Brian's Thoughts on Movies

Here is are my reviews for the third group of Marvel films.  Note there are third act spoilers here: Captain America: Civil War (2016) The third Captain America solo film is anything but.   The Avengers team up films generally offer the greatest spectacle with smaller arcs for the main characters.   The solo films usually focus on one hero’s exploits and any other players are within that hero’s group.   Winter Solider directors Anthony and Joe Russo return to tell a compelling story about Steve Rogers that tests his values but in a way that impacts nearly the entire Avengers unit.   Civil War retroactively makes Age of Ultron a better film by focusing on the aftermath of the damage of the third of that film.   Tony, already in an unhappy state due to a temporary separation from Pepper Potts (who has not been seen since Iron Man 3), perhaps in part due to the guilt from creating Ultron, is confronted by a mother of a young man who had been kill...

Spoilers for all three Godfather films below: Recently I expressed a strong love for Godfather Part II when I watched it at a Fathom Events screening.   The viewing caused me to have another look at its sequel.   Interestingly my first instinct after re-watching Part II was a curiosity as to why it was even made as Part II ties up the story.   The Corleone Family wins the war with Hyman Roth but largely at the expense of Michael Corleone’s family, and his soul, for committing fratricide.   The final shot of Michael all alone and looking empty is fitting.   Where could the story go from there? After re-watching the film I put it on with director Francis Ford Coppola’s commentary and had it on in snippets in the background over the course of a couple of days while doing other things.   Coppola is fascinating when providing his insights.   Two of them really stuck out at me. 1)       Coppola now considers the series to b...

           The quarantine has given me the opportunity to show the Star Trek movies to my kids.  Although I had seen most of the movies, it’s been over 20 years since I’ve seen anything but the most recent series.  Once you start watching Star Trek you become aware of how much content is out there with all the different series.  Of the shows, I have seen two or three episodes of the original series.  I have seen perhaps a dozen episodes of The Next Generation, including the Best of Both Worlds, which sets up Star Trek First Contact.  I have seen two episodes of Deep Space Nine and one or two of Voyager.    Spoilers below: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) I had not seen this film and due to its dull reputation when starting the series with my kids I did not want to start with it since I knew they might not stay engaged. Therefore I started with Space Seed of the original series and then went straight to ...

Terminator: Dark Fate is part of a recent trend of retconned sequels.   F ranchises sometimes produce a series of sequels that eventually bear little resemblance to the original property. The audience may stop coming and franchise may languish for years.   Eventually whoever holds or purchases the rights may bring in someone to right the ship and put things back on track.   If a decision is not made to reboot the franchise then the person brought in may opt for a back to basics approach which will involve ignoring the unloved entries and just making a sequel to the first or second story.   This approach has been applied repeatedly in recent years in horror franchises like Halloween.   Bryan Singer did it with the Superman series.   Superman Returns ignored sequels III and IV and just positioned itself as a sequel to I and II.   Fans of the Alien franchise were excited years ago when it appeared there might be another sequel that disregarded the event...

This film, based on a novel, was released during awards season 2007 as an awards season contender.   Director Joe Wright and Keira Knightly had worked together a couple of years earlier on a terrific adaptation of perhaps Jane Austin’s most famous book, Pride and Prejudice.   Wright’s energetic touches and Knightly’s fully committed performance as Elizabeth made Pride and Prejudice quite a treat, even though it has been made several times before. My approach of films versus books is unconventional.   If given the choice I will often choose to watch the film first and if I enjoy it then I will read the book.   Films and books are different mediums and each have their own limitations.   A script is usually about 120 pages and whereas a book could be of any length.   Much of a book might be a character’s inner monologue but a screenwriter usually has to pick out the most effective way to relay a story visually and that often involves removing key section...