2017: The Year in Review

It is the end of 2017, but it may as well be not be, for this year – even on the heels of last year – has felt beyond-interminable, this in spite of its many ferocious pulls in pretty much every single f---in’ direction.

That’s part of the reason I took a sabbatical from this non-sense about which, yes, I have been known to be quite serious, to become much more of aware of the world beyond the movies.

To keep tabs on the real world.

To try and keep up not only with the Kardashians, for a change, but with the people who are supposed to be representing and leading this country and, closer to the ground and to home, with my community.

Still had time to watch some films, though. Some movies and some flicks, too.

Most of ’em were good and fun, although a few were fairly awful. Not as terrible as...you know what? He’s not worth it. He is not me, he is not us; he’s got zero to do with this, and he certainly doesn’t deserve any more attention.

So here’s to the year that was, and to 2018, which, IMHO, is already full of promise.

I tell ya, it’s gonna be a good one.

Because woof.

Now, without further ado, my picks with a little silliness thrown back in for good measure.

10 Best Films of the Year (in alphabetical order):

Battle of the Sexes
The Big Sick
Call Me by Your Name
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
Get Out
Kedi
Lady Bird
Logan
The Shape of Water

Honorable Mention (tie): Beach Rats and Beatriz at Dinner

Best Directors: Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Jordan Peele (Get Out)

Best Look: Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde

Best Makeover: Chris Hemsworth’s in Thor: Ragnarok

Best Props: It’s myriad red balloons

Best Setting: Call Me by Your Name’s Italian countryside

Best Switcheroo: Allison Williams’ in Get Out

Best Supporting Actors: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Armie Hammer (Call Me by Your Name), Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes, Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Patrick Stewart (Logan) Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name)

Most Welcome to the A-List: Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman)

Most Ready to Channel Ivanka Trump for a Remake of Single White Female That Ought to Be Titled Single White Nationalist: Unforgettable’s Katherine Heigl

Most Surprising: The Foreigner’s Jackie Chan (Jackie Chan!)

Best Supporting Actresses: Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Holly Hunter (The Big Sick), Tatiana Maslany (Stronger), Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird), Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)

Can’t Wait to See More of – Female: Danielle Macdonald and Bridget Everett, from Patty Cake$

Can’t Wait to See More of – Male: Kumail Nanjiani, from The Big Sick

Best Actors: Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name), Jake Gyllenhaal (Stronger), Hugh Jackman (Logan), Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), James McAvoy (Split)

Best Actresses: Halle Berry (Kidnap), Cate Blanchett (Manifesto), Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Saiorse Ronan (Lady Bird)

Photos: Universal Pictures (Get Out); ScreenFellows.com (Call Me by Your Name); Warner Bros. (Unforgettable); Variety.com (Stronger).

The Mechanic Will Save Us

I guess in the case of an Extinction event, we could do worse than to have James McAvoy on our side, right?

The actor is attached to star in a sci-fi actioner by that title, as a mechanic haunted by nightmares in which his wife is assaulted and he must rise to the occasion when an alien army invades Earth in an effort to eradicate humanity.

So the guy is psychically linked to the danger or som’in’?

Guess we’ll have to wait and see – but, first, this movie has to secure a director.

This has Steven Spielberg written all over it. Alas, this might be a little too been there, done that for him, no?

Photo: WallpapersQQ.net.

OG Mutant in Revolt

No end and no beginning....

Those lyrics by Madonna came to mind almost immediately upon leaving the theater, having properly kicked off the summer season – so sowy, Captain America et al., and Batman and Superman! – by catching X-Men: Apocalypse, the threequel to the prequel-sequel-movie-with-the-mequel. Y’ know (don’t act like you don’t), the second Bryan Singer-directed follow-up to 2011’s X-Men: First Class (the first being X-Men: Days of Future Past, which opened two Memorial Day weekends ago).

But why – why did that particular thought cross my mind?

Because, as the seminal and successful franchise stands, the future participation of new-gen stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence is completely up in the air (all three were contracted for a reboot trilogy), yet that of next-gen X-Men like Sophie Turner (HBO’s Game of Thrones), Mud’s Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Alexandra Shipp (she played Aaliyah for Lifetime), and newcomer Lana Condor – who respectively join the action as young Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Jubilee – is all but assured.

Also, because Simon Kinberg’s screenplay allows for quite the neat resolution to the destructo-drama that Oscar Isaac’s villain of the title brings about – no spoiler, since, after all, his character is named Apocalypse. Trust me, folks, to say this doesn’t constitute a betrayal. You don’t really believe that the mythical OG mutant the actor portrays – or tries to under a beyond-misguided, if necessary thicket of purple-ish blue make-up and armor like – comes out on top, right?

If you do, I have a bridge I’d like to talk to you about.

While it gets thisclose, the end of the world doesn’t take to be in this one, ’cause of the X-Men – although a heckuva lot of collateral damage is produced. Most of our young heroes live to see the rest of the ’80s (the action picks up in 1983, a decade after the events of the last blockbuster), and all is well on Earth, at least until the post-credits scene gets to rollin’ and you get to wonderin’ again).

