Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Michael Rooker, Benicio del Toro, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close

I understand why Disney and Marvel Studios saw this film as a risky venture, I mean, here’s a Marvel Comic that not many people know about, you see, Guardians of the Galaxy is not a household name like say the X-Men or Spiderman. In actuality, Guardians of the Galaxy has been an on again, off again title in Marvel Comics roster for years. It would get printed, last for a run and then get cancelled. I remember when I first came into contact with the Guardians of the Galaxy comics, it was when Marvel re-launched the comic in 1990. In that version of the group, the lineup of characters were totally different, from that 1990’s version of Guardians of the Galaxy, only the character of Yondu Udonta (played by Michael Rooker) made it onto this new film.  And wow, what an awesome comic book movie this was, for many reasons, all of which I will go into on this review, just to pump you up so you go see this one in theaters, where it deserves to be seen.

First issue of Guardians of the Galaxy (1990) 

From this line-up, only Yondu made it to the movie

On this film we meet a group of totally disparate characters who by pure chance (or maybe destiny?) end up working together to stop a madman named Ronan from destroying an entire planet. You see, he’s one of those mad conqueror types who wants to destroy everything so he can “cure” society and start everything out in his own image. In order to achieve this, Ronan has struck a deal with one of the most powerful beings in the universe: Thanos! The deal is that Ronan finds one of the ever elusive and incredibly powerful infinity gems for Thanos, who in turn, as a gesture of gratitude,will destroy an entire planet for Ronan, so he can then take over it. Problem is that the Infinity Gem in question is in the hands of The Guardians of the Galaxy! Can Ronan and his followers take the Infinity Gem from them? And speaking of the Infinity Gems, I’m ecstatic that the Infinity Gem story line has finally begun. I mean, I read the Infinity Gauntlet (one of Marvel Comics best stories ever in my book) and it really is an epic storyline…and to see it come alive, it’s orgasmic. I mean, to see Thanos sitting on his throne being all magnanimous and evil…wow, I can’t wait for this whole storyline to explode in Avengers 3, you see, reportedly, that’s what this new batch of Marvel movies are setting us up for: Avengers 3! So yeah, be ready to have a nerdgasm in your theater seat. 

If there’s one thing that James Gunn infused into this movie its fun, fun like the kind of fun you’d have watching a movie from the 80’s where characters always say everything joking around, nothing is deadly serious, unless it has to be? I love that about it! These characters are misfits, they aren’t picture perfect examples of what humans should be, they are what we are, jokers, imperfect yet with lots of soul, they are in lots of ways characters that we can identify with. I mean, can you identify with Superman? No, you can’t because he’s this perfect being, but with the Guardians, it’s like they went to high school with you or something. The film has an amazing cast, the core characters are awesome, but then you get all these other great actors filling the gaps like Benicio del Toro, Michael Rooker, John C. Reily, Glenn Close, this film is very well rounded out in terms of characters and performances.

This is easily James Gunn’s best film, and boy has James Gunn come a long way baby. I mean, the guy started his cinematic career writing the screenplay for a film called Tromeo and Juliet (1996) for Troma Films. He went on to direct two Scooby Doo films which were moderately successful, then he went on to direct Slither (2006), a sci-fi horror hybrid (and bonafide box office flop) about alien slugs that turn people into zombies, by the way, I had a blast with Slither. Yet now, here he is, directing a big budget, ultra successful comic book movie for Disney and Marvel. My how the worm has turned! Best part is how audiences have quickly embraced it, I mean, word of mouth on this film is so positive that it shot straight to the number one spot, and I don’t think it will go down soon! This movie is so fun I’ve seen it twice in one weekend! 

