Suicide Squad – Podcasting Them Softly

Lunch with the Equalizer: A Conversation with Richard Norton by Kent Hill

May 11, 2017 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

Richard was a young lad from Melbourne, Australia plagued by asthma who loved martial arts.

As he grew in skill, he would eventually catch the eye of the legendary Chuck Norris, who extended an invitation to the young Norton to come and train with him. It was while working as a celebrity bodyguard that he finally found his way round to the home of Norris, and from there he was offered a part in The Octagon as the masked ninja, Kyo.

This would be the first of more than sixty screen appearances for the action film star, stuntman, stunt/fight coordinator/choreographer and martial arts trainer. He has worked on fights for “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, joined Suicide Squads, trained Scarlett Johansson for the Manga turned motion picture Ghost in the Shell. He even braved the heat, dust and high-octane insanity on George Miller’s Fury Road.

As a respected member of the martial arts community, Norton has remained close friends and has shared the screen with fellow industry luminaries such as Jackie Chan, Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock.

When I spoke with him, Richard was on his way to train the X-Men for another big screen outing, so there is no sign that the humble 67 year old from Melbourne is slowing down.

Richard Norton is a man who remembers well his origins and what it took to climb the mountain of success, upon which he stands, victorious. It was really cool to chat with him. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

So, here he is folks, the ‘real’ action man . . . Richard Norton.

The Year was 2016, and Warner Brothers Dared to Be Different.

January 30, 2017January 30, 2017 by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Editorial, Film Review

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With recent news of Ben Affleck’s directorial departure from the tentatively titled, THE BATMAN, the state of the DC cinematic universe is a bit uncertain, personally, I have full faith in Snyder and company because I think a lot remains to be seen. One thing is for certain; the rabid echo chamber is loud as ever. There are a lot of people who HATE the DC films. Hate them with a fiery passion. Hated them before they came out, and once the films came out, they acted as if someone set their Facebook page on fire.

In 2016, Warner Brothers took a huge gamble. They set out to make films for adults, in their own way. Sure, they had a lot of catching up to do in regards to the near flawless template that Marvel created, but Warner Brothers made a clear decision; they were making films by adults for adults. Batman was a blood lusting killer. Harley Quinn was the epitome of over-sexualization. Jared Leto took the Joker to an almost unrecognizable level. Jesse Eisenberg played the anti Lex Luthor. Both films were so anti-PC, it was a cinematic revelation.

Perhaps there is some trouble at DC, but then again, maybe there isn’t. The internet has birthed an overpopulated mass of film websites (PTS included) that are a constant trove of clickbait headlines (PTS NOT included). It seems as if every day for the past year, the state of the DC universe was on the verge of collapsing. The second JUSTICE LEAGUE film was canceled. SUICIDE SQUAD 2 isn’t happening. Early word is WONDER WOMAN is as big of a “mess” as the previous two films. If there’s one thing I can tell you that I know for certain, no one really knows what’s going on other than the executives at WB/DC.

Here’s the bottom line. BvS and especially SUICIDE SQUAD made a ton of money. Sure, BvS underperformed a bit, but it still made a lot of money. And both films made A LOT more money than the second and third installments of Marvel’s cinematic universe. Worldwide, SUICIDE SQUAD made 746.6 million dollars, and that was WITHOUT opening in China, which is the biggest market next to America. SUICIDE SQUAD was a flat-out hit, and Warner Brothers were so happy with it, they signed Margot Robbie to an exclusive deal, which includes the pseudo follow up Harley Quinn film directed by David Ayer. Will Smith is getting his own Deadshot film, there will be an official sequel to SUICIDE SQUAD at some point, and the FLASH and AQUAMAN films are in the pipeline.

DC Films does not want to be Marvel Studios. They want to be better, and they still can be. They have the two most valuable superhero properties; Batman and Superman. There could be any number of reasons why Ben Affleck decided not to direct THE BATMAN. It could be the underperformance of LIVE BY NIGHT, it could be that he doesn’t feel comfortable directing a CGI-heavy film, or it could be something completely plausible that will surely be silenced by whatever website decides the real reason is. Basically, it does not matter. Ben Affleck is still the Batman, and he still developed the script and is still producing the picture. If I had to venture a guess as to what’s going on with Affleck is that he’s struggling with whether he wants to be a movie star or an auteur, because realistically, he cannot be both.

EPISODE 29: DAVID AYER’S SUICIDE SQUAD

August 26, 2016August 24, 2016 by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Podcast

SS POWERCAST

We’re back with a regular episode. This time we talk about David Ayer’s SUICIDE SQUAD and touch upon BATMAN v SUPERMAN, and the future of the DC Universe.

