Oscar® winner Charlize Theron stars as MI6’s most lethal assassin and the crown jewel of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, Lorraine Broughton, in ATOMIC BLONDE. When Lorraine is sent on a covert mission into Cold War Berlin, she must use all of the spy craft, sensuality and savagery she has to stay alive in the ticking time bomb of a city simmering with revolution and double-crossing hives of traitors. Broughton must navigate her way through a deadly game of spies to recover a priceless dossier while fighting ferocious killers along the way in this breakneck action-thriller from director David Leitch. Theron is joined by James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella and John Goodman in what critics are calling “Totally badass”, Total Film.
To mark the release of Atomic Blonde on Digital Download 2nd December, Blu-ray™ and DVD on 11th December, we take a look at some of the most badass boss women in film.
Mrs. Smith (Mr. & Mrs. Smith)
When you think of kick-ass women, there is no one who epitomises this more so than Angelina Jolie. One of her best action movies is her 2005 hit Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
John (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) live a mundane life in the suburbs in a struggling marriage. Or so we’re led to believe. Turns out, they are both assassins working for adversarial agencies.
When they are both assigned to kill the same target, Benjamin Danz (Adam Brody), a series of highly charged, fire-powered liaisons ensue until they eventually discover the real aim of the mission was to kill each other.
Any list of iconic superheroes would have to include Spider-Man. Since the character’s creation, in the August 1962 issue of Amazing Fantasy, the character has proven enduringly popular and has transcended comic books, appearing in a variety of animated programs and three different feature film series. In addition, Marvel has featured Spiderman in a variety of publications, most notably The Amazing Spiderman, and incorporated him into a variety of superhero team-ups, such as with the Avengers, and spun off several alternate-universe scenarios, such as Spiderman 2099. With a career now spanning over 50 years, Spider-Man has proven to be a durable and enduring hero, who has transitioned successfully from generation to generation, whether as a Hollywood blockbuster character, the product of animation services, or on the printed page.
A new kind of superhero
Marvel comics were riding a high in 1962, with the success of the Fantastic Four. Marvel’s creative guru, Stan Lee, realized that tapping into the growing demand for comic books from teens might present some new opportunities for the comic publisher.
Previous teenage superheroes adopted the role of sidekick to an older, established character. Think Robin as a sidekick to Batman. Lee’s inspiration was to give super powers to a pretty typical teen that many of his readers could identify with – the shy and nerdy Peter Parker. Not only does Peter have to learn to use his powers while maintaining a secret identity, he has to handle all the usual challenges of growing up at the same time. As the series has continued, we’ve seen the evolution of Peter, from teenager to college student, from teacher to freelance photographer, and from single to married (and back to single).
The Animated Legacy
Spider-Man first received an animation treatment on the ABC network show, Spider-Man, which ran from 1967-1970, and in syndication for many years afterwards. The animation services producing the show worked on extremely limited budgets. The syndication of these cartoons was long lasting and is still remembered by many who were children during the period.
A variety of animated programs, produced by many different animation services, have followed this seminal effort, particularly since the growth of alternative cable channels and direct to video marketing. Notable among them are 1981’s Spider-Man, a product of the animation services of the Marvel Productions animation studio. Additional treatments by animation services at NBC (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends), Fox (Spider-Man and Spider-Man Unlimited), MTV (Spider-Man: The New Animated Series), Sony (The Spectacular Spider-Man), and Disney (Ultimate Spider-Man) have aired to varying degrees of commercial and critical success.
Live action and feature films
As with most comic book adaptations, adapting Spider-Man to live action was more difficult to do convincingly than it was for animation services. An early effort The Amazing Spider-Man appeared for only one season on the CBS network.
Spider-Man
It took the advent of digital special effects and the growing embrace of comic book movies by Hollywood to see the first convincing efforts to put Spider-Man on the big screen. The initial trilogy of Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi, starring Tobey Maguire – Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man 3, appeared starting in 2002 and were successful at the box office and generally well-received. Yet the series has been rebooted twice since, with the titular character portrayed by Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland. Marvel has worked Spider-Man into the Marvel Universe as well, with his inclusion in Captain America: Civil War.
On to the future
Spiderman is set to continue on the big screen in 2018, with Avengers: Infinity War. There seems little doubt that this enduring character, based off on the idea of a skinny kid learning to use superpowers while still being very human, will endure many more years.
To celebrate the release of The Last Jedi this December, Magic Madhouse have created ‘Stat Wars’ – a exploration of the data behind the 7 main Star Wars movies highlighting how the movies relate to, and differ from, one another.
Ever wondered how often your favourite characters actually appear in the movies? Anakin/Vader takes up the top spot overall – with a whopping 161.30 minutes across the 7 movies, though surprisingly he only appears in the first movie, A New Hope – for 9.15 minutes. It goes to show how strong Vader is that a character with such minimal screen-time could have made such a huge impact – and it suggests maybe Lucas included more Vader when the character proved so iconic.
Stat Wars allows fans to explore an interactive chart showcasing how long the key characters – i.e. Obi Wan, Luke, Leia and C3PO – appeared in their respective movies. What’s most surprising is how little some of the main players showed up; Yoda appears for just 37.70 minutes across the 7 movies, and Chewbacca 47.30. R2D2 appears for 55.30 minutes.
