Then Along Came the Bad Batch

There is perhaps no modern mythology more compelling than the western, and no modern mythological figure more captivating than the cowboy. The term "western" itself is so ingrained in our cultural lexicon that nobody batted an eye when in reviews of the movie Logan, people started referring to it as a western or neo-western. The rest of us nodded along knowingly at this obviously deep insight into the cross-pollination of movie genres without giving a whole lot of thought as to what this analysis actually meant. On the one hand, iconography from the western genre and the archetype of the cowboy himself have become so ingrained in our understanding of storytelling. But on the other hand, I'm willing to bet a fistful of dollars that the majority of Logan's audience had never heard of - let alone seen - Shane, the 1953 classic western that's explicitly referenced in the movie itself and that many critics then compared Logan to in a series of seemingly endless online analyses (exactly the kind of cheap, short-lived dialectical trend I would never embrace).

The thing is, though, we toss around terms like "western" simultaneously knowing exactly what they mean, but not knowing at all what they mean. And I don't think it's enough to set the bar as low as United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and simply resort to the dismissive and unhelpful ambiguity of "I know it when I see it." This is especially important when we talk about reimagining, deconstructing, or subverting genre tropes; before we can reasonably say that something has been deconstructed or reimagined, first we have to know how that thing is constructed or imagined in the first place.

The Deafening Sound of Silence and The Virtues of Failure: Why Everybody Lives by a Code and Nobody is Ever Completely Right

There are very few films I can recall that sent a chill down my spine after watching them, but as I sat watching the credits roll for Silence, I felt that familiar vibration creeping across my vertebrae. It wasn't that the story of two 17th Century, Portuguese, Jesuit priests travelling to Japan to search for their missing mentor who was rumoured to have rejected his faith while at the same time engage in missionary work themselves to promote Catholicism was some kind of a white-knuckle, thrill-a-minute adventure.

Quite the opposite, Silence was a (for the most part) quiet meditation on faith and spirituality by Martin Scorsese, who has wrestled with his own faith throughout his life. This has been a common theme in many of his films, probably most notably The Last Temptation of Christ and Kundun, which comprise the other two thirds of the unofficial Scorsese spirituality trilogy. Also notably, and kind of appropriately, the public response to Silence seemed a lot more subdued compared with Last Temptation or Kundun, both of which stirred up considerable controversy at the times of their release, with Scorsese even being banned from China for a time after the release of Kundun. I don't know if that's saying too much these days; if you sneeze in the wrong direction you're liable to attract the ire of the Chinese government (or, you know, if you're gay or a ghost, or perhaps worst of all, a gay ghost).

For some reason, despite his vast and varied catalogue of films, it seems that from recent online discussions, people seem to have superficially associated Scorsese mostly with subject matter relating to organized crime. Although several of his films do deal specifically with the Mafia or some type of organized crime, these specific settings and characters are a pastiche of what Scorsese witnessed growing up in New York, and a lens through which he explores themes and concepts that run a little deeper than whether snitches do, in fact, get stitches.

Somewhere Over the Deepwater Horizon... Unnatural Disasters...In Search of a Villain

I'm always kind of leery about movie based on modern historical events, i.e., anything that's happened within decade or so of the movie being made about it. I think it's difficult to get the perspective needed to truly treat the subject matter in as dispassionate and objective a manner as possible, which is the goal - stated or implied - in any kind of based-on-a-true-story movie. Unless you're someone like Oliver Stone, whose movies like JFK are actually best classified as historical fan fiction, as they borrow the names of actual people, but in no way attempt to represent actual events in any effort to achieve any semblance of verisimilitude (much to the protestations of Stone himself). Don't get me wrong: I love JFK (the movie). I think it's scarier than most horror movies (something about conspiracies, when done well, creeps me the fuck out), but it's also mostly based entirely on the mad howlings of conspiracy theorists, and its wild claims are easily debunked with the combination of a few minutes of your time and a working Internet connection.

Despite my misgivings and the temporal proximity between its subject matter and its development, I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed Deepwater Horizon. The film covers the immediate aftermath of the disastrous explosion and resulting catastrophic oil spill of the titular drilling platform, depicting how the workers on the oil rig were able to survive those harrowing first hours until they were able to be rescued. It's a surprisingly apolitical depiction of the worst ecological disaster in recent memory, choosing - quite correctly if somewhat unsatisfactorily - to focus on the human cost and toll instead of taking the all too easy approach of vilifying BP, the oil company in charge of the site and ultimately held responsible for the horrific events of that fateful day, including the deaths of eleven people.

