Movie Review: "Get on Up"

The James Brown biopic, Get on Up, is an okay movie that paints enough of a picture to give those, who don't know James Brown, an idea of the man, but not enough to really satisfy or make this movie feel like it had to be made.  The movie is constantly jumping back-and-forth in time, going from old James Brown, to little kid James Brown, to Sixties' James Brown, and then to teenage James Brown, back to kid James Brown again.  It's a confusing plot device that I guess they used to try and tell the emotional story rather than a straightforward linear story, but it often detracts more than it adds.  While a lot of the musical numbers are very lively, and there are some humorous scenes here and there, the movie itself feels disjointed and confused on what it really wants to be, rather than feeling like a window into the life of James Brown.  The thing that saves this movie, for the most part, is the performance by Chadwick Boseman as James Brown.  He gives it his all and should get an Oscar nom for his work.

I give Get on Up a D!

Movie Review: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

The heroes in a half shell finally return to the bigscreen, and while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is probably the weakest of all the TMNT movies made thus far, there is a great deal to enjoy about director Jonathan Liebesman's movie.

This Turtles movie is basically another retelling of their origin story, with a greater focus than ever before on the human characters, like news reporter April O'Neill, rather than the titular turtles themselves.  Megan Fox is fine as April, though her acting chops aren't quite sharp enough to always sell the CGI turtles that she is supposed to be acting with.  While I personally would have liked to see the Ninja Turtles themselves actually get more to do in the plot, their personalities were spot on, save for the too mean Splinter.  I just wish less of the focus had been on the not so interesting human characters (sorry, but that's how it's always been with this franchise).  Even with the villains, Shredder has less to do than the white guy villain played by William Fichtner, who is the real mastermind of the evil plot.  With that all said, I kind of liked the revisionist angle that this movie took on the traditional Ninja Turtles origin story, having April's past being intrinsically linked with that of the turtles.  Add on to that the heightened comic book style that this movie oozes (no pun intended) and you have the ingredients for a movie that will delight the targeted audience.

If you have a kid, in particular a young boy, they'll love this movie.  While there is a little more innuendo and cussing in this movie than there was in any previous Ninja Turtles movie, most of it is subtle enough to where it will go over most kids' heads.  I mean, when you hear reviews from the kids leaving the audience in front of you, like, "Best Movie Ever!!!"  You know that the movie works for who it's intended for.  As an adult fan of the series, I know I am not the target audience, so that's why I'm a lot more forgiving of a lot of the shortcomings of this particular movie, because while it isn't the TMNT's finest hour, there is a lot of fun to be had here.

This is the kind of movie that if you check your mind at the door, anyone will probably have a good time with it.  The action sequences are top notch and imaginative, with the car chase down a snowy mountain being one of the most silly, yet fun sequences of action I've seen in a while.  Plus, while so many complained about the giant size of the new Ninja Turtles and their super strength, they do look really cool when onscreen beating up the bad guys.  I for one would not mind a sequel to this particular movie to see if, with the origin story out of the way, the filmmakers can root their feet more firmly into this world and give it another go, because this is the first Ninja Turtles movie series where I could imagine seeing some of the weirder TMNT villains popping up.  If you ask me, bring on the Kraang and explain the secret of the alien ooze that created the Turtles, similar to the current Nickelodeon TV show.

I give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a C+!

Movie Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

With Marvel Studios latest movie, they have gone to the bench to highlight some of the lesser known corners of their comic book universe.  In many ways, you could almost say that Guardians of the Galaxy is Marvel Studios throwing down the gauntlet, proving that when it comes to their movies at least, their distinguished competition is completely in the dust.  Guardians of the Galaxy is not so much a superhero movie, but is more a space opera/sci-fi western in the vein of Star Wars, or more accurately, Firefly.  

The story follows Earth born Peter Quill, who was abducted by aliens as a child, and has spent his life since, traversing alien worlds as the outlaw Star-Lord.  Following an opening sequence a little reminiscent of a sci-fi Raiders of the Lost Ark, Quill discovers a mysterious orb that just about everyone in the galaxy seems to be after, but why?  The answer to that question leads Quill to team up with a ragtag group of quirky misfit outlaws, including a gun-toting raccoon, named Rocket, and a talking tree man, who all work together to save the galaxy from the villainous warlord, Ronan the Accuser.

If the above description does not tickle your interests, then don't go to see this movie, but if it does, then you'll enjoy just about everything that this movie has to offer.  Without traipsing into too much spoiler-filled territory, this is a fun movie from start to finish.  You will be laughing almost non-stop.  This is quite possibly the funniest Marvel movie to date, and perhaps the funniest movie of the year, period.  Rocket Raccoon is almost certain to become one of the new favorite Marvel heroes, because let's face it, when you have a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, who also happens to have short man syndrome, magic happens.