X-Men Apocalypse has great strengths and greater weaknesses. It wisely gives J. Law’s Mystique a leadership role to sink her teeth into, albeit reluctantly, before she realizes who Apocalypse is or that he has awoken from a millennia-long slumber – a smart move that makes us think of Katniss Everdeen. It effectively introduces a new crop of X-Men that swiftly and somewhat smoothly becomes ready for battle (and good at it, too); Turner, in particular, is a standout. It even throws it back to First Class by giving us more Rose Byrne, whose CIA agent Moira MacTaggert becomes a grounding, welcome sight for sore eyes (an abundance of pop-y-colored visual effects will do that to ya) even if she’s made to repeat clumsy exposition, if memory serves.

Plus, there’s a sharp cameo at the halfway point everyone’s gonna love.

What’s cringe-worthy is how truly indistinctive the bad guy turns out to be – no fault of Isaac, for I am sure it wasn’t his idea to style the peacock, not to mention the character, to within an inch of his immortal life.

Potentially interesting baddies like Olivia Munn’s Psylocke and Ben Hardy’s Angel are treated like stock, barely uttering any dialogue and clearly in it to win it through sheer CGI-aided athleticism. (Actually, few characters handle the dialogue.)

To say that X-Men: Apocalypse is uneven would be obvious. It’s clear that, overall, this trio of movies has been better, much more thoughtfully conceived; the relationships among McAvoy’s Professor X and Lawrence’s badass shapeshifter and the Fass’s Holocaust-survivor Magneto have been a treat of intricate conflict that have chronicled actual growth. Ditto that this one’s just a tad overstuffed.

At least three storylines worthy of expansion compete against one another, what with Mystique out on her own in the world, rescuing oppressed mutants and Magneto trying to assimilate to regular Joe life with tragic results, and, of course, Apocalypse rising and the professor and his gifted pupils setting out to stop him (again, keep your eye on a certain redhead).

And at least one theme could have been further explored: feminism. Given that the powerful women in this are the ones to respect.

At face value, X-Men: Apocalypse is too much and, surprisingly, all fine and dandy. Just take it for what it is and you will enjoy. Fingers crossed, Singer, Kinberg & Co. will learn from their indulgences (Evan Peters is back as Quicksilver) and – paging Ms. Turner – triumphantly deliver the streamlined Jean Grey-centric new entry we all want in a few years.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Apocalypse Rising

Poor Jean Grey. No matter how she fits into the Xverse, the end of the world follows.

That is made clear from the outset of the first trailer for the upcoming threequel to the prequel-sequel-movie-with-the-mequel X-Men: Apocalypse.

Directed by Bryan Singer, the blockbuster will feature Oscar Isaac in the villainous title role and see Michael Fassbender’s Magneto sort of pawned into becoming one of his Horsemen – Olivia Munn’s Psylocke, Alexandra Shipp’s Storm, and Ben Hardy’s Archangel will complete the infamous quartet – while Professor X (James McAvoy), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) & Co. (welcome back, Rose Byrne!) try to avoid obliteration for all (Sophie Turner from HBO’s Game of Thrones will be playing young Ms. Grey).

Check. Out. The trailer...now:



X-Men: Apocalypse is scheduled to be released just in time for Memorial Day 2016.

Coming Out for Air

James McAvoy and Alicia Vikander?

Yeah, I’d see whatever they make together.

The Danish Girl star has signed on to co-headline Submergence with the man who is young Professor X for director Wim Wenders.

A romantic thriller based on an eponymous book by J.M. Ledgard, Submergence will feature Vikander as a deep sea explorer who uses the memories of this intense relationship she had with this guy – who is being held hostage by jihadist fighters in Somalia – to get through a current life-threatening situation (he does the same).

Production is set to get underway in the spring, in Europe and Africa.

Photo: YouniLife.com.

The New Night’s Man

Did I know that James McAvoy was circling M. Night Shyamalan’s new (film) joint?

Did you.

Evidently, the Victor Frankenstein actor was in talks last month, to replace Joaquin Phoenix in the upcoming untitled project known as Split, which will be produced by budget horror master Jason Blum.

Well there you go.

The actor is also going to appear next to Charlize Theron in Coldest City, and will star in Submergence for director Wim Wenders (the film, a romantic thriller, will be based on an eponymous book by a J.M. Ledgard).

Photo: LaineyGossip.com.

Jubilee Time

Looks like the forthcoming X-Men: Apocalypse is gonna be chock-full of newcomers.

Director Bryan Singer has announced that newcomer Lana Condor will be featured in his blockbuster as...Jubilee!

Condor joins a cast led by James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence that will feature the return of Rose Byrne and already includes Oscar Isaac as the villain of the title, Tye Sheridan (Mud), Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Sophie Turner (HBO’s Game of Thrones).

Photo: IMDb.com.

J. Mc Does Prada

It’s official: James McAvoy is a star.

The endorsements are pouring in for the Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and X-Men: Days of Future Past actor. Look at him doing Prada (he’s hawking the fall/winter collection).

Cute, huh.

Check out this video to see just how cute the guy can be, especially when wearing glasses.

Photo: Out.com.