The thing about this film is that it never stops, it’s always fun and exciting, the way big budget summer movies should be. James Gunn grew up with these big action films from the 80’s, you know, the kind that put a smile in your face, the kind that had that sense of adventure about ‘em. Guardians of the Galaxy brought to mind the fun I had with the old Star Wars movies or with the Indiana Jones films. You know, that lighthearted spirit of adventure, characters going through these incredible situations, but in the end, you know everything is going to be alright anyways? Even the films musical score will remind you of that time when studios used to put these rousing, adventurous musical scores on films, thank god they brought that back for this movie. Guardians of the Galaxy may be a cutting edge state of the art filmmaking, but it’s got some good old fashion sensibilities about it and I liked that. I mean, here’s a film that has this awesome 70’s soundtrack all through out, we get characters kicking ass and taking names as David Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ plays in the background you know what I mean? How old school is this movie, well, they actually built sets…which is something amazing. So few sci-fi films today do that, cause you know, now everything around the actor is fake. But not here! The sets are beautiful to look at, of course there’s tons of computer generated images, but there’s a nice balance here between the practical and the cgi. 

Finally, this is a film tailor made for geeks, Guardians of the Galaxy is filled to the brim with lots of little inside jokes and easter eggs hidden all throughout the movie! Keep your eyes peeled for surprise cameos. Lloyd Kaufman (head of Troma Films) plays a prisoner! Howard the Duck cameos! Hell yeah, I said Howard the Duck! Rob Zombie lends his voice talents for a character. Nathan Fillion plays a giant monster. Yes my friends, this film is filled to the brim with pop cultural references, everything from Alf to Footloose (1984) gets mentioned. Visually, this movie is very rich, so you’ll want to look at every nook and cranny on this movie, there’s lots of details and colors up on screen, another asset the film has, visual richness and an amazing color palette. So yes my friends, this is the film to watch. I enjoyed it more than many other Marvel films, like say for example Thor: Dark World (2013). Here’s the thing, Guardians of the Galaxy might have been a risky film for Disney, but watching it, you wouldn’t know it because it seems they gave this film their all, they really made a good movie. They spent many millions on a series of characters that no one knew anything about and it worked like gang busters. This movie feels bigger than films like Iron Man 3 (2013) or even the X-Men movies. Guardians of the Galaxy is epic my friends, Disney/Marvel Studios have the millions to give us the kind of big bombastic movies we want to see, let’s hope they keep making them this good.

Rating: 5 out of 5  

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Title: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, John C. Reily, Crispin Glover, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates

Review:

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film that talks about how life can be strange, beautiful and tragic all rolled into one and how sometimes there’s not much we can do about it. Sometimes, those are the cards we are dealt and what’s left for us to do is just try and survive as best we can through it while we are trying to make sense of it all. In this film we meet Gilbert Grape, a young man who’s lost his father, has an obese mother, two bitchy sisters and a mentally challenged brother called Arnie; so Gilbert doesn’t exactly enjoy a happy family life. It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, in fact; he is portrayed as someone who loves his entire family even though they sometimes drive him nuts. He’s the kind of guy who’ll take care of everyone else before taking care of himself. He forgets to make himself happy, but this is not entirely his fault, his brother Arnie takes up a lot of his time, Arnie needs Gilbert to survive. So in a way, Gilbert is kind of like a male version of Amelie (2004), you remember that one? That’s the French film about a girl named Amelie, she would help everyone, but always forgot to make herself happy. She didn’t even have time to find love, until she made time for it. This film follows a similar structure. Gilbert is the ultimate do gooder.

This is the kind of film that’s all about small town life. The film takes place in a fictional town called ‘Endora’. Gilbert is always complaining, saying how much he wants to leave Endora because not a whole lot happens there. If you ask me, I’d love to live there; the whole place is kind of like a paradise? The entire film was beautifully shot in Texas, and honestly, it made me want to live there, it’s that kind of film, its locations are so beautiful, you’ll wish you were there. But of course, the main character takes it for granted. I guess Gilbert wants out of Endora because to him, Endora is well, the name of the town says it all, it's End-ora. I guess Endora is representative of the quintessential dead end town. We always want what we don’t got, the fat want to be skinny, the poor want to be rich, the rich want to know about common people…and Gilbert wants out of Endora. I understand Gilbert though, I mean, here he is, in the prime of his youth and he is working in a local supermarket that’s on the brink of closing down.

