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Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Great popcorn blockbuster production, but it stops there
As usual, Marvel has nailed it. Age of Ultron is a great popcorn blockbuster production.
I won't go into the same reviews everybody already wrote: yes, same characters going crazier. Same witty dialogue up a notch. James Spader is a fantastic villain and a great choice for Ultron. The new comers are quite good, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision, were good enough.
All that having being said. This was supposed to be the ending for the MCU's Phase 2. At that phase, Tony Stark should have retired from the Iron Man mantle (as of the horrible Iron Man 3 showed). Thor should've been retired and living with Jane Foster (as of the reasonable Thor 2 Dark World).
Captain America 2 retired SHIELD, but if you've been following the Agents of SHIELD TV Series you already know they've been rebuilding it. The intersection with the TV show and the movie was quite abrupt in my opinion and felt rushed.
At least the TV is showing developments towards the Inhumans for Phase 3. Captain America 3 Civil War will be Avengers 2.5. The lack of any mention to the upcoming Scott Lang's Antman was a huge missing opportunity.
The major problem with Age of Ultron is that it picked up where Avengers, Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD left off and ignored Iron Man 3, Thor 2. The MCU was supposed to be one concise and coherent universe. But the more they deliver new movies, the bigger the gaps.
Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were by far the best thing about Phase 2 thus far and Age of Ultron was unable to top it. And this is what makes this super highly anticipated movie fall short.
Production value was really high and I enjoyed watching it in the theater and I will enjoy watching it again on Blu Ray. But it did not make any real impact to kick off Phase 3. It seems more like Civil War will be more meaningful to the MCU.
The MCU mythos is getting convoluted too fast. Too many gaps are not being addressed. It's already very difficult to explain the story to newcomers. Each big Phase should have some closure as an arc, but it's not helping. With sideshows such as Daredevil and Agent Carter, it only adds to the bloat. Unless Civil War can do something about it, the MCU will lose a lot of steam in Phase 3 and Infinity Wars will be too little too late in the future.
Age of Ultron felt just like a throw away story. Don't get me wrong: it's a very nice blockbuster for sure, but it's not what it was supposed to be.
Rurôni Kenshin: Kyôto taika-hen (2014)
Finally! Live-action catches up to Anime!
Asian studios have been trying to adapt manga/anime to live-action for decades. They all failed.
Finally, we can call all this pre-Rurouni Kenshin. The first movie had some flaws, some unbalance, but it ultimately delivered. Now, Kyoto Inferno is a great 2nd part leading the way to The Legend Ends.
The Shishio Makoto story-arc is super long in the manga. All the Juppongatana mini-story arcs were left behind because of that. This makes it possible to condense it to 2 movies.
So, do not expect deeper character development. The movie decided to focus on the very specific attempt to bring down the government and undo the Meiji Ishin (by the way, do read about it at Wikipedia, go look for the terms "Bakumatsu", "Meiji Restoration" and you will understand better the background about Sekigahara, Toba-Fushimi, and you will feel less lost in case you don't know Japanese History).
If you watched the anime or read the mangas (which I highly recommend), you will easily feel in the gaps with what you already know. The movie stitches together several memorable scenes from the source material.
Some parts had to be adapted, of course, and I think they did a good job, specially on how they fit the Oniwabanshu. Not sure how the Aoshi story-arc will fit in the next movie.
This movie had to remove several stuff from the source material in order not to look silly in a live-action, such as the special moves, screaming attacks ("Ryuutsuisen!"). But I'm most interested in how they will fit Kenshin's mentor of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu on the next movie (in the manga he will teach him the ultimate moves, Kuzuryuusen and Amakakeru Ryuu no Hirameki). He does show up very quickly so it's going to interesting how this unfolds.
The relationship of Kenshin and Kaoru, of course, had to be diluted to the bare minimum to give Kenshin the motivation to go forward (it was already diluted in the source material).
All in all, the filmography is superb, the casting is spot on, the story adaptation was very competent to compress a very complex source material.
If you're already a fan of the series, you will not be disappointed. If you're new to the series, this could motivate you to go read the original.
Adaptation. (2002)
This movie is pure genius
Wow, I can't believe it took me 12 years to see this movie.
And I only did it already knowing that Susan Orlean did write the essay for The New Yorker and then wrote 'The Orchid Thief' book about about John Laroche. That Charles Kauffman did write 'Being John Malkovich' and were given the task of creating a screenplay for the book. And that Robert McKee is indeed a real person in real life that is very famous for his 'Story Seminar' lectures (by the way, do read him!).
This was a stellar portrayal of Charles Kauffman (who is indeed the real screenwriter) by Nicholas Cage, and also playing the fictional twin brother Donald Kauffman (that indeed was given the Oscar along with Charles by the Academy, the first time an Oscar goes to a fictional person).
