329. The Avengers

329. (25 Dec) The Avengers (2012, Joss Whedon) 32



So this is what happens when you team up superheroes from films with disparate aesthetics. Though Whedon goes out of his way to show these powers are evenly matched, he's juggling too many characters to make the action meaningful. Relying on our knowledge of other Marvel films (and nearly giving me PTSD with flashbacks from the heinous Captain America: The First Avenger) isn't objectionable since this is part of a franchise, but there's no continuation of any arc besides everybody kind of becoming friends. We get more characters piled on, including a poorly motivated villain, the always boring Jeremy Renner, and the third Hulk in as many films. The action sequences are boring considering everyone's invincible and there aren't any true dramatic stakes. Like they really have the effects budget to blow up lower Manhattan.

322. Snow White and the Huntsman

322. (23 Dec) Snow White and the Huntsman (2012, Rupert Sanders) 41



A too ambitious retelling of the familiar tale, Snow White and the Huntsman is at least some fun when playing into its fantasy elements, like a brief scene where the duo fend off a troll. Otherwise, iconic elements like the poisoned apple become mere blips to make room for countless throwaway sequences. Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth have no discernible chemistry, leaving all of the heavy lifting for a very over-the-top Charlize Theron. Dour though it may be, the costumes and visual effects offer at least some intrigue. But no one should be asking for a sequel.

THE BLACK SHEEP INTERVIEW: DREW GODDARD (CABIN IN THE WOODS)

Not Your Typical Cabin
An interview with THE CABIN IN THE WOODS director, Drew Goddard

You might feel like you’ve seen this one before. A mixed bag of tight-bodies and quick witted teenagers make their way to a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere, where naturally no one will ever hear their screams for help when they inevitably get sliced up into little bits. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS may look like this movie, and on some levels, it is, but on other levels, sometimes other worldly levels, it most certainly is not.

“We just love horror movies and this just stemmed from that love,” director and co-writer, Drew Goddard, tells me just a few hours before the Canadian premiere of his first feature. “We both just wanted to write a love letter to this genre.”

The “we” Goddard is referring to is himself and a man he refers to as his “partner in crime”, Joss Whedon. Goddard and Whedon first met on Whedon’s cult classic series, "Buffy and the Vampire Slayer", and went on to work with him on the spin-off series, "Angel", as well. “We just enjoy working together and we always talked after those shows went off the air about finding something else to do.”

Working with Whedon again was like old hat for Goddard. “We like to write fast. A lot of times when you don’t have a parachute, you leap into some very interesting places. So we locked ourselves in a hotel and didn’t leave until we had a script.” When I suggest that a cabin, say, in the woods might have been more apt, Goddard replies, “I feel like we didn’t need to do any method writing.”

Whedon to the left, Goddard to the right

What sets THE CABIN IN THE WOODS apart from the torture porn one would expect from the premise, is the action behind the scenes. These teens, led by Chris Hemsworth (Thor before he became Thor) and Kristen Connolly, are being chased and tormented but by whom and for what purpose? There is a genuine reason this is all happening, something that has been sorely lacking from the horror genre for some time now. “It felt like the studios were just recycling,” Goddard explains of his motivation. “And whenever the recycling starts to happen, that’s when you want to do something new. You can feel when there is no love behind them. When people making the film don’t care, it bleeds into the audience.”

And even when there is love propelling a project like this forward, it can still be tricky to set the tone just right. “First and foremost, we want to make a real movie. This is not a parody,” Goddard explains of the delicate balance between homage, horror and humour. Fortunately, Goddard was working with an expert. “That comes a lot from Joss’s aesthetic. The trick is to get to the truth of the characters.”

The victims, I mean, cast of CABIN

Regardless of who was at his side, Goddard can now also officially call himself a director, not just the guy who wrote a bunch of episodes of some of the most beloved television shows in history - from the aforementioned "Buffy" and "Angel" to his work with another famous geek, J.J. Abrams, including "Alias" and "Lost". And while he loved directing, his next gig finds him returning to writing with the new Steven Spielberg project, ROBOPOCALYPSE. His reaction to discovering he would be working with Spielberg: “Am I dead? Is this a weird fever dream I’m having?”

