My Film Review of "The Amazing Spider-Man 2"

Last week my college's newspaper published my final review and piece for them with this review of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was not a very amazing movie. If anyone thought my Divergent review got harsh, well, then here is an even less kind take-down. Good movies hopefully will be forthcoming and I plan to review some here, so please stick with me.

Game of Thrones: "The Laws of Gods and Men"

** Spoilers Below: **

Following the death of Joffrey, Vulture published an article entitled "So Who on Game of Thrones Am I Supposed to Hate?" Yes, it was intended somewhat jokingly, but it also pointed to an interesting piece of audience identification and reception that had us so heavily despising that character. 

Game of Thrones, in part due to the unique storytelling structure of the books, likes playing around with perspective and who we identify with. The really interesting thing though is how there is essentially no major character who the series chooses to have us not sympathize or identify with. It’s a tact taking place on The Americans as well where the shifting point of view has us rooting for the Soviets one moment and the Americans the next, and ultimately no one is really the villain so much as the system. 

The interesting thing is that this leads to a constant moral fluidity that makes us have few bearings to ground us. The show crafted a moral center in Ned before decapitating it and then suggested a new one in Robb before pulling out the rug once again. Now, who the fuck do we place our chips with when the cards are down?

One of the major driving narrative questions of the show, one that has become increasingly obsolete as the show has progressed, is who will end up on the throne when all is said and done. The show keeps defaulting to this sense that there’s always someone vying for the throne, but it also is simultaneously flippant about it. It matters but it’s really just a convenient engine to churn out conflict after conflict. There will always be someone who hopes to steal the throne away. It’s precisely this reason that Tywin is constantly scrambling to settle one problem after another (But more on that later).

The first two-thirds of “The Laws of Gods and Men” concerns itself with the major figures who could throw a kink in Lannister hegemony. We start with Stannis and Davos asking the Iron Bank in Braavos for money to fuel their war efforts. Stannis is the big current threat. He has a pretty good claim to the throne and with Lannister control faltering enemies are just waiting to come out of the woodwork to throw out there support behind someone else. 

Stannis gets put through the motions by the board of directors (played here by Mark Gatiss, best known for his work on Doctor Who), and we see Stannis, no matter how powerful he may believe himself to be, forced to bow before power that exists in more than just name alone. It’s a funny moment when Stannis sits down frustrated and impatient. “Power is where you stand,” Davos insightfully notes; he makes a passionate case for a Stannis victory being more than simply a pipe dream. Who has the power: the man who would be king, the man who bankrolls him, the sell-sword, such as Salladhor Saan, who fights the battle, or perhaps a man like Davos who can coordinate all of them?

Dany is also finding herself powerless as she searches for greater control, but in her case it’s by her own choice. Dany’s slave uprising was exciting but it was also just a little too full of itself. A few episodes ago Tywin noted there was a difference between gaining power and ruling, and Dany is learning that the hard way. She is incapable of controlling her dragons and she discovers that the symbolic act of crucifying Mereen’s slave-owners was not the simple black and white act she assumed it to be. The Masters, as these officials are called in Mereen, were not a monolithic evil but were a complex group with their pluses and minuses.  

Yara also makes a bid for Iron Island power by trying to save her brother Theon. But she learns that Theon is too forgone to be saved. Theon is no more; in his place is the weak and servile Reek who obeys the commands of no one but Ramsay Snow. Theon, to me, is one of the most interesting cases of shifting audience reception and identification. Theon has always been pitiable, but his actions against the Starks, his adoptive family, turned him into a slightly despicable character. Theon’s torture seems intended as a plot device to recalibrate our empathy towards the character. It begins as a punishment for his actions but goes past the point where it feels like justice is being served and plays against our desire to see retribution (Perhaps you disagree, I’ve already heard countering arguments and I’d love to hear more). 

The Boltons also represent a threat to the crown; as their ambitions continue to grow, how can we be certain their desires will be satiated? Anyone who you make an ally could very easily turn into your biggest threat eventually. The Tyrells and Martells are precariously perched in such a position for the Lannisters, and the Starks are already preexisting proof of this. 

Interestingly enough we don’t get any scenes with Littlefinger who seems to be a another strong example of this. But we do get his doppleganger better half Varys. In a great scene, Varys makes clear his intentions to Oberyn that his ultimate desires lie with the thrown. Bryan Cogman’s script wisely leaves the implications of the gesture ambiguous but it’s just enough of a hint to remind us that Varys is a bigger power play than he is often given credit. Director Alik Sakharov creates one of the best shots of the episode, placing the throne suggestively in the background between Varys and Oberyn. The throne is what stands in between not just these two but really everyone.

