Some films I watched recently: Ed Wood, Saving Mr. Banks, Shazam!, Aladdin, and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Ed Wood (1994) is not my first viewing, I’ve seen it many times.
It’s about the passion of ‘the worst film director of all time,’ and I’d say the best Tim Burton film – as well as best Johnny Depp one – if not his second best (debatable between Edward Scissorhands (1990)).
Even though it is based on a real person, the film is directed as if it’s a fantasized 50s flick. One shouldn’t expect a documentary in a film like this, and Ed Wood is a great example of how much it doesn’t have to be true to history (other similar films like Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) could have been more fictional for the sake of better storytelling for all I care). The casting, acting, cinematography, and writing are all perfect. Recommended for any creator. 10/10.
Saving Mr. Banks (2013) is also about filmmaking, a crash between P. L. Travers, the original author of Mary Poppins and Walt Disney. The story looks sanitised a bit on the Disney’s part, but they are do not shy away from his negative side either.
The two most interesting things for me were the heavy use of flashbacks, and Colin Farrell as a troubled father. The first was because I was sick of flashbacks in Captain Marvel (2019), which had almost convinced me it’s a cheap trick to spoon-feed relevant emotion or information that never works.
This film proved me wrong. Colin Farrell also acted as a father in Dumbo (albeit with a physical problem, not temper), who was not good at all. If you want to see how much directors affect actors regardless of their acting skills, I recommend watching these two films.
It is harder to recommend to everyone since it assumes you have seen Mary Poppins (1964), but I give it 8.5/10.
And I have a feeling that Saving Mr. Banks understands Mary Poppins way more than Mary Poppins Returns (2018) does (I haven’t seen that one yet).
Shazam! (2019). It was just as funny as the trailer promised, and has more emotional drive than I expected. The protagonist is an orphan who gets adopted by a foster family, and the family drama is good. The hero is played by Zachary Levi, who looks just like Jimmy Fallon, and the antagonist is played by Mark Strong, who looks just like Stanley Tucci.
It’s quite funny but also dramatic when it wants to, and really cheesy when it wants to. It feels like a very good ’90s superhero film – in comparison, a bad example is Venom (2019).
I think Shazam! may be the best work of the director so far (David F Sandberg, who only did a few horror films). And this original Captain Marvel is a far superior film than Marvel’s Captain Marvel. 8.5/10.
Aladdin (2019) is an awful live action adaptation of the beloved animated film, with Will Smith being the best part of the whole thing.
I guess his appearance in the trailer was so shocking that everyone else flew under the radar (Jafar and Iago were the worst offenders).
Changes and additions to the original did not work on their own. Among the live action adaptations, Aladdin isn’t as bad as Beauty And the Beast, Dumbo, or the Alice films. Having said that, the original is far more worth your time. 5⁄10
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) is a drastic tonal shift from the 2014 version. It’s tonally closest to the ’90s Japanese Godzilla movies and I appreciate as a fan how much fan service the creators mixed in this film.
It also listened to the criticism of the last one, which was that there wasn’t enough Godzilla and the human drama was weak. The former was overcompensated yet not lit, coloured, framed, or edited well enough that it quickly became dull. The human part was worse, and pretty much everyone was there to give expository dialogue.
Among the three MonsterVerse films we’ve gotten so far, this Godzilla is probably the worst one (though they’re still very good by Japanese Godzilla standards). 7⁄10.
—toshi omagari
Flommist Toshi Omagari fights many things, most recent of which is the auto-correction of his title to florist. Copyright © 2019 Toshi Omagari.
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