First things first though, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS is finally hitting theatres after a few years on the shelf, thanks to MGM’s bankruptcy issues. And with all the buzz coming out of the film’s premiere at the SXSW festival earlier this year, I’d say it is well worth the wait. Goddard could simply not be happier. “Buzz like this is what you always hope for and yet you can’t force. You’ve gotta just make the best movie you can and hope for the best.”

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS is now available on DVD & Blu-ray from Alliance Films.

SNOW WHITE & THE HUNSTMAN

SNOW WHITE & THE HUNSTMAN
Written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini
Directed by Rupert Sanders
Starring Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron


Ravenna: I feel that you and I are bound.

The Grimm fairy tale best known as “Snow White” dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. It is a cautionary tale of sorts to young women everywhere that beauty is only skin deep and that true beauty, the kind that either commands respect and admiration or say the attention of a handsome prince, is to only be found on the inside. On many levels, it not only warns the reader but rather sets up the expectation that one day our prince will come and make all of our woes disappear. It is a timeless tale but it contains elements that don’t necessarily translate to today’s contemporary princess. Of course, minor issues like these would never deter Hollywood from trying to bleed it dry. And while you can put Snow White in pants, she still needs to be kissed by a prince at some point.

The trick then becomes how to modernize Snow White for today’s audience while not losing the story’s key factors. SNOW WHITE & THE HUNSTMAN tries to do so by keeping the fable set during the period (which is done masterfully) but by making it into an epic battle between the two fairest women in the land, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) and her evil stepmother and Queen, Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Their beauty is supposedly unmatched - and I say unmatched because you can never convince me that Stewart could ever look better than Theron, even on Stewart’s best day and Theron’s worst - but Snow White’s is internal and Ravenna’s is merely on the surface. Yes, they ride horses and wear armor and wield swords but beauty is each their greatest weapon. First time director, Rupert Sanders, strives to give the fairy tale a realistic edge visually but he fails to make these women into real people. Perhaps it is his lack of filmmaking experience or perhaps it is a lack of understanding when it comes to women.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN spends most of its time with its title characters (Chris Hemsworth plays the hunstman) as they journey aimlessly through the land to reunite Snow White with her former subjects in exile. They barely speak (which in Stewart’s case is always best) but yet this is their love story. The film is only ever truly interesting when Theron is on screen. She is the only true evil queen (sorry, Julia!) and her obsession with beauty fuels her every move. She fears becoming old and being replaced by youth, a very real plight for many women today, especially actresses, and one that gives her character an edge I never saw in her before. This goes nowhere though and we are only left waiting for Stewart’s inner beauty to shine through and lead the people to victory. Stewart, with all her youthful vigor, never allows us to see what’s inside, leaving us with exactly the same beauty she is supposed to be fighting against. Sadly, this makes the movie itself only pretty on the outside too.

106. The Cabin in the Woods

106. (06 May) The Cabin in the Woods (2012, Drew Goddard)* 50

Black Sheep interviews Mark Ruffalo

RUFFALO SMASH HULK
An interview with THE AVENGERS star, Mark Ruffalo

When one thinks of veteran character actor, Mark Ruffalo, one might think of his 2000 breakout film, Kenneth Lonergan’s YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. Or perhaps of all the directors he’s worked with, from Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) to David Fincher (ZODIAC) to Martin Scorsese (SHUTTER ISLAND). Most probably remember his Oscar-nominated supporting turn in Lisa Cholodenko’s THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT. I think it’s fair to say though that a giant franchise superhero movie would be the last place people would expect to see him. Well, that’s all about to change.

“My first reaction was to try to talk Joss out of casting me,” Ruffalo recalls of the moment director, Joss Whedon, told him he wanted him to replace Edward Norton as The Hulk in this summer’s mammoth comic book movie, THE AVENGERS. “Then I started to think, if I can get past all of the baggage of the part, I could maybe do something different and cool with it.”

