Tag: Hollywood

‘X-Men: Apocalypse’: Michael Fassbender saves mutants from mediocrity

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Michael Fassbender Magneto

X-Men: Apocalypse was finally released in U.S. theaters for Memorial Day weekend after having premiered in places like the United Kingdom on May 9. The wait, overall, is worth it, but that is in large part due to Michael Fassbender’s performance as Magneto. The movie drags a bit at 144 minutes, but luckily Charles Xavier’s mutants are saved by the emotional weight Fassbender brings to the character Erik Lehnsherr.

Bryan Singer’s latest installment in the X-Men franchise (a tough act to follow after X-Men: Days of Future Past) breaks down as follows:

  • En Sabah Nur (played by Oscar Isaac) is allegedly the first mutant. Although he has god-like powers, a series of events leaves him in a state of suspended animation in a buried Egyptian temple.
  • En Sabah Nur is revived in the 1980s and becomes the “Apocalypse” X-Men fans are all familiar with. He begins his quest to gather “Four Horsemen,” wipe the earth clean, and begin anew with himself at the center of the universe.
  • Professor-X (played by James McAvoy) is captured by Apocalypse and his crew. The young X-Men must now save him — and the world.

X-Men: Apocalypse, in many ways like its predecessor, explores the idea of painful pasts and whether or not individuals choose to be defined by those experiences or rise above them. Mr. Singer wants everyone to know that they have greatness within them — a commendable message — but the script does not allow the supporting cast to truly shine.

Evan Peters as Quicksilver should probably be the linchpin of the next X-Men movie (i.e., it’s time for him to confront his father), and Sophie Turner shows real promise as Jean Grey, but the movie lacked a spark from the one person it was heavily invested in: Jennifer Lawrence.

XMen Jean Scott Nightcrawler

Ms. Lawrence’s role as Mystique felt flat for three reasons:

  • She simply looked bored. Her performance screamed, “at least I’m getting a paycheck.”
  •  The script shoved a slew of Katniss Everdeen-like platitudes into her mouth while shorting her on scenes that would have formed an instant connection with the audience. (Note: All husbands/fathers can related to Magneto after what happens to him in Poland.)
  • Can it be any more obvious that Ms. Lawrence didn’t want to sit in a makeup chair unless absolutely necessary, and that she was given her way because her name is Jennifer Lawrence? Anyone who plays Mystique should be blue for more than 5 percent of their screen time.

All things considered, however, X-Men: Apocalypse is still worth seeing for anyone enjoys the superhero genre. It is not as strong as X-Men: First Class or X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it is still does its job when all is said and done.

Finally, make sure to stay through the ending credits for a clue to the next film’s villain.

 

‘Captain America: Civil War’: Russo brothers deliver mic-drop worthy Marvel movie

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Captain America Civil War

Captain America: Civil War is downright amazing. It’s scary-good. It’s so good that it makes one wonder if Joe and Anthony Russo cut some sort of weird deal with Mephisto to make it happen. The script is so tight and the direction is so proficient that employers should ask questions about it during job interviews — any candidate who says Civil War is a rotten film should be told to have a nice day and shown the door due to their unfortunate lack of good judgment (I’m kidding … sort of).

For those who have been living in an underground bunker for the last year, Civil War involves the disintegration of the Avengers when the international community demands regulations governing the actions of super-humans. The United Nations has had enough with civilian casualties and diplomatic headaches linked to free-wheeling superheroes, and Tony Stark agrees. Steve Rogers decides the world is safest if he and his allies are only beholden to their own consciouses, and the disagreement puts everyone on a collision course.

Since this is a spoiler-free review, I will concentrate on what the Russo brothers professionally accomplished and only talk in broad brushstrokes about the of the film.

Imagine you’re the Russo brothers.

Now imagine Kevin Feige gives you $250 million and tells you to find a way to utilize Captain America, Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Falcon, War Machine, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Ant Man, Spider-Man, Crossbones, and Zemo. You need to make sure the script is tight, juggle all the weirdness that actors bring with them to the set, navigate countless professional mine fields, and then somehow deliver a product that can impress a fanbase that has been spoiled with excellence since 2008’s Iron Man.

