Dry outer layer, fake sugary center.

It’s really just more of like a kitschy, uh, thing, which is one of the most unfunny—well, maybe it’s just a bad trailer…
— Sam Seder, Majority Report.

Jerry Seinfeld continues his unblemished record of never being funny.

UNFROSTED supposedly recounts a fictional battle between Kellogg’s and Post Cereal to invent the pop tart. It’s also supposedly a comedy.

The movie is an expansion of one of Jerry’s most uninspiring bits, unbridling Jerry to co-write, star and make his directorial debut in this unsophisticated cornstarch, relying on an unending cavalcade of familiar faces to shoulder the burden of its unaccomplished script.

Directing his first feature film at 70, Jerry has called in all his favors: in this 1960’s period piece, co-penned by his BEE MOVIE writers, Jim Gaffigan is unflappable Mr. Kellogg, Amy Schumer his unrelenting nemesis Marjorie Post; Hugh Grant is unappreciated Tony the Tiger; an understated cameo by Jon Hamm and John Slattery as ad execs; Peter Dinklage is an unmannerly milk czar, Christian Slater his uncivil milkman; Dean Norris and Maria Bakalova as underhanded Russians; there’s Dan Levy, Thomas Lennon, James Marsden… So many are doing Jerry a solid by being a part of this high fructose corn syrup, that some slip through lacking what Jerry Lewis called “funny bones” – Ronny Chieng, Andy Daly, Rachael Harris, Jack McBrayer, et al – like this movie’s subject, it’s a matter of taste…

Jerry himself plays Bob Cabana, a company man at Kellogg, who spends all his onscreen time trying to deliver one-liners while not acting. Bill Burr is John F. Kennedy, not known to be a mimic per se, but nailing that unmistakable Bahston drawl. Melissa McCarthy is a Kellogg idea man, whom everyone says is funny to avoid saying she’s morbidly unhealthy, because that would be politically un-correct.

There are annoying kids smarter than adults, written in that unconscionable manner that makes them speak as if they’ve got 50 years of modern experience. Jerry puts the exact words from his pop tart bit into the mouth of one of these unruly kids, “I took one bite, and it blew the back of my head right off!” And Jerry tries to act like he’s hearing the line for the first time.

There’s an unsubtle allusion to the raid on the American Capitol (convicted felon, rapist-traitor dumbo donald’s insurrection on January 6, 2021), as striking factory workers led by Tony the Tiger (bedecked like the “q-anon shaman”) try to stop the certification of the pop tart by FDA executive, Mike Puntz (unstoppable Fred Armisen), with chants of “Hunt Puntz!” (as in “Hang Pence!”)

During his press tour for UNFROSTED, Jerry made uncharitable comments about the “woke left” and colleges, for not taking risks or being edgy anymore… obviously forgetting he’s on a press tour for THIS undangerous toaster pastry.

Jerry is the perfect proponent of that old saw: “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” He might think he’s got it on lock, with his little black book filled with 1000 jokes he’s been unskillfully crafting since the dawn of time, but the man’s an unmitigated mediocrity. On the strength of his one accidental hit (SEINFELD (1989-1998), which, to be honest, had to be shoved down the public’s throat for 3 Seasons before it became beloved), Jerry unabashedly believes that everything he does must unquestionably turn to gold. Only years later would we discover that Larry David was the Force behind SEINFELD, and – judging by his scathingly uproarious CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2000-2024) – was also the Funny.

I will give Jerry this, though: his age, and his directing. At 70, the man has the energy and looks of a 50-year-old. And his directing is… good. Unintrusive. It’s not deficient (like Roger Corman or Uwe Boll), not confusing or cluttered or eye-strain (like McG or Olivier Megaton); it’s also unremarkable in any way (unlike Kubrick or Tarantino); it’s what we’d call ‘workmanlike.’ Jerry knows what shots he needs to keep the story moving. He just doesn’t know comedy. A Daily Beast headline (by Coleman Spilde): “Unfrosted Is Proof Jerry Seinfeld Has Lost His Touch.” But the question has always been: Did Jerry Seinfeld ever have a touch?

He’s not aiming for biting commentary, uncovering what snack foods have done to the American body and brain; he’s not aiming for tribute to an uncouth American snack; he’s probably aiming to nail down his unalloyed legacy as an observationist of mundanity. The bar can go no lower.

Whatever the reason for UNFROSTED, the end result: Unfunny.

END

Pretending that magic exists… SO HARD.

The Mundane Magic of Marvel.

Everyone dies. The End.

Audience gape in shock as Star-Lord fade to ashes [ooo-spoilers!], gnash their teeth when T’Challa float away on breeze, cry in anguish as Spider-Man say, “Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good…” But all we have to do is glance at imdb to see that sequels to GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, BLACK PANTHER and SPIDER-MAN are in production. So…not really dead then, huh?

It’s what scriptwriters call zero stakes. Nothing is at stake in these Marvel movies any more, because we know Marvel is going to milk its lucrative properties dry. Dja hear what I called these “heroes”? Properties. These are not “characters” to care for over the course of a film – they are merchandising properties. And a movie is merely one way their images earn money for the corporations that own them. There are no spoilers, there are no stakes, there is only the consumer dollar.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is a dichotomy of grand filmmaking underpinning a patchwork quilt of asinine ideas that will, nonetheless, sell one billion dolls.

