Topic Of The Day: Suicide Squad 2 Ideas (Part I)

Those of you who have read my review of Suicide Squad will know that I was heavily disappointed by it. However, I am still curious about the direction in which the sequel will go in. The film is already breaking box office records so a sequel is inevitable. So I figured I'd offer up my own ideas on how they should formulate the sequel. I'm going to be splitting this up into two parts. In this post, I'll talk about plot ideas and in the second, I'll suggest which new characters they could introduce.

First off, in terms of its characters, they might have to trim some fat. Out of the current Suicide Squad members, I would keep Deadshot and Harley Quinn. Captain Boomerang and Killer Croc weren't given anything to do and when you look at the long Suicide Squad roster from the comics, you'll see that the amount of characters they can introduce are endless. So they could easily give the boot to Boomerang and Killer Croc. Plus, according to The Wrap, Will Smith and Margot Robbie were two of the biggest pulls for the first film. So Warner Bros. would be wise to let Deadshot and Harley Quinn stick around along with Viola Davis' Amanda Waller who runs the Squad.

As for Rick Flagg and Katana, though, I would say keep Katana but get rid of Flagg. There is a scene where we get a glimpse of Katana's backstory and if she is brought back, there could be an opportunity for us to get to know her more. So out of all the returning characters, I would bring back Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Amanda Waller, Katana, and possibly The Joker. He basically had a glorified cameo in the first film. So I'm sure fans would want to see more of him and perhaps be the main villain.

I also want to see it become less of the Deadshot show and focus on the Squad as a whole so that there is room for more character development and synergy amongst the group. One of the first film's biggest flaws is that because most of the characters are so underdeveloped, you couldn't care less what happens to them. So when you bring in new people and/or bring back the original band of members, flesh them out more so that when or if they get killed off, you're like "Damn!"

Next, bring in an actual villain. Even though Enchantress is the main villain in the first film, she never does anything other than turn people into her minions, dance like she's on a hula hoop, and create a beaming blue light. We don't get a grand idea of what her evil plans are. So introduce a villain that has clear motivations, a memorable personality, and proves to be a possible foil for one of, if not all, the members of the Squad. Either bring in someone new or make The Joker the main villain.

Lastly, more action. Another one of the film's biggest flaws is how boring it was and how there wasn't a high octane rhythm to it like the previews suggest. A sequel is always supposed to think bigger so incorporate more action sequences and make it more high octane.

So those are my thoughts on what can be done for the inevitable Suicide Squad sequel. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading and look our for Part II soon!

Guest Review: Cafe Society (2016)

From special guest writer Keith Noakes from Keith Loves Movies

Looking for an exciting career, young Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) leaves New York for the glitz and glamour of 1930s Hollywood. After landing a job with his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), Bobby falls for Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), a charming woman who happens to be his employer's mistress. Settling for friendship but ultimately heartbroken, Bobby returns to the Bronx and begins working in a nightclub along with his brother Ben (Corey Stoll). Everything falls into place when he finds romance with a beautiful socialite named Veronica (Blake Lively), until Vonnie walks back into his life and captures his heart once again.

There aren't many writer/directors more prolific than Woody Allen. Here he is once again with another romantic-comedy set during the time of old Hollywood. The story here is about a young man named Bobby Dorfman (Eisenberg) who decides to leave New York and move to Hollywood to start a new life along with the help of his agent uncle named Phil (Carell). Once there, he falls for Phil's secretary named Vonnie (Stewart) with whom she has a secret relationship with. When their relationship falls apart, he moves back to New York to work in a nightclub with his brother Ben (Stoll). Things appear to get better for Bobby when he falls in love with a socialite named Veronica (Lively) but once Vonnie shows up again, they start to change.

