Scarlett Johansson

Box Office Democracy: Ghost in the Shell

Box Office Democracy / Columns / Reviews
April 4, 2017

Scarlett Johansson in Ghost In The Shell

I’m sort of curious why Dreamworks even wanted to pay for the rights to make a Ghost in the Shell movie if they weren’t particularly interested in doing anything with the property they acquired. They seemed interested in making a cyberpunk movie, a cyberpunk movie about a badass lady android with some identity issues. I’m pretty sure you could just make an original one of those, no one owns cyberpunk or androids. If you’re going to pay for a beloved property you could try and tell a story they’ve already told, or at the very least not one that’s just like one they’ve told but much simpler and with a healthy dose of cliche. I don’t understand why you would buy a Japanese franchise and decide that you only want the Japanese-ness to be set dressing. If this was an original property it would be a dull movie with a draggy second act; as Ghost in the Shell it’s a colossal failure.

For the movie adaptation they decided to make Ghost in the Shell an awful lot like Blade II. The Major is the first of her kind and her special forces team needs to take out a mysterious terrorist who turns out to be a failed attempt to create the same thing that The Major is. if you replace “terrorist” with “vampire” and “The Major” with “Blade” that is a perfectly apt description of Blade II. I happen to believe that Blade II is a terribly under-appreciated movie; it isn’t because it has the world’s most compelling plot. In things it does worse than Blade II the bad guy i always talking about having his own neural network and there’s a location with a bunch of what look like religious types plugged in to some machines but they never even attempt to define any of that stuff. It appears to be an artifact from when the plot more closely resembled the animated movie from the 90s and they didn’t want to throw away any of the imagery.

There’s some fantastic visual design in this movie. The city sequences look a little like Blade Runner turned way way up. There are these recurring holographic fish through the advertising in the movie, and there’s a certain sense of high tech whimsy inherent in seeing insubstantial fish float all over the place. There’s a sequence where the robot design becomes absolutely chilling as a robot clearly designed to appear normal and non-threatening becomes less and less tethered to human form as it experiences more and more distress, showing off the horror of inhumanity. I also enjoyed the cloaking device effect when they let it shimmer and fade and much less when it felt like an excuse to not actually film some action sequence or another. It’s also an exceptionally well scored movie if you’re as into this vaguely pulsating cyberpunk-style of music as I am.

None of this is super important though, because the biggest problem with Ghost in the Shell is that it’s profoundly racist. The central plot is all about how to make the next step in human evolution the brains have to be taken out of Japanese people and put in to more perfect robotic bodies, robotic bodies that happen to be Caucasian. Despite taking place in a clearly Asian city (filmed in Hong Kong but seemingly trying to invoke Tokyo) none of the starring roles are played by Asian people. There are two Asians in Section Nine but neither has an incredible number of lines. The evil corporation is seemingly exclusively staffed by white people. It’s like Dreamworks wanted the Japaneseness of the story but didn’t want to use any Japanese people as anything but small parts and set dressing. Asian writing can be in the background, Asian people can be the majority of the extras, but if anyone needs to do a bunch of talking this movie would just prefer if they were white.

Ghost in the Shell would be a bad movie even if it had perfect racial politics, but instead it gets dragged down in to being a dreadful slog of a movie. It’s poorly paced, the action sequences run hot and cold, and there’s just too much unexplained nonsense to let the movie work even at all. This is a movie that will look great on the resume of a visual effects artist and everyone else will spend the rest of their careers trying to gloss over it. Ghost in the Shell is a lousy movie and a repugnant adaptation of a beloved property.

Joe Corallo: Shell Game

Columns / News
April 19, 2016

This was supposed to be a lighter column for me. I had seen Iggy Pop play over at The Capital Theatre in Port Chester last Thursday. I was going to write about how it was an absolutely incredible show, talk a bit about Iggy Pop’s career and how he was a major influence on the comic book series The Crow. Then I read this. And this. I saw friends of my get incredibly upset over this. Hell, I’m upset too. So without putting up much of a fight with myself, I decided this week I’d tackle the growing embarrassment that is the Ghost In The Shell live action adaptation.

Ghost In The Shell was one of the first anime movies I had watched. When I was a kid, I grew up on Voltron, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and many others. The Sci-Fi channel (before it was the SyFy channel) used to do Saturday Anime in the mid to late 90s. That exposed me to a lot of different anime movies. They had commercials for the anime movie adaptation of Ghost In The Shell and I eventually got the DVD. It was fantastic. Visually stunning and engaging in a similar way to me as Akira or Serial Experiment Lain.

