When I did my profile of Denzel Washington, I lamented his …laziness, for lack of a better word, in the types of projects he chooses. For every Flight that reminds us that he’s one of the best actors in the world, there are 2 Guns and The Equalizer. I feel like I’ve already seen this film. I’ve never been impressed by the pairing of Antone Fuqua and Denzel; not even for Training Day. I’ll probably see it and I hope I’m surprised by it, but I’m more disappointed it’s happening and it’s the only thing on his horizon. The film opens September 26th.
In The Equalizer, Denzel Washington plays McCall, a former black ops commando who has faked his death to live a quiet life in Boston. When he comes out of his self-imposed retirement to rescue a young girl, Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), he finds himself face to face with ultra-violent Russian gangsters. As he serves vengeance against those who brutalize the helpless, McCall’s desire for justice is reawakened. If someone has a problem, the odds are stacked against them, and they have nowhere else to turn, McCall will help. He is The Equalizer.
Is it possible that Denzel Washington has trouble finding work? At least he elevates whatever he’s in. And whatever he’s in, I’ll see.
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I can’t imagine that he can’t find work. He’s an Oscar-caliber actor and a proven box office draw. I think he just chooses things that don’t particularly push him. And, yes, he brings everything up a notch and I’ll see this both for him and Moretz who is getting scarily good.
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Total non-sequitor. I just read the one review of Maleficent that’s up on rotten tomatoes, and I was right on the money, with a vengeance. I thought I would give you fair warning. Read no more if you don’t want to be spoiled, but it seems that the character won’t even be evil for the twenty minutes I predicted. Her dark side will pretty much be limited to a single scene, and it’s a scene we already know.
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Sigh. I may have to boycott. This May has sure been disappointing for all the promise it has.
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Dave, do you you get the sense that things are deteriorating fast in Hollywood? Putting aside the utter disasters like The Lone Ranger, an alarming number of recent films have felt to me like they were good, but only good enough. The Robocop remake and Oz: The Great and Powerful are not bad films at all, but they lack character. It’s hard to put into words, but they have a monotonous quality, a feeling that every scene, every image, is given equal weight. No peaks, no valleys, just a wide swath of CGI forrest. They simply feel like longer versions of their trailers, and I think that’s signifigant. If Heaven’s Gate were made today, and there were aliens in it, and the marketing campaign were effective and everpresent, instead of bringing down a studio it would make 350 million dollars worldwide. It would make a lot more if people actually liked it, but the studio could just make up for that with a single Transformers movie.
I really want Jupiter Ascending to be a hit, but I can see the financial train wreck coming, as if in slow motion.
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I think there are islands of awesomeness going on right now, but as a whole – yes, cinema is declining. Those who care about quality work are jumping to the stage and to TV, which is in a golden age of drama. TV feels it can now legitimately compete with movies for the first time in decades, and quality wise at least they’re winning. These things are cyclical, but an overall wane is where the movies are right now. Franchise overdependence, lack of original ideas, reluctance to take chances, these are all just some of the reasons why TV has overtaken the medium in many ways. The Emmy race for Best Drama between True Detectives, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad contains more quality in those three shows than all 9 of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture last year combined. Film will adapt. Fortunately, we have the MCU (I’m deciding to believe in Ant-Man fixing itself), Star Wars, a resurgent Disney animation department, some GOOD franchises and the rare gem. There is a crisis, but no one cares because of the money they can make from, like you said, a Transformers. They might care when stars start turning down those vehicles to go star in TV shows. Something will right the ship even if it’s a financial collapse in the theater industry reducing the number of 3D and IMAX enabled cash cows.
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In honor of Temple of Doom’s 30th anniversary, my best friend and I watched it the other day. He had never seen it before and I had seen it a thousand times, and we both enjoyed it equally. The amazing thing is that the special effects, like the model work during the mine car sequence, really hold up today. There were only a couple of moments where I was taken out of the film, and that was only because of some obvious matte lines. When that evil priest fell into the ravine at the end, I totally bought it. The last half-hour of that movie could not have been improved upon with CGI.
Spielberg and Lucas are both convinced that “theme park theaters” are coming, and that smaller, less-commercial films will get released directly into people’s homes in some form or other. I could live with that. But something has to give, because Hollywood can’t ride the sensory-overload/CGI thing forever. Audiences are going to catch on the fact that they’ve already seen it all.
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I think they already are. VR is not going to work on moviegoers. I hear complaints about 3D all the time, though people seem to like IMAX.
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That’s because IMAX is not a gimmick, it’s a known quantity that probably would have enhanced movies back at the dawn of film. I would love to see Metropolis in IMAX, or Citizen Kane, or The Seventh Seal, whereas converting them to 3D would be a terrible, terrible idea. Movies are meant to be larger-than-life. That is why IMAX is worth the extra money.
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Couldn’t agree more.
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