Two Box-Office Films ("Mockingjay Part 1" and "Transformers: Age of Extinction")
"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1"
starring: Jennifer Lawrence (who cares who else, let's be honest), Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Willow Shields, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Natalie Dormier
directed by: Francis Lawrence
First, I feel the need to express my disappointment for the fact that the film industry and/or studio heads felt the need to bleed our pockets twice by splitting this film into two parts, following in the footsteps of the "Twilight" franchise (and the recent "Hobbit" triple feature). The "Mockingjay" book is probably the least interesting of the three books in "The Hunger Games" series, with the least amount of action happening, but I knew I wanted/had to see the film because I'm a big fan of the books and all they have to say about our current state of affairs.
"Mockingjay Part 1" opens immediately where "Catching Fire" ends, with Katniss Everdeen being treated in the underground District 13, after being rescued by the rebels from the Hunger Games. There we find Plutarch Heavensbe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), having left the side of the Capitol for which he was the Games Master. Katniss is very clearly suffering some PTSD and is rife with nightmares, guilt, and a desire to be alone-- until she discovers her mother and sister were safely put underground in District 13 as well. Katniss, as played superbly by Jennifer Lawrence, is a processor and observer, which comes out in full form in this film, as we spend many scenes watching her observe and think, weigh all the options and process over what is happening, what has happened, and what will happen (mostly due to her previous decisions and actions).
Unfortunately, there isn't enough action to really drive this film for two hours- and to think about the final installment- what can they possibly do to make it another two hour film? Perhaps a better, more fitting title for this film would have been "The Waiting Game."
I would definitely watch these films again, even if this installment was not as intriguing. Jennifer Lawrence is clearly the force in these films and she embodies Katniss Everdeen so so well.
............................................................................
"Transformers: Age of Extinction"
starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammar, Jack Reynor,
directed by: Michael Bay
Well, Michael Bay did it again, even after he told us he wouldn't. He made another "Transformers" film, and this one is the longest (running time 2 hours and 45 minutes) and has absolutely no real plotline to carry the film for that long. Michael Bay said he changed his mind because of an experience he had at the "Transformers" theme park ride, where he witness fans lined up around the block to experience the ride. Really?! That was your reason? Not solely because you knew you could milk more and more money out of this dead franchise, unfortunately, because of men my age who grew up playing with Transformers and watching the cartoon.
The film takes place five years after the third film's Battle of Chicago. All the original cast members are gone, except for Stanley Tucci (for some reason). Everyone knew to jump ship. Replacements include: Mark Wahlberg (why why why) as Cade Yeager, an inventor and tinker toy-maker, and his daughter, Tessa (played by Nicola Peltz, replacing Megan Fox and the Victoria's Secret model Rose Huntington-Whitley) in Daisy Dukes so short they shouldn't qualify as shorts and are creepy, especially when Michael Bay decides to focus on them several times with upshot angles. There's also her twenty year old boyfriend (statutory rape anyone?), Shane. The whole overly protective father subplot is a bit too ridiculous to even care about, especially when the action sequences and robots flying around.
The third, microscopically underrated entry in the series ditched Megan Fox's thigh gaps in favor of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's. And the fact that the fourth film trades in for Nicola Peltz, obediently prancing around in trial-size Daisy Dukes, would be the confirmation no one needed of Bay's belief that women are interchangeable if only he hadn't also jettisoned the rest of his franchise's cast. Sure, no one is going to miss Shia LeBeouf's Sam Witwicky wrestling his own mental health to the mat.
Let's be honest, you don't really care about the plot, especially if you've seen the other three films. You clearly are watching it simply because you enjoy "Transformers" and shit blowing up. One thing I really didn't get though was why Bay decided to included stupid dino-bots, as well as traveling to Asia (for some reason) and adding another piece of the racism with Asian Autobots coming to the Autobots rescue. There's also a bounty hunter Decpticon named Lockdown. Oh, and Kelsey Grammar accept a small role in the film, as well. Why? That's what I found myself asking throughout the whole film. But, I still watched the whole thing, just because.
Bay's framing confirms his viewpoint as the total inverse of Gareth Edwards'(responsible for the latest reimagining of "Godzilla"): He shoots his chaos from above and his human protagonists from below, emphasizing their default centrality. It betrays Bay's lack of genuine wonder, and explains why his Transformers series's "more than meets the eye" becomes far less than what captures the imagination. And still, it remains easy to see what continues to attract pop avant-gardists to Bay's brand of blockbuster filmmaking. No other comparable director can, in pursuit of the endless climax, so thoroughly rob his films of basic spurious excitement. No one else can deliberately edit their action sequences to more absurdly avoid money shots. No one is better at making fast slow.
starring: Jennifer Lawrence (who cares who else, let's be honest), Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Willow Shields, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Natalie Dormier
directed by: Francis Lawrence
First, I feel the need to express my disappointment for the fact that the film industry and/or studio heads felt the need to bleed our pockets twice by splitting this film into two parts, following in the footsteps of the "Twilight" franchise (and the recent "Hobbit" triple feature). The "Mockingjay" book is probably the least interesting of the three books in "The Hunger Games" series, with the least amount of action happening, but I knew I wanted/had to see the film because I'm a big fan of the books and all they have to say about our current state of affairs.