The verdict is in: Captain America: Winter Soldier was not a fluke. These guys not only met expectations given an almost impossible task — they exceeded expectations. Civil War is a modern superhero classic and should be used as the gold standard by which future installments are judged. One almost feels bad for the pressure their own greatness has created as production on Avengers: Infinity War – Parts I and II begins.

Regular readers of this blog know I am a stickler for superhero stories that work on multiple levels. If some child (or an adult) just wants to see Spider-Man swing across the screen and come to blows with other superheroes, then he or she will exit the theater with a smile. If intellectually curious individuals want their superhero flicks to be much more than “popcorn fare,” they too will be happy after the end credits roll.

Civil War has gravity, but it also has lighthearted humor. There is plenty of action, but the blows actually mean something because the script took the time to adequately address every character’s motivations. As an added bonus, the world will now get to see cinematic killjoys attempt to nitpick the film into oblivion (e.g., Well, the score wasn’t all that great and it was a bit too long.)

“Compromise where you can, but where you can’t — don’t. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say, ‘No. You move,'” S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carton (Emily VanCamp) says at one point of advice her aunt once gave her.

After watching Civil War, it is obvious that the Russo brothers had a vision and refused to compromise on all the issues that mattered.

If you are a fan of superhero movies, then you owe it to the creative team that put Civil War together to see it before it leaves theaters.  When you are old and grey you will watch it again and say, “Those were the good old days.”

’13 Hours’: Michael Bay does Benghazi victims justice

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John Krasinski 13 Hours

I have never seen a single Transformers movie because Michael Bay movies irritate me that much. The fact that I saw 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi should tell readers how much the coverup of the September 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, means to me. In short, Mr. Bay proved to the world that it is possible for him to direct a movie that is worthy of box office success and critical praise.

13 Hours

Ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods died four years ago in Benghazi and then the government tried to cover it up. President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to blame what happened on an obscure video. The man who made that video was arrested and sat in jail in a scenario straight out of NBC’s “The Blacklist” — only it was real.

If it wasn’t for Michael Bay, the world would only have denial after denial after denial by the people who set the stage for bad things to happen and then watched while good men died. Bay uses Navy SEAL Jack Silva, played by John Krasinski, to tell the tale. The verdict is in: The guy from “The Office” does not disappoint.

13 Hours trailer

The fortunate thing for Bay is that like Lone Survivor or similar tales, 13 Hours does not need much character development. Bay’s stock in trade is action, so as long as the audience believes Krasinski and his crew are special operators, the heavy lifting has been accomplished.

The audience wants to see these men come face-to-face with death. The audience wants to feel what it’s like on the modern battlefield. The audience wants to hear all the sights and the sounds that Ambassador Stevens experienced in his last horrifying moments, and on every level Bay delivers.

Perhaps the most haunting part of 13 Hours was the a drone circled overhead while wave after wave of Islamic terrorists destroyed Stevens’ diplomatic compound and then attempted to do the same to a nearby CIA annex.

I explained it to my wife like this: Imagine you’re in the middle of the ocean on a giant ship and you fall overboard with only a small life preserver. You look up at the ship and yell for help at a man who stands over you with his arms crossed — but he says nothing.

Then sharks begin to circle and you yell some more — but he remains silent.

Then the sharks start bumping your legs under the water and you kick and thrash and scream — but the man refuses to move.

You are cut and bruised and broken and you barely survive the whole ordeal when, miraculously, another boat comes by and aids in your rescue.

When you go home and tell reporters what happen the man finally speaks, but he provides an entirely different account of your fight with the sharks. Millions of people believe the man did everything in his power to help you, and when he tells them to forget about your testimony they dutifully obey.

Michael Bay’s decision to bring 13 Hours to the big screen was a godsend for anyone who cares about the truth. Orwellian agents of the government will continue to try and revise history, but 13 Hours now exists and will make their job exponentially harder.

If you liked Lone Survivor and even movies like Blackhawk Down, then you should really see 13 Hours during its theatrical release.

Take a bow, Michael Bay. You earned it.

Editor’s Note: Yours truly will now begin reviewing movies for Conservative Book Club. I gave them a different review for 13 Hours that you can check out here.

