REVIEW: Strawinsky and the Mysterious House

As I've said before, I like to avoid punching-down on this blog, especially when it comes to children's entertainment. It's not exactly fair to critique something made on a shoestring budget and marketed to toddlers the way I would look at something like Logan or The Lobster; there definitely has to be some sort of sliding grade scale, otherwise this whole operation of mine looks totally pathetic (even moreso than it already does). I'm not here to make fun of a film because it lacks a blockbuster budget, the same way I won't go out of my way to poopoo the efforts of criminally mistreated animators. No, what I hone in on for these end-of-month Reviews is the ill-intent of the filmmaker. I'm a firm believer that, despite abundant amounts of evidence to the contrary, film is still very much an art form. In turn, laziness and greed are two motivators I simply cannot abide. Though I must say, in all my years of seeking out awful, low-budget heaps of trash to watch and the end of each month, I have never once come across something so outwardly malicious and underhanded as today's subject. Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your consideration; Strawinsky and the Mysterious House.

There's a good chance you're already aware of this trainwreck, thanks to the power of the internet meme machine. But to fully grasp what makes this 30-minute children's special such an abhorrent piece of work, I need to provide the necessary context. Fret not, The Globglogabgalab will get his in due time. Strawinsky is directed, produced, animated, edited, recorded, and distributed by a man named David Hutter; much like Tommy Wiseau (who infamously wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The Room), Hutter displays an impressive degree of confidence for someone who has absolutely no idea what the hell he's doing. He describes his brainchild as "a magical adventure inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, Walt Disney animated musicals and the parables by Jesus Christ". At first I was totally baffled. Clearly this would end up being some sort of dime-store religious thing, but I was altogether unprepared for what Mr. Hutter had in store for me. I pondered what in God's good name the movie that gave us The Globglogabgalab could have to do with the word of the Bible, but I soon learned that my questions would be answered in increasingly uncomfortable ways as the film progressed.

We start out to find our bunch of animal friends awkwardly t-posing through the woods before stumbling upon a mysterious house, at which point the leader, Strawinsky, suggests breaking inside and having a look around. They find themselves in a basement full of books, who all implore the little critters to take a load off and read them; so far, it all seems innocuous enough, right? Anthropomorphic British animals in a magic house full of magic books, clearly they're building to some stock moral about how "reading is the most magical adventure of them all" or whatever, yeah? Well... stay with me here, because things are gonna go downhill very fast. 

It's at this point that the friends run into the house's caretaker(?), a troll who looks and sounds like a stereotypical caricature of a Scotsman. The troll mentions how the Scarlet Queen (more on her later) had commanded him to multiply a bag of gold she'd given him; his failure to increase the number of zeroes at the end of the Scarlet Queen's account balance has left him a little on-edge, as he fears what horrible retribution she would have in store for him, should he continue to fail in his quest to produce yet more money for someone who is apparently already royalty. So right off the bat, you'd assume we have our villain in the form of the Scarlet Queen, correct? A vengeful monarch obsessed with gold and negligent to the needs and concerns of her underlings; again, I ask you to just stick with me here. There's a turn coming, and it'd be a damn shame if you were to miss it.

As the troll meanders off to contemplate what hellish torment surely awaits him at the hands of the Scarlet Queen, Strawinsky decides to leave his friends to their books and explore the remainder of the house. He comes across an anthropomorphic cello who explains how she used to belong to the Scarlet Queen; the cello feels understandably forgotten (dare I say, foresaken?) at having been left to rot in a dusty old house by its previous owner. Strawinsky, ever the empathetic paragon of virtue, decides to leave the cello to its wallowing and return to the basement. It's here that he meets the true star of the show, The Globglogabgalab. Essentially, he's a massive, obese, shape-shifting slug man who feeds on the knowledge of books for sustenance. As he explains in his transcendentally bad pan-flute rap song, he is "the yeast of thoughts and minds".

This is arguably the most important moment in the entire movie, since this is where David Hutter lays all his cards on the table and reveals what this film is really about. It's like sitting in a time-share presentation; you know the sale is coming, but you're not sure when until it's too late. Up to this point, it had just been another incompetently made kids' movie with your standard sweatshop CGI, but it's after Strawinsky meets The Globglogabgalab (I refuse to type that out anymore, so hence forth he shall be referred to as G-Man) that things take a hard, sinister turn into Orwellian propaganda. After his disquieting rap number, Strawinsky floats the idea over to G-Man that maybe, just maybe, he should be careful about the books he consumes; maybe it's not a good idea to read books at all, because they can fill your head with dangerous ideas.

As if this message railing against the perils of free-thought wasn't clear enough, we then find out that all of Strawinsky's friends have turned into zombies because they read too many books. Distraught that his loyal sheep friends have grown self-aware and disappeared from the flock, Strawinsky begins desperately praying to Jesus Christ The Scarlet Queen. She arrives in a great pillar of light, leaving the troll and G-Man looking like they were just caught with their hands on the golden calf. After stroking Strawinsky's comatose buddies back to peak woke-ness (yes, the narrator uses the word "stroking"), the Scarlet Queen explains the origin of G-Man; once a beautiful forest elf, G-Man soon found himself seduced by those nasty, wicked books. He just fell in love with the written word, to the point that he grew fat and ugly. This was apparently a punishment bestowed on G-Man by God the great Elohim, an unseen deity who exerts his almighty whim on the poor pathetic pawns who populate the Earth.