There is just a lot that is charming about Guardians of the Galaxy.  There is a nice dose of action, a ton of laughs, and a little dash of emotion there to tie everything together.  Of course, the main thing people always want to know is if this is the best Marvel movie ever?  I don't know if I would go that far, partly because this movie doesn't have the added benefit that The Avengers had, having had five movies prior to set up all of the characters, rather than having to set them up and then bring them together in the course of two hours, but when Guardians works, it soars.  Plus, I have a feeling that when we finally reach The Avengers 3, this particular chapter in the Marvel saga will be one of the most crucial in understanding what's at stake in that particular adventure for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

I give Guardians of the Galaxy an A-!

The Film School of Life - Chapter 1

A Velociraptor from Jurassic Park

About two weeks ago I started writing a book on the blog titled The Film School of Life.  It's essentially a collection of essays and memories associated with movies.  My intentions aren't really to make a book that is groundbreaking or even one that super publishable, it's simply my telling the story of how movies have impacted me.  As I said before, I don't know why I feel that it is important for me to share of all this, but I just feel deep down that it is.  So if you're just now tuning in, you can check out the, "Prologue," to the book before diving straight into, "Chapter 1," below.  Now, onto, "Chapter 1," of The Film School of Life.

****

Chapter 1

“Earliest Movie Memories”

Raphael was squatting behind a pile of rubbish in a junkyard, alongside him was his human friend and pizza delivery boy, Keno.

I think before I go any further, I must clarify that I am talking about Raphael the teenage mutant ninja turtle, not the renaissance painter.

Both Raphael and Keno were looking upon a shoddy shack made out of various scraps of metal. They had found the new hideout for the villainous Foot clan, a clan of thieving ninjas they had thought to be completely disbanded. Then, out of the depths of the shack, they laid eyes upon a man Raphael knew to be dead.

There covered from head-to-toe in spiky armor and chain mail, with his trademark mask that was a cross between the grill of a car and a mechanical shark fin, stood Shredder, the ninja turtle's archnemesis.

The year was 1991, the place was the Malco movie theater in Tupelo, Mississippi. I was not even a year old yet, but this image of Raphael, Keno, and Shredder, was my very first movie memory. As a matter of fact, this might be the first memory I can actually recall in vivid detail.

As we so often did back in those days, we had gone to spend some time at my Grandmother's house in Tupelo (the birthplace of Elvis Presley), with our favorite pastime being going to the movies, or the show, as my Aunt Jane still calls it. My Mom and my Aunt Jane had taken me and my older brothers and sister to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. I say they took me to see it, it was more like they took my older siblings and I just went along for the ride, because who expects a ten or eleven month old to sit and watch a movie? All I can say is that I must have been well behaved for my age. I cannot say if that was the definitive moment where I fell in love with movies for life, or if it just so happens to be a random memory that makes little to no sense, whatever it's true significance is, it's a moment I have never forgotten.

From the earliest age possible, movies have been a part of me, speaking to me in ways I could never describe in words. It truly is a mystery why I fell so hard for movies. Being a fan of Spider-Man, I've always thought that I should have had one of those classic great power moments where I had a realization or something that changed my life, but there was never anything like that. As far as I know, I was simply born already fascinated by the moving picture.

I was born May 11, 1990, in Birmingham, Alabama. In so many ways, Birmingham, Alabama, is about as far from Hollywood as you could get, and yet I might as well have been living in a movie projector itself. Through my parents, Rick and Sheila Sutton, I learned to appreciate movies, and discovered so many movies that fellow kids my age had never even heard of. This is a large part of the reason why I say I had the best parents in the world, and still do, because they are as much to credit for my movie love as anything else. Through them showing me as many movies as I could consume, and through my Dad's job working in television at the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN), stationed just outside of Birmingham, visual storytelling was simply a way of life for me.

In the years that followed my first movie memory, more and more were created. I can recall seeing Disney's animated classic, Aladdin, at the historical Alabama Theatre in downtown Birmingham, when I was maybe two or three.

The Alabama is one of the last of the great movie palaces from the Golden Age of Cinema. Built by Paramount Pictures back in 1927, and known worldwide for its one-of-a-kind Wurlitzer organ that rises out of the stage, there are few movie theaters left in the world that are quite like it. It is large, featuring a mezzanine and a balcony with more seats than you can find in any modern movie theater, and it easily rivals the class and sophistication of any of Broadway's most storied theaters.

On this particular occasion, my family and I were sitting in the mezzanine, the most contained area of seating in the whole of the theater, and perhaps the most envious to get a choice seat in. Looking back on it, I think the main reason my parents so often chose to sit there is because it was the place where it was easiest to take one of us kids out if we were being too disruptive, aside from the fact that it was also easier to keep an eye on all four of us due to the confined parameters. No matter why we were sitting there, it is easily one of the more magical areas of the whole theater to be in for viewing movies.