The buildup of the episode leads to the long sequence of Tyrion’s trial. Yet again the show benefits enormously from letting this final sequence have a little extra screentime, and it uses it to draw out both how much of a kangaroo court this is and how thoroughly, tragically Tyrion is being dragged through the mud. The episode ends with this storyline because its set at King’s Landing. While the rest of the episode details how contenders for the throne are faring, this sequence reminds us once more that Lannister power is really waning. 

Consider for a moment that Tywin essentially manipulates this whole situation to his own benefit. He allows the trial to be an awful, transparent sham because it will force out Tyrion as his heir. In turn, this will necessitate Jaimie stepping down from the Kingsguard, where he’s technically supposed to be celibate, so that he can become Tywin’s heir, the one he thinks he deserves. It’s some fuck-up politicking, ruthless and cold. But it also has the faintest whiff of desperation. 

Indeed, every person who comes to testify against Tyrion has clearly been paid off or holds a grudge against him. The judges are rigged as well. Mace Tyrell is a non-entity, and Oberyn is the only one who appears to have the remotest (and it feels very remote at that) interest in some worthwhile inquiry. 

And then there’s the real kicker: Shae is brought in as a witness against Tyrion. Why? Perhaps due to resentment towards Tyrion for how he treated her, sending her away. Perhaps she was threatened with death, or, worse, paid off. The why and how of it matter far less here than the effect it produces. It’s a devastating moment. In the show, Tyrion and Shae, in their own weird way, were one of the healthiest, strongest couples, and to have her betray him like this pushes Tyrion over the edge. 

Jaimie had maneuvered (or, at least, he believes he did, when really Tywin had intended this all along) to have Tyrion sent to the Wall rather than be sent to death. But Tyrion is tired of what’s really on trial here, the fact that he’s a dwarf. He righteously lashes out, a powerful moment for how it cuts through all of the false modesty and bullshit of the courtly politics. 

Tyrion calls for trial by combat. Let the gods decide he says; their laws have to be better than the ones men have made. Inside King’s Landing those laws created this ludicrous charade and outside they allow for the people of the kingdoms to starve and suffer while war wages, for sadistic people like Ramsay to ruin them and naïve ones like Dany to add to their ache further. 

In a place where being responsible for saving the lives of thousands is still met with the enthusiastic desire for summary execution, how can we want any of these people to gain power? Game of Thrones tempts us time and again with people who could be a good rulers, putting them into a position to wield power before taking it away from them or undermining it. But, again, don’t get mad at the people; the medieval world of Westeros has created a socio-political system that is designed so that no one who probably should have power ever gets it. That’s why the shifting perspective matters. It not only muddies up the morality, but it turns everyone into a victim, even often when they’re being the victimizer.

Stray Thoughts:

-Apparently, Tywin is 67 years old, which is also as it turns out Charles Dance’s age in real life. He’s in pretty good shape despite what Davos says about his virility. 

-Yara’s soldiers marching on the Dreadfort is intercut with shots of Ramsay getting it on. The intended meaning, I think, relates to Theon’s manhood being sent as gift to Yara. You do the rest of the math as far as intent there.

-“My brother is dead.” Gemma Whelan is excellent in that moment, and it makes me wish we got to spend more time with Yara. A really interesting, underutilized character.

-Mace Tyrell as a total idiot is an easy joke but the show hasn’t leaned on it all that much so I still find it very entertaining. Watching him bumble in his efforts to please Tywin at the small council meeting was delightful. 

-Pycelle is also another reliably amusing character, and he hasn’t been called upon for a while now. He seemed like he would be a much bigger deal back in season one but little has come of it.

-I really liked the moment where the small council acknowledges and discusses the growing threat of Dany. It makes these characters seem less oblivious and dumb (as they would need to avoid being to maintain control of the crown), and it also makes the world of the show feel lived-in. 

-Another important point regarding perspective: everything recounted about Tyrion actually happened but is placed completely out of context. Perspective is crucial on this show.

Grade: A-

"The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw" (1958)

Jayne Mansfield made a career out of playing up the fact she was a knock-out platinum blonde. Like her contemporary Marilyn Monroe she was essentially always playing herself, or at least a highly fictionalized version of herself. Mansfield was playing to and against what we expected, never merely a “dumb blonde”, but certainly always a type.

Mansfield’s roles all essentially involved her playing what amounts to a cartoon character. But that’s entirely part of what makes them entertaining. In The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw, Mansfield is a feisty, savvy saloon owner who represents the warm-hearted vulgarity of the United States at its most raw and wonderful. 