It's also here that we learn about Satan the Ratking, who shows up for exactly one scene to tempt our heroes(?) through song. Faced with Strawinsky's incessant evangelizing, G-Man relents and decides to give up his precious, stupid books in favor of devoting himself to the teachings of Christianity whatever religion followers of Elohim keep up with. Despite G-Man making the correct(?) choice and bending the knee to her Scarlet-ness, the narrator makes it painfully clear that, although he has earned his seat at the table in the afterlife, he will never regain his old, beautiful body. G-Man will remain fat and misshapen for all eternity, as punishment for his heinous transgression of reading. As we all know, if there's one thing Jesus is super big on, it's petty retribution. Traits like forgiveness and "turning the other cheek" are for the other, weaker messiahs. The troll, meanwhile, decides not to follow the way of the Scarlet Queen, only because he is so terrified of the prospect of her retribution. As the Scarlet Queen ascends into the great hereafter with her cello, we're left to assume that the fires of Hell await the troll whenever he kicks the bucket (likely whenever the Scarlet Queen finds out he didn't make all that gold for her). Everyone goes home, Strawinsky vows to dedicate his life to the great Elohim, and I'm left feeling horrendously filthy for what I've just witnessed.

Is there even anything left to say at this point? I want to make myself clear, there is nothing wrong with being religious. So long as you're not harming anyone, feel free to believe in whatever you please. But I draw the line at outright propaganda, especially when it's propaganda that's shamelessly targeted at children. Taking a child to Church on Sunday is one thing, but sitting them down in front of a cartoon that outright says that God won't ever truly forgive you if you decide to read books is something entirely different. Never before have I seen such a self-destructive endorsement of organized religion; it practically comes off like satire made by a militant atheist. The positive side of religion is literally portrayed as blissful ignorance and blind allegiance while any attempt to gain knowledge is shown to be the work of the Devil. Normally, I can brush off media that's simply incompetent, but that's hardly what we're dealing with here. And yes, I recognize the irony of saying "don't watch this media that presents dangerous ideas, it pushes a narrative that we should avoid media with dangerous ideas". I'm not saying not to watch this; just don't subject your kids to this dreck. Consider Strawinsky and the Mysterious House a "must-see" in my book, just make sure you've got some manner of mind-altering substance on hand before you hit play.

2017 End of the Year Retrospective Extravaganza!

365 days later (give or take a week or so) and here we are once again. The new year is, traditionally speaking, a time when we look back and reflect on what we've accomplished. A time of hellacious binge-drinking and brutal hangovers, of ill-fated gym memberships that collect dust after the first week and celebrity death pools that are never quite as entertaining as they seem on New Year's Day. And naturally, if you're anything like me, the new year is the time when everyone comes together to fight it out over which movies represented the best (or worst) the past year had to offer. 

If I'm being real, I feel like 2017 was a pretty damn good year for movies (despite a few obvious low-points); there was certainly a lot to talk about in the realm of cinema, so before I get to my rankings, I think it'd be best to reiterate some ground rules:

• I don't get paid to do this blog. It's purely a hobby of mine and a lack of both time and finances prevents me from seeing everything that comes out in a given year. By no means should you expect anything professional or definitive; the opinions expressed here are purely my own, so take them with how ever many grains of salt suits your fancy.
• Not every movie I discuss here has to have come out in 2017; this is a look back on my year, specifically on the movies I watched in 2017.
• I'm only featuring things I've watched for the first time. That means nothing like Spectacular Spider-Man or Prince of Egypt (though they may receive an Honorable Mention at the end).

So without further ado, let's get right to it!

The Haruo Nakajima Award for Most Fun Monster Movies I Watched in 2017

We lost a lot of talented people in 2017, one of the most underrated being Haruo Nakajima, the original suit actor for the Godzilla movies (as well as countless other kaiju films of the 50's, 60's, and 70's). However, we also got two tremendously enjoyable giant monster movies this past year in the form of Shin Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island. It does my heart good to see these kinds of larger-than-life creature features making a comeback in such a big way, especially when they're done with so much care. Shin Godzilla was a stellar return to form for the king of the monsters, yet it still managed to innovate in so many important ways. It's not often that my reaction to the last shot of a movie is "WAIT, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?", but I sure wish it would happen more often. Meanwhile, Kong: Skull Island was simply a blast, a monster romp that knew exactly what it wanted to be and exactly what it wanted to do. Inspired by everything from Apocalypse Now to Princess Mononoke, it's a prime example of how much a little care, effort, and imagination can bolster a project that, in less passionate hands, could have turned out totally unremarkable. I feel like these movies didn't really set the world on fire with mainstream audiences, but they both represent the kind of commitment to vision that I'd like to see out of more big-budget blockbusters moving forward.

The Spooky-Scary Award for Best Horror I Watched All Year

Horror is, without question, easily one of my favorite genres. Rarely do I find a pair of horror films (back-to-back, no less) of such quality as The VVitch and Get Out. These are two of my absolute favorite films I watched this entire year, films that I plan to enthusiastically revisit time and time again in the future. The VVitch is a positively stunning effort for a first-time director. Low-key and slowly paced, it's not exactly in line with the majority of modern horror films. Jump scares and obnoxious musical stings are replaced with a genuine atmosphere of creeping, natural dread that stuck with me well after the credits stopped rolling. Make no mistake, this is a masterpiece in the same league as The Shining and The Exorcist, and I honestly have no idea how Robert Eggers expects to top it (though he has my sympathies). Get Out, meanwhile, definitely errs more on the side of satire and outright comedy than pure horror, but it was still a very clever, well-crafted, and effective film. Jordan Peele's sense of subtlety and foreshadowing is the rich glue that makes this film such a blast (especially on repeat viewings). It feels like a loving throwback to things like The Twilight Zone and They Live, wrapped up in an eternally topical bundle of modern sensibilities. I simply can't recommend either of these enough; they represent so many of the things I love about the horror genre and I hope to see more from both Eggers and Peele in the future.