Suicide Squad: A Review by Nate Hill

August 10, 2016 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Suicide Squad has left me so torn. On the one hand I just want to belligerantly profess my love for certain key aspects which I have salivated for for a long time now, to blindly just say ‘nope. Fuck it, it’s great’, like that one stupid kid in class who just won’t back down from an argument he is clearly losing. On the other hand I do have to come to terms with the very real, very problematic aspects to the whole thing, weigh it out rationally (not something I’m great at) and make heavy mention of what didn’t work (not something I enjoy doing). I also have a massive bias towards DC as well, particularly all things Batman and foes, so that needed to be taken into account too.
Let’s get what didn’t work out of the way: everyone is hearing that the film is a mess, and I can indeed say that yes, it’s one huge jumbled mess, like twenty unmade beds tossed into a washing machine together. It’s heavily edited in places that could have used fluidity, and flatlines in other spots where a bit of frenzy would have worked better. It’s scant on character, frankly because there are too many, packed with a soundtrack that has it bursting at the hastily sewn seams, drastically and obviously cut in specific places that are noticeable holes in which you could drive the Batmobile through, and burdened with a lazily assembled antagonist who doesn’t deserve the heroes they rumble with. That’s just off the top of my head.
Now, what worked: There’s a silver lining to the inane madness of the film, because in it’s confusing symphony of random candy coated antics it almost finds a trace of a beat, a rhythm that’s almost decimated by the chorus. I’m not excusing the hackjob of editing or cuts, merely saying that with all taken into account, it kind of takes on a life of it’s own that while completely tone deaf, is never boring. Let’s talk about Harley Quinn and The Joker. When the Blu Ray comes out with all them deleted scenes, I’m going to make a personal fan edit that sheds the spotlight on all the nastier stuff we missed in the theatrical version. The stuff we do get to see with Harley is pure magic, and Robbie owns the film. Maddeningly sexy, sketchy, dangerous, cute, and gloriously insane, she nails it to the wall in terms of what makes the character so special. Jared Leto as The Joker is…. different. While I didn’t like the laugh (he sounded like a geriatric hyena), I really took a shine to the direction they went with the clown this time around. A pasty ghoul who is sick with weirdo ‘love’ for Harley, this is a Joker who is way more in tune with the comics version than Ledger was. There were a few off key mannerisms and questionable little things, but for the most part I’d say he rocked it, and I’m stoked to see him square off with Batman in a standalone flick.
So, the rest of the squad. They’re a random bunch of nut bars who are hastily and over enthusiastically hurrah-ed onto stage by stone cold suit Amanda Waller (a terrifying Viola Davis), who is far more villainous than any of them. Davis is the consummate amoral politician, fuelled by gnawing xenophobia and given the power to push her unholy agenda to scary heights. Will Smith is a hoot as Deadshot, he just needed a little less mirth and a tad more menace in the mix. A joke or three sits well with me, but I don’t like wading through quip stew with thoughts of serious threat on the other side, only to find a backbone replaced by pining for his young daughter. Nothing wrong with pathos, but remember guys, Deadshot is a villain, and too much mush takes away from the street cred. Killer Croc is great when he’s around, which isn’t much until the climax where he gets a nice action bit, but still overall underused. I’ve been an avid non fan of Jai Courtney thus far, he’s just reeked of blandness. Well crikey, the guy does a nice job here of being the rambunctious bad boy of the pack, even if the reason for his inclusion in the squad doesn’t extend much farther than ‘he robbed every bank in australia’. Like… what? Joel Kinnaman holds his own as special ops asset Rick Flagg, and Cara Delevingne much less so as the gyrating, Grudge inspired Enchantress. She’s just not a powerful villain in any way, but damn if she didn’t turn heads in that little outfit. Cara actually fared way better as Dr. June Moon in what little time we spent with her, of which I would have loved to see more. Jay Hernandez is on fire (sorry) as Diablo, a flammable ex gang banger who grew a conscience to go with his pyrotechnic prowess. As far as Slipknot (Adam Beach) goes, there was literally no reason, no reason at all for him to be in the film. Introduced as ‘the man who can climb anything’, he climbs like… one wall that anyone with his tools could scale….and then dies. Poor Adam. Karen Fukuhara is cool as Katana, but we’ve seen the hot Asian samurai shtick done to death, so it’s nothing altogether new.
No, the film rests on Joker, Harley and to a lesser extant, Batman. Old Bats is in it for two crucial scenes, one of which had me give out a roaring cheer, as it’s the type of thing I signed up for when I shelled out 22 goddamn dollars to see this in VIP mode. I kept wishing the whole time that I could make my own edit with all of David Ayer’s footage, because there’s so much gold found onscreen, and I know there’s more to be mined on the floors of his editing room, left there by the prudish anxieties of studio heads that just don’t. Ever. Learn. I want to see Batman and his villains thunder out in this blooming DC franchise, and while the rest of the more obscure faces in the squad are fun, I was in it for the core villains. All the stuff with Joker and Harley is inspired, and the car chase where the Batmobile tears after Joker’s purple Hotwheels Lamborghini is pretty much the best part of the whole film. I want more Batman and Co., for shit sake. In any case, there’s a lot of fun to be had, an endless grab bag of stylistic tricks, fonts, gimmicks, colors, sounds and chaotic hullabaloo running around. Some of it works. Some of it doesn’t. Tough shit. It’s certainly not a terrible movie, and I feel many critics resorted to the oft employed ‘knee jerk’ reaction instead of internalizing it all before brandishing pen and keyboard. Critics are a spastic lot of baboons who have have a tendancy, especially these days, to jump the gun and hurl verbal feces at stuff before it’s had a chance to sink in. I’ll concede that there are huge issues, but huge amounts of fun can be found too. Or not. It’s up to you. I certainly had some fraction of a blast watching it, and the only way I can describe the thing as an whole is the Looney Toons having a food fight with a bunch of fluorescent Lucky Charms. If that abstract picture chimes with you, chances are you’ll at least get some kind of kick from the this baby, and probably be just as perplexed by certain areas as I was. Good luck.

