Michael Mann's Blackhat

Computer technologies, digital networks and interfaces, and mobile communications tend to intensify physical presence by paradoxically putting new emphasis on bodily knowing, communications, and tactile information. 

—Brandon LaBelle, Background Noise

Michael Mann has finally made a film about idealist individuals. Or at least a film about those who break the patterns of the streams they live in, as opposed to accept the inexplicable systems that form their societies. Clouds form abstract shapes above cities, where rigid and jagged materials form distinct lines. Even the streets of Hong Kong and its endless bazaars simply look like a grid from above. There is complex theory and there is chaos theory. Mann knows the world is the former, but he can’t help but shoot his camera up toward the latter—searching the heavens for freedom.

Blackhat is Mann’s first feature film since 2009’s Public Enemies, which was a film about a rebel in a world where systems of organization were developed into making him simply an anomaly to be targeted and erased. The protagonist of Blackhat, Chris Hemsworth’s Hathaway, has yet to be erased, but now simply acts as another cog in a guarded system—he’s a hacker doing time in prisons, spending his days reading up on Foucault. He knows that simply because he’s surrounded by walls doesn’t mean the outside world is anything but a prison without them. When he first steps out onto the runway of an airport, he can only see material of grays and blacks, out of focus and without dimension. It’s simply a mass.

Then a hand grabs his arm, and everything becomes tangibly real.

The Avengers: Attack of the Giant Blockbuster Movie

The Avengers

Written and Directed By: Joss Whedon, from a story by Zak Penn and Whedon

Starring: Samuel L Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddelston, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgaard, and Gwyneth Paltrow

Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey, Editor: Jeffery Ford and Lisa Lassek, Production Designer: James Chinlund, Original Music: Alan Silvestri

            For those who stuck around through the credits of Iron Man in the summer of 2008, they were treated to a post-credit sequence as a one-eyed Samuel L Jackson approached Robert Downey Jr., telling him about a special initiative. Who could expect that four years later, that gambit by Marvel would pay off in The Avengers? After a Hulk, a Thor, and a Captain America (and another Iron Man), Marvel has finally created the juggernaut of them all: A superhero movie that combines the biggest names with even bigger special effects. For those of us who have watched with continuing dread as Marvel launched an unstoppable wave of fan service films, tickling them with Easter eggs (instead of plot and characte), The Avengers has seemed like a time bomb in which film could finally be declared dead. The blockbusters have won.

            But fear not! Because while the Marvel machine might seem unstoppable, here comes writer-director Joss Whedon to reign in this whale of a movie. Whedon may not have worked in big budget scales before, but his importance to fandom is unparalleled, creating many memorable shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, as well as the brainchild of last month’s Cabin in the Woods. If anyone could stop The Avengers from train wreck potential, surely Whedon is the man for the job.

Cabin in the Woods: Bumps In the Night

Cabin in the Woods

Directed By: Drew Goddard

Written By: Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon

Starring: Fran Kranz, Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Brian White, and Amy Acker

Director of Photography: Peter Deming, Editor: Lisa Lassek, Production Designer: Martin Whist, Original Music: David Julyan

           

I’m going to spoil everything in this movie. Most of it, which people have made a big deal about, really shouldn’t be considered “spoilers.” I read a couple of the reviews that called this film a mind-blowing masterpiece, and then refused to tell you anything about it, which kind of seems like a pointless act of film criticism. Apparently, many of the critics who don’t like this film have spoiled it (and of course these are the critics who are “wrong,” though people like Rex Reed aren’t exactly helping). I find this all quite amusing, because this is what separates film reviews from film criticism. I try and do both (albeit very poorly), because I have the feeling many of the people who read this stuff anyways are those who have seen the films already. Anyways, on with the show.

            The title of Cabin in the Woods is the first sign that the latest work from the universe of all things fanboy Joss Whedon is very aware of the story it’s telling. Five teenagers—the jock, the sex bomb, the nerd, the stoner, and the virgin—head up to, well, a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with a plan of enjoying all that comes without parental or societal supervision. Of course, the forest is a place where transgression leads to death by way of the supernatural, and in this one it is “Redneck Pain-Worshiping Zombies” (“if only it could be Merman, just once” a character explains—more on that later). Needless to say, Whedon, along with director and co-writer Drew Goddard, have set out to make a deconstruction of the horror genre, not too far from the Scream franchise.

            Ah yes, the latest movie about movies! Deconstruction is essentially a genre on itself these days, and it seems you can’t make a normal movie without someone believing it is actually about the making of cinema (see: Inception, a lot of film noir, all musicals, etc.). But Cabin in the Woods is specifically about the way we watch and enjoy horror cinema. Its premise—not only about these kids, but also those who control their destiny—is certainly clever, and at times quite ingenious. But Whedon and Goddard perhaps try and stretch their metaphor, a bit too much, trying to cram as much universe building and extra explanations as possible. Cabin is a ton of fun when it’s playing with the horror clichés we know, but it’s also a nightmare when it tries to explain those.

Thor: The God Who Fell to Earth

Thor

Directed By: Kenneth Branagh

Written By: Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, and Don Payne

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Clark Gregg, and Idris Elba

Director of Photography: Haris Zambarloukos, Editor: Paul Rubell, Production Designer: Bo Wlech, Original MusicL Patrick Doyle

Rated: PG-13 for what all comic book movies must be rated for (silly violence and some humorous bad language)

            Marvel Entertainment is selling you something in Thor, and it’s not the movie you are watching, but the five other films that are coming out soon. Did you hear that reference to “Stark Industries”? Iron Man 3 in 2013! See Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye? He’s gonna have his own movie. And of course an after-credits sequence is setting up the big-bang-mash-em-up epic of The Avengers next year, which will bring together every super hero in the Marvel universe for one big extravaganza (read: most likely disaster).

            But until then, we have to actually get through Thor, perhaps the most unique character to join the Marvel universe alongside the science-built Iron Man and Incredible Hulk. A Norse God who comes from the magical kingdom in a parallel world (or something) called Asgard, Thor is unstoppable and wields awesome power with his magical hammer, Mjölnir. And thus Thor must be equipped with super human strength, played here by a pair of gigantic biceps, attached to the smirking face of Chris Hemsworth. Directed by Shakespearean thespian Kenneth Branagh, Thor is a mediocrely good time, which shows how much our standards have lowered for this type of entertainment more than the passable merit of the film.