Tag: David Dastmalchian

Ah, is it happening now? Finally? The Dune movie?

Oh okay. Well, I got two Dune related stories to tell then!

The first is when I first heard about the book when I was in early High School. I was working that summer as a camp counselor, and one of my friends talked so fondly of the book Dune and wanted us all to read it. He never relented and eventually wanted to read it out loud to us one night to show how good it was. I was definitely asleep by the second page, woken up, and then again by page three. Nice.

Story two? Oh yeah, I actually saw the other Dune movie, in theaters, a few years ago, knowing nothing about the plot. It was a very strange experience, a weird film, but probably worth it on some level for pop culture history.

I have not been waiting on my knees for this version to come out, but I do like Denis Villeneuve films for the most part. The only one I didn’t love was Blade Runner 2049, which was visually pleasing, but a story I didn’t care about at all. Hmm, that was a sequel to a film from the 1980’s. This one is a movie remake that was first done in the 1980’s. I hope there is no more similarities.

Definitely more sand in this movie than Blade Runner 2049. 

We are still dealing with humans in this movie, don’t worry, it is just set like 8,000 years in the future.

House Atreides is our heroes? Well, at least our main family of character. They are some level of nobility and GREAT NEWS. They have been granted mining rights of the Spices from Arrakis. The Spices are the key to faster than light travel and longer life, and they can be rich from doing this.

The prince (?) Paul (Timothée Chalamet) has been having interesting dreams that seem to come from that planet, featuring a girl (Zendaya) that he can’t get out of his thoughts. Paul can also do mental suggestive thought things to make people obey him, which is cool. His dad (Oscar Isaac) is leading the convoy to Arrakis and his mother (Rebecca Ferguson) is mostly just trying to make sure Paul is ready to take over some day.

Needless to say, once they get to the planet, there are more shenanigans than they imagined. Stuff happens, people fight, people die, and sand worms.

Starring a whole lot of other people too, and even with 2.5 hours of screen time, a lot of them still don’t get a lot of screen time but might get more later? Well, if they didn’t die. We have Babs Olusanmokun, Benjamin Clémentine, Charlotte Rampling, Chen Chang, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stellan Skarsgård, and Stephen McKinley Henderson.

This book invented sand worms right? Not Beetlejuice?

Ah yes, Dune, clocking in at 2 hours and 35 minutes. Is that enough time to tell some epic story that was 412 pages long? [Editor’s note: Wait, 412 pages long only? That is it? The audiobook is only around 21 hours?] Well, if you ask Villeneuve then that answer is heck no. Apparently he only agreed to do it if he could do two full movies and not cram it into one. Oh okay.

But…but…They didn’t really make this into a two part film? If they did, they would have likely filmed them at the same time. They would have officially made this movie called Dune: Part 1. [Editor’s Note: This movie is called Dune: Part 1 only on the film itself near the start, but not on any advertisements, or posters, or just…officially]. And you know what? A regular film going customer shouldn’t have to look for interviews with the director and others to see that this movie is only just half of a story. I think I saw one where someone involved said it feels like a complete story still, but I have determined that to be a lie.

This movie definitely just ends in what feels like half of a story. And part of that is extremely frustrating given how long it feels like it takes to just get to the planet itself. It is not like I had a watch to look at the whole time, but it is a significantly large percentage before our characters go to the desert land to start learning and doing desert stuff. So to me, this film feels dragged out. You know, like The Hobbit films.

Just a quick note. I am okay with the concept of two part films. Sure. But the parts should still feature complete arcs and feel like storyline elements were resolved and natural enough and not just cliffhangers or, worse, plateaus that gradually decrease over time. Lord of the Rings film feel like three complete films despite one overarching story. Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2 and Hunger Games Mockingbird Part 1 and Part 2 both feel like one film’s worth of plot badly stretched over two.

I am now worried Dune will feel like that, IF the second part gets made. I certainly don’t feel appreciative that the film producers are using such guilt riddled tactics to ensure they make enough money so that their story could be finished, when they could have also just trusted their product enough to make the films and release them when appropriate. If they don’t ever release another one, then we won’t get a full film. If they do release another one, then we likely get one full film over two movies with arguably a lot of filler.

But yeah, sure, it is pretty.

The first question you have to ask yourself, does anyone care about Ant-Man? Does anyone care about the Wasp? Does anyone care about Ant-Man and The Wasp?