Dreamworks Pictures is currently deep into the production of the Ghost In The Shell live action movie, slated for release on March 31, 2017. It’s been reported that this has been a long anticipated project. Personally, I’m fine with my anime movie staying an anime movie without a live action adaptation. We all saw how movies like Speed Racer and Dragon Ball: Evolution turned out. Ghost In The Shell may prove to be worse than those.

Let’s get into some details that we know about the movie so far. It’s being directed by Rupert Sanders. It’s written by Jonathan Herman and Jamie Moss. It’s starring Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, Michael Pitt, Takeshi Kitano, and Juliette Binoche. Notice something a bit off about all this? If the answer is “no” congratulations! You’re part of the problem. If your answer is “I thought this was a Japanese property. Isn’t nearly every single person listed here white?” then we’re on the same page.

In addition to all of that, Dreamworks Pictures admitted to using VFX technology to attempt to “shift the ethnicities” of white actors in the film with CGI to make them appear more Asian in post-production. While plans to go through with this have been scrapped, I do want to make something clear for everyone. At least one person working high enough on this movie identified that barely any Asian actors on screen was a problem.

That person managed to convey that was a problem. Either that person or another person high enough in the production proposed that they could try to use a modern version of yellow face that they don’t have to call yellow face because it’s done by computers now and we all know that yellow face is bad, but the intentions behind yellow face apparently aren’t to those working on Ghost In The Shell. Person with this idea to use modern yellow face was able to get enough traction from the production for them to actually try it. The fact that we are even so inclined as to say that at least they didn’t go through with it in the end shows just how low the bar is for institutional racism in Hollywood.

Now the fault here certainly lays heavily on the production team, but how much of it is on the actors themselves? Scarlett Johansson is certainly a talented actress that’s a proven cash grab at the box office. So few women in Hollywood have been elevated to this level. Shouldn’t we celebrate Scarlett Johansson being elevated like this and ignore the fact that the character she is playing is supposed to be Asian?

No. Nope. Never.

Nearly every single woman that has been elevated to a similar position to Scarlett Johansson in Hollywood has been cis straight and white. The reason is because they’re the ones given a disproportionate about of the opportunities. Scarlett Johansson is not desperate to break into the industry. She’s a leader there. Someone that’s admired by many. She is successful enough to turn down a role like this. She should have turned it down. I’m sure she’s turned down plenty of roles in her career to play characters that she actually fits the description of. Why did she have to take this one? Or Pilou Asbaek? Or Michael Pitt? Or Juliette Binoche?

It’s because of casting decisions like this that predominantly straight cis white men and women dominate the box office. Arguments are made about needing big names to get butts in the seats. However, there are plenty of examples that counter that point. One prominent example related to comics is Superman: The Movie. Other than a couple of names who all had smaller roles, the movie was led primarily by unknowns. Also movies like, you know, Star Wars. And if Johnny Depp has taught us anything lately, it’s you can still be a Hollywood giant and star in box office disaster after box office disaster and still get picked over someone whose background and ethnicity better fits the role he’s playing. He is 1/16th Native American though, so that must count for something to someone apparently.

So how does this happen? The short and obvious answer is because not enough people see this as a problem. And it is a problem. It’s a hard problem to combat, and even gigantic box office bombs like 2013’s The Lone Ranger can’t seem to discourage Hollywood. It would require a sea-change. One of which would be going against one of the current cash cows they’ve been milking, comic book movies which technically Ghost In The Shell as a manga falls into. Movies that are primarily dominated by straight cis white men. It’s okay though, Black Panther is finally getting his own movie over at Marvel only about 54 years after the civil rights act, and Captain Marvel only 99 years after the 19th amendment.

You know, progress.

John Ostrander: Odder Ends 2014

Columns
December 28, 2014

This week I’ve got a bunch of different topics and themes but none of them seem to be developing into a coherent column. So I think I’ll take parts of all of them and just stitch together into a hodgepodge column. It’s the end of the year so maybe I can get away with it.

If you’re doing a SF tent pole movie, you want to hire Zoe Saldana and use her prominently. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Uhura in the two latest Star Trek films, and Gamora in Guardians Of The Galaxy and she’s going to be in the next installments of all these films. They all made what is technically called a shitload of money. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be cast as Amanda Waller. (Sorry, Oprah.) I really want the upcoming Suicide Squad movie to sell like hotcakes and spawn sequels and Amanda Waller related merchandise. Okay, I’m crass. Still, think about it. . .