And that ending! Many people seem to not get it at the time, but it was a full blown satire and ironic ending, being the most anti-Hollywood finale by being very hollywoodian. Genius, this is my favorite from Spike Jonze. A must see!
Halt and Catch Fire: 1984 (2014)
(Spoiler Alert!) The hardware startups scene and 1984
This review will contain spoilers, not a lot, but be warned.
If you're savvy about the Computer History, you know this series would end in 1984. And I don't foresee a continuation, at least not with the current cast and not in the same 80's era.
For a recap, the last 2 episodes lead Joe, Gordon, Cameron and Donna to 83's Comdex. Donna's boss is revealed as a schemer that tricked them and built a copy-cat out of pure corporate espionage. I did find this twist a bit too much to swallow at this point, but that does happen (especially if you're in China).
Anyway, Joe rips Cameron off from the Giant and deliver a cheaper, faster IBM-PC compatible Laptop that runs MS-DOS. The Cardiff Giant (ironically, the name for a very famous USA hoax) is not vapor anymore and it hits the streets to what appears to be a good enough success.
Joe seems to be actually able to finally leave his mark in history with a machine that seems to be ahead of its time, the vision of "2x faster 2x cheaper". Or is he?
Again, if you know the History, it's not a surprise that it was the wrong way to go from the beginning, both Joe and Gordon, dismissed Moore's Law, they almost felt it at Comdex and when Joe saw the (obvious) Macintosh demo, he knew he had failed. He finally understood the difference between incremental evolution and true disruption. Faster and Cheaper is for commodities, the way a career at IBM would make you think. So the revelation for Joe was a nice touch.
That ending was doomed to happen since we started episode 1, the show set up the stage at late 82 or early 83, at the real Dallas-Fort Worth Silicon Praire (from where many really famous companies are such as AT&T, Cisco, Ericsson, Motorola, etc). They also made very sure that the show was set in a realistic way, so besides the fictional Cardiff Electric, all the other stuff actually happened. Therefore, 1984 would hit them hard with Macintosh to become the milestone of the decade in terms of innovation (even though sales were actually poor).
The Cardiff Electric seemed to be an amalgam of the 82/83 real laptops Grid Compass, Gavillan SC and the Sharp PC-5000. The specs are a mix of those, the design feels more like the Grid but it ran a proprietary Grid OS. The Gavillan was more powerful (with a 8088 chip instead of Cardiff's stated 8086) and actually ran MS-DOS. The Sharp was uglier, LCD display (albeit shorter and wider) but also ran MS-DOS.
History of Laptops will go on, with incremental evolutions. Tandy releases the cult/famous TRS- 80, then we will see the Commodore-64. The 1985's Toshiba TI100 would become the first one to be considered "mass-market", so this puts the Cardiff Giant behind in 83. If the story continued for another episode, I speculate we would see Cardiff not going so well, maybe sold to Tandy (as did the Grid) but it would not be until the early 90's before laptops actually become more popular. Meanwhile the real revolution would be the continued dissemination of the IBM- PC, swallowing the Apple-II market and the Era of the Desktop with a ramp up in 95 with Windows 95.
The History lesson here is to actually make a point: Halt and Catch Fire, as it stands, can't continue if the idea is to follow History more closely. The Macintosh was already shown (and the title of the episode being "1984" sums it up). The finale is actually a very cliché "Innovator's Dilemma" stand off.
The high points being that Cameron and Donna were very good female characters and the one's with the actual innovations. Donna's idea of the layered array motherboard and many other demonstrations of her skills in hardware were very nice touches. Cameron had the vision of "usability" in OS's at the same time as Apple (while in a more crude, no-GUI way) was spot on and then the vision of fast networks to play games was also spot on. Having both of them working together was a good way to wrap it up, meaning that the men actually didn't have vision, the women did.
Joe is a poor version of Steve Jobs. Gordon is a poor version of Steve Wozniak. I think they made this point very clear. With all that said, Cardiff Electric will hold until maybe 1985 and shut down under Gordon (and it was great to show that even though he is an expert engineer, just technical skills are not enough to move forward, as many hipster programmers like to think), nor being irritatingly unpredictable like Joe's pseudo-visionary posture. I think the finale made a good point of showing that off.
And personally, 1984 ends the hardware startup era that has been boiling up since the late 60's under the reigns of giants such as Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Bob Noyce, Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Robert Metcalfe and others. And so does the show. I don't know if they intended to make a follow up but I don't see AMC pursuing more, unless they shift time to the Internet era and do a Facebook-inspired software startup themed new series.
This is a show that makes senses if you're a tech aficionado but I don't think of it as a computer era Mad Men that is actually accessible to the general population.