Still, Ruffalo’s time on set was a challenge at first. “I was really nervous. My overall feeling on the set was probably not so dissimilar to Banner’s in the film. What am I doing here? Do I belong here? Look at how cool all these guys are!”

Ruffalo may now be one of the cool kids, which also includes Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America, but The Hulk has always been hit or miss, mostly miss, with film audiences. Ruffalo’s take though is resonating so much with fans that Marvel is now considering another standalone Hulk movie in the future.

The success of the character is something Ruffalo attributes to working with Whedon. “My first rehearsal with Joss was literally an hour in a room just wrestling,” Ruffalo explains of Whedon’s unorthodox approach to bringing out the beast in the man. “Joss and I definitely felt that this was a continuation of the last Hulk movie, with this idea that he might have some control over it. This next version of Banner, has been on the run for another 3 or 4 years, is getting into his 40’s, getting tired, longing for a life, maybe a family, and has a sense of humour about himself and a level of acceptance for this side of himself. Maybe he can finally face himself.”

That’s an awful lot of depth for a character who is most famous for smashing things.

Ruffalo has signed a 6-picture deal with Marvel to appear as The Hulk on screen. While thrilled at the possibilities, Ruffalo, who used to read Marvel comics as a boy, is also a realist. “I mean how much longer can I play The Hulk? If it takes three years to make the next Avengers and then another three years to make a Hulk, I’ll be in my 50’s,” Ruffalo, now 44, admits. “At some point, there is an obsolescence to a 6-picture deal. I’ll be happy if I end up just doing three.”

In the meantime, Ruffalo finally has a movie he can watch with his kids, three with his wife of 12 years, Sunrise Coigney. “I do realize that most of the movies I’ve made, my kids won’t be able to see until they’re in their teens,” Ruffalo quips. “This is something I felt like they could see. It interests me; it isn’t dumb; it doesn’t glorify violence just for the thrill of it. And at the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve compromised my artistic integrity. So it kinda just fit all the right boxes.”

Perhaps Ruffalo’s integrity is in tact because THE AVENGERS is not just mindless popcorn fluff but rather a genuine smash of a film. “Everything was grounded in character and in a reality that you really wouldn’t expect from this movie,” Ruffalo states with evident pride and satisfaction in the project. “If you can bring something real and naturalistic to this totally fantastical, unnatural world, then you stand out from the rest."

THE AVENGERS

THE AVENGERS
Written and Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johannson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson

Captain America: Stark, we need a plan of attack.
Iron Man: I have a plan. Attack.

Comic book movies or superhero movies or whatever you want to call them, all inherently have a very difficult task to accomplish. They all have to cater to a notoriously picky niche market, made up of detail oriented fanboys, while still remaining broad enough to appeal to the masses. They cost a fortune so they cannot afford not to attract the widest audience possible, but if they play it too broad, the fanatics will denounce the film and ruin any chance it has of making any money back. THE AVENGERS is the mecca of superhero movies. It reportedly cost $220 million to make. It features no less than seven iconic Marvel comic characters. And, given just how darn good it is, it actually stands the chance to become the biggest superhero movie of all time.

If you’re like me, the first ten minutes of THE AVENGERS might be a little bewildering. The script presupposes that you’ve seen all the Avenger related movies leading up to this one. As it turns out, I have, with the first IRON MAN (Robert Downey Jr.) and THOR (Chris Hemsworth) being my favourites.  Still, that doesn’t mean that they are always freshly at the forefront of my mind. So once I pieced together that Thor’s brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was working with an alien race to take over Earth by harvesting the energy from what is known as the Tesseract, I was good to go. (I’m sure the history behind this premise is far more rich than I’ve just described but for casual Avenger fans like myself, this description is more than adequate to get your bearings.) What follows the initial and inevitable set up though is two hours of non-stop excitement with a surprisingly solid amount of depth and character study to make THE AVENGERS the perfect popcorn movie to kick off the summer.

