sit, trying to get it all going again.
I've had to do a lot of growing up in the past few weeks, most of it against my will. If my taste in movies hasn't given it away yet, I can be pretty child-like even now in my late 20's. So things like setting up car insurance, buying a car (the Cardis!), getting my money right, they are all foreign to me. I've had to nut up and get them done. Well, hit the Final Fantasy victory music, 'cuz for now it looks like I got shit taken care of like a motherfucking adult. Now, having said that, I'm gonna bitch about some movies.
Given that I haven't posted in nearly a month, I thought it prudent to not do a handful of full length rants/reviews as that would be exhausting for everyone (mostly me). So I've opted to do several shorter rants on the films I've seen throughout the month of July. Now, much like my life in July, the films released on average were not great. Like, surprisingly so. If there is an optimist somewhere inside of me (there isn't) he would hope that the summer movie season didn't peak in May; but alas, this year it's apparent that we were on a downward slope after Star Trek, with some Man Of Steel-sized goodness along the way. To further simplify things, I've marked every film with a 'Best' or 'Worst', which is pretty self explanatory. I'll drop a little knowledge and hopefully by the end of it, I'll be back on track. Enjoy the downward spiral.
BEST: Despicable Me 2
Sometimes animated movies are the best. You know what you're getting: nothing serious (unless it's a Don Bluth movie, fuck that guy), probably ridiculously silly, some lame jokes, maybe a decent message. Sometimes you get a surprise kick to the feelings, like Up or Toy Story 3. DM2 is a great example of a balance between a good kids flick and something that a quasi-mature movie goer can enjoy. It helped that I find nothing funnier than watching my Mandi be entertained by a silly movie. The magic from the first one isn't gone so much as it's different. There are shades of superior animated films featured, such as The Incredibles. Also, and most importantly, Minions FTW. If you're looking for a good laugh without wanting to suffer through all the dick jokes, give this a shot.
WORST: The Lone Ranger
This should surprise no one, and by now everyone has heard about how hard this has flopped to the point of costing Disney to the sum of over 140 million. Maybe now people will listen to my anti-Johnny Depp rants. Don't get me wrong, Depp can be great, but the guy who played Raoul Duke is long dead and has been replaced by a drunk pirate. And even if this movie wasn't Captain Jacked into oblivion, there was just nothing special about this movie. It was very by-the-numbers, predictable, and about an hour too long. If this movie was made about 13 years ago, or I was 13 years younger, I might be singing a different tune. This was basically The Mask Of Zorro, but with white people. And one of them plays an indian.
THE VERY BEST: Pacific Rim
Ugh, my heart hurts thinking about how poorly this masterpiece of a popcorn movie has done. Everything that I feared would be wrong with this film was fucking PERFECT. Most notably, this movie looks indescribably good. You know how in Transformers, whenever the robots get into a scuffle, everything gets SUPER INTENSE to the point that you can't see or don't know what in the full hell is happening? This does not happen in Pacific Rim. The action scenes (of which there is a perfectly suitable amount) are clear as day, excellently timed and paced, and very engaging. I was more involved in some of the fights between Jaeger and Kaiju then I have been some UFC bouts. The acting was well done, with Jax Teller and BAMF Idris Elba leading the way. The story was great in that it was simple. It didn't try to be anything more than a sci-fi action movie where giant robots fight giant monsters. It shouldn't be hard to make a good film about that, but by the gods we have it in 2013 and Guillermo Del Toro deserves a lot of praise for it. He won't get it, and the film won't make half the money that Grown Ups 2 or whatever will (*cringe*), but the fact that there are people out there capable of putting out work like this gives me hope.
