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VIFF 2025 Review: Free Leonard Peltier

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Free Leonard Peltier is about the accused crime of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, his imprisonment and his fight for freedom that lasted half a century.

The first documentary I saw at this year’s VIFF was Free Leonard Peltier. At a time when Canada has been made to face the music of what they’ve done to Indigenous people, Leonard’s story will remind you that the plight of the people is not strictly a Canadian problem.

The film begins with a group of American Indigenous activists on a travel. They are traveling to Florida in hopes that fellow activist Leonard Peltier be pardoned and freed just as Joe Biden is about to leave the presidency on January 20, 2025. Trying to get Peltier freed from a double-murder from 1975 he denies and most believe he’s wrongfully accused for has been going on for the last half-century. Many believe it’s Leonard’s last chance at any freedom as he just turned 80 years old and he’s ailing.

The story of the Leonard Peltier case is told through friends, family and allies of Peltier from the American Indian Movement (AIM). Footage of a 1989 news interview is also shown where Leonard states his own case. Leonard’s early life was like that of many American Indigenous people for over a century. He was born on a reserve in North Dakota to a large family and forced into a Residential School 150 miles away from his place of birth where he and others were taught to assimilate. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) dictated his life and the lives of American indigenous peoples. After he left his schooling behind in 1965, he became a man of various trades doing welding, construction or auto work.

In the late-1960’s, Indigenous activism was growing and the group AIM was founded. Leonard first started with local activism where he was elected tribal chairman of a reservation and he was introduced to AIM from a colleague. His biggest activism in that time was his appearance at 1972’s Trail Of Broken Treaties. Over time, activism became more violent and a group called the Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, or GOON, was founded. Peltier was also involved in violent conflicts and was even charged with attempted murder for an unrelated incident.

During his wait for the trial, FBI agents entered the Pine Ridge Reservation in pursuit of a man named Jimmy Eagle on June 26, 1975 wanted for theft and assault. Two FBI agents named Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were pursuing a Chevrolet with AIM members Peltier, Norman Charles and Joe Stuntz. Charles had met with the two FBI the day before and they told him of their intended pursuit. As the Chevrolet entered the ranch, the three men quickly parked the car and ran out, and that’s when a firefight between the three men and the two FBI ensued. Williams and Coler were shot to death in the shootout. Stuntz was shot to death later that day by a BIA agent. Peltier took Coler’s pistol after he died. The shootout would come to be remembered as the Battle At Wounded Knee.

In the aftermath, the FBI went to arrest three AIM members who were present at the shootout at the time: Dino Butler, Peltier and Robert Robideau. All three were AIM members and all three stole the firearms form the two FBI agents after they were killed. After Peltier was bailed out, he sought refuge in Canada, but it was unsuccessful as Hinton, Alberta RCMP agreed to extradite him back to the United States. In the end, Butler and Robideau were acquitted on grounds of self-defense but Peltier was found guilty. He was sentenced to two life terms and seven years.

In the years that followed would be a long arduous process from friends, family, Indigenous activists, human rights foundations and AIM members to get Leonard Peltier free from a crime he insisted he was innocent of. Over the decades, there was evidence proving that Peltier did not shoot any of the officers. At the same time, the FBI appeared to be playing games as they had one Indigenous women sign an affidavit claiming she was his girlfriend and he confessed to her the shooting. Truth is she didn’t even know him. They also withheld evidence and shred important documents clearing Peltier.

In later decades, Peltier would make pleas of clemency with active Presidents of the United States. Rays of hope first came in 1999 when President Bill Clinton said he would be looking into the Leonard Peltier case and have him cleared and freed. This case for clemency received support from many world leaders like Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. The hope faded as the FBI held a backlash where family of FBI and their allies staged a demonstration claiming that freeing Peltier would do a dishonor to the FBI agents. Their manipulation of making this a Leonard Peltier vs. the FBI case succeeded in keeping him in prison. Peltier continued to make please with clemency with presidents in the years that followed. All would be unsuccessful.

In the 2020’s, Peltier’s health was failing. Painting and drawing, one of his passions he was able to do for decades in prison, was something he could no longer do. Joe Biden was seen as his last chance for clemency in his lifetime, especially since his friends and family knew he would not get any clemency from Trump when he re-enters the White House. Friends and family built a house for Peltier at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota where he could live after his release. January 19, 2025 was the last day of Biden’s presidency and the supporters at the beginning of the film are waiting to hear the news they hope to hear. Biden reduces Peltier’s sentence from life imprisonment to house arrest. They celebrate knowing he will soon stop being a prisoner.

This is a good documentary as it reminds you of a common problem in the world. Not just in Canada, in the US or in the Americas, but the whole world. The problem is nations being unable to deal with their indigenous peoples or tribal peoples well. Living in Canada, I am very familiar with news stories of how badly the Canadian government has mistreated the Indigenous peoples and how they’re doing a lackluster job to make amends and right past wrongs. The United States is just as guilty of that. They had a residential school system too, they have most of them living on reservations, they have a government that appears unable to listen to them and they’ve even had ‘Indian Wars.’ One can see how the story of the struggle of Leonard Peltier can be something all American Indigenous people can understand and relate to.

