Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the same, only much much worse.

The Amazing Spider-Man

2012
136 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

It's no secret that I have had major issues with the very idea of quickly rebooting the Spider-Man franchise.  If the film was a smash, I have argued, then studios would basically spend the next few decades merely rebooting the same dozen franchises over and over again.  Well, the Marc Webb-helmed reboot is here, and it fails in fundamental ways despite not being an outright terrible film.  It fails by both not being different enough from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and not being better than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.  While it is preferred to view (and review) films in a vacuum, the circumstances in this case not only prevent that but discourage it.  At its core, it is an unofficial loose remake of a prior film being sold as an 'untold story' while the studio attempts to sell used goods as a new product.  It is astonishingly cynical gambit and the idea behind its construction turn what is by-itself a moderately entertaining superhero origin story into something downright insidious.  

The plot?  Well, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is more of a brooding loner than a bubbly nerd this time around, while his token love interest (Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey, not Mary Jane) is not the girl next door but a classmate who interns at Dr. Conners's (Rhys Ifans) laboratory. It's clever that Gwen Stacey is now a science nerd with ties to Conners, unless you watched the obscenely underrated Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon that aired a few years back that had the same premise.  Other than that, it's the same ballgame for much of the running time, until a third act that feels stolen not from Spider-Man but from Spider-Man 2 and/or Batman Begins. The irony is that the film is actually best when it's playing in the origin story sandbox.  The dramatic beats between Parker and his adaptive parents, and Parker's first encounters with Dr. Conners, are unquestionably solid.  But once Parker dons the costume it turns into the most generic superhero film possible and loses much of its character foundation amid arbitrarily CGI-infused action that neither intrigues nor delights.

I don't want to go into 'spoilers' (spoiler warning - don't watch Spider-Man), but you will be shocked at how many action set-pieces, major character arcs, narrative beats, and even climactic pay-offs  are copied wholesale from the ten-year old Sam Raimi franchise-starter. Separate from the prior film, there are things of value to be found.  Andrew Garfield makes a fine Peter Parker/Spider-Man, with the best change being that he's actually shown 'doing science' this time around.  The early sections intriguingly emphasize the negative effects of having 'spider-powers' more so than the positive ones. He's a moody and angry kid, and his first-act interactions with Martin Sheen's Ben Parker are arguably the highlight of the film. While Emma Stone is far more of the 'token love interest' than Kirsten Dunst was, the role allows Emma Stone to be her charming and amusing self (Dunst basically played Mary Jane like Daisy from The Great Gatsby).  Despite the emphasis on romance in the marketing materials, the romantic subplot is just that - a side plot that occurs on the edges of the frame while Spidey learns his powers and eventually deals with a super-powered threat.  Dennis Leary, as Captain George Stacey, comes off better in the film than he did in the marketing, but you wish he was given more to do than scowl and complaining about that webbed-menace.

The best thing about the movie, and the only portion that qualifies as 'new' for this genre, is the idea of telling a requited love affair that develops in the middle of a comic book action story.  With all the talk about how this movie was going to be drawing from Brian Bendis's Ultimate Spider-Man comic book, this is the one component that the movie successfully adapts (the issue where Peter Parker tells Mary Jane that he's Spider-Man is one of the best comic book issues over the last fifteen years).  The new film is actually less of a romance that the prior trilogy, but the idea of the superhero 'getting the girl' well before the credits roll is a nice change in an otherwise paint-by-numbers movie.   The action sequences have a nice mix of CGI and practical web-slinging (like the first film, natch), and the 3D is rock-solid throughout.  But the web-slinging action lacks the comic book pop of Spider-Man and the sheer jaw-dropping grandeur of Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3.  Again, major action sequences feel lifted from Spider-Man, as does the character arc of the main villain.  Rhys Ifans plays Dr. Conners but for all intents and purposes plays Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn from the first film.  See if this sounds familiar: A conflicted scientist, who has become something of a role model/father-figure to Peter Parker, is pressured into experimenting on himself and turns into a periodically insane mutated super villain who takes revenge on his corporate enemies. The Lizard is not visually appealing nor is Dr. Conners particularly interesting once his transformation takes hold (Rhys Ifans is no Willem Dafoe), and this lack of a worthwhile antagonist is fatal to the film's action-filled second half.    

Where the film most deviates from the prior trilogy is in the 'franchise-building' involving the mystery of Peter Parker's parents.  As we see in the opening scenes, Parker's parents are scientists who abandoned him as a child, for reasons that are clouded in mystery yet somehow tied into Dr. Conners and his wealthy benefactor.  But this subplot is completely dropped after the first act, and the threads are left open for no reason other than to have something to reveal in the inevitable sequel two years from now.  There are any number of loose ends and dropped tangents and vanishing characters, and the film feels heavily tinkered-with during post-production.  A stunning number of scenes from the marketing are not in the finished product while major events occur without any reaction or consequence.  Moreover, the insertion and early emphasis on this 'lost parents' subplot turns the Spider-Man universe into a very closed world and negates the whole random every-man nature of the character.  Peter Parker is no longer a normal science nerd who happened to be bitten by a radioactive spider, but rather quite possibly a proverbial 'chosen one' who was destined for great things. 

Had this been the first Spider-Man film, it would have had that 'Wow, we're finally seeing a Spider-Man film!' kick that meant so much back in May 2002 (I still remember the thrill of the opening credits set to Danny Elfman's last great theme). You can't replicate the thrill of the first time, which is arguably something that this new film cannot be expected to match up to (the James Horner score here is solid, if not quite as iconic).  Yet discounting its status as a reboot/remake, the picture suffers from an insertion of certain unnecessary tangents, mechanically-impressive but empty action sequences, some emotional beats that play less potent than they should, and  countless plot holes/dropped subplots.  Aside from some solid first act dramatics, there is little good that Spider-Man didn't do first and there is much that Spider-Man did better.  This is not Batman Begins, which emphasized real-world plausibility while telling a wholly different story from Tim Burton's Batman (once the mask comes on, the film is only slightly less campy than the Raimi films)  This is not even The Incredible Hulk, which had the good sense to dispatch with the origin in the opening credits and get on with a whole new story.  This is closer to a Broadway revival, telling the same story as before and changing just enough to theoretically justify the new product. 

Like the 2010 A Nightmare On Elm Street remake, it ultimately fails both as a film and as a fleshed-out re-imagining of a known property, rendering it irrelevant in the cinematic pantheon. By hewing too closely to what came before while mostly failing to be superior and/or notably different, it renders itself needless.  In a future time, when I chose to watch a Spider-Man film, I can't imagine ever choosing this one, which is the greatest tragedy for a number of talented people who have crafted something of no real long-term artistic value.  As much as I would prefer to judge the film in a vacuum, I just can't.  The Amazing Spider-Man's greatest crime is not that its a corporate-mandated reboot, a relatively mediocre one no-less, of a still-vital ongoing franchise.  It's greatest crime is that it is an unofficial remake of a ten year old blockbuster masquerading as a wholly new motion picture while attempting to take credit for what the prior filmmakers got right the first time.  Spider-Man hasn't aged a day in ten years.  The Amazing Spider-Man already feels like second-hand damaged goods.

Grade: C-                                      

Good movie news in 2012: The return of the "movie".