"Mockingjay Part 1" opens immediately where "Catching Fire" ends, with Katniss Everdeen being treated in the underground District 13, after being rescued by the rebels from the Hunger Games. There we find Plutarch Heavensbe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), having left the side of the Capitol for which he was the Games Master. Katniss is very clearly suffering some PTSD and is rife with nightmares, guilt, and a desire to be alone-- until she discovers her mother and sister were safely put underground in District 13 as well. Katniss, as played superbly by Jennifer Lawrence, is a processor and observer, which comes out in full form in this film, as we spend many scenes watching her observe and think, weigh all the options and process over what is happening, what has happened, and what will happen (mostly due to her previous decisions and actions).
Unfortunately, there isn't enough action to really drive this film for two hours- and to think about the final installment- what can they possibly do to make it another two hour film? Perhaps a better, more fitting title for this film would have been "The Waiting Game."
Technology, or at least access to technology—more so even in this third film than in its predecessors—has become a weapon in this post-apocalypse, but also a lens. Technology, after all, is how we see each other now, how we communicate in a world where physical boundaries seem to dissolve, which is why the infiltration of physical boundaries in the film becomes so exciting and rife with implication. And the most tensely dramatized mission inMockingjay - Part 1 is the physical extraction of political prisoners from the Capitol by the rebels from District 13, which is made possible by a technological intervention, specifically a live broadcast that jams the Capitol's network. In scenes reminiscent of well-executed military thrillers, we watch the rebel team back at headquarters blocking airwaves and security cameras in an effort to allow their team of soldiers to infiltrate the Capitol by cover of night.
Throughout much of the film, the audience is either looking at a screen or looking at an image being prepared for a screen, the central plot being the creation of propaganda videos to gumshoe onto Capitol transmissions in an effort to mobilize a rebellion in the outer districts. Scenes of actual physical action—the extraction of the prisoners, and also a dramatic impromptu battle sequence in which Katniss downs enemy aircraft, but fails to save the rebels she came to inspire—ratchet up tension in what's otherwise often just a waiting game.
I do really enjoy what Suzanne Collins is saying with her entire series, and especially with this installment, as it relates to war and propaganda, commercialization, and people believing pretty much anything they see and/or hear on television screens. It's an interesting perspective during the past 15 years of living in a fear-monger culture with 24-hour news channels and up to the minute internet websites.I would definitely watch these films again, even if this installment was not as intriguing. Jennifer Lawrence is clearly the force in these films and she embodies Katniss Everdeen so so well.
............................................................................
"Transformers: Age of Extinction"
starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammar, Jack Reynor,
directed by: Michael Bay
Well, Michael Bay did it again, even after he told us he wouldn't. He made another "Transformers" film, and this one is the longest (running time 2 hours and 45 minutes) and has absolutely no real plotline to carry the film for that long. Michael Bay said he changed his mind because of an experience he had at the "Transformers" theme park ride, where he witness fans lined up around the block to experience the ride. Really?! That was your reason? Not solely because you knew you could milk more and more money out of this dead franchise, unfortunately, because of men my age who grew up playing with Transformers and watching the cartoon.
The film takes place five years after the third film's Battle of Chicago. All the original cast members are gone, except for Stanley Tucci (for some reason). Everyone knew to jump ship. Replacements include: Mark Wahlberg (why why why) as Cade Yeager, an inventor and tinker toy-maker, and his daughter, Tessa (played by Nicola Peltz, replacing Megan Fox and the Victoria's Secret model Rose Huntington-Whitley) in Daisy Dukes so short they shouldn't qualify as shorts and are creepy, especially when Michael Bay decides to focus on them several times with upshot angles. There's also her twenty year old boyfriend (statutory rape anyone?), Shane. The whole overly protective father subplot is a bit too ridiculous to even care about, especially when the action sequences and robots flying around.
The third, microscopically underrated entry in the series ditched Megan Fox's thigh gaps in favor of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's. And the fact that the fourth film trades in for Nicola Peltz, obediently prancing around in trial-size Daisy Dukes, would be the confirmation no one needed of Bay's belief that women are interchangeable if only he hadn't also jettisoned the rest of his franchise's cast. Sure, no one is going to miss Shia LeBeouf's Sam Witwicky wrestling his own mental health to the mat.
Let's be honest, you don't really care about the plot, especially if you've seen the other three films. You clearly are watching it simply because you enjoy "Transformers" and shit blowing up. One thing I really didn't get though was why Bay decided to included stupid dino-bots, as well as traveling to Asia (for some reason) and adding another piece of the racism with Asian Autobots coming to the Autobots rescue. There's also a bounty hunter Decpticon named Lockdown. Oh, and Kelsey Grammar accept a small role in the film, as well. Why? That's what I found myself asking throughout the whole film. But, I still watched the whole thing, just because.
Bay's framing confirms his viewpoint as the total inverse of Gareth Edwards'(responsible for the latest reimagining of "Godzilla"): He shoots his chaos from above and his human protagonists from below, emphasizing their default centrality. It betrays Bay's lack of genuine wonder, and explains why his Transformers series's "more than meets the eye" becomes far less than what captures the imagination. And still, it remains easy to see what continues to attract pop avant-gardists to Bay's brand of blockbuster filmmaking. No other comparable director can, in pursuit of the endless climax, so thoroughly rob his films of basic spurious excitement. No one else can deliberately edit their action sequences to more absurdly avoid money shots. No one is better at making fast slow.
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