My Three Biggest Problems With The Green Inferno.

Recently I had a chance to see Eli Roth's newest gore-flick: The Green Inferno. Unfortunately, while it did have its moments (seriously, Daryl Sabara's character Lars stole the show), there were quite a few disappointing elements to it.

The premise sounds simple but promising; a bunch of inept college students go to Peru to save the rainforest and end up being picked off by a tribe of cannibals. It isn't the most original idea ever, but given Roth's previous projects, it still could have been an entertaining gore-flick. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. 

With its inconsistent script and misguided themes, what could have been a gleefully gory horror film just ended up becoming another bargain bin title to add to the pile. On the other hand, it didn't have to end up like that. Here are five things that I personally felt should have been improved.


1. The film's message.

Eli Roth said in multiple interviews that the film was meant to be a jab at today's "slacktivist" internet culture. In addition to making another gory horror film, Roth wanted the plot of The Green Inferno to satirize the internet culture's habit of lazily getting behind important causes by doing as little as they can behind their computer screens.

In an interview with the L.A. Times, Roth said:

I see that a lot of people want to care and want to help, but in general I feel like people don’t really want to inconvenience their own lives...and I saw a lot of people just reacting to things on social media. These social justice warriors. ‘This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.’ And they’re just tweeting and retweeting. They’re not actually doing anything. Or you see people get involved in a cause that they don’t really know a lot about and they go crazy about it. I wanted to make a movie about kids like that...I think there’s a lot of great things, obviously, about activism: people commit their lives to it. But I wanted to make a story about kids who don’t really know what they’re getting into. Get in way over their heads, and it actually works. And then the irony is on their way home their plane crashes and the very people they saved think that they’re invaders, and just dart them and eat them.

It seemed like Roth wanted to make a film about internet-obsessed college kids getting in way over their heads when they actually go to help a cause they know little about. The problem with that concept is that it contradicts itself. From what I understand, "slacktivists" are the kind of people who don't want to take any offline action for a cause they believe in. Just a few years ago, I recall several people on the internet wanting to raise awareness for child abuse by changing their profile picture to a cartoon character instead of donating money to a charity like Childhelp. That, by definition, is slacktivism.

On the contrary, the characters in this movie actually take their time to fly out to Peru to take action against deforestation. When the main character Justine finds out about female genital mutilation in third world countries, she actively tries to find a group that takes action against it. She doesn't show any signs of being a slacktivist, and she and the other characters are rarely seen using social media. Even after they find out how violent Peru's militia is, they still want to fight for the cause. They make extremely stupid decisions when they get there (such as triggering explosives at logging areas and chaining themselves to trees), but at least they are actually doing something. After implying that his movie would be about punishing slacktivists, the only characters that are punished for their actions are the actual activists.

I think a better plot would have involved the college students being on their way to a fancy resort. A half-hour into the film, their plane ends up crashing after they risk their lives protesting deforestation. Their plane should have crashed on the way to a comfortable place with wi-fi where they could continue their slacktivism. This would have made the message of slacktivism more clear, and it would have been more interesting to see how characters who spend most of their time online react to actually being in a real world situation.

As it stands though, the film's message ends up coming across as more of a cautionary tale against actual activism than slacktivism. It's a missed opportunity, plain and simple.

2. The use of its characters.

Most of the characters in this film are either cartoonishly evil or just kind of bland. In an Eli Roth film, one would think that the most unlikable characters would get the most brutal deaths. In this film though, the most unlikable characters get off easy, and the bland characters are the ones who get horrifically murdered. 

Throughout the whole film, I expected the character Alejandro to have the most violent death scene. He is rude to the other students, knowingly deceives them, is willing to let them die to save his own skin, and even masturbates in front of them after one of them dies. So how is he killed off? He isn't. At the end of the film, it's revealed that he escaped off-camera and is still alive. Why even bother to have such an obviously villainous character if you're not going to kill him off? It's just a wasted opportunity.

Moreover, the character of Kaycee (seen above) is even more of a waste. Kaycee is Justine's roommate, and is portrayed as a bitter person who thinks actual activism is "gay." She scoffs at a janitors' strike and doesn't care about anybody but herself. Her character is a much more likely candidate for being eaten by cannibals, but she doesn't even go to the jungle. Again, it would have been much more entertaining to see anti-activists like her end up in a real world situation. Instead, she barely appears in the movie and is an entirely pointless character.

The main character and the rest of the characters are just bland activists that don't do anything but make dumb decisions. There's no reason to hate or love them, so I was indifferent when they were killed off. With the exception of Lars being a funny stoner, nobody did anything interesting to make the audience care about their deaths.