The lip of the balcony extends at least a good thirty feet beyond the cut off of the mezzanine, creating this feeling when you're sitting there of being in your own world, looking at the movie screen through a funnel. There was no one else in the audience for all I knew. The laughing and cheering might as well have been a sitcom laugh track, because I never saw anyone other than who was in the mezzanine with me. It was in that setting, that I can recall seeing Aladdin and Jasmine singing, “A Whole New World,” for the first of many in my childhood. As Aladdin and Jasmine flew from Agrabah and beyond on Aladdin's magic carpet, the animators of the film might as well have been inside my brain, etching those images into my visual cortex for all of eternity.

Another important memory occurred maybe only a year later in that exact same setting. Now, before anyone thinks poorly of my Mom, the first thing I must point out is that I had already been to see Jurassic Park once against her wishes. While I do not remember the first time I went to see Jurassic Park with my Dad and my siblings, I have been told a great many times over the years how upset my Mom was by my Dad taking a three year old to go see such a violent and adult movie. Was I scarred for life? Not in the slightest, I absolutely loved it. Maybe it was because my older brothers were obsessed with the movie and I loved whatever they did, or maybe I just had a high threshold for violent subject matter at a young age. Who knows why I loved such a movie, but I did. Naturally, when our family went to see the movie at the Alabama Theatre for a second time, I was allowed to come along and enjoy the experience once more.

Sitting in the same exact spot in the mezzanine as we did for Aladdin, I experienced Jurassic Park in all of its Spielbergian majesty. The same as with Ninja Turtles and Aladdin, I know I enjoyed the whole movie, but all I can remember from that day is one moment, one image, the image of the velociraptor in the jungle right before he eats gamekeeper Robert Muldoon. I just remember seeing the image of this incredibly real-looking giant lizard with sharp teeth, surrounded by all sorts of flora and fauna, ready to pounce on its unsuspecting prey. At that moment, I can recall believing that dinosaurs still existed, and of course I think even at that age I new dinosaurs were extinct, but for a moment I was fooled. Subconsciously, I believe that was the first moment where I truly realized the magic of moviemaking and why dreams were so important.

Through all of these early movie memories, little did I know then, but I was already being groomed to be a moviemaker. When I was at home playing, I could recall the shots from the movies I had seen as if I was still in the theater watching them. I could see everything from the faces of the actors to the colors that were onscreen. I even had times where I dreamed at night, reliving or creating new scenes to movies I had seen in theaters the night before.

I cannot tell you how many times I woke up in a cold sweat dreaming I was the kid drowning in the whale tank from Free Willy, or when I had a dream after seeing Batman Forever where I dreamt that Chris O'Donnell's Dick Grayson/Robin found Bruce Wayne's slide from his office to the Batcave. This scene was nowhere to be found in the actual movie, but I could have sworn it was in the movie after dreaming it. I had directed my first scene, albeit completely through my subconscious. 

The Film School of Life

Me with a bust of Desi Arnaz at Disney World

Hello, to anyone new to this blog, my name is Christian Sutton.  I am an independent filmmaker stationed just outside of Birmingham, Alabama.  I graduated from the University of Alabama-at-Birmingham with a degree in film, and I am so eager to be a major Hollywood writer/director, I could nearly bust wide open.  

Dreams are important, but life is why we are all here on Earth to begin with, and that is in a nutshell why I have decided to start writing a book.  I don't know if you could call it an autobiography, or a series of essays and memoirs that add up to something larger, but this book is the story of how one boy obsessed with movies has become a better man through movies, rather than without them.  I have chosen to title the book The Film School of Life.  It only seems appropriate, because as I go on to explain in the opening of the book, my knowledge of filmmaking did not come purely from a four year education at college, but from life itself.

Starting today, I am going to release a new chapter at least every other week, till I have covered every single topic and story that I desire to cover.  Maybe this book will someday actually get published, but if it doesn't, I wanted it to be published somewhere where others could read it.  I don't know why this fire has been lit inside of me, I just know that I am being called to share my experiences.  Perhaps there is someone who will read this and will be inspired by it, or changed by it, or simply entertained by it.  I am happy with all three outcomes, or any other outcome that may emerge from this experiment.  All I can say is that I hope you will join me on this journey and have a good time, so let's start the book.  The first piece of business is the foreword, or what I have deemed the, "Prologue."

****

"Prologue"

Should I or should I not go to film school?  That's the main question that drives most teenagers who want to make movies.  I know it drove me nuts.

Being from central Alabama, where the closest film school was hours away and out of state, I really didn't expect to get a degree in film where I was.  Sure, finances were a contributing factor as to why I didn't go to film school, but if I'm honest with myself, I was more afraid than anything else, afraid of moving away from home.  In many ways, I am still fearful of leaving the nest, and that's probably why I'm not rolling in the big bucks yet.  With that said, my passion and desire to make movies is just as strong now as it ever has been.