A big blue ballsac named Thanos seeks 6 mystical Infinity Stones to “bring balance to the universe.” And 4,534 superheroes can’t stop him.

Poffy Thanos: Smell The Glove.

Movie opens on Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) bleeding at the feet of Thanos (Josh Brolin, mo-capped to the max), as he wrenches the tesseract from Loki’s grasp, crushes it to make an Infinity Stone, then crushes Loki’s neck to make women stop touching themselves. Thanos adds the stone to his Infinity Gauntlet (an iron glove that scares the pants off children), then he beats up the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and kills Heimdall (Idris Elba) and—

Wait! Wait! Hold on! What the hell is happ–? And who is Heim–? What’s a tesser–? What’s the Hulk doing here?! And who is this velvet-voiced gorilla who can beat him in 10 seconds?! For the Casual Moviegoer, INFINITY WAR is not a standalone movie. Thanos has been putting on his big boy pants for 18 previous post-credit scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now he’s steppin’ out in this 19^th MCU installment to confuse everyone. Because if Might is Right – as all the punching seems to imply – then Thanos is the hero we’ve been waiting for.

But Thanos is NOT the hero. He’s supposedly the villain. But he’s a big blue ballsac after my own heart. He goes beyond Darwinism (Survival of the Fittest) to Neo-Malthusianism – that if a population outstrips its resources, it needs to be artificially controlled: “If life goes unchecked, life will end.” He’s right. His noble solution – unpopular though it may be – is to acquire all six Infinity Stones (birthed from the Big Bang), which would give him the power to “snap his fingers” and randomly eradicate half the life in the universe.

Hooray! Less traffic on the 405!

And less above-the-line paychecks for all these supers! At over 300 million dollars, INFINITY WAR is in the top 3 of the most expensive movies ever made. Any wonder? It involves every super from every Marvel film since IRON MAN screwed on his steel trousers in 2008.

No Ant Man. No Hawkeye. Audience sad. [sarcasm]

Banking on the last decade of MCU films indoctrinating the bejesus out of the dimwitted Earth populace, Marvel Studios expects you to know all these supers by now, so directors Joe and Anthony Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely can artfully weave them without backstory into a prosaic plot that a fourth-grader might write with his pants on fire. (Does anyone see the irony in the fact that comics fans who know the complete mythology of these MCU movies and their attendant comicbook canon are now regarded as the cool kids, and those who do NOT know the Marvel universe have become the nerdy outcasts?)

Vision (Paul Bettany) wears one of the Infinity Stones on his head like a tiny hat. He and Wanda the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen, the most beautiful woman in the world) have been hiding out and banging for two years straight, when Thanos sends his CGI henchmen to collect the Stone. Captain America (Chris Evans, bearded like a marooned sailor) steps in for the save, with his pals Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, the most beautiful woman in the world). In order to keep the Stone from Thanos, they must destroy it, but it would kill Vision – and Wanda would lose her pummeling penis-engine. And Vision would lose a nice hat. So the gang visits Wakanda, from a previous movie, home of the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), so that his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) can remove the Stone without killing Visz, using her special effects lab.

Their eyes met across a crowded Star Lord.

Meanwhile, Hulk has crash-landed from Thor’s ship into the mansion of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who holds another Stone in his big-ass medallion. (We’ll get to that Hulk appearance when I talk about Magic.) After being bested by Thanos, seems Hulk has performance anxiety and refuses to rise to the occasion, so Hulk is Bruce Banner for the duration of this film and inhabits Tony Stark’s “Hulkbuster” armor to get it up. Irony.

Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) meets Strange (whom he calls “the wizard”), and he, Banner, Strange and Wong (Benedict Wong) face down the magic of two “children of Thanos” who have come for Strange’s big-ass medallion, Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary)…

Meanwhile, Thor is hoisted onboard the Guardians Of The Galaxy ship. And everything gets funny, as Star-Lord competes with Thor’s muscles for Gamora’s affections… Here is that tone that the makers of THOR: RAGNAROK tried so desperately to capture only to end up wallowing in bathos throughout their production. Markus and McFeely show the RAGNAROK writers how to effortlessly coax laughs from the cocky-but-jealous Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), somber Gamora (Zoe Saldana), oblivious Drax (Dave Bautista), raunchy Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), CGI Teen Groot (Vin Diesel) and empath Mantis (Pom Klementieff).

(Vin Diesel is once again wildly overpaid for a job which anyone with a voice could do, the irritating, spoiled Groot spending no more than 3 minutes onscreen, which means Diesel must have traipsed into the recording studio unshaven, wearing pajamas, and with his groin still smelling of cheese from the previous night’s groupie; spat a few versions of “I am Groot,” and bounced back home for some morning glory with aforementioned groupie who was still in bed, wondering where he went.)

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) thwips into the Iron Man/Strange/Ebony throughline and they are whisked off-planet in Ebony’s spaceship/ferris wheel. From out of nowhere, Stark calls on his Iron Spider Armor to fly out and magically dress Spider-Man, which gives Spider-Man even more magic than he already has.

let’s talk about magic

… which has been insidiously building in Marvel movies until it is now at a level where our eyes just give up and let the rapist filmmakers have their way with us.

