This week, CJ’s in conversation with writer/director Paul Taylor and producer Alex Megaro of Driftwood, which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative at Slamdance this year. Also, Bernard chimes in to share his thoughts on this weekend’s gigantic release, Batman v Superman. We all know by now that the Zack Snyder-directed superhero mash-up hasn’t been received well by critics, but Bernard breaks down exactly what goes wrong in this woefully misguided missed opportunity of a blockbuster.

Topics

• Indie Pick (1:32)
• Batman v Superman (5:02)
• Paul Taylor and Alex Megaro talk Driftwood (18:46)

Articles Referenced

• Driftwood Review
• Spinning Plates Review
• Batman v Superman Review

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Like Paul Bunyan, Bigfoot, and Pecos Bill, the heroes and villains of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are more mythical than super, writing a new page in American folklore as they split the skies with each thunderous blow. Director Zack Snyder‘s approach to DC’s now timeless characters is apt—few modern myths stand taller than Batman and Superman—but, as usual, the Watchmen and Man of Steel director gets lost in the grandeur, delivering a solemn, overly studied, slog of a movie.

The super-brawl promised in the movie’s title is as spectacular as anyone could have dreamed, but before we reach the main event melee, there’s a two-hour-long preliminary bout that sees Snyder pitted in a sweaty grappling match against complex themes of ideology and theology. Spoiler: he loses. Consequently, we lose too. By the time Batman and Superman (and a few surprise guests) get all bashy-bashy, stabby-stabby, we’re bored to tears by Snyder’s glorified lecture on man v god.

Henry Cavill returns as alien do-gooder Superman, who, at the story’s outset, is the subject of worldwide debate. His city-levelling battle with General Zod (Michael Shannon) at the end of Man of Steel cost the lives of thousands, calling into question whether his actions were justified and whether his presence on earth is a benefit or detriment to the future and well-being of mankind. Some see him as a messiah; others, an omnipotent pariah who could reduce our planet to dust should we refuse to bow down.

One man who has no plans of kneeling to “the Superman” is billionaire brooder Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). One of the buildings decimated by Superman and Zod was Wayne Enterprises, which toppled right in front of Bruce’s eyes, hundreds of his employees’ lives blinked out in what some would call “collateral damage.” It’s a tragedy that haunts Bruce almost as much as the memory of losing his parents to a mugger in that classic alleyway scene we all know so well from countless movie, comic book, and TV iterations of the Batman origin story (which Snyder mercifully zips through in the opening credits). The story picks up 18 months later, with the Bat keeping a watchful eye on the bulletproof Kryptonian as he patrols the skies, above all men and above the law.

Bruce and the rest of Superman’s detractors are given more fuel to feed their fire when more lives are lost during a rescue of his beloved Lois Lane (Amy Adams). A reactionary congressional hearing is held, calling for him to appear in court to consider the consequences and ethicality of his actions. As fear and paranoia surrounding the continue to spread, tech genius Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) offers a solution to the world’s Superman problem in the form of Kryptonite weaponry. All he needs is to get his hands on a chunk of the extraterrestrial rock, but his political maneuverings to do so are blocked by Senator June Finch (Holly Hunter, unexpectedly one of the movie’s strongest assets). As Superman is increasingly viewed as more of a threat than a savior, however, Luthor’s scheme begins to fall more easily into place.

For what seems like ages, Snyder and writers David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio bat around big ideas like the ever-evolving nature of homeland security and, most predominantly, the fraught relationship between man and god. The movie’s got the “god” part down: Batman, Superman, and the debuting Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot, a delightfully entertaining ass-kicker) come across as all-powerful goliaths, striking the most epic superhero poses this critic has ever seen (Snyder’s signature slo-mo, while as excessively implemented as ever, lends itself to characters of this magnitude).

As for the “man” half of the “man v god” thing, the movie drops the ball with an earth-shattering thud. The story’s obsessed with outlining the principles and lofty motivations of its heroes and villains without giving us a sense of what they are like as people. We’re so drowned in doom and gloom and planet-sized moral quandaries that we have no real grasp on what these heroes are actually fighting for. Clark’s got Lois and his mother Martha (a returning Diane Lane), and Bruce has got his butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons) and the memory of his parents, but all of these side characters are presented more as plot devices and pawns rather than living, breathing, relatable people. Snyder paints in such broad strokes that the nuances and details of our world are lost in the monstrous swirl of dark, folkloric imagery and ham-fisted dialogue.