SUICIDE SQUAD – A Review by Frank Mengarelli

August 5, 2016August 5, 2016 by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Film Review

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“Will you live for me?”

SUICIDE SQUAD is a complete mess, yet it is a total glory. I know, relax. Hear me out. Since the resurrection of Christopher Nolan’s Batman, there has been a forceful push to ground a superhero film in reality. Sometimes it works, other times is does not. SUICIDE SQUAD removes itself from that universe and takes place within movie world.

There’s a lot that is blatantly strange and oddly incoherent about the film. Whether it was from studio tinkering (panic) or that everyone was on acid while making the film. None of that matters. The film has a great soundtrack and devilishly fun performances from the entire cast.

The film isn’t bright and glossy with a drumbeat joke every five minutes, it’s sloppy and dirty with perverse humor that will curl even the most uptight hipster’s mustache, while he’s passive aggressively using the Oxford comma to demean this film.

Will Smith’s overly stereotypical ghetto jive, the over objectifying of Margot Robbie’s butt, the uppity bitch mode of Viola Davis, and Jared Leto’s insane transformation into a Joker that’s feverishly in love, are a step away from the safe mediocrity we’ve seen in recent tent-pole films.

Director David Ayer has received so much critical flack for this film, it isn’t even funny. This wasn’t a film made for critics, nor was it seeking the approval of top ten lists. It’s loud, it’s obnoxious, it’s gratuitous, and it’s everything that the new DC Universe should aim for going forward. Let other studios play it safe with their glossy sheen, DC; keep forming a lewd and egregious world for the rest of us.

A Suicide Squad review by Josh Hains

August 5, 2016August 5, 2016 by Josh Hains, posted in Film Review

Don’t worry, the following review is a spoiler free zone.

Appalling. Bad. Very, very bad. Trash. Garbage. Stupid. Incoherent. Incomprehensible. Dumb. Boring. Awful. Mediocre. Disaster. Rotten. I don’t agree with words such as these being used in reviews for Suicide Squad to describe the movie as whole. I’m not being blindly dismissive like some social media users out there who are mad that this highly anticipated movie isn’t getting a great critical reception. I just don’t agree, I had a different experience, and this review will reflect that experience.

Suicide Squad has a pretty straightforward plot: government spook Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) assembles Task Force X, a motley crue of super-villains plucked from prison, and let loose in a city under attack by a malevolent meta-human. Kill the bad guy, save the city, and get some time off your prison sentences, that’s honestly as deep as it goes. But that’s not a detrimental aspect of the movie. In many comic book movies, the plot takes a back-seat to the action, humour, and character development, and Suicide Squad embraces that trope with wide open arms. With these team oriented comic book movies, it’s kind of expected that the story takes a back-seat to the character interactions and action, and if you need proof of that look no further than The Avengers movies. You don’t need an over complicated plot with far too many sub-plots for this kind of movie (I’m looking at you Batman V Superman). Simplicity is key, so by the time the plot gets thrown out of the window late in the second act you really won’t mind because director David Ayer makes up for it with great character moments, irreverent Deadpool style humour, and a wallop of fun action. Think of this movie as the DC equivalent of The Expendables, with way more humour but no gore, and you’ll be fine.