In terms of Woody Allen films, this one fits the norm, so expect the usual cast of kooky characters and witty dialogue. This is most evident with Bobby himself who is just an extension of Allen. Technically Allen is speaking to us through the film but he did this the most through Bobby. While the character wasn't exactly groundbreaking, it was hard to imagine anyone other than Eisenberg playing the part as his personality just matches Allen's trademark neuroticism. Since he was the lead character, the film either succeeds or fails depending on his likeability. While he didn't quite fail, he didn't exactly succeed either. This wasn't all his fault as we was good here but we never got a real chance to get invested in him. The film used narration which was a little distracting and frequent time jumps that glossed over important plot and character development.

The film started off well enough with Carell's uncle Phil in the middle of a glitzy Hollywood party who is then interrupted by a phone call by his sister Rose (<span class="itemprop">Jeannie Berlin), telling him that his nephew Bobby was moving to Hollywood. It looked like it was going to be more about old Hollywood, perhaps in the vein of Hail, Caesar, but instead focused more on Bobby and his love life. This included his relationship with both Vonnie and Veronica. The better pairing was Bobby and Vonnie because of their chemistry. Being Eisenberg and Stewart's third film, this wasn't too hard for them as they still had it here. 

Bobby's journey was interesting but wasn't overly compelling. This was due to reasons mentioned above and the fact that the plot moved so slowly and was seemingly going nowhere which made the film feel boring for long stretches. What didn't help the film's case was that besides Bobby, Vonnie, or Phil, it was hard to care about any of the other characters as they were not interesting. While the Hollywood half was promising, it could have gone much further. Because of the unexplained time gap, the New York did not have as big an impact.

Despite the film's boring nature, the performances were good all around as Allen always seems to get the best out of his cast and the dialogue definitely doesn't hurt. The best part of the film has to be the soundtrack and the cinematography. The jazz music from the 20s and 30s was cool to listen to. The film was beautiful to look at and did a great job at capturing the time period.

Overall, the film had promise and has great pieces but just failed in its execution, leaving a pretty yet boring film.

Score: 5.5/10

For more, please visit https://keithlovesmovies.com and follow me on Twitter @keithlovemovies. 

The U.T.C.: Adepero Oduye

Chances are a lot of you may not know who Adepero Oduye is. She had a slight breakthrough with her leading turn in the frustratingly underrated 2011 film Pariah but it never made any waves. Hardly anybody saw it and the farthest the film got in the awards circuit was the Independent Spirit Awards, with a John Cassavetes Award win and a Best Female Lead nod for Oduye, who also got a shoutout from Meryl Streep at her Golden Globes speech when she won for The Iron Lady. Never hurts to get that kind of praise.

While other actresses like Felicity Jones and Elizabeth Olsen, who also had breakthroughs back in 2011, would go on to bigger things, Oduye hasn't gotten the kind of opportunities they have.

Since Pariah, she had a small role in 12 Years A Slave as the slave Eliza that the main character meets early on who has her children taken away from her. She also had another small role in The Big Short as a banker that Steve Carell's character works for. Both of those films were produced under Brad Pitt's production label Plan B. So because Hollywood is all about who you know, and Brad Pitt is never a bad person to collaborate with, perhaps he will give her a significant role for her to sink her teeth into.

On the horizon, she has the family drama The Dinner opposite Richard Gere, Rebecca Hall, and Laura Linney and directed by Oren Moverman who guided Woody Harrelson to an Oscar nomination for The Messenger. Also, she has the science fiction disaster film Geostorm opposite Gerard Butler and Abbie Cornish.

Recently, Disney announced that they'll be rebooting the 1991 cult classic The Rocketeer but with a black female lead. Personally, I think she would be a great choice for that and it could be the true "star is born" moment that Pariah should've been. Even if it doesn't get her Oscar nominated, at least people will try to learn how to pronounce her name.

Review: Suicide Squad (2016)

     Story:
     Suicide Squad follows the story of a band of supervillains: Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Killer Croc (Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje), Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), and Slipknot (Adam Beach), recruited by CIA agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to go on a mission to defeat a mystical evil that plans to threaten human existence in exchange for their freedom.

    Ups:
    The biggest saving grace within this film that I could find is Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. Granted, Viola Davis is good in everything that she's in. But she managed to salvage some life out of this mess of a film with her performance.