The story itself is well-told. I was first introduced to the Leonard Peltier case in 1994 through the music video of “Freedom” by the American band Rage Against The Machine. Peltier’s case has been an inspiration for many songs and films and this documentary is only the latest. In this documentary, we have news footage of the events involving the shootout, arrest, imprisonment and an interview from Peltier in 1989. We also have interviews from surviving friends and family members, Indigenous activists and even attorneys and paralegals who have worked with the Peltier case. The story becomes clear that Peltier’s imprisonment appears to have been used by the FBI just to simply give resolve to the deceased officers’ families and to protect the FBI from looking bad in the eyes of the public. The film’s inclusion of Peltier’s statement of his case makes the shootout look like a case of self-defense. Even though he has always maintained he never shot the officers, he has also stated he would defend himself and his people. One can see why the FBI would fear someone like him.

This is a very informative documentary by Jesse Short Bull and David France. They not only show the Peltier story, but they show how important the Peltier case is to his friends and allies. This is a case that’s taken so long to resolve and it’s at the point friends are even willing to travel from North Dakota to Florida by car in hopes of hearing the good news they’ve been waiting since 1976 to hear. Having AI recreate the incident with film appearing like satellite images re-enacting the heist will get you thinking of the case itself and have you try to make up your own mind about it.

This documentary has received a lot of renown this year. It got a lot of attention at the Sundance festival in January and its biggest acclaim came at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival where it won three awards including the FIPRESCI Prize and the Amnesty International Award.

Free Leonard Peltier is a story about the common racism felt by Indigenous peoples in North America. It’s also a story of hope that what’s wrong can be corrected over time.

Oscars 2024 Best Picture Reviews: Part Three

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

At first I intended for my Best Picture blogs to be three in total. When it became clear how much writing I did for the first two films, I decided dividing them into blogs of two reviews each is more worth it.  So in the meantime, here’s the third of my five Best Picture review blogs:

Dune: Part Two

The reboot of the Dune series has been so far the biggest movie action of the 2020’s. The re-adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel was a highly anticipated event in 2021 and hoped to get people back into the movie theatres after the relaxing of the strictest COVID precautions in history. It worked. Dune made over $400 million at the box office, was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won six. It was like what David Lynch got wrong, Denis Villeneuve got right. Originally, Villeneuve planned to divide the story into two films. This is what led to Dune: Part Two to be made.

The second Dune film continues with the drama left behind from the first. The second makes the stories of the dehumanizing Water Of Life, the installation of the young sadistic nephew of Arrakis as the ruler and heir to House Harkonnen, Paul’s romance interest to soldier Chani, the threat of holy war from Fremen fundamentalists, a spice trade at risk of smugglers, Paul’s consumption of the Water Of Life much to the disappointment of Chani, his dealing with his mother, his duel to battle the throne of the Harkonnen kingdom, his ascendancy to the role of king upon winning and the rejection of all as leader, including Chani. The drama continues, the excitement and thrills increase and the ending leaves the audience in suspense and the anticipation of what will follow in the sequel Dune: Messiah, set for release in the spring or summer of 2026.

Every year, there seems to be at least one ‘popcorn movie’ that seems to rack up enough buzz to eventually become a Best Picture nominee. Not only did Dune: Part Two get nominated for Best Picture, but the Dune franchise joins the Godfather, Lord Of The Rings, Going My Way and the Avatar franchise as the only five movie franchises to have two or more of its films nominated for Best Picture. It’s deserving of it because it succeeds in doing what a science fiction film should do. It takes people into another world. It creates an intense complex drama of the threat of the order of humanity and how it rests in the hands of one young man. It delivers in the action people go to expect form a film like Dune. On top of it, it succeeds in being the opposite of your typical movie sequel that ends up being a repeat of the first. Instead, we get a continuation of the chronologic drama and ends with the anticipation of the third and final part. Deserving of its Best Picture nomionation. And to think it was released back in March 2024. Talk about endurance!

Once again, top respect goes to Denis Villeneuve. You can trust Villeneuve to deliver in a sci-fi film. Both in his direction and his co-adaptation of the story with Jon Spaihts, he continues the excitement of the story well by keeping in the right parts, delivering on the action needed and making the smart decision to make his adaptation of Dune a three-film series instead of the two-film series he originally hoped for. He did things right and in winning fashion. Like most sci-fi films, the story is more focused on the special effects and action moments, but the film doesn’t stray away from its focus on the story and the characters. It is still there and still consistent. Even though Timothy Chalamet’s performance as Paul wasn’t too deep of a role, it is still consistent to the story and very believable. Zendaya’s performance as Chani added to the story. In the first Dune movie, Chani was a minor supporting role. Here, she’s the lead female protagonist and Zendaya does an excellent job in making her a key part of this chapter. There were also good performances of minor roles like Josh Brolin as Paul’s trainee and mentor, Rebecca Ferguson as Paul’s mother with whom Paul harbors resentment, Austin Butler as Paul’s fierce deadly rival to the throne and Christopher Walken as the emperor.