It is Loki’s mission to force the people of Earth into submission by using great force. His belief is that freedom is the world’s greatest lie, that pursuing a life of slavery and worship unburdens the individual of feeling any sense of failure. Without any unique goals, there is only the common to pursue. You should know that Loki has a bevy of his own daddy issues to work out and vanquishing Earth is just his way of dealing with things. You should also know that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which stands for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division) is not going to just allow this to happen. So he enlists the help of six individuals, all of which possess a particular power or skill that makes them a definite asset to have in an intergalactic war of this magnitude, and dubs them The Avengers. Unfortunately for Fury, The Avengers are all also intense loners who do not play well with others.

Perhaps the greatest honorary Avenger out there is writer/director, Joss Whedon. Marvel entrusted a film they have been building up to for years now to a man who has built a reputation for creating deeply engaging yet still highly entertaining genre fare on television, like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, but whose only feature length film (SERENITY) tanked. Whedon is right at home here though and he has a seemingly easy time balancing the screen time between all these heavy hitters, from Chris Evans (Captain America) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) to Scarlett Johannson (Black Widow) and Mark Ruffalo (taking over the role of The Hulk from predecessor, Edward Norton), while simultaneously juggling all of their individual arcs and development. The genius of Whedon’s work here is that he has them all subtly fighting against each other and against the idea of working together long enough to forget they were fighting so hard against themselves before any of this started. And when they start fighting together, that’s when THE AVENGERS goes from being a great comic book movie to being a great movie, period.

Black Sheep interviews Drew Goddard

Not Your Typical Cabin
An interview with THE CABIN IN THE WOODS director, Drew Goddard

You might feel like you’ve seen this one before. A mixed bag of tight-bodies and quick witted teenagers make their way to a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere, where naturally no one will ever hear their screams for help when they inevitably get sliced up into little bits. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS may look like this movie, and on some levels, it is, but on other levels, sometimes other worldly levels, it most certainly is not.

“We just love horror movies and this just stemmed from that love,” director and co-writer, Drew Goddard, tells me just a few hours before the Canadian premiere of his first feature. “We both just wanted to write a love letter to this genre.”

The “we” Goddard is referring to is himself and a man he refers to as his “partner in crime”, Joss Whedon. Goddard and Whedon first met on Whedon’s cult classic series, "Buffy and the Vampire Slayer", and went on to work with him on the spin-off series, "Angel", as well. “We just enjoy working together and we always talked after those shows went off the air about finding something else to do.”

Working with Whedon again was like old hat for Goddard. “We like to write fast. A lot of times when you don’t have a parachute, you leap into some very interesting places. So we locked ourselves in a hotel and didn’t leave until we had a script.” When I suggest that a cabin, say, in the woods might have been more apt, Goddard replies, “I feel like we didn’t need to do any method writing.”

Whedon to the left, Goddard to the right

What sets THE CABIN IN THE WOODS apart from the torture porn one would expect from the premise, is the action behind the scenes. These teens, led by Chris Hemsworth (Thor before he became Thor) and Kristen Connolly, are being chased and tormented but by whom and for what purpose? There is a genuine reason this is all happening, something that has been sorely lacking from the horror genre for some time now. “It felt like the studios were just recycling,” Goddard explains of his motivation. “And whenever the recycling starts to happen, that’s when you want to do something new. You can feel when there is no love behind them. When people making the film don’t care, it bleeds into the audience.”

And even when there is love propelling a project like this forward, it can still be tricky to set the tone just right. “First and foremost, we want to make a real movie. This is not a parody,” Goddard explains of the delicate balance between homage, horror and humour. Fortunately, Goddard was working with an expert. “That comes a lot from Joss’s aesthetic. The trick is to get to the truth of the characters.”