Iron Man’s suit can do, oh, anything that comes into the screenwriter’s head, like make giant guns appear and float 4 feet away from his body, his two boots can merge into one giant afterburner, his armor can fix a stab-wound in his shoulder. What the actual FUCK is going on with this magic Harry Potter suit of Grimbledumb? How is this any different from Dr. Strange’s Cloak Of Three-Stoogery, that can fight with Thanos by itself when it wants to? We learn the armor is from the Bleeding Edge collection and works on nanotechnology. This doesn’t in any way explain where the extra matter comes from when it creates flying guns with unlimited ammunition or when a full iron suit appears out of his chest emblem. Why not just call it what it is? Magic = bad storytelling = run out of ideas.

The other supers are magic as well. How else can we explain all of them being as powerful as each other when they need to be? For example, Panther’s women warriors led by Okoye (Danai Gurira) and all his tribespeople sprint madly at their thousands of foes and then engage in gut-wrenching battle. But only Panther has supped of the special effects flowers that give him super strength. How then, does everyone battle with as much vigor as Panther? Captain America is on super soldier steroids, so he’s raunchily punching, but so is everyone else. No one gets tired! Hulk can stop a Chitauri Worm in AVENGERS (2012) yet is taken out by Thanos here. So how does Cap hold back Thanos’s hand? Does that mean Cap can stop a Chitauri Worm now? We do not gain any understanding of the scale of powers. Peter Quill aka Star-Lord might be half-Celestial, but his strength is human – so how does he hold Spider-Man, who has the strength of 20 humans? Thor is crushed by Thanos, then later withstands the power of a sun at his back to create his new hammer, Stormbreaker—Whoa, now! Go easy on the cocksure names, my woman-hipped son! (Wasn’t Thor’s arc in RAGNAROK one of self-discovery: that he didn’t need Mjolnir and was able to channel thunder and lightning through himself? So why the new hammer? And how does Groot’s arm become holy enough to become the handle? Since it’s a shark jump, we can’t even see it as a sacrifice from Groot. It’s all magic who cares fuck you.)

Ebony Maw is more wizardly than Dr. Strange, yet for all his power of manipulating gigantic pieces of matter to hurl at foes (which means he can control their flight), Ebony is sucked into space, not able to make himself fly back onboard. (I guess LAST JEDI made the Russos too scared to go full Mary Poppins.)

Vision uses magic to phase through matter. Yet baddies keep hitting him, and he gives the classic “one-line plothole fix” that screenwriters can smell a mile away: “His sword canceled my ability to phase.” Sure, Visz! So according to science, his magic is more magicky than your magic. From being the most powerful, coolest cat in the galaxy, Marvel emasculate Vision, sending that age-old message: Pussy makes you weak. And Wanda is the most powerful magician on the battlefield. I can tell just by staring at her jeans.

Heimdall uses magic to send Hulk to Earth in an eyeblink—Waitaminute! Asgard’s people are all on a spaceship from a previous movie, flying to Earth so slowly that Thanos caught up with them in that movie’s post-credits scene. Are you telling me that Heimdall could have spirited everyone to Earth instantaneously? Then what is the point of this spaceship? And what was the point of that Rainbow Bridge?! I thought the Bridge was a wormhole between dimensions, but apparently Earth is on the same dimensional plane as Asgard, the Realm Of The Gods, and can be reached in a straight line through spacetime! The gods ARE just like us!

Every time a masked super speaks, his helmet/mask would magically dis-integrate off his face, then magically re-integrate when he has to continue punching. What the HELL is this? It’s a CHEAT – that’s what it is: they want us to see the actors emote, yet they want a feasible way to remove and restore their masks instantaneously – so the best of both worlds, with the One-Line Plothole Fix: nanotechnology. But this isn’t nanotech – it’s straight-up magic who cares fuck you.

On the planet Gloomypants where Thanos lives, both Iron Man and Spider-Man – two of the strongest supers in this mofo – are struggling like sissies to remove Thanos’s Infinity glove. These guys are SO STRONG they can hold up shipping containers, throw tanks and bend steel with their bare hands – but this one guy’s glove, well… And this guy is threatening to destroy half the life in the universe! Why pussyfoot around? – AMPUTATE HIS ARM! I’m sure there’s a circular saw somewhere in either of their magic suits!

Remember, boys and girls – it all comes down to punching.

pointless poisons

Back on Earth, the stupidest ground battle in history: Thanos has sent monsters – that look like Venom with six legs – to attack the Wakandan force shield. They can only get through one at a time, making them easy targets for the thousands of warriors and supers, yet Falcon gives some idiotic rationale that sounds suspiciously like a One-Line Plothole Shart, “If they get behind us, we’re dead,” which prompts Panther to open the force shield letting all the monsters flood through at once – for no reason other than to get a trailer shot of The Avengers Running Together In Slomo.

Marvel LOVES this imbecilic image.

Opposing forces running towards each other. In this age of technology and guns and people who can fly – everyone running towards each other, like it’s ancient Braveheart or something. Scarlet Witch is with Vision in the special effects hospital room – she can literally look out those windows and put a hex on all the Venoms to stop them dead in their tracks, yet – here we are – running towards each other. In tight trousers.

The Venoms are led by Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), a tall, horned CGI chick who suffers the Steppenwolf Syndrome, looking like my synthetic Real Doll girlfriend. Too much budget spent on the 4,534 supers and not enough cash left to render her properly.