As is common with great science fiction films, the standout achievements are in the technical areas. You need it for a sci-fi film to excel and Dune: Part Two had some of the best of the year. Its top achievements are in the cinematography by Greig Fraser, the production design by Patrice Vermette and Shane Viau, the costuming by Jacqueline West, the editing by Joe Walker, the special effects by the film’s effects team, and the music from Hans Zimmer. All of it was successful in taking the audience into Dune’s futuristic world and enhancing the film’s action.

Dune: Part Two succeeds in keeping alive the drama, intensity and excitement of the first film and sets the audience up for anticipation of the third and final chapter. It succeeds in having the best qualities of a sci-fi film without the common watering down or cheapening of the quality.

Emilia Perez

Now this film has been the subject of a lot of discussion, for better or for worse. In watching it, one would be shocked how a musical is made out of subject matter that would be the last themes and elements thought of as subject matter for a musical. Nevertheless, the mix of a musical with modern-day dark drama works as a film from start to finish. Despite that, this film is not for everybody. If you’re a person who welcomes experimentation in film like I do, then you will like it or respect it as a film. If you want to be entertained, that’s taking chances as a lot of people will be unhappy with a film like this. Trust me. A transsexual druglord and all the corruption in Mexico and the missing people that come with it does not make for an entertaining film. Making a musical out of it would seem quite the oddity.

From the start, it looked like the type of film that would get a lot of Oscar buzz. It had great acting, an eyebrow-raising story and quite the unconventional way of making a film. The film would achieve thirteen Oscar nominations and then the hate began. First, there are the complaints from the transsexual communities complaining of the transsexual character being a murderous drug lord before the operation. Then came complaints from the people of Mexico of how Mexico was depicted as a place of rabid crime. Additionally, it came to light past social media messages from Karla Sofia Gascon. Exposed in her messages were tweets that were Islamophobic, racist and even critical of her own co-stars. This only came to light just after all the nominations were revealed. I know there’s always at least one Best Picture contender that starts a load of controversy. Best Picture nominees often start some controversy or debate but there’s always one that stands out the most. This will have to be the biggest of the ten.

I’m not normally one to trash a film unless it’s really horrendous or really terrible either in quality or in its subject matter. While the film is definitely one of uncomfortable subject matter, I do give it credit for its experimentation. We should know that this film is originally a stage opera created by Jacques Audiard who adapted it from a chapter in a French book Ecoute. I will give Audiard credit for trying to make a musical out of out-of-the-ordinary subject matter. Watching it will make you question if the musical elements of the film work or not but there are many parts that stand out as great and will even blow you away. Don’t forget this isn’t a story about a transition from man to woman. It’s also a transition of personality going from leader of a drug cartel to a humanitarian. Also I feel the acting in the story works well. It’s the acting from the three main stars of the film that help make the film work on the screen and work as an unexpected musical. The funny thing is after you’ve finished watching, you will ask yourself if you liked it or not. Or if this worked or not. Despite its imperfections, I consider it a brave attempt.

Responsible for this film is French director Jacques Audiard. Audiard has had a decades-long reputation as a filmmaker in France and has directed many films outside the French language. This film, which was a Palme d’Or nominee at Cannes 2024, should be seen as an accomplishment in retrospect. A flawed accomplishment, a provocative accomplishment but an accomplishment nevertheless. It’s not just this being an unlikely musical but also adapting a stage opera to the big screen. As if adapting a musical isn’t hard enough. Despite its flaws, I give Audiard credit for that.

Also excellent is the performance of lead Karla Sofia Gascon. A transsexual woman herself, Gascon does a great job in both the male role of Manitas and the female role of Emilia Perez. It’s two different conflicting personalities of the same character and it needed to be done well, and Gascon succeeds in doing it. Also excellent is Zoe Saldana as the lawyer caught in the middle of it all. When watching the film, you wonder if the lead is Emilia or if the lead is Rita Castro. Zoe does a great job in making the film as much hers as it is Emilia’s. Selena Gomez’ performance was not all there. Nevertheless she did have some great moments and was believable in most scenes. Adriana Paz is also great in playing Emilia’s lover. I give top technical acclaim to Paul Guilhaume in the cinematography, the hair and makeup team for the convincing work on the pre-transition Manitas, and the collaboration of Clement Ducol and Camille on the standout music.

Emilia Perez is not everyone’s cup of tea. It gives a lot of reasons for you to hate it and a lot of reasons for you to like it. I consider it a film for myself to like and admire, despite its obvious flaws.

And there you go. This is my look at two more contenders for the Best Picture Oscar. With ten films, boy do you get a lot of different films.

2022 Academy Awards: Best Picture Reviews – Part One

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

The 95th Academy Awards are coming soon. Once again, I saw all ten Best Picture nominees. For the first time in three years, I didn’t need a streaming service to see any one of them. Elvis was the only one I saw outside of a theatre; on an airplane divided by two flights. The other nine I was lucky to see in theatres. There is your mix of enjoyable and unenjoyable. A mix of common popcorn fare and serious topics.