Speaking of character moments, many of the best belong to Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), and El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), all of whom are given just enough screen time (or more than enough) to make us care about the characters as they contend with their dire mission. I was initially worrisome about the casting of Smith as Deadshot, I thought he might end up becoming overbearing and even over the top, but he proved me wrong with a subtle and believable performance, his best since the Pursuit Of Happyness. Joel Kinnaman matches Smith’s performance, bringing a naturalistic touch to what could have been a stereotypical stubborn leader role. Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn is exactly like the Harley I grew up watching in the animated series that her creator Paul Dini wrote (minus the jester costume), and a total scene stealer. More on her later. El Diablo, the “fire guy” as Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) tauntingly dubs him, has the biggest emotional journey of any of the Squad members, though not as much screen time as the trio of aforementioned characters.

Captain Boomerang gets a solid amount of time to do his thing, which is make plenty of jokes and jabs, and kick a few asses along the way, but he isn’t given quite enough to do, which is a shame because he’s quite a lot of fun. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Cara Delevigne as June Moon & Enchantress, and Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, don’t get much to do, and neither does the sacrificial lamb Slipknot (Adam Beach), who follows in the footsteps of other villains in Suicide Squad comic and cartoons whose sole purpose is to prove that the bad guys aren’t playing around. Davis, a blank slate lacking charisma and passion behind her delivery of lines, doesn’t do much more than manipulate a few minds and give orders, and Delevigne’s characters aren’t fleshed out enough for us to care all that much about her. Killer Croc and Katana have minor moments of asskicking, and Croc gets a couple of funny lines, but neither of them are all that relevant to the plot, and easily could have been removed from the movie altogether without hurting the final product. However brief they may be, the two much hyped cameos, which includes Batman himself (Ben Affleck), fit naturally into the movie, and lack the feeling of being shoehorned into the movie for the sake of having them there.

Now back to Harley. Margot Robbie, equipped with a believable Bronx accent, and a fresh take on the New 52 Suicide Squad comic iteration of Harley, brings life and a lot of love for the character to a performance many were worried would fall flat. She looks, sounds, and behaves exactly like the Harley Quinn fans know and fondly love, and it’s a joy to see her steal scene after scene. She’s also fortunate enough to have some of the funniest lines in the movie, which Robbie delivers with a glint of pure enjoyment in her eyes.

In my eyes, the performance I was most drawn to belongs to Jared Leto as the Clown Prince of Crime himself, The Joker. Seemingly drawing from previous Jokers such as Caesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger, as well as the vast number of animated incarnations, Leto gives us a fresh take on the iconic villain that doesn’t feel like any Joker that came before it. I’d equate the performance to that of taking all the best elements of the aforementioned Jokers, and building from the ground up a composite of what that may look like. He’s not better, or worse than Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning turn as The Joker, he’s just different in his own unique fashion. I do think he’s better than the Jokers pre-Ledger though. Leto is gleefully over the top, cackling and growling like a tiger waiting to tear the face off his next unsuspecting victim, but not too over the top. This Joker’s as unpredictable, crafty, and brutal as ever before, but not overbearingly so. Sadly, Joker’s vastly underused, with much of his screen time left on the cutting room floor. I’d love to see more of this new Joker. The relationship between he and Harley, while volatile and unhealthy, is perfectly reflective of the one seen in the pages and frames of various DC comics and cartoons, and seeing it come to life was also a rather joyous experience.

Throughout the second and third acts of the movie, the editing seems to be a bit on the choppy side, more predominantly in the third act than the second act by a mile. It became pretty clear to me that the push for a two hour crowd pleasing comic book movie got in the way of giving the sidelined characters more depth and more impactful screen presences. Somehow, despite the clunky nature of the editing (which isn’t very distracting, thankfully), these scenes that are affected by it still work fairly well until the editing seems to get back on track and working just fine.

Beyond the quibbles I have with the editing, the story, the character development, and the casting of Amanda Waller, I still enjoyed this movie a lot, in some ways more than I thought I would, and in a couple of ways, less. I do not feel that this is a bad movie by any means, I think it’s actually damn good, but it’s not quite as great as it could have been, though I wasn’t always wanting or expecting it to be great anyways. If anything, all I ever wanted was yet another fun comic book movie I could lose myself in while watching these badass villains kick all kinds of ass six ways to Sunday. David Ayer gave me that in spades.

Now where’s the sequel?