When Gilbert goes back home, he goes to a dysfunctional family, now here is the true reason for Gilbert’s unhappiness. He finds himself trapped with taking care of his mother and his mentally challenged brother Arnie, masterfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Now here’s something you need to know about this movie, this is one of DiCaprio’s finest performances. It’s not an easy thing to play a mentally challenged individual, when done wrong, it can go horribly wrong.  An example of this is Sean Penn in I Am Sam (2001) a movie I despise because to me Sean Penn didn’t really sell me the performance; to me it looked like Penn simply playing 'stupid', not a convincing performance at all. But DiCaprio’s Arnie? Now we are talking! Now here’s a convincing performance! To be honest, when this film first came out in 1993, DiCaprio was just getting started in his career and I didn’t know who the hell he was yet. I actually thought they had used a mentally challenged actor to do this performance, it is that convincing!

DiCaprio did extensive research for his performance, which is why it comes off as so believable; he actually spent some time in a home for mentally challenged teenagers. DiCaprio’s performance did not go unnoticed; he was nominated for many awards that year, he was even nominated for an Academy Award in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. Sadly, DiCaprio’s nomination was one of those times when an actor should have won the Oscar but didn’t. You know, like that year in which Ellen Burstyn was nominated for her amazing performance in Requiem for a Dream (2000) but ended up losing to Julia Roberts for her performance in Erin Brockovich (2000)? And you’re left saying “whaaaat?!” Well, that year, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for playing Arnie, but lost to Tommy Lee Jones for his performance in The Fugitive (1993), can you believe it? One look at DiCaprio on What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, it’s one of his best performances ever, truly memorable, he got me to feel for Arnie. I doubt you even remember Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but after seeing Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, I doubt you’ll forget the performance. The chemistry between Arnie and Gilbert is great, loved seeing  Depp and DiCaprio performing together.

But then again all the performances on this film are outstanding in my book. Darlene Cates, the actress they chose to play Gilbert’s obese mother, she was chosen after Peter Hodges, the author of the book the film is based on saw Cates appearance in an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael show. The show’s theme was “Too Heavy to Leave Their House”. Hodges saw a tape of the show and immediately offered the role of Bonnie Grape to Mrs. Cates, who accepted. Now this was not an easy role to accept because it’s a role that would address her real life obesity and the way that people react to it. There are many scenes where Momma goes out on the street and people stare at her or make fun of her as if she was some sort of freak. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to film these scenes. To me, this actress is a brave soul for recognizing her problem and not being afraid to address it through her performance. Depp himself apologized to the actress after filming some of his lines. So my hats off to this fine actress, she actually got to me; she was completely vulnerable and honest in her performance and that calls for appreciation.

The film is sprinkled with a great supporting cast. Mary Steenburgen plays the desperate housewife looking for some action with Gilbert. John C. Reilly plays this guy who wants to open up a fast food franchise called “Burger Barn”; he swears it’s the best kind of food. That’s something else the film touches upon, how big businesses are gulping up small ones. Then we have Crispin Glover playing the town mortician, basically, it’s one of those movies that is filled with all these characters that make up the town folk. Finally we have Juliette Lewis playing the role of a girl who travels across the United States on a camper with her grandma. When she and Gilbert meet, sparks fly. She offers him something he’d been missing all his life, a breath of fresh air, some love and understanding. Juliette Lewis glows on this movie. So what we got here is a bitter sweet movie filled with some wonderfully happy moments and some terribly dark ones as well, kind of like life. It’s a film that teaches us to take the good with the bad.

Rating:  5 out of 5