This year’s batch have some notable details. For the second straight year, a film directed by Steven Spielberg is nominated. For the second straight year, a remake of a Best Picture winner is nominated. Two of the nominated films are sequels to legendary sci-fi or action films. Two of the nominated films have four acting nominations each. On the contrary, half the films have no acting nominations. Also interesting that comedies, which normally get the sort end of the stick at Oscar time, are this year’s toast as two of the heavy favorites are comedic films.

The purpose of my reviews are to give a summary of the Best Picture nominees. I will be saving my predictions for a separate prediction blog. In the meantime, here is the first of my reviews of the Best Picture nominees of the 2022 Academy Awards:

All Quiet On The Western Front – Just like the 1930 film, this is an angry film. This film makes it look like World War I was a vanity effort. Like all the war was where it was all about the egos of those in power. While the young men fought and many died, these leaders with the power only cared about themselves and the power they wanted to hold onto. Even those who worked in the military seemed to take the losses of life very lightly. Seemingly not caring that a generation of young men were being lost. The last 20 minutes of the film would especially enrage many. Armistice had been declared for November 11, 1918. Germany was the losing side, but the German leader wanted one last battle. Another bunch of young men dead, just shortly before the war finally ended. Will definitely have you leaving the theatre asking what was it all for?

I’m planning on doing a comparison of this film to the 1930 original for after the Oscars. So in looking at this film, I won’t compare it to the original. I won’t even call it a remake because even the original was adapted from a novel. It’s possible this film is a re-adaptation. I will say the film is an excellent work. The film does a good job in telling the story from the point of view from the young soldiers and the meetings with the leaders. It shows the two different worlds between the two very well. The battle scenes are also intense to look at. Of course, war is ugly. There’s no compromise in the story here. Most surprising is how they slowed down the last 24 hours of World War I over a period of just over twenty minutes. That paves the way for the final dramatic scenes that would make the viewer angry at the end.

Top credits go to director/writer Edward Berger. He brings back the horrors of World War I in grand style and delivers a film that has a big message to send even now as Ukraine is going through a war of its own. The acting from newcomer Felix Kammerer was also excellent, even if his part didn’t have that much depth. Albrecht Schuch was also very good at Kalczinsky. The film also had excellent technical elements like the music of Volker Bertelmann, the cinematography of James Friend and some of the best production design and visual effects of the year. The visual effects really did a good job for the battle scenes.

Avatar: The Way Of Water – Usually when a sequel comes out, the freshness of the original seems lost and the rehash seems to be too similar to the original. Nevertheless the story does aim to have some notable differences from the first. One of which is Jake’s new family on Pandora, including his relationship with his oldest son. The other is facing rivalries both from Earth and his world. The best thing about this film is that the first Avatar took the audience to a new world. This film is also successful in taking people to a new world. Although it feels there may be something missing in this film, it’s still very spectacular and gives the audience the escape they’re looking for. The new twists in the story will also give people the drama they’re looking for and the action scenes they all enjoy.

James Cameron does it again. Not only does he bring back the world of Pandora successfully, but he does it so in breaking box-office records! To think James Cameron films have knocked each other out in setting the record for the highest-grossing ever! First Titanic, then the first Avatar, and now this! However it’s not simply box-office numbers. Cameron succeeds in creating a world where people can escape and be enchanted by. Pandora dazzled people back in 2009 and 2010 and it does it again here. Cameron also wrote an excellent story with four other writers and compiled the official script with two of the writers. They had to make it a believable story, especially since this film is thirteen years since the first. It does a story that works for the film. There was very good acting from returning actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana. Also excellent was newcomer Jamie Flatters in playing Jake’s oldest son. The film’s best qualities, nevertheless, are its visual effects. It’s these effects that give people the escape to Pandora they’re looking for and keep their attention on the drama as it unfolds. Simon Franglen also does a good job in composing a good score for the film.

The Banshees Of Inisherin – This is a film not everyone can understand at first. Even after one sees the film, they can only guess what the film is about. Some say it’s about human weaknesses, or about men and their inability to relate, or even about Irish pride as seen through the eyes of McDonagh. I’ve often felt the story is as much about the island town of Inisherin as it is about the central story. Inisherin is a town away from the mainland and lucky to be out of the range of fighting during the Irish civil war. However Inisherin comes across as a town where nothing really happens or nothing really improves. Anybody who wants to get anywhere have to be like Siobhan and leave the island. Sometimes it seems like the dead friendship of Padraic and Colm is symbolic of how dead the town of Inisherin is. In addition Inisherin being a small town, it’s often a case where word easily gets around about what’s happening. The feud between the two soon becomes the talk of the town.

This film is unique as it attempts to make a comedy out of something intense and dramatic. It’s a story of a drama that is slow, but the slowness is its quality. A story about a man deciding to end a friendship because his friend is ‘dull’ and spend the rest of his years composing music seems odd and pointless. Nevertheless the film allows for the intensity to build over time. It also has its ugly surprises, but the surprises become important to the drama. The different characters also add to the story. They help provide for the environment of the story almost as if the film is based on a classic Irish fable. In addition, the scenery adds to the story. The film is as much about the scenery and the landscapes as it is about the town and its drama. Its addition to the film help builds the story.