‘Creed’ delivers: Michael B. Jordan, Stallone, make great team

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Creed

Rocky Balboa is back — as a supporting character in a boxing film. While that may sound strange to long-time Italian Stallion fans, they should rest easy: Ryan Coogler’s Creed is a welcome addition to the Rocky universe.

Creed Balboa

For movie fans who have been living under a rock, Michael B. Jordan stars as the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, Adonis Johnson. The young man never met his father, who died in the ring during Rocky IV at the hands of Ivan Drago. Johnson’s mother also died when he was a boy, but Mary Anne Creed (played by Phylicia Rashad) took him in as her own.

It isn’t surprising to see what kind of themes are explored as Johnson attempts to define himself as a man while working his way out of his father’s shadow (e.g., abandonment, coping with death, letting go of the past, the importance of family). What is surprising is just how well Coogler pulls it all off — not for any lack of talent on his part, but because he is trying to succeed while tinkering with the “Rocky” brand. 

Rocky Apollo

Perhaps the easiest way to explain the movie’s worth to the franchise is to rank it in terms of the other films.

A convincing case can be made that Creed is the second-best movie featuring Balboa, if Oscar-contention is used as part of the litmus test. Coogler has given fans a drama. He has given them a tale of two men who slowly realize that if we become a prisoner to the past then we risk losing any number of potentially-beautiful futures.

Rocky Creed

Creed is not a movie for people who want to see larger than life characters like “Clubber Lang” or popcorn-movie gold like Rocky IV. It’s an tale that respects the source material, particularly 1976’s Rocky, but at the same time is very much its own film.

And for those who want to know how Johnson’s love interest, Bianca (played by Tessa Thompson), matches up with Adrian (Talia Shire), the answer is the same: Rest easy. Bianca is a welcome addition the the “Rocky” universe.

In short, everything in Creed feels natural. Nothing seems awkward or forced, which is good because the accomplishment has paved the way for a sequel if the creative team wants it.

The only way Coogler could have done a better job is if he invented a time machine and stopped Rocky V from ever happening, or Michael B. Jordan from signing on for Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four.

‘Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation’: Tom Cruise and friends continue churning out cool spy flicks

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Tom Cruise Mission Impossible Rogue NationTom Cruise’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation not only is a genuinely fun summer spy movie, but it now serves as the cinematic antacid for anyone who made the mistake of seeing Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four. The 5th installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise has everything fans expect from it — great acting, twists and turns, exotic locations, humor, amazing stunts, etc. — and there isn’t one of those levels on which it disappoints.

This time around, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF buddies are tracking the “anti-IMF” known as The Syndicate. There is only one problem: CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) saw to it that the U.S. government officially shut down IMF. If Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) help Ethan in his quest to bring to the “Rogue Nation,” then they will be committing an act of treason.

One aspect of Rogue Nation that helped guarantee its success was the ability of Rebecca Ferguson to nail the role of Ilsa Faust. She’s convincingly tough as nails, alluring, smart, cunning and athletic. She isn’t just a pretty woman in a fancy dress — she’s a take-no-prisoners, highly-trained intelligence agent (who may or may not have gone rogue).

Mission Impossible Rogue NationRogue Nation’s villain, played Sean Harris, is also impressive. Solomon Lane is convincingly one step ahead of Ethan Hunt throughout the movie, and in general the only thing to really gripe about is his brief time wearing a black turtleneck. No matter how evil a character is, it’s always slightly harder to take him seriously if he looks like the old Mike Meyers Saturday Night Live skit “Sprockets”… Regardless, it says something about a movie when the worst a critic can do is to complain about clothes the villain wore for less than five minutes of screen time.

If you like Tom Cruise movies, then see Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. If you don’t like Tom Cruise and have just made up your mind that anything starring him is just “bad,” then take a moment to realize that your lack of objectivity is preventing you from seeing a really fun espionage flick.

In short, this movie reviewer hopes that Tom Cruise has a least another two or three Mission: Impossible movies up his sleeve, because Rogue Nation was one of his best efforts yet.

Alan Moore blasts ‘catastrophic’ superhero fixation of a culture on life support

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A friend of mine sent me a fascinating Alan Moore interview from 2014. The comic industry icon told Pádraig Ó Méalóid at Slovobooks that the heightened popularity of Marvel and DC superheroes may be ‘culturally catastrophic’.