So soon does this film come out, when just two months ago we had Avengers: Infinity War, a film that made some people cry. Now these titular characters were missing from Avengers of course. Does this happen before IW? After? During? That has to be the majority reason why anyone is watching this film. To see how, if at all, it connects to Avengers. People care about the larger story, not these minor characters.

And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed Ant-Man. I thought the villain was great, and it had the best superhero teaser for a film, that they sadly didn’t recreate for this film.

Either way, if this film ends up being completely stand alone, then a lot of people will be disappointed.

Hey look! The titular characters! Together!

This film takes place pre-Avengers: Infinity War, so don’t expect it to start with chaos. Scott (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest for two years following the events in Captain America: Civil War, before he has probation. All of this is explained neatly by the FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) early on, don’t worry. It is boring, he has no contact with Hope (Evangeline Lilly) or Dr. Pym (Michael Douglas), but his daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson) still visits frequently and his ex wife and her husband (Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale).

But hey, he lives with his ex convict buddies still (Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian, T.I.), and they started a security business themselves.

AND THEN THANOS ATTACKS. Wait, no not yet. Things start to change however, when Scott has a vision of himself inside the Quantum Realm again, including a vision of Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), the lost Wasp. This sucks him back into the technology rich, very steal heavy world of Ant-Man, despite only having days left on his house arrest.

Now they are in a race against time to finish developing a safer way into the Quantum Realm to find their wife, mom, and lady they don’t actually know, depending on what character you ask. We also have a skeevy business man who wants in on the potential profis (Walton Goggins), a girl phasing in and out of the physical realm (Hannah John-Kamen), and an old S.H.I.E.L.D. research buddy (Laurence Fishburne) also going in and out of their plans.

Hey look! Ghost is joining their dance party!

I almost gave this film a 1 out of 4.

Figure that is a good starting place for this review. Sure, it is entertaining. It is funny. The cast has good chemistry. A specific Rudd scene where he has to act like an entirely different person is nailed perfectly and doesn’t feel wrong. The crew has less screen time, T.I. almost feels nonexistant, but they still have their moments. And Ghost fights were relatively cool to watch, as was the Wasp kitchen fight scene.

And yet I almost gave it a 1 out of 4. Technically, the reason I gave it the 2 instead is because of Peña’s character. I was worried they wouldn’t continue a joke from the first film and declared it to be an okay movie if they continued it on. Eventually? They continued it on, and sure, an average review.

Because lets face it, you aren’t getting your Avengers tie in until the credit scenes. This movie overall feels like a filler film. We don’t have any real villains, we just have things that consistently make the plot longer. There isn’t a lot of fighting, it is more just car chases and shrinking and growing. It isn’t a film that can feel smart, because all of the science behind it is fake anyways, so when scientific breakthroughs happen, it happens because the characters say it work, not that the audience could figure it out on our own.

Overall, it sets up a little bit in the universe. But it feels too clunk with no real established threat besides time itself. Ghost isn’t even a villain, just another damaged person, which they make sure we understand very early on.

If the MCU was Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead, this movie would fit in the middle of season one, instead of how most other films are clearly in the 2-7 territory.

The Belko Experiment trailer seemed to come out of nowhere, and it honestly got me really excited.

A Battle Royale experience, with regular office workers, in a potential psychological horror film with difficult moral decisions? That sounds like an amazing film, one that would quickly become a cult film and something that would top my end of the 2017 list!

And to top it all off, it was written by James Gunn, who has been kicking ass lately. Not directed, just written, but he is a pop culture junkie and someone who can really get to the heart of issues with, yes, excessive violence.

But really, the hype was real on this side. Fictional people killing people with office equipment.

Office equipment, like guns!

Head on down to Bogotá, Columbia, where the sun is always shining and everyone is so happy! And it is also the location of Belko Indutries, a very large office building seemingly in the middle of nowhere. They help hire foreign workers for American companies, or something like that. Hard to say, doesn’t matter, they have sweet government contracts, so life is sweet.

Weird things are afoot today. All of the local workers are being sent home. There is a larger security force than normal, checking cars and looking intimidating. But hey, it is still a work day, so even with some missing people they have meetings and phones to call.

And then, a voice (Gregg Henry) comes over the loudspeaker, that they didn’t even know existed in their building. It said that most of them would die, and that if in the next 30 minutes two people were not killed, then there would be consequences. Ha ha. Must be a prank. And then the office building straight up closes entirely around them, windows, doors, all covered in large metal panels. Fuck! Well, of course no one kills anyone, so then four people die from sudden head explosions. Head explosions! Each person had a GPS tracking device put into their head, in case of kidnappings, because Columbia. Turns out they are bombs and now everyone is even more fucked.