Top credit should go to director Martin McDonagh. McDonagh infrequently shells out works. It seems like almost once every four to five years. In fact his last film before Banshees, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, was five years ago! This is quite possibly his best work. It’s a story that gives you the unexpected and Martin did an excellent job with it. Also when you see the ending, you easily forget that this film is a comedy. Once again, a case of a film that mixes comedy with tragedy, and it does a memorable job here.

Additionally, the story came alive from the excellent acting. Colin Farrell did a great job making Padraic to be kind and loyal and always trying, but pushed to his limits near the end. Brendan Gleeson was also great as the stubborn Colm. He captured his hardness very well. Kerry Condon was also great as Siobhan, the sister who tries to find a way out. Also great was Barry Keoghan, the troubled son of the policeman Padraic and Siobhan try to help out. The supporting characters like the Garda, the banshee and the priest also added to the story. There were also additional technical feats with this film like the cinematography of Ben Davis and the score from Carter Burwell.

Elvis – It’s not easy doing a musical biography and making it into something different. On top of it, you can be sure there have been countless made-for-TV movies made about Elvis. So how can you make an Elvis movie for the big screen of 2023? One ingredient that makes it different is the story being told from the point of view of Colonel Tom Parker. Those of us who know a lot about Elvis may have overlooked his relationship with the Colonel, especially the rocky moments. Another is to add some creative flares. Those that remember Moulin Rouge will remember how that film has creative flares. Luhrmann applies similar creative flairs from Moulin Rouge here. Another ingredient is to have the best songs of a musician’s career as well as their career’s most significant moments. You can’t pack everything about Elvis into 159 minutes of story. This film does showcase the most famous moments of his career.

Another excellent work from Baz Luhrmann. Just when you thought you couldn’t bring Elvis back to the big screen, Luhrmann does it, and in a stylish winning way. He pulls the right moves to deliver an Elvis film people of today will want to see at the theatres. Of course it’s the performance of Austin Butler that has to be the biggest quality. A thirtysomething of today able to epitomize Elvis? The answer is Yes! Butler does an excellent job in playing The King in with a performance with dimension and doesn’t go cartoonish, as one can risk doing performing Elvis. Tom Hanks is also quite good as the colonel. It’s hard to picture him with a Dutch accent, and there were a few times when I questioned if it was off or not, but he did a good job with his role. The technical details also make the film excel. The cinematography, production design, makeup and costuming are all some of the best of this past year.

Everything Everywhere All At Once – Now there have been some absurdist films that have been nominated for Best Picture or other major categories. What makes this film-of-the-absurd is that this takes place in a multitude of worlds. Thanks to technology, Evelyn is able to make many trips of the mind to many different universes and assume many different personas: past, present and future. Even the persona of a rock somewhere in the desert is possible! Usually most people look at stories like these and ask “What the hell?” This is one absurd story that many people found enjoyable. The kung fu fighting scenes also helped a lot too. And to think this all started as Evelyn’s taxes were to be done and she was to get some bad news!

To think it’s the magic of the directing/writing team of the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) that delivered this gem. The two have not had a lot of directing experience. Until this film, they’ve only directed some short films together and their only feature was Swiss Army Man from back in 2016! Here they have the perfect breakthrough film for them, and boy is it unforgettable. It’s a fun, thrilling story that comes off as weird and bizarre at first, but starts making more sense as time goes on.

Also excellent is the combined acting. Michelle Yeoh shines as Evelyn. When I first saw her in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I had a feeling she would go far. She had a lot of grace with her. Although this role is way more multidimensional, she still does excellently here and delivers one of the best performances of the year. Ke Huy Quan is also excellent as the meek Waymond. Quan is also this year’s former child actor comeback story. He is best remembered as Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom and Data from The Goonies. Here he gets the adult actor breakthrough he was waiting for, and what a scene-stealing performance! Additional scene stealers are an unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS agent and Stephanie Hsu as the daughter whose nihilism threatens the multiverse. All the aforementioned actors had a lot to do with their main role and their various roles in the many worlds of the multiverse. That’s a lot of work! Additional technical credits go to Shirley Kurata for the costuming and the band Son Lux for the score that fits the film well.

And there’s the first of it. This is the first half of my review of this year’s Best Picture nominees. Second half coming in a day or two.

Double Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon 2 and Big Hero 6

Jon The Blogcentric2 Comments

Normally I would do single movie reviews. Additionally, I never really had plans to see How To Train Your Dragon 2 or Big Hero 6. When it comes to animated movies, I mostly go to see the one or ones that look like they have the best chances of winning Best Animated Feature. All year I thought I had it all wrapped up when I saw The LEGO Movie and nothing else. Then the Oscar nominations came and The LEGO Movie was inexplicably snubbed out of that category. That led me scramming to see both movies. I saw Dragon 2 on a DVD while I was lucky to see Hero on the big screen. Here are my thoughts:

Dragon 2

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

Making a sequel from a hit movie is always a challenge as commercial pressures will demand it. It’s sink or swim as it can either be a continuation of the original’s charm or simply a flavorless rehash of the original. Yes, the audience will distinguish between tried-and-true and tried-and-tired. We saw how Shrek burst on the scene back in 2001 but its excellence and flavor declined with each subsequent movie. Now How To Train Your Dragon has its sequel out. Will How To Train Your Dragon 2 measure up?