The Guardian reported January 21, 2014:

“To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children’s characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence,” he wrote to Ó Méalóid. “It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite ‘universes’ presented by DC or Marvel Comics. I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times.”

Mr. Moore is close — he’s so close — but he doesn’t seem ready to acknowledge that the catastrophe has arrived. It is now. We are living through it. An introduction to our cultural implosion can be found in my Nov. 14, 2014 blog post titled: “Rossetta scientist cries over feminist outrage at his shirt: It’s been fun, Western Civilization.”  In short: societies that live in perpetual fear of the “micro-aggression” are societies that have seen better days.

For those who want to know just how obsessed our culture is with superheroes, I suggest watching Red Letter Media’s “Nerd Talk: Sequels, Spin-Offs, and Standalones,” which was posted July 22. It perfectly highlights just how much of an industry “nerdom” has become. Other symptoms of Western civilization’s disease might include the preponderance of men who spend inordinate amounts of time playing video games, collecting figurines, endlessly cycling through imgur, or trolling Tumblr — while simultaneously showing little to no interest in expanding their own intellectual horizons.

There is nothing wrong with having an interest in video games or superhero movies, but there is something culturally suicidal when large segments of the population delve deep into fantasy worlds before they have a sound grasp of reality.

In a strange way, technology acts like a double-edged sword: our standard of living is so high and our problems so few and far between that we invent dragons to slay (e.g., political pundits must be excoriated for not being “polite to the pronouns” of transgender individuals). The poorest Americans live better than the kings of old, and so they engage in sad and pathetic wars over whether or not The Dukes of Hazzard is too offensive for television.

As the character Cooper says in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar: “We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.”

For all intents and purposes, America has become a nation filled with infantile men and women who fight over intellectual belly button lint. They feign outrage over puerile affairs while legitimate threats to the safety and security of future generations mount around them.  Bubble-butted celebrities bump serious news stories off the front page. Strange diversity quotas for Star Wars movies that don’t even have finished scripts are more talked about than state-sponsored hackers stealing the personal data of millions of federal employees. To put it more succinctly, we are lost.

If you get a chance, read Mr. Moore’s interview with Pádraig Ó Méalóid. It’s titled ‘Last Alan Moore Interview?’. If it is, then it’s definitely one worthy of the man’s exit from public life. Time and time again, he puts his finger on the pulse of all that ails us, but for whatever reason he doesn’t give his patients a frank diagnosis: Western civilization has a fever. Instead of going to the doctor, its men and women are going to movie theaters, man-caves to play video games, or San Diego Comic-Con.

Robert Downey Jr. ambushed over politics: Reporters want Iron Man to be a liberal activist

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Robert Downey Jr Channel 4 InterviewI said in 2013 that one of the reasons conservatives defended Robert Downey Jr. was because liberals attacked the man. Perhaps the best example was the 2011 hit piece from Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere (now flushed down the Memory Hole), in which an anonymous source said the actor’s values “are pure Republican values.” That came after an interview in The New York Times that drove liberals batty, but before the actor attended a fundraiser for President Obama. Apparently Robert Downey Jr’s ideological blasphemy is still stuck in the media’s craw because he was just ambushed during an interview with British reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

The Huffington Post reported Wednesday on the interview, which ended with Marvel Studio’s Iron Man walking out:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: I’d really like to ask you about a quote you gave to The New York Times. I don’t want to pry so if you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but what you said to The New York Times was — it was about, it was after your incarceration and you said that you can’t go from a $2,000 a night hotel suite to a penitentiary and understand it and come out a liberal. I just wondered what you meant by that.”

Robert Downey Jr.: The funny thing is — and I appreciate your point of view — things you said 5-7 years ago or things you said in an interview that made sense to you at the time — I could pick that apart for two hours and I’d be no closer to the truth than I’d be giving you some half-assed answer right now. I couldn’t even really tell you what a liberal is, so therein lies the answer to your question.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: The statement sort of stands by itself, doesn’t it? Does that mean that you’re not a liberal? Or that you came out of a prison not being liberal?