When Batman and Superman finally fight, it’s so brutal and well-staged and irresistibly geeky that, while it doesn’t make up for the disastrous bulk of the movie that preceded it, it at least wakes us up from our stupor. Things get even better when Wonder Woman arrives to help them fight the Big Bad that eventually arrives to crash the party, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying the hell out of the climactic battle. If there’s a criticism, it’s that much of the dichotomous intrigue of Batman and Superman’s comic book confrontations is lost. When the two have battled on the page, the hook is that Superman should be able to crush Batman, but the fact that Bruce Wayne is not a good person (and is willing to cheat to win) gives him an unexpected edge. In the movie, Bruce is indeed a bad person; problem is, Clark doesn’t seem to be one either. He acts decidedly un-heroic on several occasions, flexing his super powers with a smug smirk on his face as he tosses Bats around like a ragdoll.

The character work is flawed all around, but this incarnation of Lex Luthor is the most confusing of the bunch. He’s more of a lunatic manchild cut from the same cloth as classic Bat-villain The Riddler than the imposing intellectual bully we’ve seen in the past. Is that a good thing? Sometimes. Eisenberg puts on a good, charismatic performance, and his wiry frame is an interesting visual juxtaposition to the heroes’ bulky physiques. But a part of me would rather have a supervillain who’s more menacing and less of a mischievous meddler.

Batman v Superman is a bonafide letdown, but the blame doesn’t rest on the shoulders of the actors. Everyone’s game and looks great, especially Cavill and Affleck, who are both black belts in the art of chin-jutting, come-at-me-bro machismo. Adams, Lane, and Irons are invaluable as they try valiantly to ground the story in some sense of realism. But alas, the script doesn’t give them enough room to work (the movie’s 153 minutes, for goodness sake). If the aim was to offer a more mature, “serious” superhero experience than Marvel Studios’ Avengers movies, Snyder and his team overachieved; this is as cynical, depressing, and emotionally hollow a blockbuster as we’ve seen in some time, a filmic representation of the adulthood misery that’s pushed the wonder of childhood fantasies out of the hearts of crotchety old-timers everywhere. Surely we were meant to have more fun than this.

Guy Ritchie’s never had a problem with making his movies look good. His latest, retro spy-thriller reboot The Man From U.N.C.L.E., is arguably his slickest looking movie yet. He has trouble, though, when indulging in the pleasures of his eye-popping imagery just isn’t enough to sustain our interest. It’s a magic act: he’s showing us flashy, amazing things to distract us from the fact that his (recent) movies are, at their core, typical franchise cash grabs that don’t really mean or say anything interesting. But as long as he can keep us enthralled with his stylish visual tricks, who’s to say we can’t go home happy, buzzing with ignorant bliss?

As a late-summer action romp, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is easy-peasy viewing. It’s fast, it’s fun, and it’s brimming with attitude. The television show on which it’s based ran from 1964-68 and starred Robert Vaughn as American secret operative Napoleon Solo, and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, his Soviet counterpart. It piggybacked on the burgeoning popularity of James Bond at the time, and while Ritchie’s movie does the same, it simultaneously—and more enthusiastically—capitalizes on the current trendiness of mod ’60s attitude and fashion brought on largely by the sucess of Mad Men.

Taking Vaughn’s place as Solo is Superman himself, Henry Cavill; filling in for McCallum is the beastly but dapper Armie Hammer. The movie opens in East Berlin, with our two heroes at odds. Solo recruits a car mechanic named Gaby (Ex Machina‘s Alicia Vikander) to aid the Americans in shutting down a Nazi crime ring with plans of nuclear world dominance. She’s a gifted mechanic, but what Solo’s interested in is her lineage: her uncle is affiliated with the bad guys, and her father’s a nuclear physicist who’s been captured by them. Before they can skedaddle and hop the Berlin wall to rejoin Solo’s extraction team, they’re intercepted by Kuryakin, who pursues them in a brisk, high-speed Road Runner chase through the moonlit Berlin streets.

