An Open Letter to Johnny Depp on the Subject Of Whitewashing

Hey, JD. Can I call you JD? I don't mean to come off as aggressive or anything. I'm sure you're a great guy. But I just have to ask...

...What the hell are you smoking, dude?

Review: The Lost Potential of World War Z

Let me start by saying that Max Brooks' World War Z is one of my favorite books I've read in the last ten years. As such, when it comes to watching a film that's very honest about making changes from its source material, I was biased from the start. Hell, I'm still biased. I admit that. All the same, I tried to go into World War Z with an open mind. After all, though it may not be good (as in accurate) as an adaptation of Brooks' book, it could still be good as a movie. And that's what important. People complaining that "Waaaah, you changed [some tiny thing]" always gets on my nerves. A movie has to work as itself, and every individual element has to be in service of that, not the book/comic book/whatever.

So attending a screening of World War Z started with me tamping down my inner hypocrite. And then, near the end, saying "screw it" and letting my inner hypocrite fly from my mouth like a shrieking (but silently, because movie theater), movie-obsessed banshee. Because World War Z? Is just bad.

Gif Review: Much Ado About Nothing

My gif collection is way, way larger than it by all rights should be. And so, to give some purpose to the hours I've spent building and organizing that collection (don't look at me), here's my review of Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing… in gifs.

Review: Meh of Steel

I didn't expect greatness from Man of Steel. I generally go into summer blockbusters hoping for a good, entertaining movie that will hold my interest and not bug me too much. Hell, Fast & Furious 6 has been one of my favorite movies so far this summer. I don't require The Dark Knight-level quality. I think my expectations are pretty reasonable.

Unfortunately, Man of Steel failed to meet them.

Now You See Me Review: All Flash, No Substance

Early on in Now You See Me Daniel Atlas, a smug, jerk-ish magician played by Jesse Eisenberg, tells the viewers "The closer you look, the less you see." I would modify that line and apply it to the whole movie: "You can look as closely as you want, there's just not much there."

Now You See Me is an entertaining movie filled with good actors and characters that are interesting, if a bit flat. You don't really get to know any of them all that well. Even the ones whom you supposedly get insight into over the course of the film—Mark Ruffalo's detective, Mélanie Laurent's INTERPOL agent, Morgan Freeman's professional magician debunker—still feel slick and shiny by the end of the film. You may at some point feel like you've gotten into the character's head, and the movie's many twists and turns tell you things about certain characters that invite reinterpretation of their motives and personalities, but like the magician's mirror-in-a-box that pops up several times throughout the course of the movie, what you're seeing is only what you're being told. There's no more to it that than.

The same is true of the film's plot, which starts down one path only to wing off in a different direction, offering no explanation of or follow-up to the subject of its previous attentions. It's quite admirable, in a way: The film's about magicians, who are most successful when they distract their audience by something shiny while they go off and do the real magic behind the scenes, as is pointed out in the movie several times. And that's exactly what the movie's doing. It's form meets content.

But, just as magic shows are ultimately empty of actual magic, so too Now You See Me is empty of depth. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Hell, I loved Fast & Furious 6. I don't need all my movies to be thought-provoking. And if one or two major elements of Now You See Me don't make any sense when you really stop and think about them, well, that a plane would continue to try and take off when it has three cars dangling from it is pretty stupid, too.

It bugs me with Now You See Me, though, probably because its cast—in addition to Ruffalo, Eisenberg, Freeman, and Laurent, there's Woody Harrelson, Michael Caine, Dave Franco (who was great in 21 Jump Street) and Isla Fisher (whose character brought an insane amount of charisma, good looks, and… well, that's about it. But that level of depth is held by most of the characters. Eisenberg: Cocky and an asshole. Laurent: Sorta spiritual, love interest… French. Et cetera.) Director Louis Leterrier brought all these wonderful people together and gave us nothing better than a run-of-the-mill crime thriller.

Maybe that I got so little out of the movie is my fault. Maybe if I watched it again, without expecting so much, I'd appreciate it more.

And yet. I don't think I'll be giving this one another two hours of my life.