The Awesome Mix Award for Best Use of Established Music in 2017

After the first Guardians of the Galaxy took the box office by storm with its "bombastic action sequences set to pop music" approach back in the summer of 2014, it seems like every blockbuster under the sun is out to give it a try (though some are far less successful than others). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baby Driver show how to use this stylistic trick the right way. Anyone can slap a popular song over a given sequence without any finesse or nuance, but that doesn't mean it'll work. Why was Fortunate Son playing when we were introduced to Killer Croc? Was the implication that he served in Vietnam? When music is added to a sequence with no rhyme or reason, it comes off as totally shallow; as though the filmmakers are banking on the audience dully exclaiming "HEY, I KNOW THAT SONG" before declaring it the best movie of the year. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Baby Driver are two films that make it extremely evident that a lot of care and discretion was used when making selections for the soundtrack. The Brandy sequence in Guardians (between Kurt Russell and Chris Pratt) is the first breadcrumb James Gunn gives us, illustrating the parallels between the soundtrack and the events of the plot. After some investigation, the true genius of the film begins to reveal itself (such as how the opening sequence, set to ELO's Mr. Blue Sky, foreshadows the climax). Meanwhile, the visual flair Edgar Wright uses in tandem with the sound design of Baby Driver is just something to behold; watch the opening sequence a few times and see if you can't pick up on all the extraordinarily subtle details in the background and dialog (spoiler alert, it's going to take a good couple viewings to even spot most of them). These are two films that take what many use as nothing more than a cheap gimmick and turn it into a multi-sensory experience; when filmmakers put this kind of thought, care, and hard work into these subtle details, the end result is all the more satisfying to watch. Take note, this is how it's done.

The Hugh Mungous Award for Most Pointless Controversy

I'd hoped we could leave all the endless internet slap-fighting over garbage that doesn't matter in 2016 with the bombed-out corpse of the Ghostbusters remake, but alas, 2017 was no stranger to pointless controversy and squabbling either. Despite enjoying Patty Jenkins' sincere take on an iconic superhero with Wonder Woman, the lead-up to the film's release was so intolerable that I actually added "wonder woman" to my list of blocked keywords on Twitter. First we had complaints about Gal Gadot's hairless armpits and the news that the Alamo Drafthouse planned to host woman-only screenings during the opening weekend. We saw Wonder Woman symbolically inducted into the UN as an ambassador for peace and women's rights, only to have that title revoked for being conventionally-attractive and white. Then the film came out and we had to endure the sour grapes of countless critics who championed Wonder Woman as the most important film of 2017, only to find themselves disappointed by the heterosexual romance and lack of misandry. It was an absolute mess; all of this anger and vitriol over a totally okay superhero movie marketed to children. Similarly, we have the eternally divisive fan reactions to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Some fans proudly declared "NOT MUH LUKE" and labelled the film as (somehow) worse than the prequels. Others displayed such a fanatical devotion to this flawed, messy sequel that it's a wonder Jedi haven't emerged as a real-world extremist group. Either you're a Disney shill who's been paid off by the Mouse, or you're an unapologetic racist who "just didn't get it". Both sides are pathetic, both sides are wrong, both sides need to stay in 2017, because I will be damned if I have to go through this all again when Black Panther comes out next month.

The Poochy Award for Plot Points 

That Died on the Way Back to Their Home Planets

One of the biggest problems with building films around the framework of a cinematic universe is the danger that not every detail will eventually carry over into anything that matters. We watched Age of Ultron all but ignore the character development present in Iron Man 3 and Captain American: The Winter Soldier; this is the price of attempting to tell a long-form narrative between dozens of different creative teams, generating a clash between studio direction and artistic intent. Sometimes, however, it's not entirely the studio's fault. Sometimes a a bad idea is just a bad idea; such is the case with Spider-Man Homecoming's Michelle (played by Zendaya). This character almost made Homecoming a shoe-in for Most Pointless Controversy, but it just missed out for the simple fact that, in 10 years, I'm willing to bet people will still be arguing about The Last Jedi; not a soul will have anything to say about the character of Michelle. She was used exclusively to drum up clickbait drama before the release of the film, only to amount to barely more than nothing. We get a quick gag in which she mentions that her friends call her "MJ" and that's it. Based off of Kevin Feige's explanation, I wouldn't be surprised if this character was nothing more than a stress test to see what the studio could get away with from a stunt-marketing standpoint. Michelle was hardly the breakout star of Homecoming, so I doubt we'll be seeing "MJ" in any kind of major capacity down the line (especially since Gwen Stacy has already been confirmed for the sequel). On the other hand, we have Justice League. As in, all of it. The entirety of Justice League is, as far as I'm concerned, dead-on-arrival at this point, it's absolutely pitiful how little public faith WB appears to have in their own franchise. We can't officially declare it until Aquaman comes out (since that's been in active production for a while), but the writing is on the wall. The days of the DCEU (at least, in its current iteration) are numbered. With the Flashpoint movie around the corner, I wouldn't be surprised if major parts of this cinematic universe are retconned out of existence, with a number of major roles recast in favor of actors who are much less expensive and emotionally broken than Ben Affleck (and that's assuming WB doesn't just cut their losses and reboot the entire miserable mess a few years from now).

