MIFF 2014 Review: Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (2013) — Mike Myers Presents Talent Agent, Womaniser, Buddhist.

Supermensch-banner

Shep Gordon is a Hollywood icon, he’s just one you’ve never heard of. The manager of an eclectic range of musicians and actors such as Alice Cooper, Anne Murray, and Groucho Marx, Gordon is the focus of Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, the directorial debut of Mike Myers (Austin Powers, Shrek).

The cute couple.

The cute couple.

Gordon has lived a crazy, whirlwind life: a young man who happened to break into the music industry by a happenstance encounter with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. This encounter led to a meeting with the band Alice Cooper, with the struggling musicians instantly taking him on as their manager. Through savvy business sense and networking, Gordon took Alice Cooper from obscurity to the shock-rockers that the music world was craving. His success with Cooper led to successful partnerships with a wide range of acts such as Luther Vandross, Blondie, and Teddy Pendergrass. Gordon will also go on to create one of the first independent film studios, and is also credited with creating the ‘celebrity chef’ concept, which is now a billion dollar industry.
(more…)

Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) — Marvel’s Weirdest Team in Marvel’s Strongest Movie

Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-banner

Space Avengers.

Space Avengers.

Guardians of the Galaxy is the tenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it is directed by James Gunn (Slither, Super) and co-written by Gunn and Nicole Perlman. In a departure from the highly interconnected, Earth-bound Marvel Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in a galaxy far, far away (hmmm). Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, a massive departure from Parks and Recreation) aka Star-Lord, was abducted as a child by a group of inter-galactic marauders and has since grown up as a thief and rogue. When Quill discovers an ancient orb on a desolate planet, he finds himself in the crosshairs of Kree warrior Ronan (Lee Pace), who is also after the artefact. In his journey Quill encounters Gamora (Zoe Saldana), an assassin who looks to redeem her nefarious past; Drax (former WWE Champion Dave Bautista), looking to avenge the death of his family at the hands of Thanos (that big guy at the end of The Avengers!); Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically engineered raccoon with a penchant for weaponry; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a hulking, anthropomorphic tree and companion of Rocket. Quill must tag with this renegade group of extraterrestrial fugitives to outrun Ronan and his subordinates who are in pursuit of the orb, which holds one of the powerful Infinity Stones and the capability to destroy the galaxy.

The strong point of this film is the outlandish cast of characters. Each character has different backgrounds and different motivations, and the greatest moments come when they are interacting with each other — both clashing and bonding. The humour is never cheap either; there is never a moment where you are laughing at Rocket just because he’s a raccoon. On the contrary, Rocket is initially established as a no-nonsense, sarcastic badass, and the humour comes from the fact that he actually doesn’t realise he’s a raccoon. That’s great scripting, because the character of Rocket is established without a mention of raccoon, that point comes up naturally in the dialogue. Another great character trait belongs to Drax, as his people do not understanding metaphors, this creates some great comic banter between himself and the sassy Quill. GOTG has a level of entertaining character interactions and dialogue on par with The Avengers.

(more…)

MIFF 2014 Review: Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014) — A Schlock-Till-You-Drop Insight Into One of the Great Bad Studios

Electric-Boogaloo,-Cannon-Films

Director Mark Hartley has a terrific track record producing documentaries about sub-genres of cult cinema; his first, Not Quite Hollywood, was a fascinating look at the low-budget Australian New Wave films (“Ozploitation”) of the 70’s and 80’s, and that was followed up by Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a look at exploitation films coming out of the Philippines in the 70’s and 80’s. He makes it a trilogy of cult film documentaries with Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, which focuses on the films produced by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, together putting together the Cannon Films production company — a production company famous for their cheap, but cult-favourite exploitation films.

A symbol of excellence.

A symbol of excellence.

Cannon was known for churning out low-budget films at a rapid rate, with a distinct company ethos of quantity over quality. Although universally panned by critics, Golan-Globus stayed in business throughout the 80’s through savvy marketing and by taking advantage of the booming home video market. They produced a large number of popular genre films featuring action (Chuck Norris films Invasion USA and Delta Force), science fiction (Lifeforce, Invaders From Mars), and sequels to pre-existing films (Death Wish, Texas Chainsaw Massacre). They also produced many horror, dance (the titular Electric Boogaloo), and adventure movies. If anything was in the popular zeitgeist of the moment, Cannon was sure to take advantage of it, at minimal cost.

