JohnDeSando
Joined Oct 2001
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"Humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves." Plato, The Symposium
Although the current horror film Together doesn't pretend to parse Plato's discourse on love, it relies heavily on the idea that true love is the comingling of minds and bodies that were once separated by Zeus out of envy. Tim (David Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) spend time in a country house seeking to regain the passion they once had.
After a stroll that ends up in a cave (how very Platonic!), they devolve into maddened humans, literally getting under each other's skin. The visuals, even without excessive CGI, are body horror at its best, and allegorically land us in discussion about what love means and how it affects the struggling relationship the drama began with.
Thematically Together wishes to show how much the stressed couple loves each other, even willing to sacrifice their very flesh to reconcile their affections. No couple in the audience can ignore the commentary on the emotional demands of love, the millennial fear of commitment, and the strains that modern lonely life make on romance.
After all, Millie has sacrificed a higher teaching order to take a rural job while he is still at 35 years old trying to play in an indie-rock band. His intermittent impotency, while understandable given his lack of professional success, still seems like a major impediment to taking their love to the next level.
While treating the aud to some icky body horror, writer-director Michael Shanks comments on the challenges of modern living that needs the therapy of communal sharing, of overcoming horrors together to emerge from that cave together toward the future.
Although the current horror film Together doesn't pretend to parse Plato's discourse on love, it relies heavily on the idea that true love is the comingling of minds and bodies that were once separated by Zeus out of envy. Tim (David Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) spend time in a country house seeking to regain the passion they once had.
After a stroll that ends up in a cave (how very Platonic!), they devolve into maddened humans, literally getting under each other's skin. The visuals, even without excessive CGI, are body horror at its best, and allegorically land us in discussion about what love means and how it affects the struggling relationship the drama began with.
Thematically Together wishes to show how much the stressed couple loves each other, even willing to sacrifice their very flesh to reconcile their affections. No couple in the audience can ignore the commentary on the emotional demands of love, the millennial fear of commitment, and the strains that modern lonely life make on romance.
After all, Millie has sacrificed a higher teaching order to take a rural job while he is still at 35 years old trying to play in an indie-rock band. His intermittent impotency, while understandable given his lack of professional success, still seems like a major impediment to taking their love to the next level.
While treating the aud to some icky body horror, writer-director Michael Shanks comments on the challenges of modern living that needs the therapy of communal sharing, of overcoming horrors together to emerge from that cave together toward the future.
"Your planet is marked for death." Silver Surfer (Julia Garner)
Finally, a super hero film I fully enjoy-Fantastic Four: First Steps. Overarching the entire adventure is the motif of family centrality, one most superhero films aspire to, but it surely comes home here. Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and Invisible Woman Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) are with child, the object of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a planet gobbler who would save earth if it gives up the baby.
The movie is a simple one that without cellphones and computers (set in 1960) relies on the actors and script to draw us in to the adventure and their characters. While the graphics are ancient, the characters are alive with spirit and bravery.
Kirby's Mrs. Richards reminds us of her 24-min childbirth scene in her Oscar-nominated Pieces of a Woman when she fights zero-gravity in a black hole to give birth to Franklin, the baby desired by bad boy Galactus. The opening shot of her on the commode testing for pregnancy is a part of the film's enduring commitment to realism despite the '60's space age ambience.
Pascal's TV triumphs in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us prepare us for the heroic role here of devoted husband and dad-no wonder he's been tagged on the Internet as "Daddy." This couple is the most romantic twosome in recent film history that can also kick serious butt when necessary.
This spirit of family love pervades The Fantastic Four: First Steps in hot-headed Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), the blazing hero Human Torch and brother of Sue Storm, who can fall for Galactus's enforcer, Silver Surfer, while willing to sacrifice himself to the bad ones to save the planet. Johnny's best friend, Ben Grim (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), brings to life loving humanity even though he's a pile of rocks.
Surfer is one of the most intriguing bad girls in all the canon, covered in form-fitting silver with not a small echo of the robot in Metropolis. As in life itself, she is one whose motives are ambivalent and changeable and therefore fascinating.
Nicely integrated in the family motif is the sometimes-ambivalent populace, who expect F4 to save them yet eventually realize giving up the baby is unacceptable. The adventure's emphasis on cooperation to survive has been done before but not as warmly in the face of annihilation.
For an end of summer, the whole family could enjoy in an air-conditioned theater and plush seats, I offer no more, other than all of us joining this super-hero family and its warm humanity.
"Whatever life throws at us, we'll face it together, as a family." Sue Storm.
Finally, a super hero film I fully enjoy-Fantastic Four: First Steps. Overarching the entire adventure is the motif of family centrality, one most superhero films aspire to, but it surely comes home here. Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) and Invisible Woman Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) are with child, the object of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a planet gobbler who would save earth if it gives up the baby.
The movie is a simple one that without cellphones and computers (set in 1960) relies on the actors and script to draw us in to the adventure and their characters. While the graphics are ancient, the characters are alive with spirit and bravery.
Kirby's Mrs. Richards reminds us of her 24-min childbirth scene in her Oscar-nominated Pieces of a Woman when she fights zero-gravity in a black hole to give birth to Franklin, the baby desired by bad boy Galactus. The opening shot of her on the commode testing for pregnancy is a part of the film's enduring commitment to realism despite the '60's space age ambience.