WORST: Red 2
Remember what I said about Despicable Me 2 not losing the magic of its predecessor? Red 2 lost the magic. The magic has Alzheimer's. Everything that made Red one of my favorite films of that year was gone, and all it left was a cliche and a prayer. When Red came out it got a lot of comparisons to The Expendables for some reason, and I find myself doing the same thing here. The first Expendables tried too hard to be great and ended up being so very meh after all of its hype. Red was very under the radar, until it came out and everyone loved it. The Expendables 2 fixed the problems it had and became a decent throwback to the 80's action fare that most of its stars are so known for. The opposite happened to Red 2. The Bruce Willis of yesteryear is gone and he's clearly ready to ride off into that sunset, as it's getting more obvious with every Die Hard entry that he gives less and less of a fuck. Malkovich and Mirren fall flat more often than not, but mostly because what made them great was not knowing or expecting how great they'd be. The word was out by the sequel and everyone knew what to expect. Not even Anthony "What did you see, Clarice?" Hopkins could save this from being a disappointing shadow of its former self. Red 2 should never have happened.
WORST: The Wolverine
Missed it by that much. While this was a VERY significant improvement on the first Wolverine solo venture, I grow more and more convinced that Marvel cannot do a good movie on the darker characters of its universe. Daredevil, Punisher, Wolverine. They all deserve good films, but in order to be good they need that R-rating that they will never get. There were some well done things in this film, don't get me wrong. I might even need a second viewing just to get my feelings straight with this, but the first viewing left a poor taste in my mouth. They're portraying Logan too much like Bruce Wayne, with the brooding and the promising never to hurt anyone ever again. HAHA NOPE . Logan don't get sad, he gets angry. Wolverine is the berserking action hero of the Marvel universe, just let him do that and enjoy my money. Also, and this is more of a personal note, but there are some links to the other X-films in this movie (without specifics, because no spoilers!) that drive me up the fucking wall. I hate hate HATE that X-Men going back to the way of Singer and First Class was just a happy dream of mine. It makes me sad, and so did this movie.
Alright, all caught up I think. Hopefully we get some good movies in before the summer ends and I have to wait till American Thanksgiving or whenever for another string of popular films to verbally destroy. One can hope.
Knight Owl
I've had to do a lot of growing up in the past few weeks, most of it against my will. If my taste in movies hasn't given it away yet, I can be pretty child-like even now in my late 20's. So things like setting up car insurance, buying a car (the Cardis!), getting my money right, they are all foreign to me. I've had to nut up and get them done. Well, hit the Final Fantasy victory music, 'cuz for now it looks like I got shit taken care of like a motherfucking adult. Now, having said that, I'm gonna bitch about some movies.
Given that I haven't posted in nearly a month, I thought it prudent to not do a handful of full length rants/reviews as that would be exhausting for everyone (mostly me). So I've opted to do several shorter rants on the films I've seen throughout the month of July. Now, much like my life in July, the films released on average were not great. Like, surprisingly so. If there is an optimist somewhere inside of me (there isn't) he would hope that the summer movie season didn't peak in May; but alas, this year it's apparent that we were on a downward slope after Star Trek, with some Man Of Steel-sized goodness along the way. To further simplify things, I've marked every film with a 'Best' or 'Worst', which is pretty self explanatory. I'll drop a little knowledge and hopefully by the end of it, I'll be back on track. Enjoy the downward spiral.
BEST: Despicable Me 2
Sometimes animated movies are the best. You know what you're getting: nothing serious (unless it's a Don Bluth movie, fuck that guy), probably ridiculously silly, some lame jokes, maybe a decent message. Sometimes you get a surprise kick to the feelings, like Up or Toy Story 3. DM2 is a great example of a balance between a good kids flick and something that a quasi-mature movie goer can enjoy. It helped that I find nothing funnier than watching my Mandi be entertained by a silly movie. The magic from the first one isn't gone so much as it's different. There are shades of superior animated films featured, such as The Incredibles. Also, and most importantly, Minions FTW. If you're looking for a good laugh without wanting to suffer through all the dick jokes, give this a shot.