Life, Death, and Aliens... The Arrival of Something Bigger Than Ourselves. Also, Weird Spider Monsters

Perhaps one of the oldest questions that has plagued humankind throughout the ages is the question of whether or not we have free will. Well, I guess considering the totality of human history, it might be tied with "What the hell is this thing that's killing me?!" The free will question seems tantalizing specifically because it's intangible. We may not always have known what was killing/eating us, but there was always concrete evidence of death, whether it be a plague-riddled corpse or some bones in mound of lion shit. Free will is "fun" to speculate about because, currently, there's no way to prove it either way. The significance is clear: are we free agents, forging our destiny and boldly splitting infinitives where nobody has split them before, or are our lives and the choices we make merely the end result of forces beyond our control? In our relationship with the cosmos, were we pitching or catching?

It's a tough question to square away, what with the lack of any current means of quantifying it, but it's also kind of central to our lives as sapient beings. It's also kind of a loaded question. The implication in most cases is that having free will is preferable to not having free will, and that in the demonstrable absence of free will, we would lose any sense of agency and accountability.

The Curse of Moana

Some days, I seem cursed by the fates themselves. After being emotionally coerced into spending one of my precious few yearly movie theatre outings on a children's movie, the animal-karaoke-showcasing Sing, I was hit with a double-whammy when I found myself out with the kids once again, this time for Disney's latest, Moana. Mother. Fucker. This time, I was completely cut out of the decision-making loop as my wife made plans with a friend family to meet for lunch at East Side Mario's (Apparently to take advantage of some strange deal where you buy an entree at regular price and get a frozen entree for free to take home, just to really hammer home how much you hate yourself. I guess it's one way for a restaurant chain to clear out expired stock from their freezer...) and then go catch a movie. For the kids. Think of the children.

Disney, proving once again that there is literally no culture that they aren't will to appropriate, this time around they "draw inspiration" from Polynesian mythology to craft a tale of--everyone together now--a young princess's journey of self discovery where she seeks to expand her worldview and ends up either finding contentment in the pastoral home from which she originally sought escape and assuming her rightful place at the top of the Great Chain or Being and/or proving herself worthy to and being whisked away by a member of a royal family and assuming her rightful place at the top of the Great Chain of Being.

Sing It Like You Mean It

I don't get to go to the theatre that often, so when I do, I usually don't want to go see some kids movie. Don't get me wrong, there are some great animated films out there (see: The Incredibles), but typically, these types of "family friendly" films are geared more towards kids than families, with a few "adult" jokes thrown in to try and keep the parents from gouging their eyes out in boredom and frustration, which, to the studios' credit, has a decently high success rate. Especially considering that taking a family of four to the movies, including tickets and concession, is somewhere in the sixty to seventy dollar range, it's rubbing salt in the wound when I also have to shell out that kind of cash for a movie I have zero desire to see. Cue the "Won't somebody think of the children!" Simpsons meme here.

Sing, the latest and greatest from Illumination Entertainment, seemed even less appealing to me as it seemed from the trailers and everything I had read that it was little more than an excuse to show animated, anthropomorphic animals singing pop hits from both past and present. I tried to push the kids towards Moana, which seemed like it had landed among Disney's more palatable fare, or a second theatrical outing to Rogue One, but I was outvoted by both the kids and wife. I'm not sure when the fuck this family became a democratic republic, but I followed my typical strategy in most social situations: go along quietly, bide my time, and implement a silent campaign of espionage and misinformation, manipulating events until the perfect time to strike.

To the Depths, with Sharks and Everything

The Shallows presents perhaps some of the greatest bang for your buck in recent memory. It is both a loving, meticulously constructed ode to Blake Lively's ass as well as a surprisingly well-executed woman versus nature thriller. On both levels, it succeeds gloriously, and so you essentially get two films for the price of one.

For those of you out there who were on the fence over whether or not Blake Lively was attractive, your fears can finally be put to rest. Nearly the entire first third of the film painstakingly documents in fantastic, high-def detail, every curve that Lively can possibly muster. Director Jaume Collet-Serra displays an impressive level of dedication to capturing on film every sun-soaked inch of Blake Lively's body, including a few inches you didn't even know existed. It's the kind of dedication to one's subject matter that most documentary film makers would kill to achieve. In all fairness, if I had a body like Blake Lively's, I too would want it preserved for posterity and chronicled for inclusion in the historical record. Purely in the service of scientific and academic discourse, of course.

As much time as The Shallows dedicates to showcasing Blake Lively's ass, I wouldn't categorize that aspect of the film as gratuitous. Of course, I might be biased by the fact that I am a heterosexual man who is, at the moment of writing this, out of the known striking distance of her current husband, Ryan "Deadpool" Reynolds. (Incidentally, after seeing Reynolds in Deadpool, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that I would have enjoyed the film just as much (if not more so) had he been cast as the lead in The Shallows and had his ass so lovingly documented in service of the film.)