First off, the writers and producers did the right thing by releasing the sequel four years after the original and four years since they first started work on it as opposed to the three years between the Shrek films. For those unfamiliar with work on animated features, it takes four years to create from start to finish. The focus on the story this time is in the Fjords of Norway. The story begins with Hiccup, still awkward but well-respected. It also adds in a story where he experiences friction between his girlfriend and his father as well as an enemy he must fight.

I’m unsure if the story would remain true to what Cressida Cowell wrote in her dragon books but I do feel the story is not ‘spoiled’ as so many sequels as most sequels, both animation and live-action, are prone to do. It will continue to delight fans of the first Dragon movie too. The story was darker this time as this would include the death of Stoick and Toothless is under a spell which causes him to want to attack Hiccup. I believe the story would be more suitable for older children but one thing the story doesn’t do is lose the charm of the original. It also has its fun moments and a happy ending that should make it enjoyable for the whole family.

Now on to the technical bits. Whenever I watch a 3D animated movie, I especially pay attention to the quality of the images and effects. I know that each image has to have 100% detail in order to succeed. Any glitch or inconsistency will hurt the movie. I didn’t notice any glitches in the images. I felt the detail was very accurate from the scales on the dragon to the fire they unleashed. The characters’ mouths were always in sync with the dialogue. The film’s images also continued to give the audience a thrill-ride. Naturally when you have a film of people travelling on dragons, you would expect there to be images of the various flights and even parts in the movie that get the audience feel like they’re flying on their own dragons too. The audience will come expecting that. People come to such movies for the escape and the thrill-ride of it all. It succeeds in doing so and it does a top notch job of doing so.

I’m sure that most of you expected The LEGO Movie to win Best Animated Feature even before the nominations were announced. I did too. An interesting bit of trivia to know is that Dragon 2 actually beat out The LEGO Movie in that category to win major awards like the National Board of Review award, the Annie Award and the Golden Globe. Now with The LEGO Movie snubbed out of that category, it appears safe to assume that Dragon 2 will win the Oscar. However that snub reminds us nothing is a foregone conclusion as it is possible Big Hero 6 or The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya could pull an upset.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 was faced with the common pressures of a movie sequel but was able to overcome them to the point they again deliver a movie that’s entertaining and a thrill-ride and still maintains the charm of the original without appearing to exhaust it or stray too far away from it.

Big-Hero-6

BIG HERO 6

Now moving on from a sequel to an original. And moving from one I saw on DVD to one I was lucky to see on the big screen. This time a Disney film: Big Hero 6.

Big Hero 6 is based off of characters from the Big Hero 6 comic series from Marvel comics that first hit shelves in 1998 and went under the Marvel name in 2008. However the story for the film is nothing like the comic series. In the comic series, the characters were all heroes commissioned and created by the Japanese government. Hiro Takachiho was a 13 year-old whiz kid who became part of the team after his mother was kidnapped and creates a Godzilla-style monster hero off of his deceased father’s brain named Baymax. The comics come with the type of over-the-top violence and imagination that you would come to expect from Japanese comic books. The comics have won a following here in the US.

Here for the film, we have a much different story. Hiro is an orphaned boy who lives with his brother Tadashi in San Fransokyo. Hiro commonly gets himself in trouble as he tries to win bot-fights for money but Tadashi takes him to his polytechnic. Hiro thinks it will be the ‘nerd school’ he thinks it is but is amazed with what he sees created by Tadashis’s friends –including his brother’s creation: Baymax, the inflatable virtual doctor which is kept at home–and tries to win a scholarship in a young innovators contest held by the school. After winning the scholarship, a fire breaks out killing Tadashi and a professor.

Hiro feels alone at first even distancing himself from Tadashi’s friends but Baymax suddenly becomes a friend-like to him despite Hiro being unwelcome at first. Later as Hiro learns more new truths about what really happened at the school that night and how his brother really dies, Hiro gets Baymax and the friends to team up to get his brother’s killer. All of them don costumes in the images of the Big Hero 6 comic book characters except Baymax who has an outfit more like Iron Man.

I don’t think the movie was meant to be a film version of the main comic book characters. Remember writers can adapt stories into whatever they want. It’s obvious Walt Disney Studios wanted to do their own story with the characters and have it as a family-friendly film. It succeeds in doing so as it creates a story that’s thrilling, entertaining and imaginative. The story also has a good message for children too as justice is better than any revenge. It also doesn’t try to be too dark in the situations involving Tadashi’s death and Hiro being an orphan.