The Unpoppable Bubble Award for Best Superhero Stuff of 2017

On a more positive (yet still superhero-themed) note, we have my absolute favorite comic book films to come out in 2017, Logan and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Tonal opposites, perhaps, but these are the two superhero movies that, I feel, exemplify that the genre still has more to offer beyond firing blue beams into the sky. I never thought I would be one of those suffering from superhero fatigue, yet here we are. My excitement for Infinity War, a film I've literally been waiting a decade for, is lukewarm at best. I didn't even bother watching The Defenders. Hell, I didn't even bother watching The Punisher. I haven't even seen the trailer for season 2 of Jessica Jones. It's all just becoming too much, we've eaten so much delicious Marvel-branded candy that we've become sick of it. It dawned on me around the time I saw Baby Driver that it was the first film I had seen in the theaters in 2017 that wasn't a comic book adaptation, a sequel, or a sequel to a comic book adaptation. But whenever the looming death of cinema gets me down, I take comfort in knowing that all is not lost; we can still get genuinely effective, well-made films out of this blockbuster fad. Both Logan and Guardians made enough of an emotional impact on me that I still think about them to this day. If you're like me and harbor the occasional fear that the MCU is slowly revealing itself as the outcome of a monkey's paw wish, give these two a look. There are still stories to be told, but it takes a talented filmmaker (like James Gunn and James Mangold) to make them into stories worth telling.

The Bill Finger (Not Bob Kane) Award for 

the Only Good Film of 2017 to Feature Batman

This is the only category on this Retrospective with only one winner, simply because I find it so insane that, out of all of the DC movies featuring Batman to come out in 2017, the best one was the animated comedy where the caped crusader is portrayed by a plastic building toy and voiced by Gob from Arrested Development. The LEGO Batman Movie is many things. It's a heartwarming family film, a hilarious comedy, and a gorgeously-put-together display of computer animation. Above all else, it's also the best portrayal of Batman and pals since The Dark Knight. There's something about that fact that I find hilarious in a cosmic sort of way. If you went back in time to 2007 and told everyone "ten years from now, a movie about Batman LEGO sets is going to be way better than a movie about the Justice League", not a soul would believe you. Hell, they probably wouldn't believe that a LEGO Batman movie would even exist. Yet here we are. It's a grand old time and, aside from most of the first two acts of Wonder Woman, it was the only bit of mercy WB decided to show us DC fans in 2017. Here's hoping with Aquaman and Batman Ninja coming out later this year that 2018 is a damn sight better.

The Martyr Award for the Worst Things I Made Myself Watch This Year

You know, this was supposed to be fun. When I put this blog together, I thought "huh, well if I only watch stuff that looks interesting, there'll be way too many positive reviews, and things will get boring, so I should watch some really terrible stuff every month, just to mix it up!" What an idealistic fool I was. But now it's tradition, so I can't escape it. I bet you thought Ivan the Incredible was gonna be here, didn't you? Surprise, for as horrid as that was, at least there was a sort of mean-spirited entertainment one could get out of it. It wasn't a good trip by any means, but man was it a trip. Dragonball: Evolution and Jurassic School, on the other hand, represent everything I hate to see in film. There's something to be said in defense of movies that are so bad they're good (more on that later), but I can't abide laziness. Both of these are just such boring, bland, cynical cash-grabs; if I had to say anything nice about either of them, I feel like Dragonball has the potential to be a blast with the proper company and potent enough refreshments. Jurassic School is just hopeless, such a gross scam of a movie that it actually makes me angry. This blog is something I look forward to making each week, but it's movies like these that really put me through my paces, so I guess I've at least got that to be grateful for.

The "And I've Got the Ticket Stubs to Prove It" Award for Worst Movies of 2017

Like I said at the start of all this, 2017 was (all things considered) a damn good year for movies. That said, even the best year isn't exempt from its low points; and my God, where these some low points. Alien: Covenant is the latest in the exciting saga of me gradually losing any and all faith in Ridley Scott as a filmmaker. It feels like Scott only learned the most superficial of lessons from Prometheus; RedLetterMedia wants to know what the black goo was? Let us explain! People were upset there was no xenomorph? Here's the cheapest-looking, least exciting xenomorph in the history of the franchise for exactly the last 20 minutes of the film! Everyone says the scientists acted like idiots? Well now they're not scientists anymore, so they can be as stupid, shortsighted, and incompetent as the plot requires! It's seriously an insultingly stupid movie; it doesn't feel as insufferably full of itself as Prometheus and Michael Fassbender continues to prove himself one of the finest actors of our time, but there's only so much that can be done to salvage such a broken concept. And there's still two more sequels on the way. Meanwhile, we also have DC making their second-annual appearance in the Worst Of category with Batman and Harley Quinn, an animated abomination so heinous that I had to get a buzz going just to finish it. I honestly feel bad about lumping Covenant in with something as horrendous as Batman and Harley Quinn; there's a fair power gap between the two. At least Covenant, braindead as it is, has a handful of decent ideas that it occasionally executes in a serviceable way; that's infinitely more than I can say about Batman and Harley Quinn. To be totally transparent, the title of this category is a bit of a misnomer, in that I didn't even pay to watch Batman and Harley Quinn. Despite this, I still want my money back. It's bad.