In the end, Thanos simply teleports inside the Wakandan force shield anyway. Meaning, tactically, the Venoms did NOTHING: didn’t make it possible for Thanos to arrive, didn’t cause a diversion, didn’t deplete the number of foes, didn’t get Vision’s hat, they didn’t even tire out or dishearten their foes. They were just there. Because we needed a reason for The Avengers Running Together In Slomo.

vibrant villains

“Fun isn’t something one considers when balancing the universe. But this… does put a scrote on my face. “

In what could have been a cheese-eating role, Josh Brolin gives a magnificent underplaying performance. He is fully motion-captured, yet rendered enough not to be Steppenwolfed. He does not come across as a time-wasting villain, or even a selfish one – his demeanor is one of exhausted calm. With the most screentime of all the stars, he could very well be the protagonist. He’s tried to make others see the sense of his plan, but their minds are closed; thus is he burdened with the knowledge that only he can carry his quest to conclusion – and be misunderstood for it. He is above the resistance and clamor and backbiting. He is above the quipping and punching. His grand mission statement describes our insignificant existence: “In time you will know what it’s like to lose; to feel so desperately that you’re right – yet to fail all the same. Dread it, run from it: Destiny still arrives.”

As Marvel did with BLACK PANTHER, they have given the supposed villain the most poignant arc. We even see him in flashback, meeting young Gamora, taking her in as an orphan whose world he destroyed, raising her as his lethal daughter.

let’s talk about love

Amidst all the punching and magic and greenscreen, Gamora pleads with Quill to kill her. For love. Vision pleads with Wanda to kill him. For love. Both Gamora and Vision have something Thanos wants – if they are to die to save the universe, they want their loved ones to pull the trigger. In amazing plot twists, both Quill and Wanda try to, in fact, end their loved one, tears flowing, hearts breaking, yet their attempts are thwarted by Thanos!

Yet when Thanos kills the one he loves, it is a shock to our senses – and a bigger shock to the person he kills, who never comprehended that he loved her! In other words, the villain succeeds where the heroes fail – to kill the one he loves!

What message does this send? That it’s easy to love those whom you are conditioned to love. And infinitely harder to love your enemies – those who are the most in need of your love! But for a soupcon of love, would Thanos have turned his gaze to wiping out life?

Aaargh! My hair! They messed up my hair!!

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is Chapter Seven of Phase Three in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Can anyone explain this to me without looking like you live in your mom’s basement?) From New York to Scotland, from Titan to Knowhere, this swaggering epic reads like a regular thriller with many concurrent storylines all spiraling toward an explosive nexus. It almost feels like none of these people are supers, just regular folk – because when everyone is magic, no one is magic. Nothing that happens onscreen is too far-fetched. We’ve been conditioned to accept anything for the sake of tight trousers and pearbottoms.

Peter Dinklage is a giant; Thor calls Rocket “rabbit”; no one calls Captain America anything (his hero name is never mentioned! Is he The Captain now? Nomad? Steve-O? Squidward? What?); Nebula (Karen Gillan) is pulled apart and put back together again (employing that old jail trick to escape – entice the jailer with something quirky, then knock him out when he comes to investigate. Really?)… there’s War Machine (Don Cheadle), Bucky (Sebastian Shaw) and M’Baku (Winston Duke).

As you may guess with this many supers, not everyone can arc as poignantly as the main protags. Stark has moments of intense drama, as do Strange and Wanda and Thanos, but there is zero emotional resonance with Cap or Panther or Loki, three large properties whose dolls need to keep moving to keep Marvel solvent.

Whiplash ending. Finger snap. Villain triumphant, yet sad, introspective, solemn. Not feeling like a middle film; feeling like an ending. Strange curdling emotions, as we witness the shocking climax to all the punching and tight trousers. Thanos can “finally rest, and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe.” (Well, the sun is a star, and can’t possibly rise on the universe… so…) Quietude, as he steps out onto his porch – his porch?! – to calmly gaze at the rising sun, the ghost of a smile playing across his wrinkled ballsac.

You know why they lost? No Hawkeye.

END

Signage Pwnage.

After a murder investigation goes cold, the mother of the murdered girl purchases advertising on THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI to turn up the heat on the local sheriff, by reminding the town of his neglect:

RAPED WHILE DYING

AND STILL NO ARRESTS?

HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?

It’s not a murder mystery, it’s not a cop drama, it’s not about racial tensions; it’s a story about love. Yes, really.

The love of a mother for her murdered daughter.
Writer-director Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS) leans into the story immediately, as a woman (Frances McDormand) drives past three disused, decrepit billboards, missing panels, shrouded in morning fog, on a lonely stretch of country road. She visits the advertising agent (Caleb Landry Jones) and buys the space. We find out the woman is Mildred Hayes, whose daughter was murdered seven months ago, with no killer found. The billboards “keep it in the public eye, focus their minds on the case…”

The love of a man for his family, and his recognition of another’s love for her family.
Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is a tragic sympathetic figure, walking the line between placating Mildred and the reality of the long-gone killer. And he has cancer. His solution to spare his wife (Abbie Cornish) and their kids the pain of seeing him deteriorate, would go hand in hand with his decision to secretly aid Mildred in keeping those billboards up.