    With all due respect to Davis, though, the performance I was the most excited to see was Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn because it was the first time we get to see the character up on the big screen and Robbie was my personal choice for the role. She does what she can with the material she is given because Harley Quinn unfortunately isn't given a whole lot of face time due to there being too many characters to focus on.

    Also, Jay Hernandez managed to do what he could with what he was given as El Diablo and in my opinion was the co-MVP along with Viola Davis. Despite being saddled with cheap mechanisms from the script, he did his best to make it work.

    Downs:
    Yeesh, where do I begin? Well, there are way too many characters. As a result, there is a good portion that are underdeveloped with only a few given more face time than others. Will Smith is given the most face time which to me was problematic. Because he has such a big personality on-screen, I felt it overshadowed the rest of the cast. Another actor given a huge chunk of face time is Joel Kinnaman, who plays Rick Flagg, a CIA operative assigned to keep watch on the Suicide Squad and I honestly didn't think his performance was very strong.

    I also wasn't a fan of how most of the female characters were given the short end of the stick with them being hypersexualized and/or unable to exist without a male influence. If Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation were real and saw how the women were portrayed in this film, she'd have an absolute heart attack. It is nice that we have more main female characters in a superhero film than usual. I just wish they were given more dignity.

    I applaud the film in general for the representation in its cast. But I felt that there was unfortunate tokenism involved. For example, you have El Diablo, a Latino gangster covered in tattoos, Rick Flagg's mostly mute henchwoman Katana who is a mystical Asian swordswoman, and Slipknot, the token Indigenous character who (*spoiler alert*) gets killed off as soon as he gets introduced. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I love seeing representation in film. But I just don't like seeing it in this manner.

    Next is the screenplay. One thing about it I didn't like was how manipulative it was. When we learn about the backstories about some of the villains and how they had or have families, I felt it was used as a cheap ploy to gain sympathy from its audience. I know that these main characters are villains and are said to be the "worst of the worst," but they don't have to be likable to gain our attention. All they have to be is characters. Characters with personalities, development, and dignity yet half of these characters don't have any personality and I could not have cared less what happened to them.

    Lastly, for a film marketed to be so high octane and packed with action, I did not expect it to be so. damn. BORING!! Seriously, right before the big climax, I actually said to myself "What is this, a play? Let's go fight someone." Towards the end, when things start to actually kick into high gear, I could not have cared less and it's a shame because I was really looking forward to this.

    Consensus:
    Overall, Suicide Squad is a colossal disappointment filled with undignified, underdeveloped characters, a jumbled script with cheap mechanisms, and a sadly slow pace. This is the biggest disappointment I've seen all year.

Grade: D+
   

 

Review: Lights Out (2016)

      Story:
      Lights Out follows the story of a malevolent spirit that only appears whenever someone turns the lights off and haunts a disturbed family that it has mysterious ties to.

     Ups:
     Even though we've seen stories about malevolent ghosts and entities before, this one stands out because of its original concept and how it revolves a lot of humanistic drama. Even though it is rightfully marketed as a horror film, at the center of it all, it is a family drama and focuses greatly on the turbulations between the mother, played brilliantly by Maria Bello, and her daughter who is also played brilliantly by Teresa Palmer. The family dynamic between Bello and Palmer was pulled off very realistically as well as the bond between Palmer and Gabriel Martin, who plays her sibling.

     Another thing I greatly appreciated is how it gave our main villain a very detailed backstory that made her even more terrifying than the beginning where we first see it. If it wasn't given any backstory whatsoever and didn't have a reason for terrorizing the main family, it would just be yet another malevolent spirit.

     Lastly, just when you think you'll run into traditional tropes (i.e., kid sees ghost and family doesn't believe him, etc.) it'll trick you. There are hardly any cliches to be found here because there aren't much jump scares until the moment calls for it, the characters don't make dumb decisions, and while you're watching the movie, you're even constantly wondering how it'll end.

    Downs:
    NIL.

    Consensus:
    Overall, Lights Out is a rare amazing horror film that features a humanistic family drama under the guise of bone-chilling horror. It's extremely well acted, its story is inventive, and it's possible you may end up sleeping with the lights on by the time you go to sleep.