So by the end, the characters in this movie were either wasted opportunities or wastes of time.

3. The story's structure.

Although the message of the movie ends up falling flat, this film could have been passable as a mindless gore film. Sadly, it doesn't really deliver in that department either. The goriest death in the movie (Jonah's death) is shown about halfway through, and every other death after that is either off camera or quickly cut.

Eli Roth is infamous for the high amount of gore he puts into his movies. In The Green Inferno, there isn't that much gore besides Jonah's death scene. One could argue that an R rating only allows for so much gore, but Eli Roth himself recently said that the film was barely cut, and that working with the MPAA was quite easy. He said to IGN:

They were amazingly open-minded and cool about letting me make the movie I wanted to make. And I’ve never had that experience with any other organization in any other country. I feel like the MPAA understands you guys way better than you think. They know what the horror fans are paying to see, and it was very little back-and forth. It was a totally cool experience, and what you just saw was the R-rated cut.

Showing the most brutal death in the film so early makes the rest of the death scenes look tame in comparison. If Eli Roth wanted to leave a bigger impact, he should have saved the most gruesome kill for the end of the movie. It makes me wonder if Roth willingly cut the goriest death in the movie. I went through the whole movie waiting for another death scene to top Jonah's. Although Lars had a pretty humorous death scene, none of the deaths after Jonah's were anywhere near as over-the-top. It was a pretty big let-down considering all of the hype for this movie saying how gruesome and disturbing it was.

At the end of the day, The Green Inferno suffered heavily from these three problems. The message was vague, the characters were misused, and the story was structured poorly. While The Green Inferno is nowhere near being the worst horror movie I've ever seen, it certainly is one of the biggest missed opportunities for a horror film in quite some time.

Angel Heart Had Some of the Best Editing in a Movie. (Contains Spoilers)

*Contains Spoilers*

The Following is an essay I wrote four years ago in college:

The 1987 Alan Parker film, Angel Heart tells the story of a detective supposedly named “Harold Angel” searching for a murderer named “Johnny Favorite” who sold his soul to Satan. Unbeknown to the detective, he is actually searching for himself the whole time, and Harold Angel is the name of the guy he sacrificed to Satan. It is also revealed throughout the film that Louis Cypher, the man who hired Johnny to search for “Mr. Favorite” is actually the devil himself. He has been toying around with Johnny and his amnesia, making him unconsciously murder people while sending him on a chase for himself. This ironic plot point of a detective hunting down himself makes up the main theme of the film. The way that the filmmakers establish this theme is through the film’s editing and its soundtrack. It uses different editing styles like thematic montage and classical cutting as well as the use of light motifs and music cues in terms of sound.

In terms of editing, Angel Heart doesn’t simply rely on classical cutting or thematic montage alone. Instead, the film uses both types of editing to present the theme in the course of the plot. Whether it’s classical editing’s continuity between cuts or thematic montage’s lack of continuity, the film’s theme is still heavily implied through both editing styles.

A great example of this takes place during Johnny’s first meeting with Louis Cypher. The scene starts out with a simple medium shot of Johnny talking to Louis. However, as soon as Louis brings up Johnny, the scene cuts from Louis to a much tighter shot of Johnny talking to him. As Louis gives more details on Johnny and his past, the camera mainly stays on the same shot of Johnny. This sudden change in the tightness of the frame gives a subtle hint that Johnny, who at this point in the film thinks his name is “Harold Angel,” is the man Louis is talking about.

Mickey Rourke as Johnny

In addition to this scene, the scene where Johnny discovers Margret’s disembodied heart includes a rather clever use of classical cutting. Outside of the house where Johnny murdered Margret in another one of Louis’ inflicted blackouts, children are shown tap dancing. After Johnny first discovers Margret’s corpse, he searches around the room for clues as to who murdered her. As he looks around the room, the scene constantly cuts to one kid tap dancing outside the house. The tap dancing sort of acts as a ticking clock, as the film cuts to it more often as Johnny gets closer to the heart. Once Johnny discovers the heart, the film once again cuts to the child, who has finished his dance. The child finishing the dance signifies the heart being discovered and Johnny getting closer to finding out he, himself is the culprit.

Thematic montage is also used to present the theme throughout the story. One scene where this type of editing is put into use is the scene where Johnny sees his reflection, reminding him of how he stole Harold Angel’s identity and soul. This in turn reminds him of how he killed Harold and sacrificed him to Satan. To signify this, the film flashes back to Harold’s kidnapping by Johnny and the outside of the building where he was murdered. Moreover, it also flashes forward to the ending scene where Johnny is sent on an elevator to hell. Since thematic montage shows no regard towards continuity, flashbacks and flash-forwards are permitted.