Taking that next step to being a paid filmmaker is scary stuff.  Leaving the comforts of home and setting up somewhere new is always going to be terrifying, but it's something that I know I am going to have to do someday if I want to make my dreams a reality.  It is those dreams that have taken me to this point in my life, where all of my hopes for the future, all of my regrets about my past, and all of my personal triumphs and struggles intersect.  Throughout all of this, there have been only a few constants:  family, faith, a friend or two, and the movies themselves.

I cannot remember a time where I wasn't obsessed with movies, but I know one thing, I would not be who I am today if it were not for the movies in my life.  Whether it be the movies I have watched, the movies I have made, or the movies that are still in my head waiting to be told, if it were not for all of these movies, I would not be the same person as the one who is writing all of this down.

Returning to that initial question:  Should I or should I not go to film school?  If someone younger asked me for advice, I'd not have enough time to adequately put into words all of my thoughts on the matter.

Yes, if you have the money and the confidence to completely uproot yourself, going to film school can only help you.  Not only will you learn the odds and ends of the technical aspects of filmmaking by going to film school, you will also learn how to better analyze movies on an emotional level, while also establishing invaluable connections with teachers and students that will only help you in getting jobs after graduation.  However, if you are like me, and are too afraid, or not financially able to go to film school, that does not mean you cannot make movies.

You know, I think so often young wannabe filmmakers ask the wrong question.  It isn't really whether or not you should or shouldn't go to film school, but rather is film school necessary to become a Hollywood director, screenwriter, or producer?  The answer to that question is no.

Hollywood is full of self-taught filmmakers.  Quentin Tarrantino, Christopher Nolan, Kevin Smith, none of those guys went to a formal film school and they are some of the more successful filmmakers of the past generation.  For that matter, Steven Spielberg wasn't even accepted to film school, and he's arguably the most successful filmmaker ever.  You do not have to go to film school to make movies, you don't even have to take film classes.  While I did eventually go to a college that had a small, yet growing film department, about ninety-five percent of everything I know about making movies came through what I call the film school of life.

Through my Father, reading books about how movies were made, making my own movies, and by simply watching as many movies as I could, I learned so much more than I ever could have in a formal setting.  I wouldn't go so far as to say I am a self-taught filmmaker, because that would be a lie, but I did not have to go to film school to be where I am today.  I was taught by my Father and so many other smart filmmakers who decided to write how-to books, but if I really had to say who the most influential teacher was, it would be the movies themselves.

Growing up watching movies, I never knew that they were there shaping my life.  Through movies, I have learned so much, not just about filmmaking, but about life and how to approach it.  There are movies that inspired me, movies that taught me, and movies that have changed my life.  I am a different man having seen every movie I have ever seen.

I often wonder what I would be like if I were born two hundred years ago?  I am not an outdoorsman, and I am not very much of a business-type.  In truth, the only job that I feel I am capable of doing from my heart is storytelling, but not stories told through words, but through visuals.  Storytelling is in many ways ingrained in my DNA, and I think I have always known that.

When visual storytelling is in your DNA, you cannot do anything else.  You see the world as one gigantic movie waiting to be realized on a large screen.  In my everyday life, I see moments for drama, humor, and fantasy, in the most mundane things.  I often think, if I were writing this, I would have had the struggling married couple, who have hardly looked at one another during dinner, put aside their differences by simply obliging to hold hands for one brief tender moment.  If it were not for my movie reel of a mind, I often believe life would be so much more drab.  However, learning from movies and seeing the world around you as one large movie, is only a portion of the education you get via the film school of life, the rest comes through simply living.

As human beings, we are constantly learning and changing.  The minute we become stagnant, that is the minute we have stopped living.  As a filmmaker, my life informs the stories I come up with.  My dreams, my fears, my morals, they all form what I create.  The experiences I have gone through, the hurts and pains, the joys and the highs, they all add to the way I tell stories in images.  I cannot force anything that I have not felt or experienced, for it would be false, but the things I do know are the things that I can use, and it is those things that are the most impactful for audiences.

So in short, why am I writing this?

First, let me clear up any misconception, this is not a how-to filmmaking book.  This book is simply the vast amount of knowledge I have learned in just twenty-four years of life, and how movies have played an integral role in that journey.  Throughout the course of this book, I hope you come to think about movies a little bit more deeply, learn a thing or two through my own experiences, and if none of that occurs, at least have fun.  This is the collection of all of my favorite movie memories, whether it be in a theater, thinking about them, or making them, and it is about how I came to be the filmmaker that I now am.  Who knows, maybe some day they'll be teaching this book in a film school somewhere.