Mansfield’s blunt Americanism is set against Kenneth Moore’s prim-and-proper English gentleman Jonathan Tibbs, and the film’s pleasures derive from putting Tibbs deep into one fish-out-of-water situation after another. 

Jonathan is a stuck-in-the-clouds employee of his family’s firm, which sells professional firearms. When business subsides on the opposite side of the Atlantic, Jonathan begins looking across the ocean to make a bold business venture. The Wild American West is full of lawless gun fighting and thus, Jonathan believes, is a perfect market to get in on.

When he arrives stateside, Jonathan is beyond being out of his depth, but he is so good-natured and sincere that he constantly unwittingly solves problems with a Mr. Magoo-like zen-beauty. Indians attack his caravan and he simply steps out to negotiate peace with them, and succeeds – on accident and without any awareness it was on accident. Jonathan is thoroughly optimistic and chipper and every American is so bone-deep cynical that his hopefulness can’t help but win out by the laws of Hollywood film logic. His earnest bumbling indvertedly leads to him being made the sheriff of the town, a fact completely, ironically at odds with how little Jonathan knows about using the guns he is out to sell. 

The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw is a slight, slightly under-baked film. Howard Dimsdale's script often time doesn’t seem to have enough material to warrant a feature film length. Anytime the plot moves forward the film creaks under the minor herculean effort it takes to be anything more than a highly charming trifle. The film also falls into groaning, groan-inducing territory when it turns Native Americans into some of the supporting live-action cartoon characters on its roster (though they’re admirable ones; so there’s that!). It’s a weird representational issue where it’s not exactly offensive (it’s even oddly progressive in its way), but it reads really weird (It’s trying to be smarter than it actually is, but it just comes off politically incorrect).

The film looks to skewer Western film conventions in an almost similar, but far, far tamer and less successful, manner to Blazing Saddles. When it finds time for the elasticity of a cartoon world there are some laughs to be found. Like a Saturday morning animated feature, there is a nice, silly, inviting space created by The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw that is warm and friendly if a little fleeting and forgettable.  

Grade: B- 

My Film Review of "Divergent"

I recently wrote a review of the film Divergent for my college's newspaper. While it may seem like I may have harsh on the film (which I think as long as you are civil you can never be), I feel like I hit upon the fact that it was not devoid of bright spots, including another fine turn from Shailene Woodley.

Game of Thrones: "First of His Name"

 Spoilers Below:

 “Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls.” - Cersei

“First of His Name” begins on the crowning ceremony of Tommen Baratheon, the titular first of his name getting officially made king. But the episode quickly shifts focus; the opening scene isn’t about a new male taking power, but rather it’s about the woman behind the man, the true source of power here, Margaery.

It’s a moment that emphasizes what “First of His Name” will really be about: the place of women in society. And the episode keeps reiterating through different variations what life is like for women in Westeros (and Essos as well) and the continual answer is that it’s pretty terrible. 

The theme of the episode is admittedly a little more nuanced then that though. Director Michelle MacLaren keeps pushing the camera out, showing characters as specks on the horizon. It places them as small and helpless, and a little daunted. But MacLaren does something else; she keeps framing people in doorways and arches, suggesting they’re trapped and boxed in. It’s an image that’s highly fitting for the women of this world. No matter how great they are as part of the system, at playing it to their advantage, they’re still limited by their gender. 

The central throughline of the episode is the two characters and stories we keep coming back to, Cersei and Sansa's. These characters are very different individuals and they’re in rather different circumstances, but both find themselves hitting a wall. 

After claiming power for so long, Cersei is forced to concede power and authority to other people in hopes that she can gain leverage later. We see Cersei go to Margaery and for once act if not kindly, at least diplomatically. Cersei realizes that with the precarious position the Lannisters are in that she needs to sacrifice what she wants a little bit to create some stability. So she offers Margaery the marriage to Tommen and the position of queen. Cersei also gives into the demands of her father to marry Loras, after long refusing to. Both acts secure the power of her family but at the cost of her own power. 

Sansa has even less options than Cersei. Sansa arrives at the Eyrie with Littlefinger pretending to be his niece. In short order her aunt Lysa has married Littlefinger, who is so clearly manipulating her for his own gain and none of the happiness she assumes. Lysa has lost a few marbles. Not only does she admit to poisoning her former husband John Arynn at Littlefinger’s request, but she also jealously accuses Sansa of sleeping with Littlefinger. Lysa has been worked over by a man taking advantage of his male privilege.

