Movie Criticism for Dummies

This short article is the love child of intellectual internet arguments and fan rage sprung from the latter. Hey, at least something came out of them.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have a personal opinion about movies, or art in general, my following points will just be guidelines for bringing a cinematic piece of art's objective qualities in the spotlight:

• The books/comics or any other source material DON'T COUNT, at all. A movie is an individual piece of art, thus it needs to be treated as such. If certain critical (/necessary) plot elements from the source material are excluded from the movie, that's a major flaw. The same can be said for reboots and remakes. You can measure them in terms of their faithfulness, but in that case you evaluate the movie as an adaptation, not a stand-alone film.

Strictly as a Batman adaptation, The Dark Knight trilogy is weaker than as a stand-alone series.

How Days of Future Past can expand or crash the X Men franchise

    After the director of the best X Men movie to date leaving the franchise there's some understandable doubt. But let's not forget that Brian Singer did 2 decent interpretations as well. He seemingly understands the characters and source material enough. So I'm still excited for the upcoming mutant extravaganza. Here's a little footage for you guys to share my feelings.

    With opinions about the movie itself out of the way, I'll get to what could this movie accomplish if it manages to be at least serviceable and successful.

Besides starting an Instagram trend of fathers and sons making pictures like this.

How to get people to see Guardians of the Galaxy

    The following materialized brainstorming will only contain pointers to possible marketing tools and angles. I know, I know , Marvel Disney couldn't possibly figure this out without me, right? Regardless, actual movie making stuff is excluded ( so no movie synopsis, character descriptions here or predictions here, newbies ) , because James Gunn has and will have that covered.From the little I know and saw from this movie it'll have enough humor, quirkiness and talent behind it to be an entertaining piece of quality cinema.

    Here's a sneak peek.-updated link

    It's unfortunate that such an article is even needed, but mainstream audiences aren't quite familiar with the aforementioned director, nor the source material. Even I don't even know which one is weirder. And that's a good thing. It's time for the movie goers to not punish unique, creative and not by the book pieces of art.

This concept art alone should be enough to have your attention and curiosity. At least a 12$ amount of it, anyway.

The Dark Knight Almost Rises

    Why did Burton and Schumacher fall ?  So that Nolan could teach the Batman franchise how to pick itself up again. With that out of the way, the cape crusader had to face his biggest challenge yet: fan expectations. Which wasn't the case when the first 2 movies came out, but their individual and combined greatness, they've raised the bar. Also, Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors of this era. If you're waiting , get a time machine and go either way.

One way or another.

X Men Origins: Suffering

    After our  favorite mutants (and Storm) went head to head with Magneto, gouvernment black ops groups and the biggest villain of them all, Brett Ratner, Fox decided to delve itself into the history of the franchise's most popular character. Because demystifying the mutant whose likeability comes from his enigmatic past and personality is the best way to go.

    Also, let's not forget, X Men Origins came after the hate crime The Last Stand was. So expectations weren't high. People just wanted a decent, entertaining piece of cinema with some good action. And the trailer wasn't that bad, so a glimpse of hope was on the theatrical horizon.

    While it didn't accomplish all of the above ... it was still a piece of something. ( The 'S' doesn't stand for hope in this one. )

This may look like a poster, but it's actually the script.

   

Not Always Iron Man, 3

    I've decided to keep talking about movies at random, because Grown Ups 2 just came out in my city and I don't like aneurisms. So here's another, critic wise, underappreciated movie. I won't link a trailer because I don't condone advertising pizza with pictures of ice cream. Seriously, don't expect the movie to take after the tone of the preview stuff.

Here's a more sincere poster instead.

Man of Steel , Critics of Lead

    I know that I'm late for the after-party , BUT after the same critics who loved Pocahontas Avatar continue to ( unfairly ) bash on genre ( mainly comic book ) movies like Iron Man 3 , Star Trek Into Darkness and several others because they're easy targets , I thought I'd give my 2 cents about the Man of Steel situation . In case you haven't seen the movie , here's a trailer.

    YES, this will be a ( sort of & spoiler-free ) review of a movie released in June , deal with it ! Also, if you're pun sensitive, to the Phantom Zone with you .
     
    First of all , some preliminary ( & sometimes minor ) stuff from news and trailers :
 

• The suit looks good , a bit dark for my taste , but resembles the New 52 Superman outfit , minus the belt. And yes , the cape is CG , because Ryan Reynolds wants his Green Lantern mask back.

 

Don't mind the red text