The "So-Bad-It's-Good" Award for Guiltiest Pleasure of the Year

There's something really special about finding a movie that's legitimately worthy of the title "so bad it's good". You can't get that kind of magic with a movie that goes out of its way to be bad; if it's sincere and it's entertaining, the end result is often something sincerely entertaining. I was so surprised to see just how many people behind Netflix's westernized adaptation of Death Note legitimately believed in it; the idea of taking a famous anime property and setting it in an American high school is riddled with red flags for a reason (just ask Dragonball: Evolution). But the end result is something so hilariously entertaining, I just can't hate it. It's got everything one could want; an interesting concept wasted on a nonsensical story, laughably over-the-top performances (complete with melodramatic monologues), absurd choices in music, and Willem DaFoe. Death Note may have been the film I recommended most to people in 2017 and I'm not even joking; that's how funny it is. Meanwhile, we have another film that I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. This one came right at the end of the year when I was positively swamped with Reviews, so it didn't get it's own blog post. Here's the jist of Fate of the Furious, the first Fast and The Furious film I've ever seen; Vin Diesel starts committing crimes for Charlize Theron and Tormund Giantsbane with his car, so Kurt Russell recruits The Rock and pals to use their cars to capture Vin Diesel, but his car is better than their cars. Then we get to the climax, where Charlize Theron (in her blonde dreads) remotely pilots a nuclear submarine while Jason Statham rescues a baby from a private jet and The Rock kicks a torpedo into a car full of Russian soldiers. It's insane. I could criticize the cheesy performances, or the over-the-top plot, or the action setpieces that took my suspension of disbelief, curbstomped it, and dissolved the corpse in a vat of quicklime. I could do any number of those things, but I'd just be shouting into the void. This movie knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn't care what anyone has to say about it, and that's why I absolutely goddamn loved it. I'll admit, I was hesitant to watch this at first, but by the time the credits rolled, I wanted to give it a standing ovation for being one of the most unironically entertaining things I had ever seen in my entire life. I get it now. It's about family.

The Business/Pleasure Award for Favorite Movies I Watched for This Blog

and

The Rock and Rule Award for Underrated Animation

Take anyone who says "animation is for children" and show them these two films. Kubo and the Two Strings remains my deepest regret of 2016; rather than paying to see Kubo in theaters, I saw... another movie, and it's haunted me ever since. I can only hope that I'm able to make amends by never, ever shutting up about how spellbindingly brilliant this movie is. The geniuses at Laika continue to demonstrate why they are the name in modern stop-motion; the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that went into making something like Kubo is the stuff of Renaissance-era legend. I don't want to gush too much over the animation, lest I give the impression that visuals are all Kubo has to offer. There's some films where I want to boil them down to their sheer essence, the artistry and effort and imagination that gave it being, and inject it into my veins; Kubo is one such film. We also have Wizards, from animation legend Ralph Bakshi. This is the film that really sparked an interest in 70's animation for me. While it may be too obtuse for some, I was hooked on its incredible art design and insanely original story right from the get-go. There's so much to dissect and explore with Wizards; it's a movie that doesn't start to show its full hand until the viewer cares enough to take a look for themselves, and that's something that I treasure (whenever I'm lucky enough to find it).

The Best of the Year Award for Best Movies of 2017

As if there was any doubt how this was gonna turn out. I apologize if anyone is disappointed that my Best of 2017 picks are two films already featured in the Retrospective, but come on now. Logan is, without question, my favorite film of 2017 (hell, it's my favorite film of the past several years). It took nearly 20 years of superhero iconography and used it as a jumping-off point to tell a story that was small in scope, yet with incredible emotional weight to it. It's just perfect. The culmination of Logan's journey after all this time, the conflict between the hero he was built up to be and the weapon he never wanted to become. His relationship with Xavier and the Professor's struggle against the steady march of time. The mutual fatigue of these two main characters, their temptation to just give up and die, and the fleeting hope that helping Laura could be the last good thing either has a chance to do. It's all just so perfect. The more I think about it, the more I fall in love with it. Baby Driver, conversely, takes the silver medal this year, which is nothing to be ashamed of by any means. True, I had my nitpicks with the story (and it's tragic that such an excellent film will always have to be associated with Kevin Spacey), but at the end of the day, Baby Driver is pure art. Edgar Wright continues to prove himself as one of the most talented directors of our time, instilling all of his movies with a distinct comedic flair and attention to detail, managing to mix scenery, music, humor, drama, and action in such a stylish, seamless, yet altogether human fashion that you might as well just say it's magic and call it a day. These were my two favorite films of 2017; if 2018 has anything to offer that even comes close to these two, then we've definitely got something to look forward to in the new year.

So without further ado...

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all so much for stopping by each week. I seriously can't properly articulate how surreal and wonderful it feels whenever anyone tells me that they read what I write on this blog, and I don't think I'm ever going to get used to it. 2017 has been a big year from me; I graduated college, got a new job, and started working towards a Master's Degree. There's been a lot of changes and there have been times where the transition has hardly been smooth; I missed more deadlines this past year than I would like to admit, yet you all stuck with me through thick and thin. In 2017 alone, Jurassic Mark has received nearly 100 Thousand page views. At this time last year, we were right around 8,000 total. Again, I can't properly articulate how that makes me feel, so I'll simply say this.

Honestly, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart; thank you for reading.

And here's wishing you and yours a happy, safe, prosperous 2018!

And like always, here's a list of Honorable Mentions that just didn't make the cut for one reason or another: The Disaster Artist, Over the Garden Wall, Dunkirk, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Tarzan, Clue, The Prince of Egypt, Pete's Dragon (2016), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and Fargo.

REVIEW: Batman & Harley Quinn

I honestly didn't think things could get much worse than The Killing Joke. Sure, that was a tone-deaf (if admittedly well-acted) cash-in on an iconic Batman story, but it had to have been a fluke, right? There are plenty of decent DC animated features out there; some of them (Justice League: The New Frontier, Mask of the Phantasm, Under the Red Hood) are even pretty phenomenal. However, having taken in the latest Warner Animated movie starring the caped crusader, I'm forced to simply come to terms with the fact that, much like Warner Bros' live-action division, they simply have no idea what they're doing when it comes to the beloved and time-honored characters of Detective Comics. It's not often that a movie is so bad it makes me angry. More often than not, I can see the fun in a good, bad movie (like last week's trainwreck, Death Note). But believe me when I say that Batman and Harley Quinn is one of the most insufferable, insulting things I've had to sit through in a good long while.

