Author: John D'Amico

Superhero Flicks Are Not Our New Westerns

supermanwestern

Recently, WB announced their slate of superhero movies through 2019, perpetuating this ridiculous genre for another endless cycle. A lot of very smart people have been persistent in drawing an analogy about this, saying that for its longevity and frivolity, the superhero genre is the new western. As a lover of westerns and a hater of superhero movies, I gotta step in here.

I get the facile rationale—both are ‘low’ genres that occupy a disproportionately large space in the cinematic marketplace; both are marketed at American adolescent boys; both are concerned with matters of good and evil solved through third act duels. But in the words of Matt Zoller Seitz: “Where’s Ford and Leone?”

Continue reading Superhero Flicks Are Not Our New Westerns

Let’s Be Real About ‘Let’s Be Cops’

ferguson

“The community that denies to a portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severed the only safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector.” – Benjamin Harrison, 1889

Let’s Be Cops (2014)
Directed by Luke Greenfield
Written by Luke Greenfield & Nicholas Thomas
104 min.

Everyone’s first response to Let’s Be Cops is to wince at the timing—a film about frat boy cop antics released the week a town is besieged by a police paramilitia. But really, when you get right down to it, when would be good timing here? What is this movie’s best case scenario? America’s toughest week in a long time is really the only time this 21 Jump Street ripoff has anything more to offer us than tepid chuckles.

Continue reading Let’s Be Real About ‘Let’s Be Cops’

‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Gets It Right, On Some Level

purge

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
Written & Directed by James DeMonaco
103 min.

I want to preface this review by saying that when I went to see The Purge: Anarchy, the girl in front of me on the line for the concession stand had a picture of Drake in her wallet. This has no bearing on the rest of my review or the film; it’s just something I had to tell the world.

On to the movie.

Continue reading ‘The Purge: Anarchy’ Gets It Right, On Some Level

‘Doom’: Worthy Of Doing Right

doom16

It is rumored that there will be a new Doom movie.

I don’t know anything about video games. I buy a new one every winter, just to get me through the cold. Most of them I never bother to finish. It’s just not my medium, I guess. But I know Doom. Doom and Doom II: Hell on Earth are two of a very few games to really capture me.

There are a lot of reasons to love Doom and Doom II—which, in practical terms, I consider just one long game, sort of like Godfather and Godfather II. For one, you run at like 60 miles per hour the whole time. But above all else, I’m an aesthete, so what really gets me are the games’ production design—something we should talk about in light of the upcoming film. I think this is a great opportunity to repair some long-standing damages in the sci-fi horror genre.

Continue reading ‘Doom’: Worthy Of Doing Right

There Is No Such Thing As A ‘Reboot’

godzilla2014

I saw the new Godzilla yesterday. I enjoyed it a lot, but I’ve been weirded out for months over the fact that I’ve had to call it something I’ve never had to call a Godzilla film. Just like how I recently had to call a Bond film something that, in 50 years of recasting and returning to ground zero, I’ve never had to call a Bond film.

I’m all for specialized vocabulary. Film needs its own exclusive words to describe its own processes, but ‘reboot’ is not such a word. I’ve asked people time and again to define it, and I’ve read about it online—god help me, I’ve even read the Wikipedia page for it. It’s just not a real and distinct concept. It’s a cheap marketing buzzword, that’s all it is. And more than that, the very existence of the term is symptomatic of a rot at the core of contemporary filmmaking.

Continue reading There Is No Such Thing As A ‘Reboot’