I've written a bit about this over the last couple years, but this weekend is surely as shining an example as anything about how the mainstream film landscape has somewhat self-corrected.  This weekend sees the release of four wide releases.  We have two R-rated films, one a vulgar (but surprisingly smart) comedy about a talking bear and the other a $5 million indie dramedy about male strippers directing by one of our most successful experimental filmmakers.  We've got a bawdy PG-13 comedy aimed primarily at African-American audiences and a PG-13 star-driven drama.  Ted, Magic Mike, Madea's Witness Protection, and People Like Us are all coming out tomorrow in wide release.  What we've seen over the last year or so and what we will continue to see throughout the remainder of 2012 is the return of what can only be called the old-fashioned 'movie'.  In a time when it seems that every week brings another $150 million male-driven action tentpole based on a comic book or action figure series, a glance at the release schedule shows something very different.  Amid the big-budget animated films (which I generally like), the mega-budget comic book films (which are sometimes very good) and the various remakes and reboots, there exists a plurality of old-school, often star-driven dramas, comedies, and often adult-skewed fare being released by major studios on thousands of screens every weekend.  It seems that Hollywood is getting the message that one cannot subsist on a diet of nothing but tentpoles.

The first six months brought a solid mix of romantic dramas (The Vow, Good Deeds, The Lucky One), star-driven thrillers (The Grey, Safe House, Gone), hard-action (Act of Valor, Safe) and family dramas (Big Miracle, Joyful Noise).  We had comedies good (21 Jump Street), bad (American Reunion) and in-between (Wanderlust).  For every The Raven we had Cabin in the Woods, for every John Carter (Generic Blockbuster: The Movie) we had The Hunger Games (my issues with the film aside, an original sci-fi dystopian thriller based on a novel for young adults).  Sure we had the big-budget sequels (Wrath of the Titans, Journey 2: The Beginning, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance), but we had a large variety of lower-budgeted, often adult-skewing old-school 'movies', be they good (The Woman In Black) or not-so good (Man On A Ledge).  We had the biggest-grossing African-American centric comedy in history in Think Like A Man and a big-budget period action drama featuring an all-African American cast (Red Tails).  Even as summer gave way to the good tentpoles (The Avengers), the bad tentpoles (Dark Shadows), and the very ugly tent-poles (Battleship), we still had the likes of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to keep grownups happy.  A crowded June gave us musical adaptions (Rock of Ages), a big-budget R-rated science fiction film about 'big ideas' (Prometheus), and the aforementioned final weekend with four non-tentpole films going wide in the same weekend.  And it's all uphill from here.

If you don't want to see The Amazing Spider-Man next week, you've got the option of seeing a 3D musical documentary about Katy Perry or, if you're into something very adult, go see Savages, an R-rated drug thriller directed by Oliver Stone and featuring the likes of Benecio Del Toro, John Travolta, Blake Lively, and Salma Hayek.  The rest of July is frankly barren, with just seven wide releases with three on July 4th weekend and two on July 27th.  The Dark Knight Rises (arguably an adult crime thriller, albeit one based on a cultural icon) basically scared everything else away, but August is where summer dies down and you see a real emergence of old-school fare.  Two of the three big action films (The Expendables II and The Bourne Legacy) are basically old-school, star-driven Earthbound action pictures that would have been right at home in the 1990s and 1980s.  Among the August offerings are a kid-friendly comedy (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days), a star-driven comedy (The Campaign), a family-skewing dramedy starring Jennifer Garner and  (The Odd Life of Timothy Green), and a couple horror films (Possession and The Apparition).  Assuming you want something a bit more explicitly adult, you have a Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones relationship comedy (Hope Springs) and/or the down-and-dirty bootlegging action thriller Lawless to close out the summer.  Sure you've got the 'all that is wrong with cinema' Total Recall remake, but you simply have to make the choice to not see it on August 3rd.

September is crowded to be sure, but littered among the video game sequel, the needless comic book reboot, and the 3D animated reissue are another prohibition-era action thriller (Gangster Wars), a star-driven suspense thriller (Jennifer Lawrence's House on the End of the Street), and the Brad Pitt-starring politically-conscious crime drama Killing Them Softly.  There's also an honest-to-goodness drama (The Words) a genuinely original science-fiction action drama (the allegedly quite good Bruce Willis/Joseph Gordon Levitt time-travel thriller Looper), and a Clint Eastwood drama about baseball (Trouble With the Curve).  October brings mostly genre fare, but for every Frankenweenie there is an adult-skewing Taken 2.  For every franchise horror sequel (Paranormal Activity 4) there is an original horror film (Sinister).  For every needless video game sequel (Silent Hill: Revelation 3D) there is a 1970s-set historically-based drama about an untold story surrounding the Iran hostage crisis (Ben Affleck's Argo).  Alex Cross and/or Taken 2 may end up being terrible, but they will be terrible in a specifically old-fashioned way that hearkens back to the old-school 'movie' that we took for granted in the 1990s and that basically disappeared post-2001.  Oh, and you've got an incredibly ambitious, $100 million, R-rated and star-filled (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant) science fiction film by Lana Wachowski,  Andy Wachowski, and Tom Tyker that has an R-rating to go with it (eat that, Prometheus).  With a lineup like that, I don't care if Dredd is terrible or whether Frankenweenie restores any of Tim Burton's lost luster.

The last two months of the year follow suit, with a genuine mix of 'tentpole' films and pure 'movies', be they pulpy genre films or ambitious adult fare.  Balancing out two (pretty promising, natch) animated films (Wreck It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians), a needless Red Dawn remake, and the Twilight series finale (which is only a 'tentpole' by virtue of the somewhat unexpected success of its first installment), comes a new James Bond film by the director of American Beauty, Ang Lee's mysterious Life Of Pi, and Robert Zemeckis's return to live-action, a Denzel Washington vehicle that is an honest-to-goodness character study (Flight).  David O'Russell follows up The Fighter with The Silver Linings Playbook and Parental Guidance Suggested allegedly delivers a comedy fix over Thanksgiving weekend.  December, as always, starts out small but goes crazy over the last two weeks of the year.   Playing the Field may or may not be a conventional Gerald Butler romantic comedy (albeit one that features Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Judy Greer).  And we can all debate how to judge The Hobbit, as the Lord of the Rings trilogy both ushered in a decade of non-stop tentpoles while serving as a shining example of doing them correctly.  But Les Miserables is an all-star adaptation of one of the most beloved stage musicals of all time, and The Great Gatsby may be one of the great gonzo success stories (or failures) of the would-be Oscar season.  Add the old-school star-driven crime thriller Jack Reacher (starring Tom Cruise), Quinten Tarantino's Django Unchained, Katheryn Bigelow's sure-to-be-interesting 'Hunt for Bin Laden' movie and Judd Apatow's This Is 40, and you have a year-end collection of both varied and possibly terrific fare that generally doesn't fall under the big-budget super hero category.

Some of these films will be very good while others may be very bad.  Some of these films are arguably 'prestige pictures' but most are just unapologetic character dramas, star-driven comedies, and/or white-knuckle thrillers. They are all generally the kind of old-school 'movie' we all claim Hollywood doesn't make anymore.  This year there are in fact more what we say we want than what we say we don't.  We may like to say 'they don't make 'em like they used to'.  That may have been true for a time, but it's not true anymore.

Scott Mendelson

Patent Zero: Why readily available health care for every person in America, via a nationalized single-payer system, is a national security issue.

