Media Man

This is a continuation of my continuity from a previous blog entry that can be seen here:  http://connorveenstra.blogspot.com/2016/10/my-version-of-dceu-phases-1-2.html Girl of Tomorrow Kara Zor-El has been watching Superman in hiding since the day they landed on Earth. She works as an editor at the Daily Planet where she can keep a close eye on him. She eventually comes out to him and they begin to hang out more consistently. Superman tries to persuade her to be a superhero, but she's scared to do it because she'd have to leave a whole life behind; she has a good job, has a good husband and they're looking to adopt a kid. Why would she throw that all away? She asks Clark if he ever thought of giving up on being Superman and just settling down with Louis Lane, having a family. Superman says he has but has made the choice to sacrifice his wants in the name of the safety of others. One day, Mxyzptlk, a sorcerer from another dimension, challenges Superman to defeat 5 super

The Usual Suspects  is a 1995 crime mystery written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Brian Singer. The film won two Academy Awards in 1996: Best Screenplay for McQuarrie and Best Supporting Actor for Kevin Spacey. The movie is regarded to be one of the greatest films of all time, partially because of its infamous twist ending. Story "Verbal" (Kevin Spacey), the lone survivor of a bloody gunfight, is brought in by a police detective to recount the chain events that lead to the death of more than a dozen people. Six weeks before the event, five criminals were brought in for a lineup, which they learned was set up by the mysterious criminal Keyser Soze. Despite the film being told in a non-linear format, it's actually very easy to follow. The format even adds to the experience of the film in some ways, with different parts of the mystery being revealed in both the past and present. The twist is one of the best I've ever seen. Even though I knew what the twis

24 hours as of this writing I have just seen Saving Private Ryan  and I'm still trying to decide if it's a good movie. This is partially because it's one of those movies that makes you feel guilty if you were to ever find fault with it and because I'm still kind of reeling at what I just saw. In their attempts at making a faithful dedication to the hardships and bravery of WWII vets and soldiers in general, Steven Spielberg and company have made one of the most disturbing movies of all time. It's a kind of WWII battlefield simulator, complete with copious amounts of blood and gore, effective shaky-cam for added intensity and characters having mental breakdowns as they slowly bleed to death surrounded by a never-ending barrage of gunfire. You know how they keep telling us that war is hellish and ugly? Well, you wanna know how to make that lesson really sick? Just show the Normandy landing scene from Saving Private Ryan and not only will they fully understand and ap

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  is a 1966 Spaghetti Western directed/written by Sergio Leone and cowritten by Luciano Vincenzoni, Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli and Mickey Knox. The film has garnered a reputation as being one of the best, if not the best, film in the Western genre since its release. Story A cowboy (Clint Eastwood), a bounty hunter (Lee Van Cleef) and a drunk (Eli Wallach) all hear about a $200,000 treasure hidden in a graveyard and the entire film is a race to see who will reach the money first. You'd think a premise like that would lead to a short movie, but the writers got everything they could out of it. Instead of going right into the plot, we have an entire act dedicated to setting up the characters, their personalities, their motivations and their world. This makes it so that we can focus on the adventure through the second and third acts without too much character exposition. The character who's developed the most is Wallach as Tuco, a treacher

Dracula  is a 1931 monster movie directed by Tod Browning and Kan Freund and stars the great Bela Lugosi as the titular vampire. The film is considered one of the great monster classics and made Count Dracula into one of the great horror movie icons. Story An English lawyer travels to Transylvania in order to help Count Dracula purchase a plot of land. The Count takes the liberty of turning the hapless gentleman into a mindless, deranged man-servant to help him spread death and chaos throughout England. A doctor named Van Helsing deduces that this must be a vampire and tries to stop him. That's pretty much the entire setup and honestly that's all the film needs. I can honestly see why this version of Count Dracula is such a favorite: he's elegant yet over the top and he's got that great voice everybody loves to imitate. His mind-melted servant is entertaining, to say the least. Most of that comes from the performance, which I'll talk about later. Technical S