Later in the film, the blood-drenched sex scene between Johnny and his daughter Epiphany is another thematic montage worth noting. Before Johnny has sex with Epiphany, he places a bowl on the floor to catch the rain leaking through the roof. This bowl is the exact same type of porcelain bowl that was used to clean the blood off the walls after Harold’s murder. As the water from the roof drips into the bowl, it suddenly turns into blood, signifying another montage inside Johnny’s head. Even more detail from Harold’s murder is shown, including the blood spatter onto the wall and Margret scrubbing the blood off the walls using a brush and the same bowl. Once again, it also flashes forward to the elevator at an even lower position than it was in the last montage, signifying that Johnny is getting even closer to the revelation that he is the one he’s looking for.

Robert De Niro as Louis Cypher

The use of light motifs is another thing worth noting about the film. Throughout the movie, the song “I Cried for You” is played whenever Johnny finds out more about his forgotten past. However, only one specific part of the song is really showcased. This is the part of the song that goes: “I cried for you darling, now it’s your turn to cry over me.” This specific line symbolizes how Johnny took Harold’s soul, but in the end, Satan will have Johnny’s soul. This song is first played is right after Louis tells Johnny to “find Johnny,” and is last played when Johnny realizes who he and Louis really are.

In addition to this light motif, the film uses specific sound effects to emphasize Johnny getting closer to finding out who he truly is. One of these sound effects is a scream, which is played when Johnny discovers both Margert’s heart and Margert’s father burned to death in a pot of gumbo. Both of these are shocking pieces of physical evidence that Johnny committed both murders in trances caused by Louis. Also, the suspenseful music cue containing the sound of water dripping in a pan is played while Johnny is remembering his past rather than when he sees concrete evidence. This sound is played when Johnny gets to New Orleans and finds Margret, when he reminisces during intercourse with his daughter, and when he drives to the house where he finally finds out the truth about him and his satanic deeds. Clearly, this ominous but heart-pounding sound is meant to create suspense for the inevitable, and it certainly is a fine way to do so.

Overall, the editing done in this film really makes a truly incredible film even better. Not only was the acting, writing, and directing flawless, but the editing makes it even more recommendable. Out of all horror films, this is by far the greatest I have seen; it manages to be frightening and intelligent at the same time, something modern horror films struggle to be.

My Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies of September/October 2015.

This summer was certainly a big one for movies. In the past few months, we've gotten smash hits like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Inside Out, Jurassic World, Minions, and much more. While this summer is drawing to a close, the upcoming early fall movie season is nevertheless still exciting. While there won't be nearly as many blockbusters, the amount of promising features coming out in September and October is still worth getting excited about. The hype train is still going strong as we get into awards season.

5. The Martian

Sure, Ridley Scott hasn't had a good track record recently, but that doesn't mean he still can't make a good movie. I know it's kind of an unpopular opinion online, but I actually liked Prometheus. I admired that wasn't afraid to introduce new elements while bringing back the underrated fusion of sci-fi horror that the first Alien film was famous for.

I'm hoping that after the failure of Exodus, Scott will bring his sci-fi prowess back to The Martian to give audiences a hypnotically beautiful sci-fi drama. Plus, with Drew Goddard of Cabin in the Woods and the Daredevil TV series writing, things are certainly looking up for The Martian.

4. Everest

In the past few years, movies like Gravity and Interstellar have delivered visually outstanding Imax experiences with their outer-space settings. While Everest indeed takes place on Earth, it looks no less stunning. 

With beautiful establishing shots the Himalayan mountains, I'm anticipating Everest to remind me of those field trips I used to take to the Aquarium to see immersive nature documentaries in Imax. On the other hand, with the involvement of Slumdog Millionaire writer Simon Beaufoy and A-list talent like Jake Gyllenhaal and Josh Brolin, Everest looks to be much more than just a film about nature. 

How the characters interact with each other in the face of disaster and survival could lead to an excellent and heart-wrenching story. Such a story would blend perfectly with the awe-inspiring cinematography this film is sure to give us. Here's hoping that Everest not only delivers a film that's beautiful to look at, but also ties in a story that truly makes an impact.  

3. Crimson Peak 

The last time Guillermo Del Toro directed a fantasy-horror film was 2006's Pan's Labyrinth, a film which I consider to be one of the most creative and ambitious films of all time. After something as insanely entertaining as Pacific Rim and his hit series The Strain, it's clear that Guillermo Del Toro hasn't lost his touch since then. With Crimson Peak, it is possible that Guillermo Del Toro could breathe some new life into the hit-or-miss library of modern horror films.