I'm certainly glad that the Supreme Court upheld the vast majority of the Affordable Care Act, although once again it is disconcerting to have an incredible amount of power in the hands of one person.  Usually that person is Justice Anthony Kennedy, but this time it was Chief Justice John Roberts who differed with the four 'liberal' Justices by upholding the Individual Mandate not via the Commerce Clause but by its theoretical virtue as a tax, which Congress of course has the power to levy.  I'm glad that the many good things in the law will remain on the books and it is unlikely that these changes are going anywhere anytime soon.  Say what you will about the overall popularity of 'Obamacare', the vast majority of citizens of all political stripes approve of most of the specific portions of the law (no more lifetime caps for benefits, no more denying children coverage for pre-existing conditions, no rescinding of coverage upon serious illness, the ability for young adults to stay on their parents' plans until 26, etc.).  So now that the Affordable Care Act is set in stone, the next step is the provision contained which allows individual states to choose how best to implement the law.  Vermont has already chosen to take the initiative of crafting what amounts to a Single-Payer healthcare system, and hopefully California may do so as well.  And that's precisely the road that each and every state should take as soon as possible.  I say this not for humanitarian reasons, not for economic reasons, but for national security reasons.

In short, I don't care if my taxes have to go up so that someone else can get access to medical care.  I don't care if said universal/nationalized health care system ends up covering the sick, the poor, and the downtrodden, nor even those huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  In short, I want every person who happens to be on American soil at any time to have access to health care if they so require it during said visit.  Yes, that means illegal immigrants too.  Why, you ask?  Is it the bleeding-heart liberal hippe in me that wants the government to be primarily responsible for 'the commons'?  No, well, yes, but the other reason is more practical and more important than that.  There may come a time when people on American soil get sick.  I don't mean a cold or even a long-term illness like cancer or diabetes.  No, I mean the kind of 'sick' you see in movies.  There will eventually be an epidemic of some kind on American soil, or at least the start of one.  Be it some mega-flu or something we've never even heard of, its statistically bound to happen sooner or later.  And when that time comes, the best chance to cap it early is to make sure it's discovered early.  But what if the first patient, or even the first several patients, decide to ignore that fever, that stomach ache, or those violent sweats because they don't have health insurance?  Or maybe the cost of their private health insurance deductible and/or co-pay is high enough that they think they can just work through it, unaware that what they have is a new and possibly lethal contagion?

Come what may, whatever burden universal healthcare might bring about, I want a would-be epidemic to be discovered at the earliest possible moment.  Be that infection be through natural infection or criminal/terrorist action, I damn-well want patient zero to seek medical attention at the first sign of illness.  When a major contagion hits America, I damn-well want the first victims to feel comfortable with having themselves examined by a medical professional sooner rather than later.  If the first patient is an illegal immigrant, I don't want them to wait to seek treatment.  If the first patient is a member of the 'working poor', I don't want them to wait to seek treatment because they are afraid of doctor bills.  Having a national healthcare system, which serves every person on American soil, makes it that much more likely that the first victims of a new infectious strain will seek treatment that much earlier.  On a selfish note, I don't want my chances of getting sick to be increased because my sick neighbor wasn't able to afford to see a physician.  The 'auto insurance vs. health insurance' conversation has always revolved around the idea that you can do me injury with your car and thus you should be insured for just such a situation.  But if I am sick and either can't afford medical care or am fearful of seeking medical care due to my residential status, I am putting you and all those around me at greater risk for infection.

Yes there will be abuses of the system here and there. The incentive of government-sponsored medical care may even be an incentive for illegal immigrants to make an attempt to cross the border. Yes the full coverage of every American (legal or otherwise) will lead to more healthy people seeking medical treatment that they turn out not to need.  But better for Americans to potentially overuse and illegal aliens to possibly abuse an affordable health care system as opposed to holding off on possibly vital care because the system is not affordable.  And if that possibly vital care can prevent others, possibly countless others, from also falling ill and turning an outbreak into an epidemic or worse, than a nationalized, taxpayer-funded, single-payer healthcare system seems to be not just be the right thing to do on a humanitarian level, or the smart thing to do on an economic level, but a necessary thing to do as a matter of national security.

Now you can tell me why I'm wrong, unless I'm not, which I don't think I am.

Scott Mendelson

Total Recall trailer reminds you that you already saw this damn movie 22 years ago, and it was just fine, thank you!

Yes this trailer looks every bit as bland and generic as the teaser from early April.  And yes the lack of creative imagination that would cause Sony to spend $200 million on a painfully similar remake of a 1990 sci-fi thriller is disturbing and perhaps a sign of the end times.  But I'm not going to whine.  First of all, I damn-well have the choice to not see this thing when it drops on August 3rd.  Second of all, and I'll be getting into this tomorrow if time allows, but we're slowly entering an era where studios seem to be remembering that not every film in the tent can or should be a tent-pole.  So for now, feast your eyes on the raging mediocrity that is the trailer for Total Recall.  Is there really any one who is honestly excited for this?

Scott Mendelson  

Why Warner Bros' Lego: The Piece of Resistance may end up being the greatest movie ever made by humans...

Much of this is speculation, so bare with me.  Jeff Snyder over at Variety reported today that Channing Tatum and Will Arnett have been cast as voices in Warner Bros' new Lego movie. The bad news is that yes there is a Lego movie coming, but the good news is that it's being directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, they of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street (so they are two for two so far).  The even better and more curious news is that the live-action/animation hybrid Lego: The Piece of Resistance is casting Tatum as Superman and Arnett as Batman.  Yup, Justice League may or may not ever happen and Wolfgang Peterson's Superman Vs. Batman project is a distant memory, but we will indeed be seeing an big-screen team-up of the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel in some form.  That's certainly amusing and perhaps noteworthy, but a little imagination leads to an even more insane possibility.  In short, what if Warner Bros. gets the rights to use all or most of the various properties that Lego currently has? 

Might we see the entire DC superheros line onscreen as well, completely pulling out the rug from the would-be Justice League?  But wait, there is more!  While the chances of Disney/Marvel allowing this Warner Bros. film to use the Marvel heroes characters are pretty slim, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Harry Potter and his character library might show up in this WB-financed production.  And what about Star Wars?  Indiana Jones?  The Lord of the Rings, which is also in Warner Bros' control at the moment?  Obviously this is all random nerdy speculation, but we could theoretically see a situation where the Lego movie becomes some kind of modern-day feature-length variation on that 1980s anti-drug special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.  But this time, instead of Harry Potter teaming up with Gandalf and Darth Vader to warn kids about the dangers of snorting cocaine, they will merely appear alongside Green Lantern and Indiana Jones to kick unholy computer-animated ass onscreen.  And of course, if for some nutty reason Marvel actually lets this Warner Bros. production use their Lego characters, we'll see Wolverine and Spider-Man fighting not just in the same movie (which I'm guessing is going to be the big 'get' for The Avengers 2), but in the same movie alongside Batman and Superman.  We'll see if any other Lego franchises can be brought into the fray, but I'd bet even money on at least the WB franchises showing up to play.

What do you think?  Is there a shot in hell of any of these mega-team ups actually happening, or is it just a pipe dream?

Scott Mendelson          

Guest Essay: Merrill Barr explains why Comic-Con is a better marketing tool for television than it is for movies.