Before long, Solo and Kuryakin are informed by their respective superiors that they’re to work together in bringing down the terrorists. They’re contrasting personalities make it hard for them to shed their adversarial attitudes, but Gaby does her best to ease the tension. Kuryakin’s a staunch patriot with a bad rage problem (he Hulks out from time to time), and Solo’s laid-back American arrogance goes against everything he and his people stand for.

The movie’s essentially a dick-measuring contest between the two, and idiotic as it may be, it’s a lot of fun to watch the strapping lads try to out-man each other by showing off their signature spy tricks. Cavill and Hammer are charismatic and look fantastic in the movie’s countless tailor-made European suits. As characters, Solo and Kuryakin are indefensibly shallow and one-dimensional, almost charicature-like, but in Ritchie’s world, it works. The actors aren’t so much embodying characters as they are exaggerated American and Soviet attitudes from the Cold War era. It’s not brilliantly written material, but the snappy banter is always good for a laugh. Though there’s only one English character of significance (played by Hugh Grant), Ritchie and co-writer Lionel Wigram still manage to infuse the proceedings with a generous helping of British cheekiness.

Vikander suffers the most from the surface-level writing. Her performance in Ex Machina was a revelation, and to see her reduced to a walking, talking plot device is sad. She’s given one moment: while staying in a hotel room with Kuryakin (they’re working undercover as an engaged couple), Gaby has too much to drink and starts dancing like, well, a drunk girl (a moment made all the more fun with the knowledge that Vikander is an accomplished ballerina). She loosens up the Russian’s stoic veneer by forcing him to join her in dance and then roughing him up a bit by wrestling him around the room, knocking over furniture. Alas, Ritchie is stingy with Gaby, only allowing her to let loose the one time.

The international vistas (most of the story plays out in Italy, which looks infuriatingly gorgeous) and vintage costumes and super-cool sunglasses more often than not outshine the actors. Ritchie glamorizes every piece of clothing we see, to the point where the movie stills look like they’re ripped from a fashion magazine rather than a movie. He’s confident in his visual style at this point in his career, and he knows how to make everyone and everything look great, even when zooming by the camera in a blur of color.

The plot is over-stuffed and hard to follow, but it’s never too distracting. Allegiances shift, unexpected wrenches get thrown into every plan, a romance between Gaby and Kuryakin is incessantly teased—it’s all standard espionage stuff. But you know what? It’s an entertaining movie, bottom line. Ritchie cleverly chops up and rearranges the timelines of certain events to raise questions and provide amusing revelations later: in one scene we see Gaby making a phone call to an off-screen mystery person; only later, when the information is most relevant, is it revealed who she was talking to. It’s not the most revolutionary device in the world, but the time-jumping keeps things fresh and active. Ritchie made some of the worst movies of his career with those Sherlock Holmes turd piles, but The Man From U.N.C.L.E. proves that he still knows how to wow us at the movies, even with the studio system breathing down his neck. Good on you, Mr. Ritchie—now, can you please just make another gangster flick? Pretty please?

As the first panel on the third day of Comic-Con, Warner Brothers Productions had some big acts to follow – and try to overshadow, in a room full of 6500 zombie-like attendees just waiting to be impressed.

And overshadow they did.

In the war between DC and Marvel movies, Marvel has been the main act lately; churning out action packed superhero blockbusters like they were going out of style. And even amid talks that they may have been, Warner Brothers brought to the table a new set of heroes they’ve been holding in their back pockets. Waiting for when the time was right. And apparently the time is now.

They began the morning with some decent looking but not so heavy hitting upcoming films.

Guy Ritchie sent a video clip from a mystery film set to announce a new trailer for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. starring Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill as Cold War era special agents from opposite sides reluctantly teaming up to save the world. Though not as anticipated as some of the bigger films, we will see Hammer undertaking a heavy Russian accent for which he studied over many months with a dialect coach.

Director Joe Wright, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedland (Tron), and Hugh Jackman showed up for the Pan panel. It’s a reframing of the origin story of how Peter became Pan. Wright stated he wanted to make the film as dark as he could to show every kid that no matter how dark it got, they can overcome. And it certainly promises to be dark. Wright insisted the move back from green screen and CGI promising that every Neverland set was built, the biggest practical set being the forest, and with more than 150 extras on the set every day, we can expect more than an immersive experience.