The love of a damaged deputy.
Willoughby’s deputy is a racist sadist named Dixon (Sam Rockwell), the walking id of the department. He is the first to see the billboards – in reverse order; a great storytelling device. In his extreme attempts to nullify the billboards and their owner, we discover he harbors a devotion to Chief Willoughby that borders on homosexual. In a moment of blind rage, Dixon throws the advertising agent out a two-storey window. Yet when he reads Willoughby’s final letter to him, our tears will flow for Dixon. It is not – as we thought – a letter of chastisement, but of love: “Hate never solved nothing, but calm thought does. Try it for a change. No one will think you’re gay. And if they do, arrest them for homophobia. Won’t they be surprised?” Dixon finds he had the belief and love of a man he admired, and it affects him profoundly, so much so that his last act – or what he thinks will be his last act – is an act of love, as he protects the cold-case file of Mildred’s daughter, by throwing it from his burning body.

Though there is an explicit theme of “anger begets anger” (voiced by many characters), it is ironic then that the many acts of love blindside us.

The love of a man who saves his bully.
Peter Dinklage (GAME OF THRONES) plays the put-upon town midget, who holds a torch for Mildred, and who is regularly taunted by Dixon. It is he who arrives first to aid Dixon in a conflagration. (His inclusion in the tale gives it that IN BRUGES flavor.)

The love of a man who forgives his assailant.
The agent, thrown out the window by Dixon, is shocked to find Dixon sharing his hospital room. Instead of using the opportunity to avenge himself on the helpless Dixon – he quietly brings him an orange juice.

With so many acts of love passim, we realize there is no reason to portray Mildred’s family life in flashback as idyllic. No Kodachrome moments, as Mildred wages open battle with her rebellious daughter (Kathryn Newton), who at one point screams, “I hope I get raped on the way!” as she storms out of the house. Mildred’s ex-husband (John Hawkes) is no better, as a wife-beating redneck who left her for a 19-year-old (Samara Weaving). Mildred’s long-suffering son (Lucas Hedges) seems the only balanced family member.

Mildred herself is not painted as a rational hero. Her solution to locating her daughter’s killer is undeniably fascist – databases and “every baby born listed on it,” and if there is a match for a murder, “simply kill the person.” Talk like this, whether sarcastic or serious, tells us there will never be an answer to her billboardic prayer. Yet we can still conjure sympathy for Mildred, as she brings new flowers to the billboards every day – and when the boards go up in flames from a mysterious arsonist, her soul-stricken gasp reminds us that not only were they a prod to law enforcement, they were the shrine, the last memento of her daughter’s existence.

Frances McDormand would win the Golden Globe for Best Actress. Sam Rockwell, who should have won Best Supporting Actor for GALAXY QUEST (1999) or MATCHSTICK MEN (2003), or Best Actor for MOON (2009), at last nabs a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in this film. Now others become the supporting actors to watch: the formidable character actor Zeljko Ivanek as a deputy, imperious Clarke Peters as the new Sheriff. Each performance in this movie is an integral cog in an exceptional ensemble.

McDormand plays the tragic mother with a very distinctive look: overalls, bandanna, short hair tied back, no makeup. Though it works for the story, it’s disconcerting that only by bowing to male tropes can a woman be regarded as “strong.” The opposite end of that spectrum is the searing hot woman who uses her allure to ensnare men, which is also an incorrect rendition of “strong.” It’s a much bigger discussion than we have the time for here – just mentioning it because I’ve seen so many excited women praising this “strong” woman, when they’re only praising her “masculine characteristics.”

The tone of THREE BILLBOARDS constantly flits from somber to black comedy, although I don’t think it is quite as successful in the comedy department as McDonagh’s other truly black comedy, IN BRUGES. When taken out of context, in trailers, some scenes spark with comedic energy (for example, Mildred kicks a boy in the nuts, then kicks a girl in the cunt – it’s funny because it’s rare!), but in the context of the story, this act illustrates Mildred’s frustration and isolation; the kids getting their comeuppance is not funny, it’s satisfactory. Then Mildred swears outlandishly when driving past a live TV reporter – it’s funny because it’s a blooper! – however, she is merely reminding the reporter that the real story (her daughter’s rape and murder) is far from over. It strikes us that rape and murder is not funny, but tragic.

Yes, there are instances of anger begetting anger: Dixon’s bitter man-mom (masculine Sandy Martin), coaxes Dixon to “get to Mildred through her friends”; the priest (Nick Searcy) comes into her home to petition against her billboards: “If you hadn’t stopped coming to church, you’d have more understanding of people’s feelings” – to which Mildred reminds him of the clergy’s boy-fucking proclivities; the dentist talks ominously of “Willoughby having friends in town,” while he moves in on her mouth with a whizzing drill – which Mildred grabs and redirects through his thumb; Mildred’s ex-husband hasn’t got a kind word for her current life or choices; and Dixon himself is unwitting victim to Mildred when she unleashes her anger through Molotov cocktails.

To answer your question, No, THREE BILLBOARDS (filmed in Sylva, North Carolina) is not based on a true story, McDonagh inspired to write it upon seeing billboards relating to an unsolved murder in some southern American state.

Movie includes the song Walk Away Renee (originally performed by The Left Banke 1966; The Four Tops 1967 cover is here) – such a classic sound that brings us into another era, and finds some resonance with the movie: “And when I see the sign that points one way…” / “Just walk away, Renee / You won’t see me follow you back home…”

The conclusion of THREE BILLBOARDS might be comparable to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, with no satisfactory wrap on the murder mystery. But it never was about the murder; it is about redemption, not revenge or even justice. It’s not about catching the killer – it’s about the repercussions of putting up those titular billboards, and how that act redeems a few souls, not least, Dixon and Mildred.

