Today's Triple News: sequels, fairy tales and super heroes

New news keeps pouring in on a daily basis, faster than I can discuss it here. Doesn't stop me from trying though:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154509/sofia_coppola_regisseert_mogelijk_the_little_mermaid_

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154508/disney_maakt_cars_3_en_incredibles_2

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154488/mangold_terug_voor_wolverine_2

People who think Coppola might not be suited for directing a fairy tale are overlooking the fact that the basic contents of The Little Mermaid are much like some of Coppola's earlier work, they're just packaged differently. Stories about teenage girls living in a fantasy world all their own and trying to have things their way which backfires on them doesn't sound so different thematicaly from the likes of The Bling Ring, Marie Antoinette or The Virgin Suicides to my mind. They just appear dissimilar on the surface. That said, the notion of doing a "kid-friendly" family film is probably what deters most people who prefer to see Coppola tackling more (young) adult oriented material, as she hasn't done a project like this yet. However, that's not to say she is not capable of making such a movie. Let's face it: Coppola's career as a director of feature length films spans nearly two decades but has only spawned five movies in total. That's not enough of an output to judge a director's capacities on, it's only an indication of what type of films he/she is particularly drawn to. As I have stated before, directors need change, and I'd say here's a chance for Coppola to prove her directorial versatility. She has two young kids of her own, for crying out loud; why wouldn't she be interested in a fun movie for the whole family, that still allows her to incorporate her signature themes to some extent? Even though I'm personally not all that stoked for this project - which definitely has something to do with the fact the Disney version of The Little Mermaid is the first movie I ever saw in theaters, and the second too - I think the studio might just have made the perfect choice with Coppola.

Speaking of Disney, they're steering Pixar, formerly known for their sublime creativity, into a rampant case of suffering severe sequelitis. Currently, the studio is working on only a single original project, The Good Dinosaur, which was already put on hold for a whole year. Other than that, it's all sequels for the next few years: Planes 2, an alleged Toy Story 4, Finding Dory, Cars 3, The Incredibles 2. People used to praise Pixar for doing something new every time, while their competitor DreamWorks was maligned for milking itself dry completely. They won't be doing that anymore, as by now the situation seems to have reversed entirely. It appears Disney decides to play it safe by counting on established multi-billion dollar franchises instead of letting original ideas take precedence. And if those sequels weren't enough, there's a few more 3D re-releases slated too, making the studio more money by pushing the same stuff on us again, just at higher admission prices. That said, I prefer a re-release, so we can all enjoy those classic Pixar movies again before they're totally spoiled by their unneccessary and undesirable sequels. However, Pixar proved with Toy Story 2 and 3 that they can do justice to the originals be making sequels that manage to actually surpass the quality of their predecessors, but ever since Cars 2 and the terribly uninspired spin-off Planes - at a point when Disney had taken over the company - the odds of that happening again are not in our favour. Let's hope The Good Dinosaur will at least live up to its name.

And the X-universe just keeps on Xpanding cinematically (see what I did there?). Ever since the mind boggling success of Marvel's The Avengers, rival studios that own a piece of the Marvel Universe have taken a hint as to how they ought to approach handling their properties to achieve similar success. Unlike Sony, which only manages a single big name and its various supporting characters, Fox has the luck of owning a big name tentpole franchise, X-Men,  that consists of a lot more characters and therefore a lot more possibilities for sequels, spin-offs and such, making for an easily growing cinematic legacy. Apparently the 'Avengers approach' is already applied in full swing with X-Men: Days of Future Past, a storyline which will continue into X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), the latter of which might actually deal with the infamous Age of Apocalypse mirror universe, or else with a variation on the established cinematic X-routine. Days of Future Past might end with its broken time line fixed or not, and still able to pave the way for coherently branching off into multiple temporal directions. X-Force (2016 or 2017) for eXample will certainly pick up where Apocalypse left off, as it deals with Apocalypse's primary nemesis Cable and his merry band of young mutant acolytes, but it can still take place alongside the regular X-storyline that we last saw in last year's The Wolverine, either being interwoven with characters we already know, in various possible iterations (future/present/alternate universe) no less. And now The Wolverine is getting a sequel too (2017/2018?), which most likely will continue on the events of Days of Future Past - as those were already foreshadowed in its mid-credits bonus scene - but could skip over Apocalypse altogether, while still relating to X-Force in a minor capacity. And if things aren't complicated enough by all these Xses being thrown around, Fox still has to think of how on Earth they're going to incorporate their other Marvel franchise, the Fantastic Four, into all this too, as they have stated to be their intention. Because of all the time travelling and alternate reality possibilities, directors working on this corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe might face a tougher job that those who work on Marvel's own, which is served more straightforwardly on a narrative level. James Mangold might just have his job cut out for him. Or he may ignore Days of Future Past, Apocalypse and X-Force completely and just have The Wolverine 2 follow his previous movie directly, focusing only on its titular character. For Sony, such a reliance on a single character is kind of a curse, but for Mangold it just might be a luXury.