Outside of these storylines the episode stops in briefly on a number of other female characters. What we end up seeing is a spectrum of women, powerful and powerless. 

Dany takes power in Mereen but discovers there’s consequences to upsetting the power structure in Slaver’s Bay. Against the advice of her male counselors to head to Westeros and take the throne, she, instead, decides to stay in Mereen and prove she’s capable as a ruler. 

Brienne takes having Poderick as her squire as an insult, a gesture suggesting she’s incapable of handling being a knight. Poderick slowly grows on her as he tells her of the time he saved Tyrion’s life at the Battle of Blackwater. Brienne is hesitant to accept Poderick because she has experienced too many men judging her for her choice to be a warrior and this will hang over Brienne always; she’s a woman doing something people believe is suitable only for a man. 

Ditto Arya, who the Hound catches practicing her "water dancing", something not very lady-like masquerading as something that is. When the Hound knocks down Arya it stands in for him beating down all the aspirations of females in this world.

And that’s why so much of what happens in that last sequence of the episode greatly matters. 

First we get a dark, painful scene where the mutineers threaten to rape Meera. It’s the situation of women of this world in a nutshell. All women are seen as good for is satisfying the desires and whims of men. They’ve deprived Meera of agency and a right to herself and her body. Jojen, Hodor and Bran look on aghast not just because terrible things are about to happen to their friend but because they also are unable to assert their masculine dominance. Being tied captive has deprived them of what they believe is their male duty, that chivalric calling, to defend the lady, when in fact we know if Meera weren’t tied up she would be plenty capable of defending herself. 

That’s why we ultimately get a female beating the Big Bad and not Jon Snow. It’s a moment of female agency being asserted in an episode structured so that we get countless moments of females being denied agency until this instance. After being abused and mistreated for so long by Craster and other men, Craster’s wives (note the language I even have to use to describe them) stand up for themselves. Given the opportunity to go with Jon and the other Watch members they decline. “Burn it down,” one of them says in regards to Craster’s Keep (What’s the expression: a man’s home is his castle). They’ve burnt down the symbol of patriarchy they’ve been trapped in for so long. And damn it feels righteous.

Stray Thoughts:

-A moment of dark comic beauty: Sansa lying in her bed hearing her aunt scream loudly while having sex.

-Another very funny moment: the Hound complaining about Arya reciting her death list before bedtime. Followed by her adding him as the last name to the list.

-Sansa doesn't ever catch a break; she's being forced to wed her dweeby younger nephew Robin.

-Tywin again provides us with more murmurs of the power of the Iron Bank which the kingdom is apparently in serious debt to. Take note of this for later I suppose. Also, the Lannister's stopped mining gold about three years ago. All their talks of always paying their debts is apparently for show.

-In a weird moment of sort-of-kindess, Tywin admits he sympathizes with Cersei's lack of feelings for Loras ... but he still will see her marry him.

-We also get that kind of clarity from Cersei who confesses that Joffrey was a monster to Margaery.

-There's a bumbly, adorable charm to Poderick. He may not be Jaimie but give him a chance Brienne!

Grade: A

"Saturday Night Fever" (1977)

Watching Saturday Night Fever I was reminded of how much Italian American youth culture has changed (some would say declined) and yet how much of it remains the same. Specifically I was regarding it in terms of something that likely, and thankfully, doesn’t spring immediately to mind: The Jersey Shore.

On the face Saturday Night Fever is more evenhanded and the cultural niche it represents isn’t nearly as much a sad caricature. The film also gives a greater sense of classiness. There isn’t grinding here; this is disco and it is a dance form and mating ritual that requires skill and knowledge. The courtship patterns revolve around your ability to prove your dancing capability. 

But this is still of the same working class milieu as that oft denigrated series, and there’s an almost anthropological quality to the film. The film is a wonderful slice of Italian American culture: The heavy Catholic conservatism, the devotion to traditional gender roles, the working class sense of pride and machismo. 

Casual racism and sexism are tacitly accepted. Latin Americans are frequently disparaged and racial slurs are muttered under the breath constantly (The great irony of Italians being assimilated into American culture is their adoption of the behavior once aimed towards them). Tony and his friends are good old boys out skirt chasing. “What did you say your name was?” one guy asks after a hook-up, and it establishes this group’s feelings towards the opposite sex. Tony and his friends are dismissive of women if they’re not fulfilling their desires or acting as trophies.  