Many viewers comment on wanting resolution on whether Dixon and Mildred followed through on their vendetta. If you read the movie carefully, you’ll realize it is telling us that all these people are inherently “good” and only needed to discover that within themselves. With that in mind, we might conclude that Mildred and Dixon found some kind of internal peace while in the act of moving forward to “enact justice,” and probably turned back around and had a beer with Dixon’s Sasquatch mom.

END

“I’m an Evan Peters man myself, but I can see why you might think
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the shizzle sizzle…”

Angry Birds so Roundy Roundy.

A flock of flightless birds on an isolated island has their eggs stolen by a group of pigs. The birds angrily get their eggs back before the pigs can make an omelet. Shakespeare this ain’t.

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE is the animated cartoon based on the “most downloaded freemium game series of all time,” Angry Birds (created by Rovio Entertainment). The Angry Birds brand has infiltrated so much media (cartoons, spinoffs, plush, books, games), it is impossible to extricate it from modern culture; this movie is merely another signpost in the Angry Birds landscape.

Angry Poff

And guess that one person who has never downloaded the game, never watched the cartoons, never once toppled a piggy house with an angry bird? Yup, THIS guy… which makes me the MOST qualified to review this movie, because I am not tainted by prejudice. I’m not going to compare the movie’s veracity with the AB Universe at large. Does THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE stand up on its own?

Yes. It’s a kiddie’s movie, funny and cute and rounded, with good gags predicated on its cuteness, and as many opportunities for merchandising as possible, serving its purpose of jetting the Angry Birds brand into another realm.

Jason Sudeikis voices Red, a bushy-browed, soccer-ball-shaped bird, who apparently has anger issues. If being irritated by the cloying over-friendliness of all the other birds on the island means “anger issues” then we all need therapy. Sent to an Anger Management class, he meets Chuck (Josh Gad), who is basically The Flash, Bomb (Danny McBride), who can’t control blowing himself up – literally, and Terence (Sean Penn, who grunts a couple times to warrant having his name credited for marquee strength). (With Chuck’s speed, there is a nice parody of the Quicksilver scene from X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.)

When a group of green piggies arrive on a ship bearing gifts (a trampoline, a giant slingshot), Red and his mates are the only ones suspicious of the piggies’ motives. Not least because none of the birds know what a “pig” is. The pigs proceed to lull the birds into a false sense of serenity with their parties and huge green asses, while surreptitiously stealing all their eggs.

Red, Chuck and Bomb trek up the forbidden mountain seeking the help of the mythical Mighty Eagle (voiced by Peter Dinklage), who used to be protector of the island, but has vanished into legend – only to find Mighty is out of shape, out of his mind, and self-delusional. Yet he still fulfills the role of the, uh, Eagles, in LORD OF THE RINGS, as he is the only bird who can fly and therefore appears out of nowhere to save Frodo’s ass at the last minute.

The pigs abscond with all the Birds’ eggs, to Piggy Island (which is littered with sight gags like The Hog Wash, The Piggy Bank, Kevin Bacon as Hamlet, etc.). This naturally makes the birds very angry, so they build a boat and give chase, then use their giant slingshot to angrily launch themselves at the pigs’ domiciles and topple them. The game, the movie, the cartoon, full circle.

Interesting to note that Red’s pep talk to the birds includes a reference to them being “descended from dinosaurs,” so they should be ferocious in their revenge. That’s a line that is taken for granted, whereas 80 years ago it would have been sacrilege to paleontologists. (It also means they have Darwinian understanding of evolution – yet none of them have heard of “pigs”!)

Other voices used for marquee purposes include Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader (as Leonard the Pig King), Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon and Hannibal Buress. Are there any metrics to prove that this tactic does not move the profit needle? It’s become standard fare to hire ACTORS instead of VOICE ACTORS for animated features; though all these actors are fine, they should stick to live action and not take the jobs of talented voice actors that have made their bones at their professions for decades. That always makes me angry.

END

The Wolverine Show, Part VII.

Wolverine goes back in time to unify the X-Men of the disco past to stop an event that brings into existence giant robots called Sentinels, who are systematically wiping out X-Men of the dystopian present. It’s a heart-gripping, tension-filled, magnificent, sprawling epic – that doesn’t make one lick of sense!

Pofftique

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is the highly anticipated filmic version of a classic 2-issue X-Men comic thread, involving time travel, the extermination of Humanity and the extinction of X-manity. But I don’t see why there was such anticipation, because the Days Of Future Past story, from The Uncanny X-Men issues 141-142, is not well constructed, and reads like a 1960s BATMAN TV episode, with garish costumes, lots of punching, embarrassing dialogue and big dumb villains (the Sentinels and the Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Mystique). The Sentinels in the comic are made of metal, so they could have easily been destroyed by an old gay man (i.e. Magneto); the Brotherhood are straight from Adam West’s wildest, melodramatic, talky-villain dreams.