Robert Downey Jr.: Are we promoting a movie? To me the thing is that it’s — I’m certainly not going to backpedal on anything I’ve said, but I wouldn’t say I’m a Republican or a liberal or a Democrat. I think when I was talking to the person who was doing the interview that day and that just happened to be my opinion. That’s the nice thing, you can have opinions and they change and flow.”

Robert Downey Jr. is in a horrible position. A guy who has been to prison probably realizes that hard-core criminals will never adopt the peace-love-dope worldview of liberal beat poetry readings and bongo-circles. Perhaps he’s a fiscal conservative who is socially liberal. Maybe he was against the war in Iraq but he understands that leaving radical Islamic head choppers the their own devices is a bad idea.

How does the man define himself politically, especially when he has to work with hard-core liberal activists like Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo? The best thing to do to keep the peace on set is probably to just stay silent and stick to playing Tony Stark really well — but that is not good enough for the media.

Robert Downey Jr. will always have to be on guard against a media ambush because he refuses to use his Twitter feed to lecture people on climate change. He doesn’t get into abortion politics. He doesn’t harangue people about minimum wage laws or demonize Republican politicians. This is unacceptable to pundits who want celebrities to push liberal politics on as many people as possible while they’re in the limelight.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy RDJ interviewThe vast majority of Americans do not want Hollywood stars to lecture them on public policy. They appreciate that Robert Downey Jr. keeps his politics close to the vest. They are glad that he walked out on Krishnan Guru-Murthy and wish more actors would follow his example.

The moral of the story is this: The creative team behind “Avengers: Age of Ultron” could learn a thing or two from Robert Downey Jr. If Marvel’s talent wants independent, libertarian, and conservative fans to continue flocking to Marvel Studio movies, then they should knock it off with the political activism.

Ben Affleck went full-Lex Luthor instead of Batman, pushed PBS to censor slave-owning ancestry

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Ben Affleck Bill MaherI said in August of 2013 that Ben Affleck’s political activism would derail the ability of many people to see Batman v Superman with an open mind. The actor would go on to insult Republican moviegoers by December. He then disappeared to make Gone Girl, only to almost break down into tears while discussing radical Islam with Bill Maher in October, 2014. Mr. Affleck is now in the news with another embarrassing story: he pressured PBS to censor his slave-owning ancestry while filming PBS’s Finding Your Roots series.

USA Today reported April 19 on the newest Wikileaks revelation:

The emails between Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates and Sony chief executive Michael Lynton show Gates’ dealing with the issue of featuring the slave-owning portion of Affleck’s past on the popular PBS program.

“Here’s my dilemma: confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors — the fact that he owned slaves,” Gates’ leaked email states. ” Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including Ken Burns. We’ve never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found. He’s a megastar. What do we do?” …

“Once we open the door to censorship, we lose control of the brand,” Gates writes in the emails, adding that he wouldn’t “demonize” the slave-owning ancestor.

“Now Anderson Cooper’s ancestor was a real s.o.b.; one of his slaves actually murdered him. Of course, the slave was promptly hanged. And Anderson didn’t miss a beat about that,” Gates writes.

The series ultimately did leave out Ben Affleck’s slave-owning ancestry, laughably saying “We decided to go with the story we used about his fascinating ancestor who became an occultist following the Civil War.” Sorry PBS, but now everyone knows that you have “lost control of the brand.”

A friend of mine asked why Ben Affleck would run from his history instead of embracing it. The answer once again ties back to the actor’s political activism.

Ben Affleck not only runs from history — he tries to revise it. He is the type of person who literally stops himself mid-sentence while saying Americans are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights to say that Americans are “endowed by our forefathers with certain inalienable rights.” Rights don’t come from God, according to Batman — they come from a small group of liberal guys like Ben Affleck in the nation’s capital.

Given that the Hollywood actor is a committed liberal, it’s a safe bet to say that on the right episode of “Real Time” with Bill Maher, he would be happy to lecture Americans on “white privilege.” It’s also likely that when cornered on constitutional debates, he would resort to the tried-and-true red herring that “the founding fathers had slaves” (as if a man’s flaws invalidate the timeless principles he espouses).

Ben Affleck knows that the knowledge of his slave-owning ancestry makes it near-impossible for him to spew spurious racial arguments with impunity. Bloggers like yours truly will always be able to joke, “You know what, Ben? You’re right! We need to do something about white privilege. Why don’t you lead the way by paying reparations to Americans whose ancestors were chained and whipped by Old Man Affleck.”