Horror films such as The Gallows and Sinister 2 have failed to do the horror genre justice, relying on cheap jump scares and lazy writing, While great horror movies like Oculus and It Follows have made it to the big screen recently, they are few and far between. From what I've seen so far, Guillermo Del Toro seems to be delivering a horror film that focuses on atmosphere instead of lazy scare tactics. Crimson Peak boasts gothic imagery and atmosphere, and its Victorian era setting only adds to how potentially unsettling and dream-like this movie could be. 

2. Black Mass

So Johnny Depp has not had a good past few years. That doesn't mean he can't still make a comeback. With the help of the director of Crazy Heart (and the underrated Out of The Furnace), Johnny Depp looks to finally make that comeback.

In Black Mass, it looks like Depp is going to trade in his recent shtick of playing eccentric, quirky characters to play a sadistic, menacing villain. Based on several documentaries I've watched on the subject, the story of Whitey Bulger is ripe for a film adaptation. Whitey Bulger was a violent, sociopathic individual, and yet had a soft side for his family. Getting to see how the violent and peaceful aspects of his life affected him as a person is sure to be fascinating to watch on screen.

The last time I remember a mainstream movie focusing on a villain was 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street. It was a fascinating character study bolstered by excellent direction by Martin Scorsese and featured a stellar lead performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm optimistic that director Scott Cooper and Johnny Depp can deliver a film that's just as captivating. September 18th seems like a long way away.

1. Sicario

Emily Blunt is perhaps the most underrated actress in Hollywood. She may not have legions of fangirls like Jennifer Lawrence or Emma Stone, but her sheer talent and likability make her just as enjoyable to watch on screen. Having previously showcased her acting prowess in Edge of Tomorrow and Into the Woods, Blunt plays the lead character in Sicario. Sicario is a crime thriller centered around an FBI agent (Blunt) sent by the government to aid a task force on the hunt for a drug lord in Mexico.

In the wrong hands, this plot could easily succumb to cartoonish stereotypes and generic setpieces. However, with Prisoners' Denis Villeneuve directing and the excellent Roger Deakins on cinematography, I expect a beautifully shot and ominously suspenseful film that will keep me guessing throughout. The always welcome presence of Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro just adds to the hype, and I'll be checking this one out on opening night.

Ant-Man Is a Mess That Satisfies by the End. (SPOILER REVIEW)

Score: 3/5

*Contains Spoilers*

I'm sure I'm not the first to admit that I had mixed expectations for Ant-Man. In the months leading up to its release, I have read several news articles and interviews about Ant-Man's production issues. Usually when a movie has backstage problems, its quality suffers greatly. Examples include, but are not limited to Brave, Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World.

As such, I was weary that Ant-Man could end up being a rare misfire for Marvel. Unfortunately, while I may be in the minority with my opinion, this somewhat became the case with Ant-Man. The key word being: "somewhat."



Right off the bat, Ant-Man started off pretty well. The main character Scott Lang is an instantly likable protagonist. Whether he's getting into a prison fight or working as Baskin Robbins, Paul Rudd gives an earnest charm to Scott that fits the character to a tee. Though the character himself was a cliched down-on-his-luck father with an estranged ex-wife and child, Rudd does his best to elevate the character. Something about the way he delivered his lines felt like he really cared about what he was filming, and it was a pleasant viewing experience. Even with all of the film's flaws, I am still looking forward to seeing Rudd play the miniscule warrior in future MCU installments.

On the other hand, despite how strong the supporting cast is, their characters are pretty weak. Hank Pym (played by the typically masterful Michael Douglas) comes across as yet another retired hero-turned-mentor who's only purpose in the film is to train Scott on how to use the Ant-Man suit. Sure, he has the occasional funny line, and Michael Douglas gives him charm, but he seems to take a backseat in this movie.

The problem with Hank Pym is that by the end of the movie, Scott doesn't really learn anything from him. During the film, Scott is caught in the middle of a tedious father-daughter conflict between Hank and his daughter Hope (played by the underrated Evangeline Lilly). Hope wants to wear the shrink suit instead of Scott, but Hank won't let her. The two go back and forth about how Hope's mother died several times until Hank finally tells Hope that she died using the suit and they reconcile. Since Scott has a daughter himself, you'd think that he'd learn something from this conflict, but no. He loves his daughter just as much at the beginning of the film as he does by the end. So essentially, this daddy-issues subplot was entirely pointless.