From time to time, Mendelson's Memos is able to present reviews and/or essays from guest writers, as is the case this afternoon. Merrill Barr is a frequent analyzer and reviewer of television for both blogs and podcasts. A former contributor to FilmSchoolRejects.com, he currently runs the television podcasts The Idiot Boxers and Operation: Nikita for FatGuysAtTheMovies.com and occasionally provides written reviews for DarkMediaOnline.com. He can be found on twitter (@sonic43), Facebook (facebook.com/merrilljbarr) and Tumblr (TheIdiotsBox.com). He can also be contacted via email at TheIdiotBoxers@gmail.com. Please enjoy, share, and comment.

Four years ago, when it came to movie hype, there was no greater combination of studio marketing and rabid fandom than Comic-Con. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Green Lantern, Twilight, Captain America, Piranha 3D, Avatar, Scott Pilgrim, Cowboys & Aliens, The Avengers, if your movie had even a sliver of nerdy potential (and sometimes not at all [Salt]) you went to the annual San Diego Comic Book Convention, better known as just 'Comic-Con'.  But that mentality is shifting in movie land.  The downside to a massive marketing push like Comic-Con is – and let’s not beat around the bush, that it is all marketing. Really cool, sometimes clever and intelligent marketing, but marketing none the less – is that there needs to be results. The problem is that it’s hard to differentiate the impact of Comic-Con vs. every other piece of marketing inside the box office because of one thing… Time.  

Timing is everything. Every film’s marketing campaign is a strategic practice in the art of timing. This TV spot, or this trailer, or this poster, or this interview, or this review at this time is what research and past experience says will yield the greatest result. The problem with Comic-Con is that it takes that system and throws it out the window. Often times, films being promoted at the convention are due to be released as far as a year out. And therein lay the dilemma studios face.  Is the money worth it?  We aren't just talking about the cost of a few plane tickets and hotel rooms for the cast, director and writer. Sometimes we’re talking upwards of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to rent out theaters for exclusive screenings, bands to perform live shows, workers to build fully functional and walk-able attractions.

The only way to make that money back is in the box office. But it became clear after films like Cowboys & Aliens, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Tron Legacy either bombed or disappointed in ticket sales that the expenditure wasn’t worth it for a property no one has heard of outside the con. And if they have heard of the property, then there is no need to spread the word at Comic-Con.  If you’re attending the convention, you already know that Whedon is directing The Avengers, Bane is the villain in the next Batman film and Peter Jackson filmed The Hobbit at 48fps. You don’t need the studio expenditure of the con to inform you of that, especially when you have to wait upwards of a year to see the final result.  But that game changes with television.

When shows like Teen Wolf, Psych, Burn Notice, The Legend of Korra, Warehouse 13, Sons of Anarchy and Nikita go to Comic-Con, the studios don’t have to wait months to see the result of their expense. They wait days, weeks at the most for the Nielsen ratings to come in. And if past season are already on services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and iTunes, the bump in streaming numbers is either going to be there or it won’t.  For television, the expense of Comic-Con makes sense because fans can either see the final product of past episodes right then and there or they only have to wait a few weeks (two months tops) for the show to premiere.  Last year, while Disney was busy pulling The Avengers out of Comic-Con, the television networks held over one hundred panels for various shows across all demographics. And the result of that labor was clear and decisive.

Television going to Comic-Con makes sense because television is a medium built on immediacy. It’s a medium built on social conversation before, DURING and after the program airs. Film, while some may view as the superior medium, is slow. Comic-Con is anything but.  While no one is saying that some cool stuff isn’t shown for movies at Comic-Con, it’s become clear the expense is not worth the result. But television, thanks to the digital age and a generational need for “I want it now,” can take advantage of the benefits the convention offers. It’s just a matter of timing.

Merrill Barr

Alex Cross gets a terribly generic, almost satirical trailer...

It's no secret that I'm a fan of both of the prior Morgan Freeman-starring Alex Cross films.  I enjoyed Kiss the Girls and find Along Came A Spider to be among my guiltiest pleasures.  But aside from inexplicably being PG-13 despite an inordinate amount of violence just in the trailer, the clip above feels like a direct-to-DVD franchise reboot more than a theatrical return, at times feeling like a parody of the genre.  Tyler Perry is fine as Cross, but he's of course no Morgan Freeman and the film clearly has to make an effort to convince you that he's a brilliant and sharp-witted detective, which was presumed with Freeman (and arguably would have been presumed with original lead Idris Elba).  Moreover, Perry's constant aggravation at Matthew Fox's raping and murdering is weird coming from someone who is supposed to be a longtime profiler.  Matthew Fox looks to be having a blast as the main baddie, and his cartoonish antics are in step with a literary series that basically plays out like a gore-drenched variation on a super hero comic book. While we see John C. McGinley right off the bat, Rachel Nichols, Jean Reno, and Gincarlo Esposito are apparently MIA so far.  Still, I can't help but wonder if Criminal Minds has completely filled the void for this kind of material, as that show is basically James Patterson meets Justice League.  Come what may, especially with the on-the-nose dialogue and somewhat C-level action beats, this basically feels like a bad extended two-part episode of Criminal Minds, or rather its awful spin-off Suspect Behavior from a couple years ago.  Oh well, Summit/Lionsgate will be releasing this one on October 19th.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson    

Review: Ted (2012) is a blisteringly funny and painfully insightful look at generational nostalgia.

Ted

2012
105 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Seth MacFarlane's Ted joins the ranks of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Observe and Report among razor-sharp cultural satires cleverly disguised as dumb comedies. While it doesn't quite reach the brilliance of the former, it is an altogether warmer, sweeter, and more empathetic film that the latter pitch-black comedy. It would be tempting to write the film off as pure popcorn exercise in vulgarity, and on that account it is an unquestionable success. But beneath the one-joke premise and the R-rated humor lays a piercing examination of a culture unable to let go of the entertainment they grew up on. To paraphrase a very wise friend of mine*, our generation defines itself not by the historical events of our lifetime but rather by the entertainment we consumed as we grew up. Writer/director Seth MacFarlane, along with co-writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, would surely agree with that statement.  But they take it a step further.  For those in our generation who refuse to truly grow up, the entertainment of our past is a crutch for furthering the cause of arrested development. That MacFarlane would craft a film so critical of both his core demographic and one of the key components of his own joke box is an act of genuine bravery.


The film's plot is pretty thin, as you can pretty much spell it out via the above poster. John Bennett''s childhood stuffed teddy bear came to life while he was a child and they have been best friends ever since. But now John (Mark Wahlberg) is 35 years old, and his professional life is at a standstill while his long-term relationship with Lori Collins (Mila Kunis) is in jeopardy because John isn't quite a grown-up yet. After an altercation, Lori gives an ultimatum - she will leave unless John finally kicks out his best pal and starts behaving like an adult. Ted (the voice of Seth MacFarlane) does his best to assimilate to living on his own and existing in the real world even while John's attempts at stepping up are threatened by the lure of Ted's immature antics. That's all you need so that's all you get. The film surely earns its R-rating by virtue of its bawdy humor, but it is not a cruel or mean-spirited film. I could have done with a few less 'gay jokes', but I appreciated that when a supporting character comes out of the closet, the only joke is which famous actor plays his new boyfriend (IE - once he comes out no one cares that he's gay). Every character is accorded at least a token amount of respect.