The victims, I mean, cast of CABIN

Regardless of who was at his side, Goddard can now also officially call himself a director, not just the guy who wrote a bunch of episodes of some of the most beloved television shows in history - from the aforementioned "Buffy" and "Angel" to his work with another famous geek, J.J. Abrams, including "Alias" and "Lost". And while he loved directing, his next gig finds him returning to writing with the new Steven Spielberg project, ROBOPOCALYPSE. His reaction to discovering he would be working with Spielberg: “Am I dead? Is this a weird fever dream I’m having?”

First things first though, THE CABIN IN THE WOODS is finally hitting theatres after a few years on the shelf, thanks to MGM’s bankruptcy issues. And with all the buzz coming out of the film’s premiere at the SXSW festival earlier this year, I’d say it is well worth the wait. Goddard could simply not be happier. “Buzz like this is what you always hope for and yet you can’t force. You’ve gotta just make the best movie you can and hope for the best.”

REVIEW: Thor (B+)

(dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2011)

  

For starters, I was a major skeptic of this thing.  Just goes to show was a little restraint can do to an overblown genre.

Kenneth Branagh's surprisingly subdued superhero film, Thor, is something godly indeed.  Living within a genre that recently has been known for CGI-injected heroes, Chris Hemsworth has proven himself apt as the titular God of Thunder.  Much like Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man, Hemsworth's stalwart performance is grounded in his earnest acceptance of the situations.  That sounds a little Acting 101, doesn't it, but it actually makes the fantasy elements within the genre seem more believable.  He's never amazed that he's a God, never in awe of himself or his surroundings, and that is where the character of Thor is crafted.

One can credit this to Branagh, but also credit must be due to Hemsworth and the writing.  From the script up, this is a character study.  Not an origin story, or something rooted in a climactic battle, but rather a small tale of a god becoming the man he was meant to be.  Again, much like Iron Man, the heart of the film is in the characters.  You care about Thor, and halfway through, you don't even realize that you haven't witnessed an enormous battle on Earth yet, and even when you do, you don't care all that much that it was relatively lame.  The beauty of Thor  is that you see the change a normal, more bloated battle would tell you...but Branagh and Hemsworth show you instead.  Like that less-than-awesome RDJ vs. Bridges fight to close out Iron Man, this Thor vs. Hot Laser Machine is more of an means to and end than an attention grabbing climax.  The greatest of all superhero movies hold their climaxes for off the battle field—Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Dark Knight, etc.—because they know the hero is what really matters.

Sure, some of the secondary acting is flat and useless, but that all goes back to Thor being the only character we need to worry about.  All the Asgard—Thor's home planet, er realm—scenes have their touch of silliness, but most of them don't last long enough to be too obnoxious.  When Asgardians visit Earth, however, hilarity truly ensues.  There is much intentional comedy within this action film, which adds to the heart of the picture.  When Thor's quartet of friends travel to Earth complete in their Dungeons and Dragons convention costumes, a lesser filmmaker wouldn't have noticed the inherent absurdity in that situation, but Branagh did.  Even the "can you repeat that?" Thor lore is spiced up with comedy, since no one can pronounce let alone understand what Mjölnir is.  It's rare, but some of the dialog is actually clever!  A pretty predictable but nevertheless rewarding ongoing gag about stealing computer equipment actually made the audience laugh—every time.

But basically where the film excels is where it isn't heavyhanded, where is allows the words and the actors to move the scene instead of CGI or battles.  The soft scenes outweigh the bombastic ones in both quality and interest; you hardly care that Thor is fighting some laser machine, you just want him to beat it and get on to the next scene.  The least interesting scene in the whole film is probably the most CGI-ridden, where Thor and his comrades travel to an ice planet to beat-up some Ice Giants and a faux-rancor monster.  Totally boring.

From a technical standpoint, the cinematography was exciting if not typical of the current action film lens flair style.  The Costumes are absurd, yet appropriately absurd, I think, the best someone could do to recreate the style present in the comics.  Set designs for Asgard are gaudy at best, but it's again the Earth scenes that are the highlight; while hearkening back to 1950s-style small-town-in-the-middle-of-a-desert look, designers Bo Welch, Maya Shimoguchi, Lauri Gaffin create a distinct atmosphere in Thor that somehow helps with the believability of a God landing in the desert.