Perhaps most interesting is the data highlighting the length of the lightsaber battles. For such a key element of the franchise, lightsaber battles are a very small part of the original films. A New Hope’s battle for example lasts under two minutes, – there’s only 6.41 minutes of lightsaber action in the original trilogy in total. Battles in the original trilogy were smaller, more emotional and focused on character growth. Compare this to the prequels, criticised for being all style and no substance, where the grand total of lightsaber battles reaches 17.95 minutes! The Force Awakens takes heavy inspiration from the earlier, less-criticised movies, and so its battles last a respectable 3.21 minutes.
And how often do characters mention ‘the force?’ The words are said a whopping 21 times in A New Hope which is perhaps the film where the Force is used the least. Surprisingly, for a film titled The Force Awakens, the force is only mentioned 5 times. Stat Wars also highlights how often the catchphrase ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this’ is uttered, and by whom – with Han Solo saying the infamous words the most frequently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE5TZFyxgao
Elsewhere, the opening crawl remains consistent across all 7 movies, averaging 80 words with the latest – The Force Awakens – being the most text heavy at 88, and Revenge of the Sith being the lightest at 75. There’s a clearly consistent approach when it comes to these openings.
Finally, we’ve compared financial stats, examining the total worldwide box office sales of each film. Coming out on top is the widely publicised and globally screened The Force Awakens making approximately $2.05 billion. Worth noting is the $786 million, that the A New Hope generated when it was released in 1977.
Mike Duke, Marketing Manager of Magic Madhouse said:
‘We’re big fans of the Star Wars movies at Magic Madhouse and that got us thinking, how do the films stack up when compared side by side? We got into a heated debate when it came to the prequels and the length of their lightsaber battles – some of us were happy the newer films included as much action as possible, whilst others preferred the more restrained style of the earlier films. Whilst the rest of the numbers proved a consistency across the movies, those battles really highlighted where things had changed.
‘I was surprised to see that Vader only appears in A New Hope for under 10 minutes, but I guess this can happen with these sort of films – I’ve heard there’s only 14 minutes of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park! Goes to show what an impact a good character can have.’
It was 1918 and World War I was coming to an end even though it definitely didn’t look like that. The human and material resources that would be sent by the United States and would eventually help ending the conflict wasn’t fully deployed yet, and the European trenches were witnessing the so called Spring Offensive; during which both Allies and Germans were trying to gain as much terrain as possible. In a dugout in Aisne, the British army was sending different battalions to defend a crucial point of the French geography. Each battalion had to stay in the dugout for a week until the next one would replace them. Journey’s End (2017, Saul Dibb) tells the story of one of those groups of brave young men.
As brilliantly described by the director, Journey’s End is not at film about men at war. It is a film about men at war with themselves. As the most terrible enemy for a soldier is not another soldier but time: the anticipation of the unavoidable and the several ways of dealing with that while your friends keep dying around you without completely losing your mind. Therefore, Gibb’s film (one of the many adaptations of R. C. Sheriff’s 1928 play) dwells on character. One example of that would be that the enemy, the Boches (pejorative term used for German soldiers during World War I), don’t really take part of the story.
The only German face we see is the young man taken prisoner by the main characters during the raid that will change it all; and he may have three seconds of screen time tops. At the end of the film we see two more German soldiers but their faces are concealed beneath their gas masks so, dehumanisation aside, they are not what’s important in this story. How each individual deals with his own time and sanity before what well may be his end is what this sad and beautiful movie reflects upon.
With a priceless cast (Paul Bettany, Toby Jones, Stephen Graham amongst others); a completely gripping sound design; the magnificent camera work of Laurie Rosa (Peaky Blinders) and a strong and very human (and British) story, Journey’s end is undoubtedly one of the best films about men at war (with themselves) of the recent years.
The movie will be released on the 2nd of February this year in British and Irish theatres.
On episode five of the FilmFrame podcast, co-hosts Orla Smith and Scott Wilson discuss Joachim Trier’s Thelma, as well as listing their top 5 non-comic book films about superpowers, and talking about Take This Waltz, The Legend of Barney Thomson, Ingrid Goes West, and more.
TIMECODES
0:00-0:52 – Introduction
0:52-11:36 – Suburbicon, Beach Rats, Jane, Ingrid Goes West, Murder on the Orient Express, Battle of the Sexes, Bjork’s and Sufjan Stevens’ new albums
11:36-47:33 – Top 5 non-comic book films about superpowers
47:33-54:28 – Thelma non-spoiler introduction
54:28-1:37:43 – Thelma spoiler discussion
1:37:43-1:41:32 – Thelma non-spoiler final thoughts and ratings
1:41:32-2:02:33 – Film swap: Take This Waltz
2:02:33-2:12:10 – Film swap: The Legend of Barney Thomson
2:12:10-2:17:46 – Film swap recommendations for next week
2:17:46-2:20:20 – Outro
Follow along with our film swap, or email us any other film related thoughts (you could tell us your thoughts on next week’s film Battle of the Sexes) and have them read out on next week’s show, at filmframepod@gmail.com
A young college student in Oslo named Thelma (Eili Harboe) deals with violent seizures and burgeoning telekinetic powers, both of which seem to be triggered by her romantic interest in a female classmate (Kaya Wilkins).