Although this is an original film, it’s not to say it was without its pressures. We shouldn’t forget this movie comes a year after Walt Disney released the phenomenon Frozen. It wasn’t simply a hit movie. It became a marketing phenomenon and even spawned a release of a sing-along version. Already you could tell there would be pressure upon the release of their follow-up. Big Hero 6 doesn’t exactly deliver to the dame length Frozen has. It has its charm and is a likable film on its own. Whatever the situation, Big Hero 6 was not hurt at the box office as it has already grossed more than $200 million and has been nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Another thing Big Hero 6 succeeds in doing is it adds to the recent resurgence to the Walt Disney Animation Studios. For decades the studios reigned supreme in the world of animated motion pictures. It had very few challengers save for Spielberg animation in the 80’s but made a comeback in the 90’s with 2D masterpieces like The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast and The Lion King. However the studios knew that the world of 3D animation was coming and it did become the case as soon Disney’s partnership with Pixar would create the 3D revolution in animated features. The flavor of the 2D movies from the main Disney Studios were running thin as they couldn’t compete with the Disney/Pixar movies. Eventually Walt Disney Animation Studios did acquire the skills and know how to create their own successful 3D animated movies starting with 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph which rivaled Pixar’s Brave that year and Frozen from last year. Big Hero 6 succeeds in keeping its comeback alive. The Disney/Pixar partnership is still there but it’s good to see Pixar now has a rival with Walt Disney Animation Studios back on its feet.

Big Hero 6 may not be a phenomenon like Frozen nor is it the best animated feature of the year. Nevertheless it succeeds in being entertaining on its own and is another plus in the comeback of the Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Movie Review: Lee Daniels’ The Butler

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Forest Whitaker plays a butler in The Butler who serves the White House and includes himself in history.
Forest Whitaker plays a butler in The Butler who serves the White House and includes himself in history.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is another surprise hit movie of the summer. It doesn’t feature the typical fare for what one would call a ‘summer movie.’ Actually it features more mature fair that’s meant for a release around October, November or even December. So how did it manage to become a hit this summer?

The Butler is a unique story of Cecil Gaines. Born in a cotton field, he was forced into labor by the Westfalls, a Georgia family who owned the plantation. Even though slavery was out of existence, it didn’t stop people from treating their black employees like slaves. The son raped Cecil’s mother and shot his father dead. The state’s caretaker, the mother, takes Cecil out of the farms and assigns him to be a house servant. However it would be a businessman whom encounters Cecil after he breaks into a bakery and steals a cake after running away. The businessman turns him into a successful butler who’s able to provide a good income for his wife and children. Something very rare for an African-American man to be able to do before 1960.

A breakthrough occurs when Cecil is offered a job as a butler at the White House. This is a big breakthrough for the Gaines family as they can improve their way of life. However it does not come without its prices as Gloria feels alienated from Cecil and his workaholic manner and turns to adultery. His son Louis becomes very involved with political activism and the Civil Rights Movement from restaurant sit-ins to the Black Panthers movement. That doesn’t sit well to Cecil at all to the point they fight and they don’t speak for years. His 34 year career as a butler in the White House takes some turns as he’s able to converse with the president and even influence many on how they deal with African-Americans. Cecil is also involved in other incidents such as the riots after Martin Luther King’s assassination to losing his son in the Vietnam War. The story intertwines with his career with social changes for Black America during that time period with his own family life from his childhood to his career to Obama’s inauguration.

A short while back when I was doing a Wikipedia search on the movie, I learned that this film is loosely based on Eugene Allen: an African-American butler who first served in the White House in 1952, advanced to Maitre d’Hotel in his career and finally retired in 1986. The movie admits that this is inspired by a true story rather than actually being a true story. Though one can doubt the truthfulness of the story, the script by Danny Strong does capture one’s attention and is able to mix the White House life of Cecil with moments of history and even the struggle of one family dealing with the changes and trying to make life better for themselves and for their race. It’s almost like Cecil could be labeled the ‘Black Forrest Gump.’ The relationship between Cecil and Louis also highlights the divisiveness between two generations of African Americans. One learned he had to work hard to get places. Another adopted the new attitudes of Black pride during the 60’s. The clashes between the two represent the clashes of the two generations of Black America. Lee Daniels also does a very good job of directing the movie with its complexities. This is a big move for him to go from something like Precious to something more polished. Nevertheless it’s a very good move and can allow him to replace Spike Lee as the top African American director in the business.

The actors were also excellent, especially Forest Whitaker as Cecil. I’m not sure if Forest is trying to imitate Eugene Allen or trying to make Cecil into his own character–I admit that I myself have never seen video footage of Eugene Allen–but he gave an excellent performance both in terms of the character’s personality and his aging. Oprah Winfrey also gave an excellent performance as Gloria encompassing the struggles of maintaining family unity while dealing with a husband that seems too preoccupied with success. David Oyelowo achieves a personal breakthrough here as Louis Gaines. He does a very good job of representing the new black attitude of his times in both life and personal political attitude through Louis Gaines. Supporting acting was also very good from star actors like Terrence Howard, Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Redgrave, Mariah Carey and Jane Fonda. The supporting acting performances from the lesser-known actors like Mika Kelly, Nelsan Ellis, Elijah Kelley, Clarence Williams III and Yaya da Costa were also very good and added to the ensemble cast. One thing that struck me about Yaya da Costa’s performance of Louis’ girlfriend is the Black Panthers scene where she has a big afro and admits her desire to kill. Didn’t she remind you of Angela Davis in that scene?