It is now apparent that Ben Affleck will act manipulatively behind the scenes like a wannabe Lex Luthor when his political activism is threatened. There is no reason for a man to hide from his family’s past unless it threatens to topple the moral pedestal he stands upon while lecturing the rest of us.

If PBS executives are smart, then they will release a version of Finding Your Roots where Ben Affleck is confronted about his slave-owning ancestry. Why would anyone want to watch a show titled “Finding Your Roots” when in reality it should be called “Finding the Roots that Hollywood Wants You To See”? They wouldn’t.

Word of advice for Zack Synder: Tell Ben Affleck to go into his own personal Batcave and not come out until it’s time to promote Batman v Superman. It’s hard to believe Ben Affleck is Bruce Wayne when every few months he strengthens the impression that he’s really just a pampered Hollywood activist.

Michelle Rodriguez calls out Hollywood on lazy diversity shortcuts, apologizes to online babies

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Michelle Rodriguez Machete Kills

You can get yourself in trouble by telling the truth in Hollywood. Just ask Michelle Rodriguez of “Fast and Furious” and “Machete” fame. Early Saturday morning she was asked by TMZ if she was going to play the Green Lantern, and her response prompted enough backlash by oversensitive online babies that she apologized on Facebook hours later.

TMZ: Michelle, are you going to be the Green Lantern?

Michelle Rodriguez: **Laughing ** That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

TMZ: Really?

Michelle Rodriguez: Yeah. I think it’s so stupid for like everybody because of this whole  minorities in Hollywood thing…

TMZ: Well, it’s been all over the internet.

Michelle Rodriguez: But it’s so stupid, it’s like, ‘Stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes. Make up your own. You know what I’m saying? What’s up with that?”

Comic book fans are still laughing at how Marvel writer Dan Slott slimed them as racist for having a similar opinion over arbitrarily changing Peter Parker’s race. How long will it be before Mr. Slott starts lecturing Ms. Rodriguez on the importance of turning Guy Gardner into “Lady Gardner,” or John Stewart into “Jane Stewart,” or Kyle Rayner into “Kylie Rayner”?

M Rodriguez
Can you read Michelle Rodriguez’s mind? It says: “I can’t believe I have to apologize to these oversensitive babies for telling the truth.” Since the ‘Fast and Furious’ star is wearing a Nirvana shirt, perhaps it will inspire a screenwriter to pen a tale where Kurt Cobain was born Katy Cobain.

The kind of people who couldn’t sleep at night until a Ghostbusters reboot with an all-female cast was announced obviously started hounding Ms. Rodriguez’s social media accounts because hours later she was posting a sleepy-eyed apology to her Facebook page:

Hey guys, I want to clarify about my comment yesterday. I stuck my foot in my mouth once again. I said that people should stop trying to steal white people’s superheroes. I guess it got taken out of context because a lot of people got offended or whatever. I have a tendency to, you know, speak without a filter — sorry about that. What I really meant was that ultimately at the end of the day there’s a language and the language that you speak in Hollywood is ‘successful franchise.’

I think that there are many cultures in Hollywood that are not white that can come up with their own mythologies. We all get it from the same reservoir of life, the fountain of life. It doesn’t matter what culture you come from. I’m just saying that instead of trying to turn a girl character into a guy — or instead of trying to turn a white character into a black character or latin character I think that people should stop being lazy. People should actually make an effort in Hollywood to develop their own mythology. It’s time to stop. Stop trying to take what’s already there and try to fit a culture into it. I think that it’s time for us to write our own mythology and our own story. Every culture. That’s what I really meant, and I’m sorry if it came off rude or stupid. That’s not what I meant. So, cheers.

When Ms. Rodriguez apologizes for speaking without a filter, what she really means is “I’m sorry for telling the truth.” She laughs at the thought of playing Green Lantern because she knows that she has the creative and intellectual chops to play a new hero — one who will etch out her own special place in American culture — instead of some Green Lantern derivative that is created to appease online diversity activists.