Sicario  is a 2015 crime thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Taylor Sheridan. This is the third film in Villeneuve's big-budget filmography following Prisoners  and Enemy . Story Emily Blunt plays an FBI agent who, after an op that produces a horrific find, agrees to accompany a mysterious task force to take down the Mexican crime boss responsible for what she found. Once she joins, she enters a world of deception spear headed by her field leader (Josh Brolin) and a mysterious "consultant" (Benicio Del Toro). The set up is not the most original premise in the world. However, it does make for a lot of intense scenes. The pacing is really well handled in the movie in that its slow, but never boring. Every time there's a slow scene there's always buildup to something, but you never know what it's going to be. You're just left waiting to see what will happen next. This is what makes great tension. The characters are ok for the most part

Really? That's what I waited for? I am now convinced that Cowboy Bebop , praised as nothing less than the anime second coming, is one of the most overrated TV shows of all time. Throughout these five episodes, I don't feel like I've gotten to know these characters at all and now I've come to the episode that the fans call a transcendent experience. This episode finds Spike confronted with a previously unknown, but hinted at, tragic past. Nothing really happens until the end of the episode except Spike getting ready for the climax and poorly trying to make us care about something that wasn't even built up in previous episodes. What happens in the climax is next to nothing interesting; a lot of over the top gun fighting with no further explanation as to what exactly Spike is fighting for so there's no emotional weight to any of the violence. The bad guy is unbelievably boring, so there's not even that to enjoy. I don't understand how people can find

Midnight in Paris  is a 2011 romantic comedy written and directed by Woody Allen. This film is often seen as one of Woody Allen's best and definitely his greatest work in recent memory. Story The setup is that a struggling writer (Owen Wilson) and his polar opposite fiancé (Rachel McAdams) are on vacation in Paris with her parents and two of their friends. Longing for the France of old and wanting to experience the romance of the legendary city, he takes a walk late at night. Once the clock strikes twelve, however, he somehow travels back in time to his sought after 1920s Paris where he meets exaggerated caricatures of famous artists and writers. This sets him on a road of love, self fulfillment and discovery. This film was definitely made to appeal to artists/writers, because they can easily identify with the main character. He's often awkward around others, he feels under appreciated and over looked and he has a great passion for the art of his idols. Every creative mind

I'm two episodes in to what is considered one of the greatest shows of all time and I've received nothing but filler. In this episode, Spike is contracted to capture a thief who stole a briefcase from a laboratory, only to find that the case is carrying a corgi. The rest of the episode is Spike and the guy who stole the case trying to get the corgi back. That's it. I keep waiting for the show to be fantastic, but it's still not there. I've been told I should wait until episode 5 to make my decision, so I've decided to take that advice, however strongly my feelings are that this series is overrated by the anime community.

Cowboy Bebop  is one of those animes you hear about all the time even if you don't watch anime. Everybody calls it a transcendent experience and the best anime of all time. I've finally given in to peer pressure and have decided to do a short review of each episode of Cowboy Bebop  as I watch it. The first episode, "Asteroid Blues", introduces us to a space bounty hunter named Spike Spiegel as he tracks down a drug dealer for a huge bounty with his partner Jet. I want to get the positives out of the way first; Steven Blum's performance as Spike is great, mostly because his voice is so low and gravely, but also smooth. The over the top anime detail is fun to watch and all the fight scenes are animated smoothly. I also like the visual style of this anime. The people all dress like they're in the old west in the Blade Runner  universe. All the ships look dirty and hand made. It feels very genuine. With all that being said, this episode isn't perfect. Th

Strangers on a Train is a 1951 crime drama written by Raymond Chandler/Czenzi Ormonde/Whitfield Cook and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is an adaptation of a thriller novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith that was published the previous year, mirroring Hitchcock's future production history with Psycho about a decade later. Story Two men who have never met each other before start a conversation on a train ride, leading to a misunderstanding that spirals out of control. I don't want to give away any more than that, because not knowing what the movie is about is half the fun. The story and plot are both kept mostly simple by defined motivations for both of our titular strangers. One wants something badly, which conflicts with the wants of another and this causes them to clash, making a strong conflict for the film. Being an Alfred Hitchcock movie, it's paced extremely well. Every scene that's supposed to be tense uses every agonizing, nail-biting minu

