First came Bruce. Then: theatre. After that: television. And now, finally, to finish the Write All Nite quaternary: film.

These Cinema Capsules – as I’ve so alliteratively dubbed my impending movie-focused posts – will be far shorter than my excessively verbose theatre (and Bruce) analyses. There will of course be exceptions when I see a flick that particularly stimulates my writing muscles, but for the most part these will conform to the definition of capsule: shortened but retaining the essence of the original. Rather than diving deep into the celluloid, these Cinema Capsules will simply encapsulate my general, informal, unfiltered, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-film-pants reactions to the plentiful movies that I behold in theatres.

Speaking of which, below each of my capsule reviews in this and all subsequent posts will be lists, for reference, that include every new movie that I’ve seen in theatres this year,[1] every movie currently in theatres that I want to see (doesn’t mean I necessarily will), and my favorite movies of the year. They should give you a good idea of what’s cinematically on my mind.

Without further ado – and since I’m trying to keep these brief – let’s roll the tape!

 

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: [insert here cliché pun about how this was anything but ‘magnificent’]

Here are seven reasons – all bolded – as to why I was somewhat excited to see this:

Antoine Fuqua is one of the most stylish action filmmakers working today, someone who has in the past seemed to put more thought into his cinematic endeavors than many other successful hacks (I’m one of the few people in the world who enjoyed his last outing, Southpaw). Ethan Hawke is a top 10 actor working today, someone who’s so boundlessly artistically curious that he challenges himself to star in movies of all of shapes and sizes in a variety of capacities. Peter Sarsgaard is on the ‘top actor’ tier right below Mr. Hawke. Though those who claim that Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt deserve to be included in these tiers must not mind that each actor relies on their go-to, gradually more tiresome personas a bit too excessively instead of actually challenging themselves, they’re still eminently and entertainingly watchable. The original Seven Samurai and Hollywood’s original adaptation also titled The Magnificent Seven can be described similarly: a tad overrated, but still eminently and – from a historical perspective – entertainingly watchable.

Unfortunately, those seven reasons pale in comparison to the 133 minutes-worth of reasons that the actual movie gives you NEVER to see it. Everyone and everything in it are just going through the motions of a remake, with nary an attempt to engage the audience. “If people cared about this story in 1954 and 1960…” I can almost hear the studio heads proclaiming, “…then surely they will care again in 2016!!!” In the words of a certain Presidential candidate who shares a similar IQ to this movie: wrong.

Note how I didn’t include screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto’s name in my list of seven reasons above, even though he’s a guns-blazing-hot writer after creating HBO’s True Detective. That’s because I’ve never been able to shake the suspicion that he’s wearing some emperor’s new clothes underneath the obscuringly handsome facades of everything he writes. The most common criticisms lobbed against Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet[2] – two of my favorite writers – assert that they care too much about highlighting their sensational (both in terms of quality and content) facility with dialogue, to the detriment of the structures of their narratives. Though I believe this critique rarely actually applies to their work, it succinctly summarizes my feelings regarding the shortcomings of Mr. Pizzolatto: he has a real knack for imbuing every day, entertaining chitchat with philosophical, existential musings – the sort of superficial but seemingly grounded intellectualism that always attracts big name performers, to which True Detective and this can attest – but he’s so far been incapable of approaching his stories with this same out-of-the-box creativity.

Looking past these quasi-novel trappings, True Detective and Magnificent Seven are simply run-of-the-mill detective and western tales, respectively. Audiences almost always see through this surface novelty eventually, which has long been one of my theories regarding why season two of True Detective was so much more lambasted than the extremely similar season one. Throwback stories do not deserve scorn as a blind rule, but Pizzolatto’s fail to connect because of his far worse crime as a writer: his inability to write relationships worth caring about. If he couldn’t do it over the course of the eight hours that HBO afforded him with each season of True Detective, why should anyone have expected him to do so within Magnificent Seven’s unbearably long running time. The story of Magnificent Seven only calls for two actions scenes; as such, they need to bookend material that convinces the audience to care about the fate of these men and the town they’ve sworn to protect. Fuqua and the actors give it their all – especially Mr. Sarsgaard, who doesn’t just chew the scenery, nor merely devour it, but literally supernovas the classic sets out of existence – but Mr. Pizzolatto and his co-writer Richard Wenk’s subpar contributions never let them be great, nor anything close to it.

It upsets me not to support a traditional western because Hollywood so rarely revisits one of its most foundational genres, but tell me how I can recommend a movie called Magnificent Seven that literally ends with the line, “It was magnificent!” No it wasn’t!