Tony (John Travolta) is the protagonist here and what sets him apart is a constant awareness of how lousy this life he is living is. He is not content like his friends; he recognizes how confining being stuck in Brooklyn is, and he desperately wishes to escape to Manhattan. He has a job at a paint store where he has security and he is well-liked even when he is a bit flakey. Tony’s only escape from reality is dancing and it matters more to him than anything else. “You make it with one of these chicks and they think you’ve got to dance with them,” he says.  

Tony’s awareness of how trapped he is doesn’t make his behavior forgivable but a through-line of the plot, and what enriches it, is how Tony comes to realize how wrong-headed his beliefs are, especially towards women. Tony and his boys see women as objects, but when Tony falls for Stephanie (Karen Gorney), a woman who isn’t immediately head-over-heels for him, he has to change his tact, and when his smooth operating fails in a pathetic act of desperation he half-heartedly tries to rape her (a plot-line that the film sadly doesn't resolve as fully as it probably should and that dovetails with another later, highly uncomfortable sex scene that borders on rape).

Most people forget these darker elements lurking in the film. What sticks in the mind are the dance numbers set to the best of the Bee Gees. The dances are electrifying and director John Badham shoots them so that we feel the raw passion and satisfaction of the performers; this is the only time they feel truly alive. The camerawork often has the swagger of Tony, subjectively taking on his perspective and turning his love for this lifestyle into our love for it. But when his regrets arrive, they become our regrets as well (and we start to realize them far in advance of him).

Saturday Night Fever’s pleasure derives, in part, from luxuriating in the environment of Italian American culture but what remains remarkable is its willingness to show all the nitty-gritty, awful and (as an Italian American myself I can admit) largely true details.   

Grade: B+

"The Pantom of the Opera" (1925)

I’ve always found that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s interpretation of The Phantom of the Opera presents the story all wrong. Webber romanticizes what is an inherently horrific story. Webber’s music provides the opera aspect of the title but it overlooks the ugliness of the story. The Phantom isn’t a tragic figure; he’s a pathetic one. 

Take the casting for the 2004 film adaption which horribly miscasts the part with Gerard Butler, a romantic leading man (with a hilariously misplaced Scottish brogue). He’s swooning and to die for, but it misunderstands what makes the character so fascinating. He is uncomfortably obsessed with and darkly possessive of Christine, the second-string opera singer he becomes fixated on. 

The original silent adaption understood far better the disturbing nature of the narrative and it aims for creepy, unsettling horror. The film has no shortage of melodrama but it also wishes to fuck with your head far more than your heart (The non-horror bits are almost perfunctory). Lon Chaney, “the man of a thousand faces,” easily slips into the role and the film doesn’t try to hide the sinisterness of the figure and his actions. The make-up and costume design of the Phantom are excellent, aimed for maximum ghoulishness. 

And that’s what the Phantom is: a ghoul, a ghost, an individual who is haunting and haunted (heck, it’s right there in his self-appropriated title).  For the first third of the film the Phantom is spoken of in cautious whisper; his presence a suggestion and his shadowy demeanor emphasized by sets and lighting of an exquisite Gothic design. The film imbibes lessons learned from the art design of German Expressionism, especially in the underground lairs and chambers underneath the Paris Opera House.  

The modern horror of shock value and excessive blood may leave us numb and potentially incapable of being frightened by The Phantom of the Opera. Its horror is psychological, of slowly building dread and gloomy, potent imagery. The Phantom’s relationship with Christine is one of psychodrama. When he lures her, hypnotizing her to come to the decaying underground world, she chillingly calls him “Master”. The Phantom believes he can convince her to love him like he loves her (though what he feels is not love, but a manic fixation).

On a smaller but crucial note: There’s something slightly sexist in what takes place. Christine is not a fully realized character, and she is torn between a mad man and a boring chivalric hero coming to her rescue. Both men claim their goals from a place of male privilege; they’re figures of patriarchy at its most self-serving and self-righteous. That might sound like me picking too hard at the threads of something marked by its era, but it matters:  the Phantom does what he does because he feels it is what society owes to him. 

Webber’s version may have, in some ways, become the standard version of the film, but so much of what Webber visually takes comes from the silent original: the falling chandelier, the winding hidden corridors (In deed, almost everything underground), the eerie mask (though later versions reduce the facial area covered), etc. It might seem ironic that a film about opera can’t actually make us hear any opera music. But that music might just be distracting. What carries over is all the heightened emotion of opera, the grandeur of sentiments offered. Operas are larger than life and The Phantom of the Opera paints on a similarly large canvas as well, turning intimate terrors into grandiose nightmares. 

Grade: A-