Today's Mini-Review: The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring: ***/*****, or 6/10

Sofia Coppola examines the darker side of fame and celebrity worship in this tale based on true events. A gang of teenagers repeatedly break into the lavish homes of various celebs (victims include Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Lindsay Lohan) and steal thousands of dollars worth of clothing, jewelry and other assorted personal belongings (but at least they don't take Hilton's dog). This simple plot line is based around two notions that trigger both surprise and disgust in the viewer. Firstly, the ease with which these young robbers manage to sneak into their targets' villas: in many cases all that was needed was scaling a fence and climbing through an unlocked window, or locating the front key under the door mat. And in some cases the gang succeeded to pay return visits over five times, as if the celebrities they stole from either didn't notice their stuff was missing – which is likely the case, as they tend to be out a lot and own so much stuff they hardly seem able to keep track of it all – or they simply didn't care. You'd almost be inclined to think the stars literally invite the perpetrators to enter their homes and become part of their exorbitant life style, which, as the movie reveals, is all the teens really aspire to in their lives. Secondly, and even more mindboggling, is the fact the illegal actions of this 'Bling Ring' as it was called were met with praise and adulation from their peers all over the country and the teens became minor celebrities themselves. Yes, they got fined heavily and sentenced to serve jail time by the authorities, but many people, equally obsessed with living a similarly shallow life of fame and riches, applauded their actions and their nerve. Coppola is not so much interested in exploring the causes of this rampant fascination with banal celebrity culture that invites emulation amongst young people who seem to care about nothing else than expensive fashion, all-night partying with excessive drug and alcohol abuse and endless posting on various social media about their decadent way of life. She merely records and observes young adult obsession with lowbrow popculture spiralling out of control, as these youngsters find they want a piece of their idols and discover it's all too easy to get it, without really caring about the consequences. For this purpose Coppola assembled a convincing cast of young actors with limited motion picture experience, with the exception of Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame, obviously), who in many ways could be viewed as the type of celeb that might have fallen prey to this band of kleptomaniacs (luckily she lives in England). Watson delivers the most compelling performance of the group as a girl so devoid of social scruples, hints of intelligence and sense of consequence it's both hilarious and frightfully disturbing. Equally offputting is Paris Hilton's mansion, once a crime scene in regard to the movie's topic, now ironically serving as a location for much of the film. We are treated to a glimpse into Hilton's outrageous life style as we walk through her home as the protagonists are cleaning it out. A personal night club lounge with dance pole, huge closets filled with all kinds of expensive dresses, hundreds of pairs of shoes; you name it, Paris has got it. We can only hope those alleged saucy “private” photographs of hers the gang embezzles are meant as a joke. Coppola's neglect to delve deeper into the decadent teen copycat culture that allowed for these burglaries to happen – which she may have done intentionally so as to make the 'Bling Ring' equally as bland and emotionally boring as it was in real life – makes for a rather dull movie consisting of an intriguing topic but a rather poor execution, as we are basically treated to a bunch of despicable, flat characters going on an endless “shopping spree”, all the while talking about fashion, sex and drugs, but without having anything to say that makes them remotely interesting. Pretty soon you hope for the police to arrest their butts and drag them off to jail to lock these horrid teenagers up for good. The fact that this doesn't happen for over an hour of this 90 minute film, while the young criminals get moderately famous when it finally is time to pay for their actions, does deliver some sort of twisted punch to the piece, but it doesn't make the film easier to sit through.