The DAYS OF FUTURE PAST movie on the other hand (written by Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, and directed by the man who brought the X-MEN movies to life, Bryan Singer), has taken every squandered idea from the comic and fleshed it into a layered, thrilling epic that exists in a world we are familiar with (rather than one populated with so many characters wearing SCREAMING YELLOW). Note that the writers of the comic (Chris Claremont and John Byrne) are not credited. Nor should they be; although worthy writers, their dated ideas feel like being kissed by your parents in front of your school friends. Plot holes are closed off, action is deadly serious; what might have been a bucking cosplay tyrannosaur is reined in with hefty dialogue scenes, touching interrelationships and Wolverine’s butt in place of Kitty Pryde (who is bland in the comics and the movies). Most importantly, instead of garish costumes, everyone’s wearing a disco inferno.

The movie sentinels don’t fall into that trap of being easily defeatable; they are now made of a polymer substance, augmented with mutant DNA, enabling them to take on each X-Man’s powers and use it against them. It’s a completely specious rationalization, but again, in this universe, at least it explains why even the most powerful mutants cannot defeat them.

The cast from both X-MEN and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS are all here: James McAvoy as young Professor Xavier (who spends his first few scenes as Eric Stoltz in PULP FICTION); Michael Fassbender as young Magneto. That guy takes it sooo seriously. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, not as joke or pun, but fact as cold as steel: Fassbender is magnetic! Even Ian McKellen, having done three movies as the character, never owned Erik Lensherr as maliciously-deliciously as Fassbender. Whenever he’s onscreen, it’s like watching a somber Nietzschean treatise on moral ambiguity. With Ian McKellen, it’s like watching Dr. Smith from LOST IN SPACE. And the myriad, creative ways Fassbender utilizes the Master of Metal’s awe-inspiring powers! When I grow up, I wanna be Magneto!

Nicholas Hoult in a large role as blue-furred Hank/Beast; Shawn Ashmore is Iceman with a beard; Daniel Cudmore is the cool steel Colossus; Lucas Till makes a cameo as energyboy Havok; and Jennifer Lawrence and her chubby cheeks return in the lead female role as naked blue Mystique.

The plot revolves around Wolverine convincing the disco X-Men to stop Mystique killing the man who invents the Sentinels, the bane of X-Men. So you can see the conundrum: Mystique is doing what any X-Man in their right mind would do. But now this wolfie guy is telling us counter intuitively that the killing of the inventor of the Sentinels will fast-track their creation, rather than stop it. Oh, and he sez he’s from The Future, so everything he sez is true…

Awesome Little-Person-with-Big-Voice, Peter Dinklage, is Bolivar Trask, who creates the Sentinels to combat the “mutant threat.” He tells congress “homo neanderthalis was completely wiped out when homo sapiens arrived on the scene. So too would be the fate of homo sapiens now that homo superior had arrived.” Meanwhile, Wolverine is still walking around as a homo erectus.

Speaking of erectus, can they make Mystique and her pussy-jitsu any more of a walking orgasm for the sake of 13-year-old boys? Not only is she 23-year-old Jennifer Lawrence, distinctly attainable to 13-year-olds were they to become rich entrepreneurs in the next 10 years, her martial arts technique involves mostly open thighs, jiggling titty and a zealot’s commitment to camel toe.

And there are some peachy new mutants to splice our DNA: Warpath (Booboo Stewart, whom we presume gets so mad over people calling him names that he “goes on the…”?), Bishop (doing the channeling-energy thing that The Bacon did in the last movie), Blink (with a cool teleporting power), Sunspot (who is basically the Human Torch redux – who’re you “superhero creators” trying to fool?), and the absolute coolest cat of all – Quicksilver (Evan Peters, who is basically The Flash, but played like a champion ADHD, with a madcap rescue scene that will guarantee he gets his own spinoff movie).

Wolverine (for the seventh time, ladies and gentlemen, Hugh Jackman, who looks like…well, a superhero) is sent back in time through the scientific process of Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) putting her hands on his temples and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) watching and licking their lips like two dirty old men. When he arrives back in time, his muscles are already pumped, his adamantium is gone (a few good sight gags of these realizations), Nixon is the president, his nemesis Stryker is but a military lad, and his bellbottoms are pimpin’. The focus soon skews to the incredible powers of Quicksilver (being totally speedy), Mystique (being totally naked) and Magneto (being totally Fassbender). And like all time travel movies, it is artfully written that what they were trying to stop happening, happens anyway through another unforeseen pathway.

Of course, the overarching mistakes of this movie are the time travel anomalies (if we take the Laws Of Time Travel as being those laid down in BACK TO THE FUTURE all those centuries ago). But then, this movie – like any blockbuster – was not written to comply with Time Travel rules, but written to comply with Hollywood Screenplay Rules – and when held up to those rules, it’s absolutely brilliant! Heroes, villains, romantic repression, sexy bodies, world at stake, ticking clocks, character arcs, foreshadowing and payoffs… you couldn’t ask for a better example of modern screenplay construction.

Superhero movies, though they have become their own art form, are still not perceived as containing the inherent gravitas of non-superhero dramas, so we forget what great actors populate them. Jesus! Look at the talent: Shakespeare vets Stewart and McKellen, the great McAvoy and the magnificent Fassbender, the man-nificent Jackman, the small-man-nificent Dinklage, the women-ificent Jennifer Lawrence and Halle Berry (and all of the principals have won Best Actor awards in some form or other, Oscar, BAFTA, AFI, Globes, etc.).