Pascal's TV triumphs in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us prepare us for the heroic role here of devoted husband and dad-no wonder he's been tagged on the Internet as "Daddy." This couple is the most romantic twosome in recent film history that can also kick serious butt when necessary.
This spirit of family love pervades The Fantastic Four: First Steps in hot-headed Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), the blazing hero Human Torch and brother of Sue Storm, who can fall for Galactus's enforcer, Silver Surfer, while willing to sacrifice himself to the bad ones to save the planet. Johnny's best friend, Ben Grim (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), brings to life loving humanity even though he's a pile of rocks.
Surfer is one of the most intriguing bad girls in all the canon, covered in form-fitting silver with not a small echo of the robot in Metropolis. As in life itself, she is one whose motives are ambivalent and changeable and therefore fascinating.
Nicely integrated in the family motif is the sometimes-ambivalent populace, who expect F4 to save them yet eventually realize giving up the baby is unacceptable. The adventure's emphasis on cooperation to survive has been done before but not as warmly in the face of annihilation.
For an end of summer, the whole family could enjoy in an air-conditioned theater and plush seats, I offer no more, other than all of us joining this super-hero family and its warm humanity.
"Whatever life throws at us, we'll face it together, as a family." Sue Storm.
"Survival is a long shot!" Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey)
Jurassic World: Rebirth is framed to be forgotten, a concoction meant to please the whole family and certainly not discerning film-literate folk. The plot is simple, the characters underdeveloped, and the dinos less impressive than ever. With a family trying to survive a seafaring school of dinos and a raging Rex, enough home-centered action should make it an enjoyable actioner for low summer expectations.
The lead mercenary advisor on the rambling search for dino DNA is Zora, played by Scarlett Johansson as if she has a much better script to go to in a much better movie but probably not a better salary, which was purported to be around $20 million when she made Black Widow. If she has more than 2 lines at one time, I can't remember. She mostly minds resident scientist, Dr. Henry Loomis, who is as stereotypically out of it as you'd suspect, but a quick learner.
They are seeking dino blood samples to use for human medicine to curb heart disease. In that regard, Jurassic World: Rebirth redeems itself by abjuring the usual lust for profit to do something for mankind, at least supposedly even though chief capitalist rep, Martin (Rupert Friend), has a portfolio worth multiples of Johansson's salary to make sure his company becomes super wealthy from the expedition. That Martin may be dino meal seems a given under the immutable blockbuster formula laws.
The little family that gets connected to the original team is as forgettable as the film itself, slowing down action to focus on their petty squabbles that do little to advance even the humanistic plodding subplot. Only when Johansson and former right-hand mercenary, Duncan (Mahershala Ali), exchange does the script match the talent of the two real movie stars.
The cinematography, less crisp and less realistic than previous iterations, as if Canadian fires were plaguing the filming, is fuzzy, and at times less impressive than the dino movies of the early 20th century, making it almost found footage but not nearly as interesting. Alexande Desplat's John-Williams-derived score gives impetus to the action while reminding us of the great Jurassic movies of yore.
Jurassic World: Rebirth is an action film nowhere near the expertise of a Mission Impossible, but a pleasant air-conditioned amusement through the heat of summer. Where, oh, where, are Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and their scripts?
Jurassic World: Rebirth is framed to be forgotten, a concoction meant to please the whole family and certainly not discerning film-literate folk. The plot is simple, the characters underdeveloped, and the dinos less impressive than ever. With a family trying to survive a seafaring school of dinos and a raging Rex, enough home-centered action should make it an enjoyable actioner for low summer expectations.
The lead mercenary advisor on the rambling search for dino DNA is Zora, played by Scarlett Johansson as if she has a much better script to go to in a much better movie but probably not a better salary, which was purported to be around $20 million when she made Black Widow. If she has more than 2 lines at one time, I can't remember. She mostly minds resident scientist, Dr. Henry Loomis, who is as stereotypically out of it as you'd suspect, but a quick learner.
They are seeking dino blood samples to use for human medicine to curb heart disease. In that regard, Jurassic World: Rebirth redeems itself by abjuring the usual lust for profit to do something for mankind, at least supposedly even though chief capitalist rep, Martin (Rupert Friend), has a portfolio worth multiples of Johansson's salary to make sure his company becomes super wealthy from the expedition. That Martin may be dino meal seems a given under the immutable blockbuster formula laws.
The little family that gets connected to the original team is as forgettable as the film itself, slowing down action to focus on their petty squabbles that do little to advance even the humanistic plodding subplot. Only when Johansson and former right-hand mercenary, Duncan (Mahershala Ali), exchange does the script match the talent of the two real movie stars.
The cinematography, less crisp and less realistic than previous iterations, as if Canadian fires were plaguing the filming, is fuzzy, and at times less impressive than the dino movies of the early 20th century, making it almost found footage but not nearly as interesting. Alexande Desplat's John-Williams-derived score gives impetus to the action while reminding us of the great Jurassic movies of yore.
Jurassic World: Rebirth is an action film nowhere near the expertise of a Mission Impossible, but a pleasant air-conditioned amusement through the heat of summer. Where, oh, where, are Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and their scripts?