Peter Capaldi has finished his first season as the new Doctor and I like his Doctor McCrankypants. It’s a nice variation of the past few Doctors. Not as crazy about all the writing, tho, and I really am beginning to feel it’s time for showrunner Steven Moffat to move on. When Moffat is good, he’s really good and he’s rarely outright bad but he’s often becoming mediocre. He seems, to me, to not always think things through. Or he gets clever for the sake of being clever.

Best Animated Film I Saw This Year – How To Train Your Dragon 2. The animation was better than the original and the story wasn’t a re-hash of the first but actually advanced the characters. It was fun but also had real emotional depth and impact. In fact, it was a better film than many live action serious movies I saw. It took chances.

Best Marvel Film I Saw This Year – a lot of people would say Guardians Of The Galaxy and I loved it too. It was just wonderfully entertaining. However, I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more. Chris Evans is to Steve Rogers/Captain America what Christopher Reeve was to Superman. Why doesn’t Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow have her own movie? How the hell did they get Robert Redford go play the main villain? (Oh, right – money.) And Samuel L. Jackson just has deep reserves of cool to call on. The movie also had a major impact on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was an added bonus.

Just finished reading Alexander Mcall Smith’s latest installment (number 15!) in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, titled The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The series is set in Botswana, Africa, and features Precious Ramotswe, her partner Grace Makutsi, and their friends, co-workers, and clients in and around the city of Gabrone. The characters are all African and the author is white, born in Rhodesia, now living in Scotland. He writes the characters with great love and understanding, along with a great love for Africa in general and Botswana in particular. Reading each new book is like visiting old friends. The mysteries are mostly small matters and not really the focus of the series. It is the people. I recommend the series and, while I suggest starting at he beginning, each book is admirably written to be accessible even if you haven’t read the others. I will warn you that they are quiet books, slow paced, but wonderful reads.

Final note: just an update since so many of you expressed concern following my recent triple bypass. I’m healing nicely and recovering well. My general practitioner, on my last visit, pronounced me “medically boring.” I’ve never been so glad to be called boring.

Well, that’s 2014. Drive carefully, drink responsibly, party carefully, and we’ll all reconvene in 2015.

Happy New Year, y’all!

Box Office Democracy: “Lucy”

Box Office Democracy / Reviews
July 28, 2014

lucy-9122048 The nicest thing I can think to say about Lucy is that it is exactly how I would have remade 2001: A Space Odyssey if I had done it when I was 16 years old. I would have replaced the male astronaut with an attractive woman, kept the trippy end sequence and replaced the first two-thirds of the movie with a mediocre tribute to Hard Boiled. I also probably would have struggled to fill 90 minutes and would have added some really strange filler to get it to a marginally respectful run time like 89 minutes. Thankfully no one was willing to give me $65 million to make a movie when I was 16 (unfortunately no one will do it now) but we’re stuck with what Luc Besson made here. I was stuck at least; you might still be able to save yourself. (more…)

Avengers Assemble… For Brunch!

ComicMix Quick Picks
April 28, 2014

Sunday afternoon in Richmond. pic.twitter.com/f4RhyZmtYQ

— Robert Downey Jr (@RobertDowneyJr) April 27, 2014

REVIEW: Don Jon

Reviews
January 8, 2014

Other than reading content here at ComicMix, we can stipulate that the Internet is for porn. There’s even a song confirming that fact. It’s easy access for free has transformed already sexist ideals of what sex is all about. An entire generation is being raised in the belief that women will drop their tops for beads, will perform sexual acts in the hopes of winning a Dare Dorm competition and professionals will do just about any act, in any position, for your, ahem, entertainment.

As a result, there are men out there who go to clubs, get laid and surprisingly remain unsatisfied. Multi-hyphenate Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been giving this kind of male some thought, dating back to 2008, and turned it into an interesting meditation on the matter in the entertaining Don Jon. Gordon-Levitt wrote, directed, and stars in this snapshot of the East Coast male. His Jon is a man of principals who includes taking pride in his home, his body, and in his immortal soul as witnessed by his weekly visits to the confessional. Still, he enjoys frequent one-night stands and when the women prove to be real and not the willing fantasy images on his laptop he returns there, frequently, to satisfy his needs. It’s an addiction to which he is totally blind.