Overall, though it has many faults, Thor has the chops of not only a great superhero film, but a great film.  For me, it ranks somewhere in the league with but below Iron Man, Spider-Man and Batman Begins, and handedly above The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Wolverine.  The wonderful Natalie Portman and the underused Kat Dennings are luminous as the human counterparts to Hemsworth's Thor, yet any and all Asgard residents (sleepwalking Anthony Hopkins' Odin and iron-jawed Tom Hiddleston's Loki) could have done much, much more.  For the many inside references to the upcoming Avengers, they all play too much into the hand of super-fans to actually be entertaining.  There's a scene where a soon-to-be Avenger appears, that falls totally flat by virtue of the unknown nature of both the actor and said hero.

Nevertheless, with Hemsworth and Downey Jr. on board for the Avengers project, I'm slightly less critical about this than I initially was.  If they can capture the magic that Thor did, I think we'll be in fine condition.  GRADE: B+

.

THOR

Written by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz and Don Payne

Directed by Kenneth Brannagh

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins

Erik Selvig: It's not a bad thing finding out you don't have all the answers. Now you can start asking the right questions.

So I Thor-oughly enjoyed THOR. I’ll be honest; I was not expecting to. I certainly enjoy the occasional comic book film, be it about a boy with serious spider issues or a technology genius with a giant ego and a sharp tongue. That said, I’m hardly an enthusiast. Of late, I’ve felt like Marvel has been making anything they’ve ever drawn into a movie and when I first saw the trailer for THOR, I thought, enough already. The two mediums are not meant to be mutually exclusive and not every character deserves to be reinvented for the big screen. Fortunately though, director Kenneth Brannagh has proven me very wrong. Perhaps this might have something to do with Thor not being your typical superhero; Thor is a god and he is a mighty one indeed.

To be fair, Thor isn’t really a god. He was merely seen as one by Viking culture way back around 965 A.D. He is immortal though and I can see how that might be misinterpreted as god-like but no, Thor is just a man – from another galaxy, with super crazy strength, who can never die … and who has an insane body. Still, mistaking him for a god makes his fall from grace oh so much further. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is heir to the throne of Asgard and is on the cusp of inheriting the crown from his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) when he allows pride and selfishness to guide him down a path that leads his people into war. Odin banishes Thor to Earth and strips him of his power, including his infamous hammer, which some of you geekier readers may know as Mjöllnir. God or no God, everyone has their lessons to learn.

Once Thor is on Earth, the action cuts back and forth seamlessly between the mystical heaven-like beauty of Asgard, where magic and science are one and the same and this teeny tiny town in New Mexico, population next to nothing. While the setup that precedes this act is certainly densely weighted in mythology and mysticism, it gets decidedly lighter once Thor crashes to Earth from the heavens. This is in great part due to Thor’s interaction with the team of scientists he runs into, led by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and the quick witted repartee they partake in. Thor is now a strange demi-god in a strange land and Hemsworth plays his predicament with great resolve. He cannot help but be humbled by the damage he has done, his inability to rely on the strength he always has and the genuine caring he gets from Jane. The real chemistry between Hemsworth and a hilarious Portman plays a key role in grounding this otherworldly tale.

What truly cements this fantastical story as still undeniably human is the father-son struggle between Thor and Odin. Brannagh, with his extensive background in Shakespeare, both on screen and on stage, knows that the action in THOR is the easy part. That hammer gives him the strength to defeat armies practically on his own and so whatever action he gets himself into, it will take care of itself. But the heart of the film has to be relatable. Thor is but a boy learning how to become a man, learning to put the good of the universe before himself. Odin is just a father, waiting for his boy to find the inner virtue he knew all along to be there. We’ve all been there, more or less. And so, Brannagh becomes his own incarnation of Odin, providing the tools that make it possible for a comic book to grow into the movie it was always meant to be.