The story takes place in the continuity of Batman The Animated Series, the classic show that introduced us to the once-novel but now woefully over-played character of Harley Quinn (incidentally, BTAS just turned 25 years old, and lord knows it deserves a better birthday tribute than this tripe). The plot follows Batman (Kevin Conroy, of course) and Nightwing (Loren Lester) as they attempt to put a stop to the sinister plans of Poison Ivy (Paget Brewster) and Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man (Kevin Michael Richardson). As one might expect from a duo of hippy-dippy plant-based supervillains, their scheme involves mixing up some manner of super-chemical that will transform all animal life into sentient plants, thus returning the Earth to the rightful hands of Mother Nature and yadda yadda yadda. In order to track down the green meanies, the dynamic duo enlist the help of Ivy's longtime gal-pal and associate, the recently-reformed Harley Quinn (The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch). If this sounds like a rehash of the classic BTAS episode, Harliquinade (in which Batman and Robin enlist Harley's help in tracking down the Joker after he acquires a nuclear bomb), that's simply because that's exactly what it is, just minus any inkling of pathos or emotion and with at least 100% more prolonged fart jokes.

The most jarring issue with this film is that it has no idea what it wants to be, tonally-speaking. The original Batman animated series on which this film is based was notable for its dark tone and noir aesthetics. It had its lighter moments, sure, but the main reason it's so fondly remembered is because of how effectively it reinvented the character of Batman for a new generation, casting the classic superhero in a brooding, mature, dynamic light, reminiscent of the Tim Burton films released around the same time. And the character of Harley Quinn, bubbly and comedic as she was, was still very much a product of this sense of tone. Just under the surface was a tragic figure, able to illicit sympathy just as easily as she could illicit laughter. She wasn't, for lack of a better term, a meme character, meant to spout catchphrases ready-made to be printed on a line of t-shirts at your local Hot Topic. She had some actual degree of emotional depth to her character beyond "wacky random clown girl", yet these days it seems like that's all DC is content in giving us. She's got all the "lol so random" appeal of Marvel's Deadpool, but with that oh-so-important addition of easily-marketable sex appeal. What else is there? She moves buttloads of merchandise with little to no creative effort on DC's part, may as well stay the course until this proverbial cow is milked dry.

This movie's take on Harley is just insufferable in every way. Melissa Rauch is a refreshing change, I guess (I've come to terms with the fact that Tara Strong is probably the best replacement for Arleen Sorkin we're gonna get, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't getting a bit grating hearing the same exact voice every time the character shows up these days), but she still does a sub-par job overall. While I can admit that any substitute voice would sound wrong coming out of the BTAS Harley, Rauch's pseudo-Yiddish accent just sounds painfully forced. It's obvious WB had her on the payroll for The Big Bang Theory and was just looking for some cheap and easy brand synergy. It also hardly helps that Harley is written here like an author-insert in a gaudy fanfic. She's essentially the best, coolest person in the world; she solves all the problems and has all the epic zingers and even has a totally necessary musical number at one point (again, this movie is definitely not a lazy rehash of that one episode of Batman The Animated Series). Meanwhile, Batman doesn't do much of anything and Nightwing serves as nothing more than a pseudo-love interest/rape victim.

Yes, it seems that once again, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's old chum and faithful ward, ends up getting raped for "comedic" effect. You see, it's perfectly fine that Nightwing gets drugged and tied to a bed in an abandoned tenement, only to have a crazed ex-supervillain jump his batarang. It doesn't matter that Harley is a self-described sociopath; she's hot and that's all that matters, am I right fellas? (Insert whooping and fist-pumping here). No but really, all sarcasm aside, this entire sequence is utterly disgusting. Let's not pretend that heads wouldn't roll if the genders were reversed and a vulnerable superheroine was the one knocked out and sexually assaulted by a reformed mental patient (and before you go throwing The Killing Joke at me, at least that didn't try to hand-wave it away by implying Barbara Gordon actually enjoyed it). It's really the most patronizing and insulting message to men who enjoy comics; the idea that the target audience for this is so desperate, that they'd accept, or even embrace, getting drugged and raped by a murderous psychopath (so long as she's a total dime, of course). Over the remainder of its runtime, the film sees fit to make Nightwing the butt of a number of jokes, implying that he's not only responsible for what happened, but that he deserves to be mocked for letting Harley slide down his bat-pole, as if he was a horny schoolboy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I guess it makes sense, all things considered; I mean, just look at what he's wearing! A fit, handsome young man in a form-fitting outfit like that, why he was practically asking for it!

Aside from turning one of the title characters into a full-fledged rapist, the film also confirms a theory I've been mulling over for some time now; without the Joker, Harley Quinn just isn't an interesting character. I'm sorry, but it's true. The Joker is an integral part in her internal conflict; he is the entire reason that Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn in the first place. Removing his influence on her story has the same effect as if Batman's parents came back to life; that initial struggle, that core dynamic that defines the entire character, is lost. Instead, we're simply left with a catchphrase-spouting Poochie of a character and it becomes abundantly clear that this was simply made to cash in on Harley's ongoing mainstream popularity, as well as Batman The Animated Series' big 25th anniversary. At one point Batman describes her as "the walking definition of 'loose cannon'", which I can only assume is a direct quote from some Warner Bros executive at whatever pitch meeting spawned this cheap, lazy trash. 

Without the Joker keeping her down, Harley loses all sense of sympathy; if she's willing to throw on the tights, a supposed symbol of a horribly traumatic and abusive period in her life, at the drop of a hat, then she just becomes another supervillain with flexible morality. She ceases to be a truly tragic figure and just becomes another wacky comic book character with an unfortunate past. Everyone has a tragic backstory these days. Kite Man has a tragic backstory these days. The thing that set Harley aside from the rest was that it wasn't just her backstory, but her whole life that was tragic. Mr. Freeze was one of the best villains featured on BTAS, but once you cure his wife, he loses all relevance and has no reason to go cavorting about with Batman and Robin anymore. The same applies to Harley; once she's free of the Joker's influence, any attempt to put a mallet back in her hands just comes off as hackneyed and regressive from a characterization standpoint. Then again, it's fairly obvious that nuanced characterization wasn't exactly at the top of the agenda when putting this together.