Congratulation on the production team for making a computer TV series, that is not a comedy, that don't make us, tech aficionados, embarrassed to watch. This was the best part of the show by far. Unfortunately that also makes it not too accessible to everybody else.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
The Star Wars we've been waiting for!
Just got home after watching this in the theater.
I can easily say this is the best blockbuster of 2014 so far and in the Marvel Universe, this is movie that finally matches and surpasses The Avengers. Avengers 2 just found real challenge.
Marvel is going to be remembered in the movie history, years from now, as the company that attempted something very difficult: a series of movies that are all woven together, in an epic scale.
The one thing that I noticed the most: I couldn't take out the big smile from my face for the entirety of the movie. This is not a comedy, the screen writing, the direction, the acting, they all worked like a very refined piece of delicate machinery to deliver an action packed story that is not overdone in Michael Bay or Rolland Emmerich style and still portrays a galactic story of epic proportions while not taking itself too seriously. The combination couldn't be better.
The characters all work extremely well together. This is the classic story of the group of underdogs that come together to form a team. Something like The Avengers but without a big organisation like SHIELD to bring them together.
Chris Pratt was delightful as the leader character. He is the Luke Skywalker of the new generation. Witty, practical, jack of all trades. Zoe Saldana is the Leia of this generation, not a princess in distress but a woman of the 21st century, strong, smart, focused. Rocket and Groot are the new Han Solo and Chewbacca, while the Milano is the new Millennium Falcon. Drax complements the team with muscle and confidence. A fantastic team.
Lee Pace must be in everybody's radar. I didn't hear much about him, but after Thranduil in The Hobbit, then Joe MacMillan from Halt and Catch Fire, and now as a very competent Ronan, the Accuser, he scores well. Ronan is not in itself a very compelling villain, knowing that he is just one step behind to get to Thanos (and by the way, Josh Brolin as Thanos was superb), but it works rather well. We're getting closer and closer to the Infinity Gauntlet. Can't wait to - I don't know - 2020 to see the end of this epic Thanos saga.
it's been 37 years since Star Wars. We didn't have anything close to it. Guardians is the next best thing ever since. This is science fiction done right. Can't find enough adjectives to qualify it. Don't hold back and just go see it, you won't regret one bit and you will end up wanting some more.
Halt and Catch Fire (2014)
Trying too hard to be Mad Men
Finally there is a TV show about the tech world that is not comedy. The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley are good shows. This is at the very least an interesting new take on the subject. By the way, although the name is clever (being an Assembly command that had some legend behind it) it's not immediately recognizable even for tech enthusiasts.
The idea is for it to be more real. It goes out of the California/Silicon Valley axis and goes to Silicon Praire, Texas, in 1983, in a time when there actually existed other PC manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Tandy, Commodore. Apple was at its peak with the Apple II, prior to the Macintosh release in 1984. Microsoft and IBM still didn't conquer the world with he IBM PC and MS DOS. And as Mad Men had its Sterling Cooper, HCF has Cardiff Electric. And this is the background.
Gordon Clark is an interesting name because it immediately reminds us about Gordon Moore (Intel co-founder) and Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics and Netscape co-founder). Joe MacMillan is a desperate attempt to a new Don Drapper. And what is based on? MacMillan McGraw-Hill?
The attempt to create strong women characters are just too forced right now, even adding lines about Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. But the characters Cameron Howe and Donna Clark are exactly the less believable characters. They are too one-dimensional, and just too strong to be real.
The show is trying too hard to be a new Mad Men, but it still didn't find its own personality. It uses too many tech clichés that feel out of place for anyone that understands the real time line of events of the 80's. We're still at episode 8, they are rushing to build a new product to surpass the IBM PC. We know it has to fail. It's an 8086 to compete with the IBM XT. We know XT will dominate the 80's. Cardiff has to meet the same end of Texas Instruments and Tandy. If they keep close to the real 80's time line, there's no where else to go. I hope they already have a good plot twist otherwise it will be a very short show.
I'm still watching more because of the curiosity of what this twist is going to be. But as an attempt of being a Mad Men of tech, I'm not convinced at all. I still don't care about most of the characters. I feel pity for Gordon Clark, but I don't really care about him. MacMillan and Cameron are too mysterious to care. Donna is too perfect. And Cameron being a genius programmer and Donna being a genius debugger, make me not care at all if they're in trouble. Good thing the Assembly and C of the 80's are not so difficult to showcase. And running Lotus 123, Wordstar are far from "sexy" compared to making advertisement to Jaguar, for example.
Lastly, the Joe MacMillan character, portrayed by Lee Pace, distracts me as he feels like the missing child of John Cusack and Jake Gyllenhaal. Seriously. Anyway, I digress, this show still has to find its pillars and stick to them, right now its just a montage of 80's trivia and a non-existent drama for the public to care.