He’s seemingly content with his minimum wage job in the service industry, a devoted son to his parents (Glenne Headley, Tony Danza), and lacks ambition. That begins to change when he spots the hot Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), who was raised on the romcoms of the last two decades and whose expectations of the perfect mate are equally unrealistic. But they have chemistry and he before she has sex with Jon, she begins to reshape him. First, she convinces him to go to community college and then forces him to give up porn, which he tries to do but resorts to watching on his phone, even in class, which catches the amused eye of Esther (Julianne Moore). She playfully gives him a DVD of erotica which he rejects out of hand, not understanding the difference or her interest in him.

Bit by bit, we see the stresses on Jon and Barbara’s relationship which oddly shatters at Home Depot when she refuses to let him buy Swiffer refills because men don’t do that. As they drift apart, Esther, who has been recently widowed and has a more solid grip on the world, turns out to be the one who shows Jon there are ways to be satisfied with a friend/partner/lover. Their age difference barely comes up and there’s a sweetness to their story.

Gordon-Levitt plays everything on an even keel, never overly exaggerating the actions or characters, infusing each act with its own look, feel, and sound, subtly guiding the audience through Jon’s final maturation into adulthood. The performances are uniformly strong from Johansson’s gum chewing Jersey girl to Danza’s short-tempered dad.

The film, out on a combo pack (Blu-ray, DVD, Digital) now from 20^th Century Home Entertainment, looks great in high definition. There’s a satisfactory assortment of special features including the Making of Don Jon, where Gordon-Levitt nicely credits his varied collaborators; Don Jon’s Origin, a look at the writing process across the years; Joe’s Hats, writer, director, star; Objectified, a look at gender roles; Themes & Variations, a nice look at each act’s unique feel. Finally, there are four HitRECord Shorts, where Gordon-Levitt invited people to submit their creations on the same theme which occurred during the making of the film.

Win Tickets for the European Premiere of “The Avengers”

News
April 11, 2012

The good news: there’s a way to see The Avengers earlier than anybody in America. The bad news: you’ll have to be in England to do it.

Uniqlo.com is offering the chance to win two tickets to attend the European premiere of Avengers Assemble in full 3D at its European premiere in Westfield, London.

Written and directed by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly fame and starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, and Samuel L. Jackson, Avengers Assemble follows S.H.I.E.L.D’s Nick Fury’s formation of The Avengers: a superhero collective comprising of The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow to fight an enemy which threatens the safety of the world.

Fill in the form below for a chance to win. All entries must be made by April 13th at midnight BST (that’s 7 PM in Eastern Daylight Time).

(more…)

Monday Mix-Up: The Avenger Friends

Uncategorized
April 9, 2012

With all the hoopla over The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you’re in the UK) coming to theaters on May 4, it’s worth remembering the original TV series that this was all based on, starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, and Samuel L. Jackson.

C’mon– don’t tell me you don’t remember this:

Women Is NOT Losers

News
June 15, 2010

davis-women-of-marvel-celebrating-seven-decades-1-variant-21-1564691 Marvel Comics is a couple months into their “Women of Marvel” promotion, and that raises an issue or two. The whole idea is fine – honor… well… promote the several hundred female characters that toil in the Marvel Universe. Remind the readers
that many are among Marvel’s best. After all, women-starring superhero comics generally don’t sell very well and women-starring superhero movies are, without fail, failures.

I realize there’s a reason why the movies flop. Most of them really suck. Supergirl, Elektra, and Catwoman deserved better. But they stunk up the box office so badly I doubt they’d make a Black Widow solo movie
right now even if Scarlett Johansson had a half-dozen nude scenes.

Well… I could be wrong about that last point.

But the fact is, these are just made-up characters. It is
not intrinsically harder to write, draw, direct and/or act as a woman superhero as it is a man. I understand avoiding crappy movies, but a lot of the women superhero comics are as good as anything on the racks. Given the growing percentage of women readers, you’d think there would be a chance here.

So kudos to Marvel for their promotion. And go to your friendly neighborhood comic book shop and take a super-heroine out to lunch.

ComicMix
editor-in-Chief Mike
Gold performs a weekly two-hour Weird
Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking music and blather radio show on The Point every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern,
replayed three times during the week (check the website for times). Likewise,
his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political
and cultural rants pop up each and
every day at the same
venue. Thanks to Janis Joplin for the headline.