As for the character of Hope, she comes across as the typical gung-ho daughter who wants to fight when her overprotective father won't let her. All she really does is mope about how she wants to take up the shrink suit. By the time she does get a shrink suit of her own (during the mid-credits scene), I didn't care what happened to her. She just felt like another obligatory female side character that the protagonist ends up falling in love with.



The weakest character, by far, is the villain. Darren Cross/Yellowjacket has to be the worst villain in the MCU next to Malekith. He's just another smarmy businessman in a suit like in all three Iron Man movies and Captain America 2. What makes it even worse is that the film doesn't really try to make him memorable. His motivations for being evil are never really clear (whether it's a hunger for power or a chemical imbalance), and he is just forgettable as a whole. At least in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Alexander Pierce was memorable in the context of the film's political plot.


The film even has to resort to showing him performing cruel animal testing on adorable lambs to force the audience to hate him. When a script has to stoop to something that obvious and desperate to get you to hate the villain, you get the feeling like even the filmmakers think the character is weak. Imagine if all Red Skull did was punch puppies: you'd hate him on instinct, but it would feel as lazy as a fake-out jumpscare in a horror film.

Moreover, the fact that the movie changed writers/directors was pretty clear to see. Some scenes suffer from jarring tonal shifts. For example, what seems like a training montage is interrupted by tragic exposition of Hope's mother dying from shrinking into oblivion. This, in turn, is concluded by a witty remark from Scott that feels out of place and awkwardly timed. If this was meant to be funny, it wasn't.

Based on several interviews and stories that I’ve read, the most likely reason why Edgar Wright left Ant-Man was because the heads at Marvel Studios wanted him to tie his film more into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. The urge to tie this movie into the universe becomes quite apparent in one scene where Scott just happens to drop in on the newly-built Avengers headquarters to steal an unknown device. The scene, which features a fight with Falcon (played by Anthony Mackie) is almost completely pointless and only serves as a forced universe tie-in. If this scene is the reason why Edgar Wright left, I can certainly sympathize with him.

Despite all of these flaws I’ve had with the film, there were still plenty of moments that delivered the goods. The humor, for the most part, is just as witty as you'd expect from a Marvel movie. In particular, Michael Peña’s character Luis was the comedic highlight of the movie.


Luis is Scott's good friend and former cell mate. Despite the fact that he went to jail, his mother died, and his father was deported, he is still strangely optimistic. He also has a knack for telling stories in a humorously rambling manner. Peña’s genius performance combined with the character’s awkward nature make Luis one of the best comic relief characters I’ve ever seen. As many people have already said, I'd love to see a one-shot of his character narrating Ant-Man's events in a silly, rambling manner.

The potentially silly concept of Scott being able to control the minds of ants was executed flawlessly as well. Seeing him train and learn to become one with the ants was so surreal, and yet incredibly fun to see. Seeing Scott fly around on a carpenter ant and build fire ant bridges proved that big imagination can come in small packages.

The scene where he breaks into Cross' building to steal the Yellowjacket suit is especially exhilarating, and I was truthfully fully engaged. To put it bluntly: seeing Ant-Man surf on a bed of fire ants is destined to be a classic Marvel moment for me. On paper, something like that in an action film seems destined for mockery, but director Peyton Reed really makes it work.

As a side note: RIP Antony.

It is no surprise that the best scene in the movie was straight from the mind of Edgar Wright, and Peyton Reed amiably translates it onto the screen. The final fight between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket takes place in Scott's daughter's bedroom. Toys are thrown, a piggy bank is blown up, and Thomas the Tank Engine blows a hole in the wall. Again, what sounds stupid really works well on film. The sheer creativity of this fight scene is something that has to be seen to believe, and I dare say it's one of the best fight scenes I've seen in recent years.

Both of the previously mentioned scenes happened at the end of the movie, so I walked out feeling satisfied with what I've seen. The experience itself was worth it. Sure, the movie is far from perfect, but I felt like I had spent my money well. It was only in retrospect that I really reflected on the movie's flaws.

In a way, the movie does exactly what it sets out to do; giving audiences something ambitious while still hyping them up for future MCU movies. Ant-Man is a mess, yes, but I do recommend checking it out for what it is and what it offers for longtime Marvel fans.

2016 Razzie Award Predictions.

It's only August, and yet with all of the bad press surrounding certain films, I found it quite easy to make my predictions for the Razzie Awards. While I can't guarantee which of these films will be nominated, I have a pretty good idea of what the nominees will be.