What is more respectable: Michelle Rodriguez playing “Letty Ortiz” in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, or Michelle Rodriguez playing a female Green Lantern knockoff because Warner Bros. dropped the ball with its 2011 attempt? While it is sad that someone like Michelle Rodriguez must apologize to online babies for speaking the truth, it is refreshing to see an artist in Hollywood whose unfiltered self values originality over uninspired diversity.

Michelle Rodriguez FF6

‘American Sniper’: Clint Eastwood does Chris Kyle’s memory proud

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American Sniper Bradley Cooper“American Sniper” Director Clint Eastwood was given a difficult task: he had to somehow squeeze Chris Kyle’s incredible life story into 132 minutes. What could have turned into an incredibly bloated mess had he tried to do too much was successfully streamlined in a way that stayed true to the autobiography while also teasing out the most important themes. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller both give strong performances, and audiences across the U.S. have rewarded them for all the hard work: “American Sniper” made $105 million in its first four days of wide-release.

Clint Eastwood seemed to have two goals with “American Sniper”:

  1. Show the audience what makes guys like Chris Kyle tick.
  2. Demonstrate the destructive power of combat on the war fighter’s psyche, as well as the family unit.

A glimpse of what Mr. Eastwood was able to transfer from the page to the screen comes towards the end of Chris Kyle’s autobiography, where he writes:

“My regrets are about the people I couldn’t save — Marines, soldiers, my buddies. I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.

I’m not naive and I’m beyond romanticizing war and what I had to do there. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. Losing my buddies. Having a kid die on me.

I’m sure some of the things I went through pale in comparison to what some of the guys went through in World War II and other conflicts. On top of all the shit they went through in Vietnam, they had to come home to a country that spat on them.

When people ask me how the war changed me, I tell them that the biggest thing has to do with my perspective.

You know all those everyday things that stress you here? I don’t give a shit about them. There are bigger and worse things that could happen than to have this timely little problem wreck your life, or even your day. I’ve seen them. More: I’ve lived them,” (Chris Kyle, American Sniper. Harper Collins, 2012. Page 379.)

As I mentioned in my review of the book when it came out in 2012, Chris Kyle said that a guardian angel must have been looking over him on the battlefield on multiple occasions, yet he never really stopped to dwell on just how much of a guardian angel he was to his brothers-in-arms. The pressure he put upon himself to save everyone under his watch — an impossible task —would break any man. Yes, even Navy SEALs have a breaking point.

Families have breaking points, too. Again, Eastwood brings it home in a scene that takes place just before Chris Kyle’s fourth tour in Iraq:

Taya: Do you want to die? Is that what it is?

Chris: No.

Taya: Then just tell me. Tell me why you do it. I want to understand.

Chris: Baby, I do it for you. You know that I do it to protect you.

Taya: No you don’t.

Chris: Yes, I do.

Taya: I’m here. Your family is here. Your children have no father. […] You don’t know when to quit. You did your part. You sacrificed enough. You let somebody else go!

Chris: Let somebody else go?

Taya: Yeah.

Chris: Well, I couldn’t live with myself.

Taya: Well, you find a way. You have to. Okay? I need you — to be human again. I need you here. I need … you here. If you leave again, I don’t think we’ll be here when you get back.

Even to those who are closest to these very special men, it often seems like they have a death wish. But that is not the case. Even those who are supposed to understand what motivates a war fighter, can not. The question becomes: How do you dedicate your life to a man who has dedicated his own to ideas that are bigger than all of us?

At one point during “American Sniper,” Chris laments how obsessed civilians are with their cell phones, trips to the mall, and a variety of other seemingly-trivial things when he should be “over there.” But that’s the conundrum: Just as the principles a SEAL is willing to fight and die for make life worth living, it is also those little moments — a conversation on a lazy Sunday afternoon with your wife, or a quiet night alone with that very same woman — that make it special.

“American Sniper” is about one man’s attempt to successfully balance the desire to selflessly serve one’s country while also living up to the commitment to love and cherish his spouse with all his might.

Clint Eastwood may be an old man, but his latest movie shows that he can still direct better than most people who are half his age. If you get a chance, then you should check out “American Sniper” while it’s in theaters. It is one of the rare war movies within the past decade that is actually worth the price of admission.

Related: ‘American Sniper’ success prompts Michael Moore to take pot shots at deceased hero Chris Kyle