Kunis's Lori is both funny and taken seriously as a character with her own wants and needs.  Refreshingly, the film clearly takes her side as she wrestles with how to deal with Ted's interference and she is never chastised for occasional 'tough love'. The women in this film are all full-blown human beings, where even John's attractive coworker exists not as a temptation/third-act misunderstanding but merely to offer John some sensible advice and support. There is a famous singer who cameos in act three, and when Ted hears her belt a tune and remarks "I've got to f** her again...", it comes off as almost endearing, as if he can't believe he was lucky enough to sleep with her the first time. For all the frat boy humor and periodic sexual vulgarity on display, the picture is clearly respectful of its female characters and subtly makes a point that a generation full of post-adolescent boys has allowed professional women to rise in the ranks that much easier. Most of the men are obsessed with the things of their youth, be it the movies and video-games that John and Ted still obsess over or the various memorabilia that Lori's boss Rex (Joel McHale) collects. Rex could have been a full-blown villain, as he relentlessly pursues her in the workplace to the point of sexual harassment. But MacFarlane makes Rex more needy and/or entitled than predatory and the film avoids a number of opportunities for Rex to become cartoonishly evil and instead allows him a certain defeated dignity.

As for the star duo, Mark Wahlberg again proves how apt he is at comedy, arguably more-so than as a straight dramatic actor. His John is not terribly bright, but his dim-bulb character is a genuinely decent guy and his chemistry with Mila Kunis makes it clear why they got together in the first place and why she puts up with his shortcomings. I wish Ted's voice sounded a little less like Peter Griffin, but it is a wholly original character and one that occasionally plays the fly in the ointment without becoming an enemy or an obstacle. Ted does funny things and engages in some bad behavior, but he is never antagonistic and we never feel that he is the out-and-out cause of John's conflicts. There are a number of cameos, including an extended one that others have revealed but I won't, and every one of them is both relevant to the story and allowed to be funny in their own way. The key to the film's success as a comedy is that none of the humor is rooted in cruelty or malice. Seth MacFarlane may hold some of these people in judgment, but he likes and roots for most of them and the film gives us adequate reason to like them too.

At its core, Ted is a picture about an overgrown child who won't step up to the plate and be an adult, and the walking/talking teddy bear who serves as an enabler. But the picture is more than just a generic fable about letting go of childhood as it takes specific and pinpoint aim at a culture that defies the entertainment it grew up with and still insists on bathing in the warm waters of generational nostalgia. Much of the humor comes from 1980s and 1990s pop-culture references, but MacFarlane is only too aware of today's generation of 20-40 year olds, especially men, fetishize their childhood playthings. Considering how much of Family Guy's popularity stems from various off-the-cuff references to pop culture of decades past, MacFarlane is openly criticizing the very thing that made him a millionaire. It is a bold and almost courageous piece of social commentary, in a 'only Nixon can go to China' fashion. More than just a vulgar comedy about a talking teddy bear, more than just a generic arrested development story, Ted specifically targets a specific generation for holding on to their pop-culture memories like a security blanket.

Seth MacFarlane's Ted is unquestionably hilarious and unexpectedly empathetic even towards its targets of condemnation, ever optimistic and acknowledging a happy medium between cherishing the past but acknowledging the present. In its razor-sharp examination of a culture still clinging to their 8-bit glory days, it may be a truly brilliant work of social commentary. At the very least, it is the year's funniest comedy and one of the best pictures of 2012. It is more than a funny movie, it is a great film. Call it the year's happiest surprise, but Seth MacFarlane's Ted is a genuine work of art.

Grade: A

*Michael Marvin's full quote - "Observation: My grandparents defined their generation by its hardships: they struggled through The Great Depression and survived World War II. My parents defined their generation through social politics: the Civil Rights Movement and Watergate. My peers define my generation through the media we consume: Nintendo and Ninja Turtles."

Informal critical thoughts on The Newsroom pilot.

Yes, there is comic value in this 7-minute super-cut of oft-repeated phrases in the work of Aaron Sorkin.  But it also highlights just how damn entertaining his shows are and how much credit should go to the various actors of The West Wing, Sports Night, and the disappointing but not awful Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip.  And come what may, The Newsroom is 'okay Sorkin'.  It's not great, but it is relentlessly entertaining.    On just viewing the pilot, I wish the supporting cast didn't seem so heavily made up (thus far) of somewhat similar-looking young white men.  And the undercurrent of Sorkin's passive-aggressive sexism rears its ugly head in several unnecessary ways, be it Jeff Daniel's opening speech opining about the good old days when 'Men were men!' or an entire first half where most of the female characters almost exclusively talk about relationship issues.  And while the show once again taps into the excitement of seeing professionals excelling and putting quality of work over other concerns, it reminds us again that Sorkin's world is a fantasy, a utopia, which makes it hard to watch in times such as these.


The West Wing, both the first four Aaron Sorkin years and the majority of what makes up the John Wells seasons (5-7) rank among the best network dramas ever aired.  But I'd be lying if I didn't get a little depressed watching the show during the post-9/11 Bush years.  At heart, The West Wing and now The Newsroom aren't just liberal fantasies about those in power doing what they should according to liberal dogma.  Heck, I'd argue David E. Kelly's Boston Legal was more of an explicit liberal/progressive treatise than any of Sorkin's work. No, The West Wing and The Newsroom are fantasies based in the idea that those at the top of their respective professions (politics and now national media) actually want to do their jobs as well as they can be done and that their excellence and sheer competency would be rewarded and admired rather than treated with scorn.  It is not a little sad that we live in an age where the mass media seems so beholden to conformist ideology that merely telling hard truths qualifies as a career-threatening gaffe and merely aggressively pursuing a potentially damaging story qualifies as fantasy-level excellence.  At the end of The Newsroom pilot, the uplifting climax is merely that a news team did their job and broke important news damn the consequences to hell!  That such a development needs to be set to stirring music, and that it does get such an emotional rise out of the viewer, is almost pathetic.

But personal issues aside, The Newsroom falters just a bit in a way related to the above YouTube clip.  There are times, many times, where The Newsroom feels so 'Aaron Sorkin-y' that it resembles someone else trying to do an Aaron Sorkin show and hitting all the beats.  Among those 'beats' are a need to convince viewers that the profession in question (an ESPN-type sports show, a cable news network prime time show) is of paramount importance to society and/or a microcosm of all that can be good.  Also disconcerting is Sorkin's need to craft horrifying fictional events (even ones based from reality) that exist purely to allow our heroes to shine in their profession (think the pipe-bomb explosion that brings instant-gravity to the otherwise light season four premiere of The West Wing).  Comparably, Amy Sherman-Palladino's new ABC Family dramedy Bunheads feels absolutely a work from the creator of Gilmore Girls, yet feels like a fresh story with characters that aren't token variations of the Stars Hollow residents.  I cannot speak to the quality of later episodes, although there are rumblings that the pilot may represent its peak, but The Newsroom feels less like an original creation and more like 'plug the Aaron Sorkin template into a national media news room'.  But the Aaron Sorkin template is still completely entertaining.  Whether the show can fix its very real issues and/or whether I can get past my personal issues is a matter not yet decided.  But it's good to be back in the comforting fantasy of exceptional competence.

Grade: B           

Weekend Box Office (06/24/12): Brave hits the Pixar bulls-eye while Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is (somewhat) staked.