Note: this list doesn't necessarily reflect my opinion on who/what should be nominated, but who/what likely will be nominated. I base the predictions on popularity and notoriety, which is what the Razzies usually go by.


Worst Supporting Actor

• Ninja - Chappie
• Josh Gad - Pixels & The Wedding Ringer
• Kevin James - Pixels & Little Boy
• Jai Courtney - Terminator: Genisys & The Divergent Series: Insurgent
• Eddie Redmayne - Jupiter Ascending

Worst Supporting Actress

• Sofia Vergara - Hot Pursuit
• Michelle Monaghan - Pixels
• Yolandi Visser - Chappie
• Stefanie Scott - Jem and the Holograms
• Amanda Seyfried - Ted 2

Worst Screen Combo

• Jamie Dornan & Dakota Johnson - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Ninja and Yolandi Visser - Chappie
• Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell - Fantastic Four
• Sofia Vergara & Reese Witherspoon - Hot Pursuit
• Adam Sandler & Michelle Monaghan - Pixels

Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel

• Alvin & The Chipmunks: Road Chip
• Terminator: Genisys
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Vacation
• Poltergeist

Worst Screenplay

• Kelly Marcel, Patrick Marber & Mark Bomback - Fifty Shades of Grey
• The Wachowskis - Jupiter Ascending
• Tim Herlihy - Pixels
• Jeremy Slater & Simon Kinberg - Fantastic Four
• Kevin James & Nick Bakay - Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Worst Director

• The Wachowskis - Jupiter Ascending
• Josh Trank - Fantastic Four
• Chris Columbus - Pixels
• John M. Chu - Jem and the Holograms
• M. Night Shyamalan - The Visit

Worst Actress

• Reese Witherspoon -Hot Pursuit
• Dakota Johnson - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kate Mara - Fantastic Four
• Mila Kunis - Jupiter Ascending
• Cassidy Gifford - The Gallows

Worst Actor

• Adam Sandler - Pixels
• Miles Teller - Fantastic Four
• Channing Tatum - Jupiter Ascending
• Jamie Dornan - Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kevin James - Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Worst Picture

• Pixels
• Jupiter Ascending
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Fantastic Four
• Fifty Shades of Grey

Top 5 Least Anticipated Films of September/October 2015.

They always say to get the bad news out of the way first. Well, before I reveal my top 5 most anticipated movies of early autumn, I figured I'd list the ones that you'll least likely catch me watching. So here they are in all their dull, rusty glory.

5. The Transporter: Refueled

Even ignoring the fact that Jason Statham is not starring in this, I honestly do not see the hype for this. Nobody I know is talking about it, and after seeing the trailer, I can understand why. It just looks like a run-of-the mill action movie with girls, cars, fights and explosions. Everything looks pretty much par for the course for an action movie and nothing really stands out.

4. Hotel Transylvania 2.

Hotel Transylvania was pretty much the best thing Adam Sandler was involved with in the past decade. It wasn't perfect, and did suffer from a few bad jokes, but I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable due to it's often snappy screenplay and its flawless direction by Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory). While Tartakovsky did return to direct the sequel, there are still some major red flags that may keep me from seeing Hotel Transylvania 2.

First of all, Adam Sandler is officially on the writing team. In the past few years, Sandler has written such films as Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, Jack & Jill and Grown Ups 2. All of these films emphasize crude and cringe-worthy jokes that serve no purpose to the plot except to make the teenagers in the audience giggle. He does have his talents as an actor, but he is pretty much unbearable as a writer. This is in addition to the backstage issues involving co-writer Robert Smigel giving Tartakovsky a hard time and micromanaging the film's production. Even with Genndy directing, Sandler and the demanding Smigel may have had too much of an influence on the film for it to be as good as the first.

3. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

Just when you thought the Paranormal Activity series was dead and buried, in comes the sixth film in the series to make you say: "nah...I'm not seeing that." Ever since the success of the original Paranormal activity, the found footage genre has been milked to death and dragged through the mud. Films like The Devil Inside, Devil's Due and The Gallows showed that the genre had pretty much run its course. With the new Paranormal Activity film, you'd think that Hollywood would know this and add something new to the aging series. Unfortunately, what they added only makes the newest installment even less appealing

Where the earlier Paranormal Activity movies focused more on subtlety than cheap scares and special effects, the newer installments seem to be focusing on the latter. With Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, any hope of clever scares or atmospheric tension is dashed with the addition of dark cgi blobs added into the film to represent the titular ghosts. Audiences who constantly complain about horror movies "not showing enough of the monster" will likely be won over, but everyone else is just out of luck here. Expect to sleep well after seeing this installment (if you don't already fall asleep while watching it that is).