Grade: A+

Topic Of The Day: Since When Did Critical Opinion Warrant A Place On Change.Org?

So the reviews of Suicide Squad are starting to roll in and because it is getting a mixed reception, there is already a petition to get Rotten Tomatoes shut down due to critics not being in line with opinions of the moviegoing public. As somebody who has enjoyed comic book movies, I think this petition is absolutely ridiculous.

First off, the critics that are giving it negative reviews are only expressing their opinions. It is their job to critique movies and influence the public, telling them what to see and what not to see. Also, it's not like they're completely biased against comic book movies. They'll like them if they are well made movies like Captain America: Civil War, The Dark Knight, and X-Men which all did receive a positive reception. If you don't agree with their opinion, then that's fine. But there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for you to chastise or punish them for it while you have free reign to express your own opinion and say that it's better. It's a double standard.

Another reason this petition is frustrating is because Suicide Squad hasn't even come out yet. The majority of the moviegoing public hasn't even seen the movie to judge for themselves and they are already up in arms about the reviews. To all you DC fanatics that may be reading this, I say give me a goddamn break!!

On a side note, with the backlash towards critics after the reception of both this and Batman v. Superman, the DC Universe fanatics are starting to ruin the DC films for me and frankly, I think they're going to alienate a lot of people who aren't normally comic book fans but enjoy watching superhero films.

We've never heard anything about Marvel fans being up in arms when critics turn savage towards Marvel movies. But I think that's because Marvel happens to make better films. Now, they don't always make great films because I thought Avengers: Age of Ultron was terribly disappointing and Thor: The Dark World was anemic and torturous to sit through. So if a Marvel film ends up being a stinker, I will openly say so because it is my personal opinion because I do not go along with what everyone else says. Plus, as a Marvel fan, I'm likely not going to see Doctor Strange. So there you go.

But to everyone that is reading this that still wants to go see Suicide Squad despite its mixed buzz, I say you should not only go but go and judge it only for yourself. Go in with an open mind and don't go along with what everyone else is saying by the time the movie ends. Formulate your own opinion and judge for yourself.

Anyways, those were my thoughts on the petition to shut down Rotten Tomatoes. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel free to write your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

The U.T.C.: Isla Fisher

Back in 2005, we saw the release of a film called Wedding Crashers which was a box office hit that certified Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as comedic stars and even helped thrust Rachel McAdams into the spotlight. But for me, the real shining star was Isla Fisher who made her big breakthrough as Gloria, the nymphomaniac bridesmaid who falls a little too in love with Vince Vaughn's character Jeremy.

As Gloria, Fisher shows an uncanny ability to turn on a dime as she can be hypersexualized one minute and then go completely berserk the next. She can give an animalistic, primal look and then get into a girlish glee. Even if the film doesn't make me laugh a minute whenever I watch it, Fisher's performance still elevates it. Not that there was ever going to be a campaign for her, but she deserved at least a Best Supporting Actress nomination that year. Though of course, those of us that follow the Oscars know they have a love-hate relationship with comedies. They'll have no issue awarding a comedic performance in a dramatic movie (i.e, Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain, etc.) but it's rare for them to nominate a funny performance in a funny movie.

Since Wedding Crashers, though, Isla Fisher has worked consistently. But she hasn't really gotten a role that has reached the same memorable heights as her Gloria. Then again, maybe she's one of those performers who is content with just being a working actress like Emily Blunt, Rose Byrne, and Rachel McAdams. I've read quotes from those actresses that suggest they're happy with how their careers are.

This year, though, she gets to play the female lead in the spy comedy Keeping Up With The Joneses opposite Zach Galifianakis, Gal Gadot, and Jon Hamm while starring in the ensemble drama Nocturnal Animals for director Tom Ford who guided Colin Firth to an Oscar nomination for A Single Man. Who knows how Nocturnal Animals will play to the Academy. But even if they don't, here's hoping she gets recognized somewhere down the line.