There’s one glitch in the movie, it’s the casting for those who portray presidents in the past. At first I thought Robin Williams as Eisenhower was a good choice but the others didn’t seem so.  John Cusack made Richard Nixon seem awfully young as did Liev Schreiber as Lyndon Johnson and James Marsden as John F. Kennedy. All three of them were at least ten years younger than the presidents they played when they assumed office. I feel the biggest miscast was Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan. Reagan had a charming personality and Reagan was not seen as charming at all in the film but rather a toughie. Makes me wonder what was with this? Was it miscasting? Or were those the ways the presidents looked to Lee Daniels or through the eyes of Cecil Gaines?

One final note of the movie. This was the scene near the end showing Obama’s election to the Presidency in 2008. I know that there has been a ton of flack given to Obama over what he’s done or what he’s failed to do as President of the United States. One thing you can’t deny is that even in the five year’s since his election, he’s still the face of hope for a race and other racial minorities. That’s one thing that can’t be taken away.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is an excellent movie worth watching. I have sometimes co-related to movie to Forrest Gump where a man is part of history. Despite some of its flaws, it was an excellent intelligent alternative to the hyped-up summer stuff and still draws audiences now.

2013 Box Office: Summer More Sizzle Than Slump

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

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The news involving the Hollywood box office for the most part has been pretty negative especially in terms of the annual total gross or all the action movie flops this summer. One thing that has been overlooked is the overall success of the summer. It actually did better than most people noticed. Or most journalists took note of.

Continuing from where I last kept track, July was actually a bigger month than most people noticed. Yes, the big news of the action flops of that month like The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim, Red 2 and R.I.P.D. What shouldn’t be overlooked were the big successes of the month like the minion power of Despicable Me 2, the goofball comedy of Grown Ups 2, suspense of The Conjuring and even the successful action-packed delivery of The Wolverine. Overlooked by most, 2013 produced the highest-grossing July ever with $1.291 billion: $20 million more than the previous July record set in 2008 and almost $220 million more than July 2012. Funny how the flops made bigger news than the successes.

August also continued the run of success for the summer of 2013. It opened with the success of 2 Guns, continued with the temporary success of Elysium, received surprise successes from We’re The Millers and Lee Daniels’ The Butler and ended on a bright note with the opening of One Direction: This Is Us. At the buzzer, August 2013 grossed $755.4 million: $16.4 million more than August 2012. 2013 is not the highest-grossing August ever as it’s been outgrossed by the Augusts of 2001 and 2007.

So if you want to give a rough estimate of comparing summers, by simply adding up the grosses from May to August of both 2013 and 2012, the summer months of 2013 grossed slightly more than $425 million more than the summer months of 2012. This is a welcome relief after the slumping of the first four months of the year. It doesn’t completely make up the deficit it had over the monthly pace of 2012’s total gross but it does help gain a lot back and reassure us that people still like to go to the movies despite how many forms of entertainment people have.

One thing is the successes and failures of 2013 can teach Hollywood a lot about shelling out movies for the public. I will admit that the news about the constant flopping of the big budget action movies did deserve to be made note of. In fact it continued with Elysium despite how good quality it was. One thing that should have also been taken note of was the low-budget successes that happened. Some of which had quite minimal expectations put on them. First example is the horror drama The Conjuring which made $136 million total all on a budget of $20 million. In fact it debuted at #1 in its opening weekend with a gross more than double its budget. Another example is the oddball comedy We’re The Millers. It never was #1 at the box office but it opened with a healthy opening weekend of $26.4 million and went onto a gross that currently stands at $132 million. This movie had to be the movie that had legs this summer. The most current example is Lee Daniels’ The Butler. That’s not your typical summer fare but it held the #1 spot during the last three weekends of the summer and just hit $100 million this weekend. Hollywood, take note.

It’s not to say that action moves were a complete dud this summer. It actually opened strong with Iron Man 3 and continued with Star Trek Into Darkness and World War Z. However the first sign that the crowd was about to tire of this genre was when Man Of Steel didn’t gross as much as hoped. Sure, $291 million is still impressive and has it as the 3rd-highest grossing movie of 2013, but more was expected. I believe that was the first sign that it would be all downhill from here for this summer’s action flicks.

What should be noted is that the biggest winners at the box office were not necessarily the action movies but the animated family movies. Iron Man 3 may have been the highest grossing movie of 2013 so far but Despicable Me 2 is the second-highest. Its Minion Power took it to a total gross of just over $359 million. Monsters University holds as the fourth-highest of 2013 with $265 million. A third animated movie, Epic, also received an impressive total gross of $107 million.

So that sums up the summer of 2013. Action-packed, animatedly-charming and surprises out of left field. For every box office dud, there were hits. The bad news of the summer action flick would lead to good news of this summer’s total gross. Hollywood should learn from this summer and prepare not simply for a better summer but a smarter-planned summer for 2014.