Another year, another $60-$70 million Pixar opening weekend.  Brave (review) is their thirteenth release, as well as their thirteenth number-one debut and their eighth film to open between $60 and $70 million since 2001.  Brave, which attracted headlines due to the fact that it was Pixar's first film with a female lead (and a female director until Brenda Chapman was replaced by Mark Andrews), opened with an estimated $66.7 million this weekend, putting it (for now) just above Cars 2's $66.1 million debut and a bit below Up's $68.1 million opening as the fifth-best debut in Pixar history.  Brave pulled in $24.5 million on Friday, which gives the film a 2.71x weekend multiplier, which is actually pretty low by Pixar standards.  Still, it's close enough to the 2.73x multiplier for Wall-E ($23m/$63m), the 2.68x weekend multiplier for Toy Story 3 ($41m/$110m), and the 2.64x weekend multiplier for Cars 2 ($25m/$66m) to avoid any alarm.  Movies, even most animated ones, are just a bit more front-loaded these days and Pixar films tend to play like sequels in a popular franchise than stand-alone entries. In terms of total box office, there is always the chance that Brave could play like Cars 2, which (comparatively) flamed out with just 2.8x weekend-to-total multiplier ($191 million domestic) and end up below $200 million.

But the more likely domestic end-point is somewhere between Wall-E ($223 million domestic) and The Incredibles ($261 million).  International is more of an open question (it earned $13.5 million overseas in ten territories, or 17% of its worldwide market). But again I'm guessing between Wall-E ($521 million) and The Incredibles ($631 million).  Of course, I didn't care for the film so I hesitate to presume that it will become a phenomenon at this point (it got an A from Cinemascore, for what that's worth), although I was surprised how well Up ($291m/$731m) held up due to how bloody depressing it was.  Still, Up (my favorite film of 2009, emotional gut-punches and all) became a generational film, something kids see with their grandparents just as Finding Nemo ($339m/$867m) become a defining father/son generational film.  If Brave can be 'that film' for mothers and daughters, then the sky is the limit.  My distaste for the film (which soft-pedals the idea of forced marriage so that its female lead can be slightly humbled) aside, it's been quite encouraging this year with one female-centric smash hit after another.  I'd argue that girls deserve a better film than Brave, but it's a start.

The second major opener was Fox's $70 million genre-mash-up, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  It's $16.5 million debut isn't great, but it could have been a lot worse (see - Jonah Hex) and Fox's unparalleled foreign box office prowess means that this film could easily top out with $40 million in the US and still gross another $100 million overseas.  And since Fox only spent $70 million on the film, it doesn't have to do mega-blockbuster numbers worldwide to break even and/or make a profit (what a novel concept...).  I'm of two minds about the film (which I have not yet seen and might not for awhile).  On one hand, it's seven year old boys playing a game of 'wouldn't it be cool if...' concept is a distressing sign of the kind of thing that can get green-lit as a major motion picture, even if the original novel apparently had intelligence and political subtext that the movie omitted.  On the other hand, it's a mid-budget R-rated action thriller filled with decent character actors that is arguably at least somewhat different than the mold.  I'm heartened by the fact that Fox didn't spend $250 million, cut it to a PG-13, and then act 'shocked' when the film didn't become the next Inception.  Still the weak opening means that we won't see a continuing series of "INSERT PRESIDENT: RANDOM MONSTER SLAYER" films. Whether that's good news or bad news is up to you.

The last wide release was Seeking Friends For the End of the World, which Focus Features dumped into 1,625 theaters with minimal advance push and thus predictable results.  The Steve Carell/Keira Knightly apocalyptic rom-com cost just $10 million, so its $3.8 million debut is more a moral defeat than an actual one.  I could whine that Focus Features went pretty half-hearted on this one, but on the other hand it is precisely the sort of picture that I always whine about dying in the art-house when it is actually a relatively mainstream attraction.  The film will still probably equal its budget domestically and with halfway decent overseas numbers it will eventually break even and/or make a profit.  Still, between this and their inexplicable refusal to truly expanded the utterly charming and completely accessible The Moonrise Kingdom (it's on just 395 screens in its fifth weekend), I hope Fox Searchlight is kinder to the fantastic Beasts of the Southern Wild, which opens on Wednesday in limited release.  Woody Allen's From Rome With Love earned a scorching, if expected, $75,874 per each of its five screens.  I'll presume Sony Classics will be expanding that one over the July 4th weekend.

There's not too much holdover news.  Despite direct competition, Madagascar 3 pulled in another $20 million and has now grossed around $157 million.  It's already surpassed Megamind ($148 million), Puss In Boots ($149 million), and Over the Hedge ($155 million).  It'll pass A Shark Tale ($160 million) and Kung Fu Panda 2 ($165 million) within the next full week. $180 million-$200 million looks to be where it finishes. Worldwide, it's at $365 million.  The Avengers dropped just 21% ended the weekend with $598 million, so the $600 million barrier will be crossed within the week.  Prometheus added another $10 million for a $108 million domestic total and $261 million worldwide.  Snow White and the Huntsman earned another $8 million this weekend for a $137 million domestic total and $297 million global cume.  Again, with a more reasonable budget, this would qualify as a big hit.  The Moonrise Kingdom, by the way, crossed $10 million this weekend, but I'd argue a true expansion at its peak (a couple weeks ago) could have seen this film challenging the $24 million gross of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou if not the $52 million gross of The Royal Tennenbaums.  As of now, it will merely struggle to earn back its $16 million budget.  Men In Black 3 sits with $163 million, right in the middle of Will Smith's normal $140-$180 million comfort zone (worldwide it's at $577 million).  Last weekend's two flops, That's My Boy and Rock of Ages, have around $26 million and $28 million respectively.

That's it for this weekend. Join us next weekend when four wide releases open.  Ted (review Tuesday), People Like Us, Madea's Witness Protection, and Magic Mike all square off for mutually-assured destruction. 

Scott Mendelson          

Review: Brave (2012) is Pixar's most impersonal and least consequential film and a more troubling failure than Cars 2.

Brave

2012
93 minutes
rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

Beset by production troubles and changing schedules, Brave enters theaters as a fable without an author.  I don't know what happened behind-the-scenes with original director Brenda Chapman nor do I know what replacement director Mark Andrews added to and removed from the final product.  But Brave is an almost irrelevant entry in the Pixar library.  While it is visually scrumptious (in 2D, natch) and boasts a terrific lead vocal performance by Kelly MacDonald, the overall story is both painfully slight and lacking any deeper meaning beyond surface-level morals.  While it is technically a superior film to Cars 2, that film was arguably a 'one for me' project with Pixar founder John Lasseter indulging his love of the Cars universe and his love of old-school spy pictures.  Brave is an artistically superior picture that is still pales in comparison to both the better efforts from both Pixar itself and the various animation rivals (Blue Sky, Dreamworks, Illumination, etc.) nipping at its heels.


The best thing I can say about the film is that it doesn't give two figs about the fact that it concerns Pixar's first female lead (nor should it, as Mulan is a superior feminist fable anyway).  Yes the film very briefly hints at the idea that girls have different behavioral expectations than boys and yes the core relationship is one of a mother and her daughter, but the film at no point pats itself on the back for presenting a (pardon the cliches) strong, self-reliant and independent female lead.  Nor does the film play the 'girls can do anything boys can do' card.  And while it's admirable that young Merida's triumph doesn't come due to her ability to engage in battle, but rather her ability to make peace, Merida is presented as such a dynamic warrior figure in the opening reel that it's genuinely disappointing how un-adventurous her journey turns out to be.  On a personal level, and this really isn't a criticism of the film itself, I wanted to see Merida kick a little ass.  Without going into details that the marketing hasn't revealed, the first third of the film sets the stage for a mythical adventure while delivering only a half-hearted bit of momentary peril and soul-searching.