To attain legitimacy, Cannon then began to partake in risky bookkeeping; financing films off the profits of the previous release, which was a haphazard process and ultimately led to them biting off more than they could chew. Those larger risks involved enticing Hollywood stars with larger payouts, with the hope of a larger financial reward for the bigger outlay of production costs. This never came to be; failed, expensive productions such as Sylvester Stallone’s arm-wrestling ‘epic’ Over The Top, Masters of the Universe, and Superman IV (allowing Christopher Reeve creative freedom to return to his iconic role was another mistake), led to Cannon straying from their low-budget business model and would be the eventual death of the company.

(more…)

San Diego Comic Con 2014: The Collectables to Collect

Luke Miksa's: The Negative Space Bar

While San Diego Comic Con has now become a mixed-medium Mecca of marketing (I will patent that phrase), at the core it is still a place to salivate over all things super-nerdy; in this case I am going to talk about some choice upcoming action-figures and collectables from some of the world’s best toy companies.

Thanks to Toy News International and MWC Toys for this year’s great coverage and photos.

HOT TOYS/SIDESHOW COLLECTABLES

Starting at the most amazing, eye-catching piece on display this year, the Hot Toys booth showed off this amazingly accurate and life-like Marty McFly 1/6th scale figure and scale DeLorean Time Machine from Back to the Future.

*Drool* **Droooooooollll**

*Drool* **Droooooooollll**

As with many Hot Toys releases, the likeness of Michael J. Fox is uncanny, and the attention to detail is unbelievable. He will come with a fabric outfit (including life-preserver!) as well as a host of accessories including his skateboard, walkman, and ‘Save the Clocktower’ flyer. The DeLorean may very well be the nicest release of the iconic vehicle yet, and includes working headlights and a Flux Capacitor that fluxes!

(more…)

San Diego Comic Con 2014: Just the Good Stuff

Luke Miksa's: The Negative Space Bar

San Diego Comic Con is the biggest of its kind. So big that it really needs to change its name, as it is less about the comics and more of a mass marketing tool for movies and TV programs. Comics are not a priority at this gigantic pop-culture convention. But movie scoops are fun! Here are some of the major announcements from the Mecca of all things terrific and nerdy this year, filtered and truncated for your pleasure!

Thanks to /Film and Badass Digest for the comprehensive Comic Con coverage this year.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

The winner of Comic Con this year goes to Warner Bros. and their upcoming DC Comics blockbuster Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. The first massive news was the reveal of Gal Gadot in full costume as Wonder Woman. Feast your eyes!

Xena Warrior Princess

It’s Wonder Waitaminute…

Oh, shit! I got confused. Here you go:

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman

Truth be told, that is a badass costume and a badass picture. My only complaint — a large complaint; one I shared with Superman’s Man of Steel costume — is the desaturation and lack of colour. Someone needs to tell Zack Snyder that a little colour will not affect his ‘much gritty, such serious’ approach to these movies. An iconic outfit has been homogenised into something generically cool. Oh well.

(more…)

Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) — Mind-Numbing Autobot Boom-Boom, Another Bay at the Office

Transformers-Age-of-Extinction banner

Michael Bay returns to the bombastic robot-fisticuff franchise in Transformers: Age of Extinction; the fourth film in the series, and despite reports to the contrary, not a reboot. This Transformers film deals with the effects of that gigantic battle in Chicago, and it’s not good for our Autobot pals:  CIA operatives are out to capture and destroy all Transformers, Decepticons and Autobots alike. Fugitive Transformers have scattered all across the USA, and it’s in a small town in Texas where failed inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) finds a dilapidated truck that winds up being the wheeled form of Autobot leader and franchise stalwart Optimus Prime.Yeager and his family must join the Autobots in evading the US government, led by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), and their associate, a mysterious bounty hunter known as Lockdown.

Twin guns? Check. Explosions? Check. City-wide destruction? Check.

Twin guns? Check. Explosions? Check. City-wide destruction? Check.

These Transformers movies need to be taken with a grain of salt; you know exactly what you’re getting when you purchase your ticket. It was to my surprise that the first act of this film was actually quite enjoyable: the character interactions were reasonable (despite clunky, cliché dialogue), and Bay’s directing was surprisingly restrained (for his standards). But after a major car-chase action sequence at the end of the first act the film becomes a mind-numbing bore. Meaningless action scenes with no plot development, wretched and laughable dialogue, and awful pacing and editing: the exact stuff I was initially dreading. This is a film that goes well over two and a half hours, but could easily have been edited down to one and a half. Classic Michael Bay over-indulgence

(more…)