Of course it gets worse. Now they know it is serious. And now they know that with 76 people left in the building, they now have 2 hours to kill 30 people. Or else overall 60 will be killed, randomly. Now it is time to let your animal instincts out. Now is the time to go wild for survival. And hell, a few of the people have some special forces training before this job. Doesn’t look good for your normal receptionist.

And we have a lot of workers, so here they are: John C. McGinley, John Gallagher Jr., Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, Melonie Diaz, Michael Rooker, James Earl, and Sean Gunn are some of the bigger players. We also have Brent Sexton, David Dastmalchian, David Del Rio, Gail Bean, Josh Brener, Owain Yeoman, and Rusty Schwimmer.

Blood bath? More like Blood…um. Office. Yes, Blood office.

I wanted so badly for The Belko Experiment to be good.To give me a satisfying psychological horror. To really emphasis the experiment parts, and showcase human spirit and humans in general. And yes, I also wanted it to feature a ton of violence through the use of common office equipment. Things like coffee pots, staplers (of course), paper weights, chairs, paper clips, who knows. And honestly? We maybe got 3. Definitely two that stand out, and of those two, one doesn’t even kill a person, it just injures them.

When it comes to wild and crazy deaths, this film lacks them. It just gives us death. MOST people, out of the 80 starting amount, die from a gun shot wound or from their GPS tracking devices exploding in their head. And I do mean that by most, definitely well over half. We have some knife/cutlery related deaths, a couple accident based ones, and a few explosions, but most of them are just regular violence in what could have been a creative film. The trailer implied a lot different film from the tone given.

A lot of screen time is given to the characters actively trying to escape. Making signs to hang, getting through the metal, taking out their “GPS devices” and so on. Perfectly good rational behavior. And that same behavior is why we never really get the all out blood bath the trailers seemed to imply. We get forced into a situation where a few people with power and guns just start killing off random individuals without the thrill behind it.

Overall, I guess what I am getting at is that the film is too serious. The violence doesn’t lead to the fun deaths which doesn’t lead to a fun movie. But it isn’t serious enough that it makes any point either. It just feels meaningless and hollow.

Sure, we have some interesting characters. Gallagher is our voice of reason. McGinley is a creep. Goldwyn is a typical executive. A lot of people play scared office worker quite convincingly. Surprisingly, Sean Gun, James Gunn’s brother, known basically only for Gilmore Girls, is the most exciting character and his actions are fun to watch, but he can not entertain us enough on his own.

The Belko Experiment seemed like it would be an immediate cult classic, but I doubt even a sequel could save the story it tried to piece together.

I decided to start watching movies from the Independent Spirit Awards because I wanted to see movies that I normally would never hear of. Sure, somehow, the winner of most categories goes to a film that is also going to be known from Oscars. But there are only usually a couple of those for best Picture.

This years Indie Best Picture nominations include American Honey, Chronic, Jackie, Manchester By The Sea, and Moonlight.

Great, four movies I have heard of before (one of which I was avoiding), and then Chronic, an actual independent film that wasn’t super famous. This is the type of film I hope to see from them, to broaden my site’s focus and get some weird shit up in here.

And I expect it to go full indie: death, minimum dialogue, and a very specific focus.

Working with those doomed to die is probably a very fucking miserable job. Knowing people only on the last moments of their life. Working with those sick, in pain, who want to die, who can’t communicate, and what have you. Just down right miserable.

But David (Tim Roth) is great at his job. He cares about those he works with. He bathes them, cleans them, never any complaint. He will go to their funeral, take extra shifts if they need it and make sure they are always as comfortable as possible.

And sometimes that can get him into trouble. He seems too caring to the loved ones of the dying, they worry he might be inappropriate with them. It is almost like he WANTS to be there when he dies. Oh yeah. David also suffers from depression, he is a bit weird, social anxiety and all of that. He only feels like he can be himself when he is helping those with suffering.

Also featuring a lot of people with much smaller roles, like Sarah Sutherland, Elizabeth Tulloch, David Dastmalchian, and Claire van der Boom.

Oh yeah, they are definitely watching porn.

Oh hey, Chronic, the film that I normally would never watch on my own. And it maybe should have stayed that way.