  The film's first third is both funny and bittersweet, although it and the entire film becomes a master class where the two main characters say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.  That may be realistic, as any parent can attest, but it makes for frustrating storytelling over 90 minutes especially when a major character inexplicably knows exactly what to say at a crucial juncture purely because the movie is almost over.  Speaking of which, in a manner similar to The Lion King, Brave basically spends the first half building towards an inciting incident which leaves only a few brief moments to reflect upon said incident before having to hurry off to the third act resolution.  This pacing is one of the reasons that the film's second half feels so thematically empty. The set-up isn't nearly as classically compelling as the earlier film's 'father is murdered by an evil uncle and hero is set into guilt-ridden exile' plot thread and the third act isn't anywhere near powerful enough to make up for the blink-and-you miss it second act.

The primary peril in the first act is the idea of a forced marriage for the sake of the joined kingdoms, and Brave doesn't even try to sell that idea as anything other than an inconvenience. I know that arranged marriages exist in any number of foreign territories that this film hopes to make money in (to be fair, some arranged marriages are more rooted in mutual consent than others), but it's almost disturbing how the film utterly ignores the darker implications of such a concept.  This isn't even a conventional arranged marriage, but rather a scenario where a young girl is basically sold off into marriage (and, um... sex), by her mother no less, to the winner of a token athletic competition.  It's "Gee, poor Merida may have to marry a loser who might not let her race around on her horse and shoot arrows at trees" not "Gee, poor Merida has to get married to someone whom she has no interest in and will be expected to consummate said marriage".  Merida is treated by her mother like chattel and the film treats it like the grouchy princess is merely fighting for her right to party. Even Aladdin took this plot thread more seriously than Brave does.

This allows the film to present Merida as somewhat selfish and spiteful for not wanting to follow in her mother's footsteps and 'do what's best for the kingdom' and the film's finale doesn't entirely resolve the issue. While it could be read as encouraging that the picture doesn't come out completely on the side of the 'I gotta be me!' rebellious teen while her parents (both alive and well thank you much) learn a lesson in letting go, the picture sets up a situation where said rebellious teen has a pretty solid argument, thus the humbling feels unpleasant.  The film arguably wants to be a fable about a mother and daughter coming to a mutual understanding about tradition versus freedom, but Drew Barrymore's Whip It is a far superior variation on this morality play because there is a personal price to be paid on both sides and because neither daughter Ellen Page nor mother Marcia Gay Harden come off as unreasonable.

Moreover the inciting incident at the halfway mark truly has no bearing on the outcome of the story and has no connective tissue to the thematic tale being told.  Pardon my vagueness, but 'what happens' is a so disconnected to the rest of the story that you could remove it from the narrative and not effect the emotional finale one bit while only slightly changing the actual climax.  Again, I don't know what went awry during production, but I have my theories.  I can only wonder if Brave started as a personal story from Brenda Chapman and that her eventual replacement (Mark Andrews) didn't have the intimate connection to whatever Chapman had in mind.  Too much time and money already spent plus the fear of bad publicity that would come from both sacking their first female director *and* cancelling Pixar's first female-centric animated film, and so they soldiered on trying to just finish the darn thing in an efficient manner as possible.  This is all speculation and arguably wishful thinking, as it offers an alibi for the mediocrity of the final product.

Gorgeous animation and a few sparkling first-act moments cannot compensate for the insignificant and inconsequential second and third acts.  Lacking memorable moments, interesting characters save for its lead, and burdened by an unfocused and small-scale narrative that can't commit to a distinct moral viewpoint even while giving one character the clear moral right.  That it deviates from Pixar's standard 'existing in safety versus living in danger' motif is less of a problem than the fact that it has no overarching thesis at is core.  It is rarely boring but rarely engrossing, a trifling piffle that fails as art and very-nearly fails at entertainment as well.  Brave may not supplant Cars 2 as the worst film Pixar has yet made, but it clearly qualifies as the most disappointing.

Grade: C

Actors Against Acting Athletes with Gary Oldman...

I'm not sure how big of a problem this is offhand (Space Jam was sixteen years ago and Michael Jordan wasn't half-bad playing himself, while Steel was fifteen years ago this summer) but this is utterly wonderful anyway.  At the very least, it's a fun thing to see Gary Oldman actually speaking in his own voice for a change.  And he doesn't even die at the end!  Now I want to see the Morgan Freeman version.

Scott Mendelson

Newsflash: Twilight didn't invent the female-driven blockbuster and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was primarily about romance too...

As expected, the initial wave of mostly positive reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man have partially involved a form of collective amnesia. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called the film 'a superhero film for the Twilight generation' and states that Twilight was the first blockbuster to target women and The Amazing Spider-Man is the first superhero targeted at females, a theme that a number of critics have implicitly or explicitly stated in their critiques.  Both of these things are false of course.  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy was primarily a romantic drama stretched over three films.  The web-slinging action beats and occasional super-villain squabbles were less important than the ongoing love story between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.  Kristen Dunst was as much of a main character as Toby Maguire, especially in the somewhat underrated Spider-Man 3, and the romantic arc was the main narrative throughout the blockbuster trilogy.  And as for the second claim, it's like Titanic, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Avatar never happened.  But in an era where no one remembers a damn thing and everyone is too damn lazy to look it up, Marc Webb is now getting the credit for basically inventing a female-skewing superhero film and Twilight is now presumed to be the only reference point for blockbusters that were popular with women.

It annoys me that Robbie Collin and a few other critics don't remember a movie that came out five years ago. But what really irritates me are all the other bloggers unthinkingly repeating the meme without bothering to point out that it's bullshit, but instead thoughtlessly quoting said line as if it's factual.  We all damn-well saw Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man 3.  We all blabbed about that upside-down kiss in the rain, that spectacular train fight, and that goofy dance sequence.  We could all recognize Danny Elfman's theme within a few notes and we all have strong opinions about the individual films and the series as a whole.  So when the Amazing Spider-Man filmmakers try to sell us on the idea that their film is new because it has practical web-slinging (Spider-Man), a sympathetic father-figure villain (Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2), a female lead who is a full-blown lead character (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 3), a super villain who is somewhat beside the point (Spider-Man 2), and an emphasis on romance over action (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3), we shouldn't just sit quietly and not ask that follow-up question.  Like political journalism, the company line all too easily becomes conventional wisdom without anyone on the sidelines bothering to question it or rebut it with simple factual corrections.

I don't have any qualm with how Marc Webb and company choose to sell their movie.  And this rant has *nothing* to do with the apparent quality of the reboot, which I'm seeing next Friday morning.  But this is a longtime problem in the industry, with so little real journalism taking place that studios can just sell a lie without fear of being called on it (yes, just like in politics).  The advocate/politician has every right to make whatever outrageous/false statements they desire and it's the job of the media to call them out on it.  It goes both ways too, with various writers simply repeating conventional wisdom (King Kong was a flop, The Dark Knight was a pro-Bush 9/11 parable, everyone hated The Phantom Menace, etc.) with few challenging them and even fewer bothering to actually research said claims before making them in the first place.  Thus Sony gets to sell the idea that The Amazing Spider-Man is totally different from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy for reasons that actually make it all the more identical to Spider-Man trilogy and no one really calls them out on it.  It may be a minor carp and a personal pet peeve of mine, but it speaks to a larger problem about the quality of dialogue in the entertainment journalism realm.  So don't be surprised if Warner Bros. tries to sell you on its Batman reboot by saying "it's totally different as it's a Bruce Wayne-centric crime drama set in a real-world environment!".  And don't be surprised when no one bothers to raise their hand and ask the next logical question.