The story just doesn’t make any sense, is all…

You see, it didn’t matter in the present whether everyone died or not – in fact, most of them die – but the movie treats the Present like a parallel timeline with the Past, but it’s not – it’s successive: the Present happens after the Past has been acted out, or after the past has been reshuffled. So why are the Present Kitty, Professor X, Magneto, and a host of new Wikipedia entries, depicted as making some kind of last stand as if Wolverine’s mission had to end for their Present to be saved? Let’s face it, as soon as Wolvie was sent back, their Present should have changed.

I mean, all that Wolverine had to do was stop Biff giving the Almanac to himself in 1955, right?

You mean the Present was not changed one jot after disco Magneto cut loose a football stadium, flew it through the air and dumped it on the White House lawn? At least 1,000,000 lives would have been skewed with that single event – not just ticket holders contacting the booking company to get their money back, but the players’ lives, the insurance companies of the game, insurance companies of the site, White House contractors hired to remove the rubble; traffic detours; water and power re-routed; a family goes without food, a baby dies that would have won Gold Medals; a woman doesn’t make it to the hospital on time to birth a baby that discovers the cure for AIDS, etc. The ramifications and concatenations would be literally endless. That’s just one event – the stadium gag – but these disco X-Men rove around smashing, flying, breaking, bashing, shooting, unmindful of the millions of time pathways they are deviating due to Wolverine affecting everything and everyone who orbits in his vicinity with his intrusive presence and whip-tanned butt.

And not even a sliver of the Present changed until that one last decision by Chubby Cheeks on whether to be or not to be?

Where’s Doc Emmett Brown when we need him?

END

The Chronic Kills of Narnia: Prince Hasbeen.

Has stupider become the new darker?

Everyone thrills at describing how PRINCE CASPIAN, the second movie in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA series, is “darker” than its predecessor, THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE (2005).

But they lost me at pasty, delicate, British kids playing pretend “warriors.” I’m just not buying any of it. Every time William Moseley introduces himself as “King Peter the Magnificent,” milk shoots out of my nose whether I’m drinking it or not.

In director Andrew Adamson‘s followup to his above-mediocre WARDROBE, we catch up with our four “heroes” back in snooty old London, Peter (Moseley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Susan (Anna Popplewell, whose drab gray schoolgirl outfit is simply an invitation for me to lock the doors, break out the hand lotion, and popple well). They aren’t there long, as a crisis is brewing in Narnia, and indeterminately-Euro Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) blows his magic horn to summon them back to the land of annoying talking animals.

It is hundreds of years since they left and Narnia has become at least as savage as any given petting zoo. Cos it’s “darker,” see. Caspian is the “rightful” heir to the Narnia throne, while a knight who looks like Jean Reno (Sergio Castellitto) is trying to kill him and claim it for himself. Having the ballsac of a mosquito, Caspian calls on the magical help of the Kings and Queens of Olde. He’s right to be disappointed when Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy appear, although he does end up making eyes at Susan for three whole seconds. More than enough sex for a Disney feature.

Still, there’s sure a lotta killin’ for a christian kid’s movie – bloodless, to be sure, but those pasty Brit kids seem to revel in their bloodthirsty magical weapons taking lives.

The overarching storyline is that of Prince Caspian uniting all the annoying talking animals in a war against Jean Reno – but movie is nothing more than battle after battle, broken up by boring slow passages where people whine about Aslan the Lion (Liam Neeson) not being around. Which makes you wonder why the golden furball waits until the end of the film to turn up, roar a little and tell Lucy “Things never happen the same way twice.” Great excuse, lion! Right up there with “She lost the will to live” in the George Lucas Movie Reasons For Dummies book.

A night raid on Reno’s castle achieves nothing; simply a good excuse to get more christian killing done, and allow Peter to voice his embarrassing battle-cry, “For Narnia!” in slomo. And when Susan climbs on the back of that centaur – now Disney, you’re making me think bad thoughts again.

Desperately trying to be LORD OF THE RINGS – and failing with a badger up its gollum – the final phoney straw comes when the TREES join the battle, in what looks like The Battle of Pellenor Fields meets Los Angeles Petting Zoo.

Tilda Swinton cameos as The White Queen, and when Caspian tries to touch her, Susan gets pouty! – even though she never expressed any interest whatsoever in him! Like every chick who expects you to pine after her even though she gives no indication she wants you to pine, Susan sulks like a high maintenance girlfriend when Caspian seeks elsewhere what he knew he was never gonna get from under her heavily-fortified Disney skirt.

It’s about then that Caspian realizes he’s just a glorified extra and fades into the middle background peacefully.

Arrogant snot High King Peter Of The Unearned Title challenges Reno to a mano a mano duel, goes striding out with his MAGIC SWORD by his side – and still can’t bring down the mortal man fairly! Either Reno’s excellent fighting skills can circumvent magic who cares fuck you, or I’d be hunting down Santa Claus to get my money back on this “magic” sword that refuses to find its mark.

Point of this solo battle was to avoid full scale war, yet after they pad twenty minutes of Peter getting his magic-sword-weilding ass handed to him by a real knight – they launch into full scale battle anyway. To pad the film until Aslan turns up and roars. More magic who cares fuck you. Deus ex machina water spirit eats Jean Reno. Kids go back to London after whining over how much they’ll miss Narnia until funding comes through for another sequel.

END