Selma is a 2014 bio-drama written by Paul Webb and directed Ava DuVernay. The film won the 2015 Academy Award for best original song "Glory" and was nominated for Best Picture the same year. Story The film tells the story of the build up to Dr. Martin Luther King's march on Selma, Alabama for black America's right to vote. It shows the careful calculations King and his comrades considered to make their protest a success, the opposition they faced and the personal drama and stress that King felt during the time. The story itself is thoroughly engrossing, though in a different way than other movies. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Dr. King will get his way and be able to make his march. The tension and intrigue, therefore, come from all the unknown dramas and set backs that they had to go through to get there. The screenplay is amazing in that they made the character in this movie sound like Martin Luther King Jr. Even if he never said these words yo

I don't know about everybody else, but I haven't even bothered seeing any of the DCEU movies after Man of Steel . The movie was a bit of a mess and when I heard that Zack Snyder, the director, was going to be the producer on the rest of these movies, I decided that I didn't need to be anywhere near them. However, I've really gotten into watching the CW series The Flash, the Cartoon Network show Young Justice  and I just got done reading volume one of the comic series 52.  All of these are amazing and really worth checking out. These DC I.P.'s have given me a pretty good idea of what the tone of DC movies should be like and I've started work on a fan fiction version of the DCEU, so I'm going to show you phases 1 and 2 of my version of the DC movies. Phase 1 I'd do a Wonder Woman movie first; I'm planning to tell these stories in chronological order and it only makes sense to start with her in WW2. I've also decided that Wonder Woman herself wi

(Note: Please keep in mind that this involves a lot of pure speculation with not a lot of hard numbers to back it up. This is purely for fun.) A long time ago George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese were all sitting in their living rooms watching TV. Although this doesn't sound all that interesting, for these young kids it was an experience. Mob movies, sci-fi serials, monster & samurai movies were all seared into the minds of this young generation of film lovers. These "Movie Brats", as they were called later in life, went on to make some of the greatest movies of all time, drawing inspiration from their childhood movies. A couple of decades later Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez started making movies based off the exploitation grind house movies they loved as kids. This all got me thinking: what kind of movies are this age of film nuts going to make? What wild inspiration will find its way into our screenplays, cinematography and color cod

LA Confidential is a 1997 crime film directed and witten by Curtis Hanson and was co-written by Brian Helgeland. Based on the book of the same name by James Ellroy, it has become one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed films of modern cinema, winning two Oscars at the 1998 Academy Awards. Story Taking place in 1950's Hollywood, the set-up finds a group of three cops trying to solve a mass murder that gives way to a larger conspiracy. That's the condensed version of a complex plot. While the story gets rolling once we're in the main mystery it takes awhile to get off the ground. There's a lot of time dedicated to character set-up, probably more than necessary. It definitely requires at least a second viewing because of a few scenes that are necessary build-up, but originally come off as filler. The mystery is just ok, mostly because it's difficult to follow and the payoff isn't that strong. Even though the who done it is a good twist you can see

The Deer Hunter  is a 1979 Vietnam anti-war drama directed by Michael Cimino and written by Cimino/Deric Washburn/Louis Garfinkle/Quinn K. Redeker. It has garnered a reputation as one of the greatest movies of all time, earning 5 Oscars and being preserved in the Library of Congress. Story The movie follows a soldier named Michael (Robert De Niro) before, during and after his military service in the Vietnam War. During these times, we also see the relationships with his friends and how they change over time. The film's themes boil down to every message the media has crammed down our throats since Vietnam itself; America sucks, Vietnam was unjustified, war is bad. I'm not saying they're completely wrong, I'm saying we've heard it a lot and it does get tedious after awhile. The film makes sure that you not only care about these characters, but also that you feel their struggle and journey. You feel the happiness of a wedding, the chaos of Vietnam and th

Note: This version of season 4 of   Arrow  carries over consequences of events that happened in my version of season 3. Please read that before this.  http://connorveenstra.blogspot.com/2016/04/my-pitch-for-better-season-3-of-arrow.html Oliver wakes up in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in bandages. Detective Lance is sitting next to him. He promises Oliver that nobody ever found out. Oliver thanks him as he leaves. The doctor and nurse come in a remove Oliver's bandages, revealing burn marks on almost half of his face. Later, Diggle and Felicity rush in and ask him what happened. He describes the fight on the rooftop and what the Red Hood said about Ra's al Ghul. That can't be right, though, because Ra's has been dead for years. Oliver wants to find out what's going on, but his loved ones force him to stay put. We have a quiet moment between Felicity and Oliver as they ask each other if they're ok. Felicity seems much more distraught, however, and Oliv