Scott Mendelson                    

Good movie news in 2012: the return of R-rated movies.

Normally, I wouldn't be one to consider Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which to be fair I have not yet seen) as a shining example of a positive trend in movie-going.  But the historical fiction action-thriller may be many things, but one thing it is not is PG-13.  Oh no, it is a mid-summer major studio spectacle that is going out into 3,000+ theaters with an honest-to-goodness R.  Said rating is officially for "violence throughout and brief sexuality".  Whether or not the film could have been edited down to a PG-13 is arguably a moot point.  20th Century Fox spent $70 million (a refreshingly reasonable sum) on a major summer production that was conceived and produced with the intent that it would indeed be R-rated.  And most shockingly, it was not even the only R-rated wide release last weekend, as Focus Features unspooled Seeking Friends at the End of the World in 1,400 theaters.  I've written/ranted for years about how the R-rating became an endangered species for major-studio releases due to the 2001 FEC regulations regarding the marketing of R-rated films, but the tide does seem to be changing over the last couple years.  And it's reached a glorious peak at this very moment, with an avalanche of R-rated wide releases filling up the multiplexes.

To wit, 2012 started with four straight weeks of R-rated films topping the weekend box office, with a whopping five out of ten new wide releases (The Devil Inside, Contraband, Underworld: Evolution, Haywire, and The Grey) getting that once-rate 'restricted' rating.  Coupled with three major 2011 expansions (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Descendants, and Albert Nobbs), that gave mainstream moviegoers eight "new" R-rated options in the first four weekends of 2012.  February slowed down a bit, with only two R-rated wide releases (Act of Valor and Safe House) out of fourteen studio films, although both did exceedingly well at the box office.  March saw just nine wide releases and three of them (21 Jump Street, Project X, and Silent House) were R-rated while two smaller releases (The Raid: Redemption and Jeff, Who Lives At Home) eventually expanded to somewhat wide release.  April saw twelve wide debuts with 1/3 of them (American Reunion, Cabin in the Woods, Safe, and The Raven) getting the 'scarlet R'.  Plus April saw the debut of Bernie, a Richard Linklater comedy that has slowly expanded over the last couple months.  May had two R-rated wide releases out of just seven wide debuts (The Chernobyl Diaries and The Dictator).  Some of these films were box office hits and some were not.  In the first five months of 2012, there were 52 wide releases, with 16 of them (31%) being released with an R-rating.

Starting in June, mid-summer no less, the numbers go up even higher.  There are/will be thirteen wide releases in the five weeks of June. Six of those (Prometheus, That's My Boy, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seeking A Friend At the End of the World, Magic Mike, and Ted) are indeed R-rated studio releases, plus the limited release debuts of two possible expansions (Safety Not Guaranteed and Woody Allen's From Rome With Love).  Thus for the first six months of 2012, 22 of the year's 65 wide-releases (34%) will have been R-rated.  That's over 1/3, and representing all manner of films.  It's not just a flurry of horror films and/or bawdy comedies.  We've got thrillers, comedies, horror films, dramas, action pictures, basically everything except animation.  And the rest of 2012, including the last two months of summer, show no signs of slowdown in this area.  Obviously a number of films coming out towards the latter part of the year are unrated and/or may be moved at some point into 2013.  July brings just six wide releases, two of which are R-rated (Savages and The Watch).  Also opening in July are two limited releases that *could* expand into somewhat wide release if the limited-venue box office merits it.  Red Lights is a likely contender while the NC-17 Killer Joe will have to make a bloody fortune to have any hope of besting the NC-17 stigma even with yet another buzz-worthy Matthew McConaughey performance (although what does it say that an NC-17 genre film is being released at all in the middle of the summer season)?

August brings an obscene 14 wide releases over its five weeks, with four of them (The Expendables II, Lawless, Hit and Run, and possibly The Campaign) being R-rated (I'm presuming Total Recall and The Bourne Legacy will be PG-13, but don't count out the sex/gore-drenched Diary of Wimpy Kid: Dog Days).  Also debuting in August are four limited debuts with possible/probable R-ratings that have expansion potential (Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer, Celeste and Jesse Forever, Cosmopolis, and For A Good Time Call).  The last four months of the year are host to 45 wide releases at this time.  Of those, 12 are confirmed or highly-likely R-ratings (Gangster Squad, Dredd, Killing Them Softly, End Of Watch, Sinister, Paranormal Activity 4, Cloud Atlas, Argo, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, Parental Guidance, This Is Forty, Jack Reacher, and Django Unchained).  Another (Looper, Taken 2, Silver Linings Playbook, 21 and Over, Life of Pi, Playing the Field, Kathryn Bigelow’s Bin Laden thriller, and The Guilt Trip) are possible and/or likely.  Plus another four limited releases that are confirmed or guaranteed Rs (Butter, The Master, Seven Psychopaths, and Hyde Park on the Hudson) that could/will expand into somewhat wide release.  So the last five months of 2012 brings up 59 wide studio releases with 17 all-but guaranteed R-ratings and a number of unrated genre films that could end up eschewing the PG-13 and a number of limited releases that may go wide at some point.

So, long story short, in 2012, there are an estimated 131 wide releases.  Of those 131, not counting the successful expansions thus far or probable expansions in the future, there are 42 R-rated films in multiplexes this year, or nearly 1/3 of all studio releases (32%).  And if we include the 'likely' R-rated films in that group, that gets us an additional eight for 50 total wide-release R-rated pictures (38%), not even counting smaller debuts that could or will bloom into wide release (obviously The Master and From Rome With Love are probably going wide soon after their limited debuts).  While we can't include the possible expansions in the list of overall wide releases (mainly because I didn't do the 'likely to expand' list with non-R rated films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), including them gives us a total of 66 new 2012 theatrical releases being given the once-forbidden rating.  Hell, throw in those 2011 expansions from January and you get 67 theatrical films in at least semi-wide release that are or will be rated R.  Yes some of these films might get moved into 2013 and some (such as The Campaign, Gangster Squad, and/or Taken 2) might opt for a PG-13 in the end.  But what the general moviegoer is left with is a vast array of adult entertainment at a theater near you this year.  Again, it's not just the number that impresses, but also the sheer variety of what kinds of films are being allowed out without a PG-13 sheering.  You've got comedies, horror films, Oscar-bait dramas, comic book adaptations, video game sequels, old-school star-driven thrillers, and everything in between (except for animation of course).  


So the next time someone tells you that there is nothing for adults to see at the movies, kindly explain to them that as many as 40% of all wide releases this year will be R-rated (or just send them a link to this post).  Some of these films are/will be good, some are/will be bad, but they are all taking a token financial risk going out with adult-friendly ratings.  Kudos to the studios for the sheer volume of R-rated fare in theaters this year and (to a lesser extent) the last couple years.  Kudos to moviegoers for supporting some if not most of these pictures despite the lack of family-friendly ratings.  It appears that in 2012, there really is something for everyone at the movies.  Maybe 2013 will bring us some R-rated animation.  Here's hoping for Monsters University, rated R for strong sexual content, crude humor, language and drug use on June 21st, 2013.

Scott Mendelson