 

 

FOOTNOTES

[1] Always the contrarian, I make a point of trying to see as many movies IN THEATRES as possible. In fact, I almost rarely watch any at home. Perhaps it’s due to my understanding of the importance of the live, communal element of theatre, but I’ve always felt that art should be consumed in whatever way the creator intended. If a director wanted her film to be watched alone on a television screen, she would’ve produced a made-for-TV movie. Even though the differences between them have narrowed in recent years, I thoroughly believe the experience of enjoying (or not) a movie in a proper cinema trumps that of any other setting, and is closer to what the creators would’ve wished.

[2] Yes, I’m OBVIOUSLY ignoring his recent work…

 

2016 Movies

1. The Treasure 
2. In the Name of Women
3. 13 Hours
4. Anesthesia 
5. Dirty Grandpa
6. Ip Man 3
7. Mojave
8. Aferim!
9. Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art
10. The Finest Hours
11. 2016 Oscar Nominated Shorts – Animated
12. Kung Fu Panda 3
13. Tumbledown
14. Hail, Caesar!
15. Jane Got a Gun
16. 50 Shades of Black
17. Rams
18. Where to Invade Next
19. Mountains May Depart
20. The Choice
21. A War
22. Touched With Fire
23. The Club
24. How To Be Single
25. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
26. Zoolander 2
27. Deadpool
28. Cemetery of Splendor 
29. Risen 
30. Tricked (+doc)
31. Embrace of the Serpent
32. Becoming Mike Nichols
33. Mermaid 
34. The Wave
35. The Brothers Grimsby 
36. My Golden Days
37. Knight of Cups
38. Eddie the Eagle
39. Gods of Egypt
40. Creative Control 
41. Midnight Special
42. Zootopia
43. Miles Ahead
44. The Witch
45. Batman V. Superman
46. Hello, My Name is Doris
47. Krisha
48. Mr. Right
49. London Has Fallen
50. Marguerite
51. City of Gold
52. The Invitation
53. Born to be Blue
54. The Clan
55. The Measure of a Man
56. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot 
57. I Saw the Light
58. The Jungle Book
59. Hardcore Henry 
60. 10 Cloverfield Lane
61. April and the Extraordinary World
62. Tale of Tales
63. Green Room
64. The Dark Horse
65. Louder than Bombs
66. Demolition 
67. Everybody Wants Some!!
68. The Boss
69. Remember 
70. The Meddler
71. Keanu 
72. Francofonia
73. Eye in the Sky
74. Hockney
75. Dheepan
76. A Bigger Splash
77. The First Monday in May
78. Captain America: Civil War
79. A Hologram for the King
80. The Family Fang
81. Dark Horse
82. Barbershop
83. The Lobster
84. Maggie’s Plan
85. Chevalier
86. The Witness
87. Weiner
88. Money Monster
89. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
90. X-Men: Apocalypse 
91. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
92. De Palma
93. The Nice Guys
94. Love and Friendship
95. The Wailing
96. The Shallows
97. The Conjuring 2
98. The BFG
99. Don’t Think Twice
100. Little Men
101. Central Intelligence
102. Finding Dory
103. Ghostbusters
104. Nine Lives
105. The Legend of Tarzan
106. Star Trek Beyond
107. Cafe Society
108. Sausage Party
109. The Secret Life of Pets
110. Pete’s Dragon
111. Bad Moms
112. Hell or High Water
113. Mia Madre
114. Captain Fantastic
115. War Dogs
116. Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
117. Kubo and the Two Strings
118. Suicide Squad
119. Complete Unknown 
120. Indignation
121. White Girl 
122. Goat 
123. Denial 
124. Birth of a Nation
125. Deepwater Horizon
126. Queen of Katwe
127. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years
128. Snowden
129. The Girl on the Train
130. The Neon Demon 
131. Tower
132. Michael Moore in Trumpland
133. Train to Busan
134. Don’t Breathe
135. Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience
136. The Magnificent Seven

 

Best Movies of 2016

• Everybody Wants Some!!
• Hail, Caesar!
• Hardcore Henry
• Hell or High Water
• Knight of Cups
• The Lobster
• Midnight Special
• The Neon Demon
• Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
• Sausage Party
• Tale of Tales
• The VVitch: A New-England Folktale
• Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience
• Weiner

 

MOVIES TO SEE

• The Accountant
• American Honey
• American Pastoral
• Aquarius
• Certain Women
• Christine
• Gimme Danger
• Godzilla Resurgence
• The Handmaiden
• Inferno
• Into the Inferno
• Jack Reacher
• A Man Called Ove
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
• Moonlight
• Ouija: Origin of Evil
• Sully
• Under the Shadow