2. Goosebumps.

After something like Pixels, who would have any faith in Sony to make a good movie to honor a childhood pastime? Pixels took the video games that its intended audience grew up playing and enjoying and drowning them in a bucket of awful jokes and insufferable characters. Goosebumps, to no surprise, looks to do the same thing.

The film's trailer revealed that R.L. Stein (played by Jack Black) is not actually the main character of the film. Instead, it stars the cliched good-hearted teenager with a single parent who just moved in from another town. He is joined by an equally cliched annoying goofball friend and obligatory female love interest. As if the cliched characters weren't bad enough, the dialogue looks shrill and unfunny, and the plot is just another "Sealed Evil in a Can" story that has been done too many times to count. Perhaps if there was more of a horror element in the trailer, it might have looked more appealing. Unfortunately, the film just looks like yet another goofball comedy fueled by shallow nostalgia like Pixels.

1. Jem and the Holograms

This film, along with Ouija, is proof that Hasbro's film division is incredibly pointless. Where Ouija was a generic jump-scare fest with high school students getting killed off one by one, Jem and the Holograms is a generic rags-to-riches story where the lead singer gets into a conflict with the rest of the band. Besides Jem and the Holograms having a shallow and dull plot, the movie doesn't even seem to stay remotely true to its source material.

The original series was based on a flashy 80's rock band. The characters played 80s pop music, dressed up in flashy outfits, and infused their hair with plenty of hairspray and mousse. On the contrary, the film adaptation takes place in modern times. As seen in the trailer, things like YouTube and Photoshop are mentioned, making it clear that the studio wanted to modernize something whose fans fondly remember it as being a piece of 80's nostalgia. What's the point on banking on 80's nostalgia if you are going to take everything remotely 80's out of it? Even if it was faithful to the source material, would you really want to see the 80's equivalent of Hannah Montana on the big screen?

If Nintendo Wants to Make Movies, Here's What They Should Do.

In a recent interview, Nintendo head designer Shigeru Miyamoto (宮本 茂) said that the company may finally start taking their beloved franchises to the big screen. Miyamoto said:

We’ve had, over the years, a number of people who have come to us and said ‘Why don’t we make a movie together—or we make a movie and you make a game and we’ll release them at the same time?’ Because games and movies seem like similar mediums, people’s natural expectation is we want to take our games and turn them into movies… I’ve always felt video games, being an interactive medium, and movies, being a passive medium, mean the two are quite different….As we look more broadly at what is Nintendo’s role as an entertainment company, we’re starting to think more and more about how movies can fit in with that—and we’ll potentially be looking at things like movies in the future.

Shigeru Miyamoto

In summary, Nintendo realizes that taking something interactive like a video game and turning it into something more passive like a movie is a challenging process. However, expanding Nintendo into different forms of entertainment is still something that the company is interested in doing.

If Nintendo wants to make movies, the first thing they should understand is that they must be animated and not in live action. While one could argue that the Legend of Zelda characters could work in live action, cartoonish characters like Mario, Kirby and Star Fox simply would not look right. Gritty live action versions of colorful characters are often the subject of parody, and should not even be considered by Nintendo. Would you honestly want to see something like this...

Mario in a Japanese Mercedes commercial.

or this?

A satirical live action Pokemon poster.

Moreover, perhaps the most important thing that Nintendo should (and hopefully will) understand is why previous game-to-movie adaptations failed. Previous adaptations took only the bare basics of the source material and put them into an unfaithful and shallow product.

King Koopa and the Goombas from Super Mario Bros.

The last attempt at a movie based on a Nintendo property was 1993's Super Mario Bros., a disastrous attempt to make a gritty, marketable film for general audiences. Bowser/King Koopa was portrayed as a bleach-blonde Dennis Hopper and the Mushroom Kingdom was a grimy, dark city. It ended up failing with critics and audiences and is still known as being one of the worst and most unfaithful game-to-movie adaptations of all time (as if most video game movies were ever faithful to begin with).

Even to this day, studios like Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox are pretty much incapable of making a good video game movie, as evidenced by this year's Pixels and Hitman: Agent 47 respectively. Studio higher-ups could care less about making game-to-movie adaptations respectful and memorable and more about giving them flashy aesthetics hoping that they could gross enough money from casual crowds. Most of today's current studio executives did not grow up with video games, and thus do not have an interest in them to begin with. This leads to them hiring writers and directors who don't understand what people love about video games or how to put that love into a film.

How not to do an adaptation.