If it wasn't clear already, I absolutely positively loathed this movie. I say this as a tremendous fan of not only Batman the Animated Series, but of all the cartoons and comics that Bruce Timm and Paul Dini created together; this movie is pure trash of the highest caliber. The tone comes off like a Hot Topic interpretation of the 60's Adam West show, conveyed through the aesthetic of The Animated Series, only the people behind it managed to capture exactly none of the nuance or charm of either of those shows (which is especially confusing, considering Bruce Timm is one of the two writers responsible for this mess). This movie is so bad it made me wish that DC had retired the character of Harley Quinn alongside Arleen Sorkin. The characters are paper-thin and bafflingly characterized, the animation is sub-standard, everyone appears off-model more often than not, and the frame-rate sinks like a stone any time there's any action onscreen. There's tons of padding for time and the end result ranks alongside BTAS episodes like I've Got Batman in My Basement; it stretches itself so thin to try and justify a full-price home release, yet by the time Floronic Man made Poison Ivy eat a psychedelic yam he plucked off of Swamp Thing's corpse I just didn't care anymore. 

The only bit worth salvaging is the post-credits scene, in which Harley finds herself hosting a television show that's one part Doctor Phil, one part Takeshi's Castle. It's actually legitimately funny and is the only part of this entire ordeal that feels even remotely in-tune with the tone of the series it's banking off of. Unless you feel like wasting an hour of your life you'll never be able to get back, I recommend sparing yourself the headache and giving this mess a miss.

REVIEW: Dragonball Evolution

There are some films that come along once in a lifetime. Films that make you ask, with 100% seriousness, "what the hell were they thinking?" You may be surprised to know that this question does have an answer of sorts. As Garson Kanin once said, "The problem with film as an art, is that it’s a business." 20th Century Fox had the live-action rights to the Dragon Ball franchise and there was money to be made. Several drafts and $30 million dollars later, Dragonball Evolution was unleashed on defenseless cinemas worldwide, just barely making its money back. As Garson Kanin also said, "the problem with film as a business is that it’s an art." Dragonball Evolution is a lot of things (bland, cheap, uninspired, lazy, insulting, boring, and terrible are words which come to mind), but "art" is not one of them.

The plot is a veritable smörgåsbord of the most cost-effective plot points and details from the classic Dragon Ball manga thrown together with the most derivative teen movie clichés imaginable. Goku (Justin Chatwin) is a teenage loser with an Edward Cullen hairdo and one doozy of a forehead vein. He lives with his grandpa Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) in Japan/China/Mexico/California and has to deal with your average high school problems; bullies, girls, and defending ancient artifacts from alien demons who were sealed away in the center of the Earth by Ernie Hudson 2,000 years ago. Somehow, the evil Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) escapes his Mafuba prison and sets out to gather the seven Dragon Balls; when assembled, they summon an ancient dragon who will grant the user one perfect wish. The task falls to Goku to find the Dragon Balls, stop Piccolo, and most importantly, get the girl. I really can't understand why anyone would try to take "Journey to the West but with dinosaurs and punching" and turn it into a teenage rom-com, but I suppose there was money to be made. So who even cares what it's about, right?

I seriously can't overstate how stupid everything in this movie looks, sounds, and acts. Casting scrawny little Justin Chatwin as a character who once trained comfortably under 100 times Earth's gravity is just an all-around bad idea. Why not get an actual martial artist? Someone who actually LOOKS the part of the strongest fighter on the planet? But then I suppose that wouldn't work in a high school setting, which is really the core problem with this movie. Contrary to popular belief, you COULD do a Dragon Ball movie well if you wanted to. The only requirements are a reverence for the source material and a massive budget. This film had neither.

Characters like Pilaf, Oolong, Turtle, and Puar are completely absent; the closest things we get to any kind of creature effects are Marsters as Piccolo, a split second of the mystical dragon, and a brief but laughable appearance from Ōzaru, the great ape (and some  nameless disposable Power Rangers henchmen who I literally only just remembered were in the movie). Why were the bombastic ki attacks reduced to nothing more than gentle farts of wind and light? Why were iconic characters like Krillin and Kami dropped in favor of Carey Fuller and Hildenbrand, the generic high school bullies? Probably the same reason why a large amount of this film was shot in an abandoned Mexican jeans factory; the budget just wasn't there. When it comes to Hollywood adaptations, the "do it right or don't do it at all" philosophy generally doesn't apply. This was the same era that gave us Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (two films which were, coincidentally, also distributed by 20th Century Fox). If there's a popular franchise prime for milking, you can bet a studio will try to collect. 

I really tried to find something positive here, even ironically so. It's harder than even I expected, and I love trash like this. Justin Chatwin gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen; I mean he's bad in this. This is the film that basically killed his career, and while there's a chance it was just incompetent direction paired with a godawful script, I'm still not sure anything of value was lost. Emmy Rossum tries very hard to be a confident femme fatale, despite looking like a cyberpunk Topanga Lawrence. Jaimie Chung may as well have not been in the film for all the impression she left and Chow Yun Fat just makes me sad. He plays the part of Master Roshi, and while I appreciate that they retained his character's fondness for swimsuit magazines, he still gives an awkward, half-baked performance, mumbling out vaguely Eastern platitudes about ki and balance and energy. 