A Matter of Perspective

They say that every love story has, at the very least, three versions of itself going for it: that of one person, that of the other, and, of course, the truth.

Som’in’ like that, right?

Anyway, that is the exact premise of Ned Benson’s upcoming The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, an ambitious, multi-perspective, multi-picture story about love starring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy.

Check out the trailer for the film, which will be released as the Them version of itself on Sept. 26 (the so-called god behind the project, Harvey Weinstein, is totally planning on making the Her and Him versions available in the fall as well).

Photo: E! Online.

(Re)writing Mutant History

Movies about time travel can be such a mind-f---.

Particularly sequels, especially when you – Spoiler Alert! – think about it (too much).

Time travel tends to brush off things. It negates things. Yeah, OK...it does give you a second or third chance at something, but at the cost of having to pretend something didn’t quite happened the way you remember them in the previous movies. They require a lot of suspension of disbelief.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is no different.

Embattled director Bryan Singer’s much-anticipated prequel-sequel-movie-with-the-mequel, which marks his return to the Xverse as a helmer, opens in a bleak 2023, a decade after Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) was recruited by a back-from-the-dead Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen). You will recall that, at the very end of The Wolverine, the latter warned that dark forces...human forces were building a weapon that could destroy all mutants. And they needed his help, for they knew that the drone-like mutant-hunting Sentinels that Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage, from HBO’s Game of Thrones) had spent four decades developing were bad news.

And, boy, were the frenemies right. We see in this dysotopian future that the Sentinels, which were equipped to target the mutant X gene, have not only all but obliterated the mutant populace but they’ve also oppressed regular folk to the bring of extinction.

The last few mutants around (the aforementioned X-Men plus Halle Berry’s Storm, Shawn Ashmore’s Iceman, and Daniel Cudmore’s Collossus, and newcomers including Fan Bingbing’s Blink and Omar Sy’s Bishop) have been eluding death, sometimes by mere hours, thanks to warnings they’ve been sending themselves from the future thanks to Kitty Pryde’s (Ellen Page) power.

The outcome never changes, though, so they decide on a more drastic approach. Thus, they send themselves a warning 50 years into the past to 1973 by projecting Wolverine’s consciousness back into his younger self. He can heal. He can take the dangerous trip.

So off the boy with the claws goes to find the Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr that James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender played in 2011’s X-Men: First Class, so together with these younger, troubled versions of his old friends – Charles is a bit of junky and his power’s muffled by these serum that Nicholas Hoult’s Hank McCoy is administering so he can walk; Erik’s in prison, accused of assassinating JFK – he can find Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and keep her from doing som’in’ that’ll make a better tomorrow impossible.

Yeah, this one’s that epic of a franchise reboot. So sit back, enjoy the action of the past above all; it has ’70s style and sociopolitical and emotional resonance. Watching Wolverine reassemble the splintered gang in the past is full of buddy-movie moments, which are made all that much enjoyable to watch by a cast clear that clear is fond of one another. Do not (over)analyze it (too much) or you’ll have no fun. Not that Singer will let ya: an undeniable highlight of the blockbuster is how inspiredly he handled Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) contribution to the story, and his possible future significance as a franchise player.

After all the Apocalypse is coming, and in the end you will be happy the X-Men took this trip. They brought back some nice surprises, and the future’s never looked better.

My Rating ***

Photo: X-MenMovies.com.

J. Mc, the Fass, and the Awesome Aussie Blur the Lines

Look at this shiny handsome thing over here.

Or so the worried-about-the-Bryan-Singer-scandal-effect powers that be behind the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past marketing campaign musta thought when they decided to trot out James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Hugh Jackman, together again for another round of adora-hotness.

The trio of actors was in London last weekend, promoting the blockbuster on The Graham Norton Show, and then this happened.

They decided to get down to Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.”

Why? Well why not?

Real reason? Something about the Fass being an ornery fella on set, and how the Awesome Aussie would have to coax him out of his trailer with a catchy song. Watch:



It is obvious these guys should go on the road, huh.

And yet, I wonder: What will they have to do now, in light of new allegations of abuse involving a British man?

When the Awesome Aussie Met the Fass and J. Mc

So. James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, and Michael Fassbender got together the other day....

No, not to do things to me.

Sad face.

To talk up their upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past with the good folks from Yahoo!, natch.

What followed was an impromptu and oh-so-good-natured roast of sorts of one Sir Ian McKellen, their co-star in the blockbuster. The Awesome Aussie and the Fass decided to do their very best impressions of McKellen for the cameras – and it was awesome.

McAvoy, meanwhile, did Patrick Stewart, by which, of course, I mean that.... Oh, just watch the darn thing.

Photo: Veooz.com.

Mutant Time Warp

The most ambitious crowd-pleaser of 2014 now has a preview, kids.

So behold the first trailer for the star-studded mutant bonanza X-Men: Days of Future Past starring James McAvoy and Hugh Jackman and Michael Fassbender and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen and Halle Berry and Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult and Ellen Page and…well, you get my drift.

The blockbuster looks. Like it going to be. Pretty gosh darn epic:

X-Men: Days of Future Past is due out on May 23.