Pixels was a mashup of awful jokes and unlikable characters mixed with the occasional video game character and/or 80s song to trigger knee-jerk nostalgic reactions. The effects were nice, but the film treats its licensed characters with no real respect or understanding. Instead, it just throws the characters on screen and hopes that enough people will go "hey, I remember that" and forget about the poor overall quality of the script. It was the film equivalent of fruit stripe gum; it gives gamers a short burst of nostalgia before making them indifferent with an overall lackluster film.


Hitman: Agent 47 took the slick, stealth-based elements of the video games and traded them in for generic wannabe-matrix-style setpieces, guns and explosions. Once again, the people behind the film took no interest in what people love about the games and instead slapped the licence onto an easy-to-write action film to wring a few bucks out of audiences.

It's obvious that the creators of the games had little to no involvement in these movies. Therefore, it would be interesting to see what Nintendo could do if they themselves produce their own films. Hopefully, the movies will be much more faithful to the beloved games that inspired them and really give a reflection of what drives fans to play them.

Someone who loves the property should be involved.

Conversely, while it is important to stay faithful to the source material, Nintendo should still be willing to take a few creative liberties. Like Miyamoto said, without the interactive elements of the games like smooth controls and engaging gameplay, turning them into movies can prove challenging. For example, the typical damsel-in-distress storyline, while being a staple of the Mario and Zelda games from the beginning, is a dated plot element in film.

That isn't to say that Nintendo's movies should win over people like Anita Sarkeesian, but they should still be open to give the traditional stories of their games a twist. Much like Peter Parker getting bit by a radioactive spider, audiences have already seen Mario/Link save Peach/Zelda, and without the ability to interact with the characters on screen, audiences need a reason to keep watching.

Just look at The Lego Movie; its detailed animation and numerous references were nostalgic enough, but it also had well-examined themes of fatherhood and creativity. The character Emmet represented every child who wanted to look past the instructions and try their own ideas. Some may scoff at how "weird" something like a double-decker couch sounds, but it could still end up being a great idea after all.

How an adaptation should be done.

A Super Mario Bros. movie could explore themes of leadership. On the surface, it could still be the classic tale of Princess Peach being kidnapped by Bowser, but it could still be more than just that. Just like in New Super Mario Bros. U, perhaps Bowser could take over Peach's castle and hold her and her entire staff hostage. Much like the president in Olympus has Fallen, Peach must prove that she is a competent leader in a hostage situation, and could even help out Mario by sending him secret notes and health powerups like in previous Mario games.

Instead of a one-dimensional bad guy, Bowser could be a somewhat misunderstood father who wants to give his son Bowser Jr. a mother. This plotline was previously explored in Super Mario Sunshine and the Super Mario Adventures comics, and could certainly be carried out in the film adaptation. Again, the theme of leadership can come into play here, as Bowser learns throughout the film that he could be a competent single parent on his own. He could still be a villain by trying to destroy the Mario Brothers and having an overall bad attitude, but he could still be a fun villain like Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan.

Bowser can be funny but still threatening.

As for the Mario Brothers, Mario could be more than just a mild-mannered and likable Italian stereotype. He could be like Fix-It Felix Jr. in Wreck-It Ralph and be a good-hearted guy but slightly naive at the same time. In Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix Jr. is a good guy, but doesn't understand how Ralph truly feels about his status as a villain. Perhaps Mario tries too hard to protect his younger, more timid brother Luigi from danger and doesn't realize he's holding back Luigi's true potential. At the end of the movie, Mario can finally stop being overprotective of Luigi and let him contribute his own ideas to defeat Bowser's evil plans.

Note: Mario's dialogue must be carefully written to avoid lines like "all toasters toast toast."

There are several possibilities for other Nintendo movies. A Star Fox movie could be a humorous, witty and somewhat dark sci-fi tale in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Can you see the possibilities?

A Pokemon movie could be about Ash and Pikachu forming a friendly bond to defeat Team Rocket like Hiro and Baymax in Big Hero 6. A Legend of Zelda film could be a grand fantasy adventure like The Dark Crystal where Link and Zelda work together to defeat Ganondorf's reign of terror. The possibilities are more endless than the 1up trick in the original Super Mario Bros.

All of these films could even be a part of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe that fans have been craving for so long. Super Smash Bros. could be like The Avengers and see all of the heroes (and perhaps even villains) combining their strengths to defeat the evil Master Hand.

While nobody can predict what approach Nintendo will take with their movies (or if they'll even get made), one can only be optimistic that Nintendo will make the right decisions with what to do with their property. Just as long as they keep Happy Maddison far, FAR away from it.