Theater Whore: Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four 7/10

There will be some spoilers. I managed to dodge all the spoilers about this new Fantastic Four movie but managed to hear about all of the terrible reviews that it was receiving. When I wrote about this movie before it came out I said they already had a leg up on the other films because I was interested in it because I am not a fan of the FF whatsoever. This film managed to actually get me interested in the characters by going in a very different direction than the comics or previous films did.

It starts with a young Reed Richards in his science class being told by his teacher that what he wants to be can not be done. Just like real teachers do! He ends up befriending Ben Grimm while stealing junk from the junk yard that Grimm's family owns. They blow out all the power in the neighborhood. Fast forward years later and they have made another version of the device and are discovered by Professor Franklin Storm played by Reg E. Cathey. He invites Reed to help him create this machine on a larger scale since they have been working on something like it.

Theater Whore: Whiplash

Whiplash 9/10

Holy crap! Whiplash is great! Cam and I went to check this out doing a double feature of this and Inherent Vice which I'd already seen and makes more sense the second time. This stars Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman who is a 19 year old college student playing jazz. He is accepted into a class with a hard-assed conductor named Terence Fletcher played by JK Simmons. Going into this all I knew were the stars and drumming took place.

This movie blew my damned mind. I expected at the most some good performances and hopefully cool music. This movie had me literally on the edge of my seat during the last 20 minutes. I swear I thought JK was going to jump out of the screen and start slapping audience members. 

In Defense Of Fantastic 4 Reboot

I love pointless outrage. I like to think that I have mastered the ability to get upset about nothing. But the rage towards the reboot of The Fantastic Four film is funny. Most people are mad that The Human Torch is being played by a Black guy to which I reply “Its the fucking Fantastic Four...” meaning “Who gives a fuck?!” A little bit ago I defended Ben Affleck as Batman and this time I'm not gonna strongly attempt to defend a Black Human Torch so much as make you all realize that this isn't worth getting upset about.

There is this video that Max Landis, the writer of the second best superhero film Chronicle, made called The Death And Return Of Superman where the first thing he says is “Nobody gives a fuck about Superman.” That is how I feel about FF (I'm not typing their name a hundred goddamn times). This new movie is directed by Josh Trank who directed Chronicle which makes me far less concerned if this movie will be cool. Forget trying to convince people that a Black guy can be a fictional character. Getting me to even be interested in seeing a FF movie is far more remarkable.