Hugh Jackman declared, “This is one of the most fun movies I’ve ever made, by the way we had 4 pirate ships fully built.”

They shared exclusive new footage from the film of the introduction of Blackbeard, who is basically the original leader and recruiter of the Lost Boys. A Fagin type who brings down and out orphans to Neverland with promises of freedom and sweets, so long as they obey his every order with no hesitation. Joe Wright was mainly inspired by the sense of strangeness in the original J.M. Barrie book in which the children’s characters were never underestimated, and the  complexity of every single persona present was distinct, diverse, and equally duplicitous.

After these two stand-alone films, Warner Brothers brought out the big guns in machine style with a non-stop series of huge announcements.

Beginning with Suicide Squad, director David Ayer announced they would be all about canon and faithful to the source material proclaiming, “You are going to freaking get it with this show; it’s time for bad vs. evil. And who’s got the best bad guys ever? DC Comics.” Also showing up was the entire cast of Suicide Squad, minus Jared Leto (the Joker), including Margot Robbie and Will Smith.

Everyone showed up for Batman vs. Superman including Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot (the new Wonder Woman) and a morose looking Ben Affleck (no conjecture about the reason here). Though pitting heroes against heroes is all over comic culture, this particular clash is not in any current canon, especially to this extent. Director Zack Snyder declared there was one big rule bent in putting Gotham and Metropolis as sister cities geographically, sitting opposite from each other across a bay.

Ben Affleck shared a story of going to a costume store with his son who wanted a Batman costume for Halloween and happened to run into Christian Bale who was there for the same purpose. When seeking advice as to playing the Batman, Bale responded with “Make sure you can piss in that suit.” Noted.

Opening March 25th, 2016, here is the new trailer:

In reaction to a leak to file-sharing sites on Thursday, Warner Bros. released the official HD version of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer Friday afternoon.

Though it frankly isn’t the most exciting thing in the world (it’s pretty dour, actually), the trailer drops some significant clues regarding the film’s central conflict, which is likely ignited by the cataclysmic battle that capped off Man of Steel. The world seems divided on the hot topic of the red and blue alien from Krypton, some christening him a savior, others renouncing him as an untrustworthy totalitarian.

In a sonic collage of Superman-related sound bytes, we hear the voices of real-life figures outlining the implications of the hero’s existence, Neil Degrasse Tyson being the most notable of all. “We’re talking about an alien whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe.”

Though Clark probably isn’t comfortable atop the messianic pedestal the world’s put him on, he nonetheless appears to have most of the world groveling at his feet. There are clearly dissenters, though, as is evidenced by the shot of a statue of Superman at the beginning of the trailer, the words “FALSE GOD” painted across his chest by non-believers.

The biggest non-believer of them all, it seems, is Bruce Wayne, played by Ben Affleck. We get a good look of Bat-fleck in the Bat-suit (glowing eyes and all) near the end of the trailer as he stares up defiantly at Henry Cavill‘s Superman, hovering overhead in the middle of a lightning storm. It all looks epic and badass as hell, but you know what? The Man of Steel trailer looked awesome, too. So…maybe we should take a cue from Larry David and curb our enthusiasm.

In the comics, the reason Batman would often best Superman when they did battle pertained to their moral make-up: Clark Kent is a good person; Bruce Wayne is not. Clark, knowing he could crush Bruce with his pinky, holds back his punches, while Ol’ Bruce-y is never above cheating (i.e. shoving Kryptonite shanks into Clark’s ribcage) to gain an advantage. It’ll be interesting (nerve-racking) to see how director Zack Snyder plays with this dynamic. “Tell me, do you bleed?” Batman threatens near the trailer’s end. “You will,” he promises. Sounds good to me.

We’ve still seen little to nothing of the rest of the super-powered and super-evil ensemble cast, including Gal Gadot‘s Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa‘s Aquaman, Ezra Miller‘s Flash, Ray Fisher‘s Cyborg, and Jesse Eisenberg‘s Lex Luthor, though I’m willing to bet we’ll get a good look at them in the coming months. Until then, we’ll just have to wait until the film arrives on March 25th, 2016 to see how in the hell they’re going to cram introductions to all these gigantic heroes in one itty bitty movie. Check out the trailer below.