Joon Park shows up as Yamcha and is so terrible he might just be amazing. His bad is transcendental, which is actually a pretty apt description of Yamcha himself. James Marsters was also a passible enough Piccolo, I suppose. He doesn't really have much to do, but I get the impression that Marsters was fully aware of how silly he looked in his green make-up and plastic muscle chest. It feels like he's just having fun playing Darth Badguy, so that makes his scenes somewhat more bearable than everything else. He also sounds close enough to Chris Sabat while yelling, so that's something. 

I feel like complaining about this movie for being an American remake of a Japanese property is the low-hanging fruit of criticism; there's so much actual, authentic bad here that can be picked apart and scrutinized. The performances, the sets, the special effects, the dialog, the way the actors say the dialog, the long, awkward pauses taken in between each line of dialog; this entire movie feels like a bonafide hatchet job. Like it was a Producers-esque scheme to make a quick buck, quality be damned. When we look at movies like Fant4stic, it's clear that studios (especially 20th Century Fox) aren't above such practices, so the real question becomes less "why would they make this" and more "why would anyone agree to be in this insurance scam of a movie"? It's like buying real-estate in the arson district, it just doesn't make sense unless someone is feeling especially desperate. Having finally sat through Dragonball Evolution, I can say that, objectively, no one should ever feel this desperate.

REVIEW: Ivan the Incredible

You thought I was kidding, didn't you? Back last year, when I sat through Freddy Frogface, I knew that this would have to be next. But Ivan the Incredible is not the sort of thing that one just rushes into. Like deciding to willfully submit to torture, it's the kind of thing that requires not only a fair amount of consideration, but a soundly broken spirit. This is not a film for the faint of heart; I've just seen it and I'm still trying my best to make sense of it. Before we begin, it's worth noting that, in the film's home country of Denmark, it goes by the title of Gummi T, which roughly translates to Jelly T. The "T", in this case, stands for "Tarzan". Believe it or not, this is a detail that is very much relevant to the plot.

The film opens by introducing us to the main character, a young boy named Ivan. He lives alone with his father, a man who seems to be struggling with severe mental issues. For whatever reason, he idolizes the literary character of Tarzan and, believing that he embodies all that a man should be, decides to raise his son to follow in the footsteps of the Lord of the Apes. Ivan, it turns out, is bad at everything. Not only is he a scrawny wimp who gets bullied every day at school, but he's also illiterate and appears to suffer from some form of schizophrenia. Often he sneaks away to an abandoned warehouse he has filled with anthropomorphic trash-sculptures he has conversations with, like a page out of John Wayne Gacy's private notebook. Still following? Because we haven't even gotten to the witch.

You see, a wandering witch has come to town, peddling bonafide miracles. This puts her in direct competition with Ivan's father, who has recently taken up a career as a Coach. Not for a sports team or a school, just in general. For a fee, he will coach people. It was around the time he forced Ivan to climb a tree in front of the whole town (angrily berating him when he inevitably fails) that I realized this film was actually painting a stark portrait of the toll that unchecked psychological issues can take on familial relationships. Feeling desperate, Ivan goes to the witch in search of a miracle that will make him the best at everything. She obliges, telling him that the magic potion she's concocted will allow him to be the absolute best at whatever he wants to do, but only for a day. However, she forgets the one ingredient that limits the potion to only work for one day, which really seems like the worst mistake anyone in her position could possibly make, given the circumstances of what she was messing with.

Ivan goes to school next day, wielding his newfound godlike abilities like a school shooter. He terrorizes and publicly humiliates everyone and anyone who once mocked or questioned him without discretion or subtlety; at this point, I'm a hundred percent certain that someone could pass this off as a character drama about the dangers of unchecked mental illness. Now that he's the best at everything, Ivan's dad decides to accredit his son's unholy powers to his superb coaching strategy (despite said strategy boiling down to verbal abuse and reminders to be like Tarzan). This nets Ivan and his father immense wealth and fame the world over, as this awful piece of human garbage continues to neglect and exploit the talent that his only son attained through literal black magic. Eventually, Ivan tires of being his dad's mealticket and suffers a violent outburst that I can only describe as reminiscent of both Chronicle and Carrie. He immediately feels guilty, however, and reconciles with his deadbeat dad just in time for the witch to force-feed him the final ingredient, dooming him to a life of mediocrity once more. Roll credits.

It's a trip, that's for sure. Often I felt entranced by what I was watching, despite how ungodly ugly the entire thing is. This is the height of sweatshop CGI, lifting several models wholesale out of Freddy Frogface. Everyone's got the same beady, dead little eyes and stringy hair; I've seen bowel movements with a more appealing aesthetic than this movie. The animation is stiff, the lipsync is off, and absolutely none of this matters because look at the plot which I just described to you. This is a movie that does not fail because of its look. This is a movie that fails because of its everything. Every conceivable aspect of this film is just offputting, I honestly don't know what could have resulted in this being made. I considered making a "there's something rotten in the state of Denmark" joke here, but this movie has pushed me to my limit as it is, and I'm not entirely sure I want to take that final step off the ledge.

Ivan the Incredible. What a concept. It seems like the low-hanging fruit, when discussing a movie like this, to describe it as feeling like a look inside the mind of a serial killer. Having watched this in its entirety, I need to cast aside all pretenses and say that this movie seriously feels like the product of a diseased mind. It's so surreal, so mean-spirited, so ugly in every single sense of the word. I don't know who would make something like this and I don't know who would unironically enjoy it. That said, I kind of love it. It's exactly that kind of terrible, like The Room or Hard Ticket to Hawaii, where it's just so baffling that it's the perfect thing to lose yourself in while heavily under the influence and (hopefully) surrounded by friends. In that regard, I cannot recommend it enough, but do understand what you're getting yourself into. When you hit play on Ivan the Incredible, you're in for a wild ride.

Check back next year, when I finally get around to reviewing Otto the Rhino.