Look, I like Tim Roth. He is fantastic in plenty of movies and even a few TV shows. He has to carry this movie. It has a lot of long take scenes, slow and meticulous. According to IMDB it only had 97 scenes overall, each one on average lasting under a minute. That means every scene should matter.

Each scene does seem to add to something, a lot of them are viewer discomfort. People dying are not pleasant. This movie has old, frail, people. Naked, pooping on themselves, coughing a shit ton, crying and wanting death. Just being miserable.

And that is the reason this review gets an average rating. It felt realistic. But the actual point to the story seems to be missing. It is a character study, it is okay, but it lacks that oomph. A sobering experience is what Chronic is.

If you want a movie in production hell, then you want Ant-Man. Sure, Iron Man was technically in development since the 1990s, but those were with different studios before Marvel got it back in 2006. If you didn’t notice, they then pushed out the movie just two years alter.

Ant-Man, however, was also in development since 2006 and took just nine years to finally get released. That is a long time of trying to make a movie work and never giving up. Well, they technically gave up a little bit. Edgar Wright who was signed on to be the director since the beginning was fired early 2014 from the project which scared a lot of movie fans. Wright is well liked and has an awesome style. And the movie was roughly a year away! How could they do this? And with script re-writes as well!

I will admit that I too overreacted, expecting that Ant-Man would unfortunately be Marvel’s first real disaster of a movie in a long time, possibly meaning bad news for the other new franchises coming down the time lines. But as a not so secretive fanboy, I was also of course hoping for the best.

Thumbs up, seven new franchises up!

The movie starts in Taylor Swift’s favorite year, 1989, where some dude named Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is upset over S.H.I.E.L.D. turning his science into weapons! He made a Pym Particle, but he refuses to let them have it for warfare, so he quits and starts his own company. It should be noted we get to see Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell), an older Howard Stark (John Slattery), and a random tool, Mitchell Carson (Martin Donovan).

Now, in the present day, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is just getting out of prison. He stole from his corrupt company who took millions from customers and gave it all back. He has a masters in Electrical Engineering, but he is also a pretty great thief it turns out. He has tried getting a regular job, but his crime history makes it hard. No job means no money, which means he can’t pay child support to his ex (Judy Greer), and thus he can’t really see his daughter (Abby Ryder Fortson). To make things worse, the ex is now dating a cop (Bobby Cannavale) which is all sorts of awkward.

So Scott gets with his friend, Luis (Michael Peña), who has a heist for them. With a few friends (David Dastmalchian, T.I.), they are going to rob Pym’s house who has the biggest safe ever. Unfortunately, the only thing in it is an awkward suit.

Turns out it was all a test. (I swear I am not spoiling the whole film). Pym’s company is no longer in his hands, and his protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) is about to discover the shrinking secret. Once he gets the formula right, he is going to sell the Yellow Jacket suits to the highest bidder, making an unstoppable army at whomever’s disposal. Their only person on the inside is Pym’s daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly).

So it is simple. Break into an extremely secure facility, destroy the science and the suits, save the day. A nice heist. Perfect for someone who can shrink and control ants, right? Also Wood Harris! Fuck, I couldn’t fit him in naturally!

Super powers are overrated, you da real MVP!

Again, it looks like I told too much, but I think I told the basic motivations of our main characters and also threw in most of the side players as well. You got to see the two good guys, where they are coming from, and of course the bad guy.

And I fucking loved it.

Ant-Man had everything I wanted in a Marvel super hero film. It wasn’t ever super drama serious, but it had its touching moments. It was funny, and then it was also hilarious. Many characters brought the charm in. And the action was exciting. The CGI ants I thought would be cheesy, but they worked really well in the context of the rest of the film. Going back and forth between small and large to fight everyone was very slick. There was a wonderful montage and we even got a pretty significant Avenger cameo.

I really need to acknowledge Michael Peña, who was the best part of this movie and for all I know, not based on any comic book character. He was hilarious and I hope he gets to be in future Marvel films.

There was a weak part though. The relationship between Pym and Hope was supposed to be strained, but the actors didn’t act it well and it instead kind of just sucked. I am more incline to place the blame onto Lilly, but it could be that she was just given a weaker character with terrible lines and development.

Ant-Man has it all. It even has a villain who seems realistic and isn’t just a dark brooding figure. He has his own real motivations and a backstory and his arc makes a little bit of sense. Their fight scenes were wonderful. And on paper he may seem like a minor bad guy, but I think he is the best villain since Bucky and Loki.

Bring me more Ant-Man.