WORST: The Lone Ranger
This should surprise no one, and by now everyone has heard about how hard this has flopped to the point of costing Disney to the sum of over 140 million. Maybe now people will listen to my anti-Johnny Depp rants. Don't get me wrong, Depp can be great, but the guy who played Raoul Duke is long dead and has been replaced by a drunk pirate. And even if this movie wasn't Captain Jacked into oblivion, there was just nothing special about this movie. It was very by-the-numbers, predictable, and about an hour too long. If this movie was made about 13 years ago, or I was 13 years younger, I might be singing a different tune. This was basically The Mask Of Zorro, but with white people. And one of them plays an indian.
THE VERY BEST: Pacific Rim
Ugh, my heart hurts thinking about how poorly this masterpiece of a popcorn movie has done. Everything that I feared would be wrong with this film was fucking PERFECT. Most notably, this movie looks indescribably good. You know how in Transformers, whenever the robots get into a scuffle, everything gets SUPER INTENSE to the point that you can't see or don't know what in the full hell is happening? This does not happen in Pacific Rim. The action scenes (of which there is a perfectly suitable amount) are clear as day, excellently timed and paced, and very engaging. I was more involved in some of the fights between Jaeger and Kaiju then I have been some UFC bouts. The acting was well done, with Jax Teller and BAMF Idris Elba leading the way. The story was great in that it was simple. It didn't try to be anything more than a sci-fi action movie where giant robots fight giant monsters. It shouldn't be hard to make a good film about that, but by the gods we have it in 2013 and Guillermo Del Toro deserves a lot of praise for it. He won't get it, and the film won't make half the money that Grown Ups 2 or whatever will (*cringe*), but the fact that there are people out there capable of putting out work like this gives me hope.
WORST: Red 2
Remember what I said about Despicable Me 2 not losing the magic of its predecessor? Red 2 lost the magic. The magic has Alzheimer's. Everything that made Red one of my favorite films of that year was gone, and all it left was a cliche and a prayer. When Red came out it got a lot of comparisons to The Expendables for some reason, and I find myself doing the same thing here. The first Expendables tried too hard to be great and ended up being so very meh after all of its hype. Red was very under the radar, until it came out and everyone loved it. The Expendables 2 fixed the problems it had and became a decent throwback to the 80's action fare that most of its stars are so known for. The opposite happened to Red 2. The Bruce Willis of yesteryear is gone and he's clearly ready to ride off into that sunset, as it's getting more obvious with every Die Hard entry that he gives less and less of a fuck. Malkovich and Mirren fall flat more often than not, but mostly because what made them great was not knowing or expecting how great they'd be. The word was out by the sequel and everyone knew what to expect. Not even Anthony "What did you see, Clarice?" Hopkins could save this from being a disappointing shadow of its former self. Red 2 should never have happened.
WORST: The Wolverine
Missed it by that much. While this was a VERY significant improvement on the first Wolverine solo venture, I grow more and more convinced that Marvel cannot do a good movie on the darker characters of its universe. Daredevil, Punisher, Wolverine. They all deserve good films, but in order to be good they need that R-rating that they will never get. There were some well done things in this film, don't get me wrong. I might even need a second viewing just to get my feelings straight with this, but the first viewing left a poor taste in my mouth. They're portraying Logan too much like Bruce Wayne, with the brooding and the promising never to hurt anyone ever again. HAHA NOPE . Logan don't get sad, he gets angry. Wolverine is the berserking action hero of the Marvel universe, just let him do that and enjoy my money. Also, and this is more of a personal note, but there are some links to the other X-films in this movie (without specifics, because no spoilers!) that drive me up the fucking wall. I hate hate HATE that X-Men going back to the way of Singer and First Class was just a happy dream of mine. It makes me sad, and so did this movie.
Alright, all caught up I think. Hopefully we get some good movies in before the summer ends and I have to wait till American Thanksgiving or whenever for another string of popular films to verbally destroy. One can hope.
Knight Owl
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