Day: March 3, 2021

Chaos Walking

Chaos Walking is obviously not the only movie to be delayed recently, but it is notable that it was delayed before the Pandemic! It finished shooting in late 2017, but they announced it needed reshoots in mid 2018 due to people hating it, and they had to wait a whole year to do reshoots, thanks to the leads being in major franchises and having full schedules.

Then it was delayed March 2020, and you know the rest there.

It turns out this is based on a book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, in the Chaos Walking trilogy. I really like that title though. It reminds me of Never Let Me Go. And it puts the future of this trilogy into question. Too many YA novels have an issue where the trilogy name is used for the first book, meaning future books/films have awkward naming conventions. And for this, they used the trilogy name instead of the book name.

Huh. Interesting. Okay. Well, future movie’s will worry about that issue then, if they get any.

running
Okay, this is Chaos Running actually.

Todd (Tom Holland) is just a kid living a world that has gotten pretty fucked over. First of all, no women! Boooo. Second of all, only men! Boooo!

Now this world isn’t our world, it is New World. And at some point a virus came and killed everyone on it called The Noise. The Noise was fatal to women, and for men it just made it so their inner thoughts were all audible to those around them, and creating a visible cloud around their head. Also there is some alien stuff.

Todd is set to being a new warrior or scout or whatever, as he gets older and learns to better control his thoughts. But then he discovers a crash landing on his planet and finds, a girl?! Viola (Daisy Ridley) and a crew crashed down, not good, but she is the only survivor, and they have no clue about this Noise stuff.

And a few plot shenanigans later, Todd and Viola are on the run from his city, who want to capture the girl, and look up settlements that are rumored to exist, even though Todd thought he was in the only real community left in the world.

Also starring Demián Bichir, David Oyelowo, Kurt Sutter, Cynthia Erivo, Mads Mikkelsen, Nick Jonas, and Bethany Anne Lind.

thoughts
No, he is not thinking of the movie The Color Purple

Jeez, I wonder what they changes with this version versus their initial version? I hope it wasn’t adding in MORE ACTION because honestly, that was one of their weaker points. The action, and fighting, especially near the end. I was a much bigger fan of the drama and suspense before that. You can have a big fight between communities without needing to bog us down in the fighting.

I am not anti violence, it just felt like a lot more at the end versus any point earlier, even if the threat was already there. I was more curious about the mystery, and the aliens, and the virus, all of that, and it just never delved enough for me.

The acting is fine, but for a movie with stars like that, this is not good enough.  I do think Bachir probably did the best of the bunch, but he was also limited in his role.

This is supposed to be a fantastic book and trilogy, and honestly at this point, I can’t see how the book would be good for me. I feel like the movie not really being great, while also telling me about the secrets (unless they are different) would ruin the appeal of the book and I have no reason at all to seek it out. I certainly don’t read everything, and I try not to read things before movie adaptations, but I do get quite annoyed when a movie takes away my desire to ever read the story.

A potentially riveting plot line that is ruined with mediocrity and forgettableness.

1 out of 4.

Boogie

Is is both very easy to make a sports movie, but very hard to make an excellent sports movie.

There are so many ways you can go with them, but many paths have already been traveled. How do you also make them feel unique and worth it versus an older film that probably goes over the exact same themes and emotions?

You could do a sports movie about a real athlete or a real team. But is it about their road to a championship, or the players themselves? And what is just another real story of a team winning something. Real teams win every year, every sport, at every level. There has to be a winner, so there are always choices. And it is easy to be inspirational in these films, real story or fake story, so what can they do to offer something actually new? Bigger struggles to overcome? Bigger comebacks? More shenanigans? 

Well for the movie Boogie, it is going for a high school basketball story. Not one about overcoming all the odds to win the state championship, or even a district championship. But just a single player trying to earn a scholarship. Where his own cultural upbringings and his own assimilation into the America he knows can come at odds with what he wants and what his parents want. Oh okay, that is something new for sure. 

plane
The shot on the other side of the fence is not new, however. 

If you are losing a basketball game to a proud Asian American who happens to also be super into Rap culture, then don’t try to blame it on other external factors. Don’t blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the moonlight, don’t blame it on the good times, you need to blame it on the Boogie (Taylor Takahashi).

Boogie is working on getting a college scholarship. He is great at the sport, but he is a bit selfish and full of himself. His father (Perry Yung) cooked up a scheme to transfer him to a slightly worse school for basketball. Because that school goes against some really good schools, and if Boogie can carry his worse team to beat actual good teams and elite players getting scholarships, he might get one too.

Technically his mom (Pamelyn Chee) is indifferent from the methods, she just needs to make sure that he gets a scholarship, and not a bullshit walk on offer. Or maybe gets a job making money in basketball. Either way, whatever needs to happen needs to happen. 

Boogie is trying to balance what both of his parents want for him. They both are negative people in different ways, yet he was also raised to be honorable and listen to them. He also wants to explore his love life, make some choices for himself, and prove that he is something great. 

A clash between cultural norms, in a new cultural setting, and just trying to make sure Boogie himself is able to represent himself.

Also starring Mike Moh, Taylour Paige, Domenick Lombardozzi, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., and Pop Smoke in his only acting gig, coming out after his shooting death in 2020. 

spystuff
I prefer the Blame it on the Boogie from Pitch Perfect, to be honest.

The director and writer of Boogie, Eddie Huang, is pretty famous for writing a book and turning it into a successful sitcom. Fresh off the Boat is a sitcom based on his own experiences of moving to the south, while dealing with cultural problems in a new setting that also seem to go against the cultures and upbringings of his family, set in the late 1990’s.

And hey look, this movie, NOT based on his life specifically, has the same themes. Isn’t that interesting? No? Well, I found it interesting.

And I found this film extremely interesting and compelling. Despite personally having really nothing similar to the lead in terms of background or story, it was easy to latch on and root for him. It was also easy to be angry at him when he did asinine things. I wanted him to succeed and I wanted him to grow. This sports movie is about a person learning to be better and making his own destiny, and yes, we got some sports along the way as well. If you don’t like basketball, you will be annoyed because we do get fair amounts of basketball, and of course a conclusion that is set around basketball.

I feel like I learned a lot. Representation matters, not just for people finally being able to identify with people on screen that look like them, but for everyone else to dive into new experiences and settings. Sure, Boogie isn’t a real story, but aspects of it are real based on Huang’s own life and the stories of people he know. The fact that there isn’t this specific basketball player means nothing when the stories are grounded so much in reality.

Hell, I even cried once. It was a small cry and an unexpected one, but it was there.

Boogie is the real deal and a good change of pace from traditional sports films.

4 out of 4.