At 2 1/2 Hours 'Infinity War' Earns Its Title

By Steve Evans

I’ve long since outlived the core demographic for superhero films, yet when I find out such-and-such a movie is one of the most expensive ever made, I’m drawn to it like moth to flame. So I squandered more than 2 ½ hours of life watching Avengers Infinity War on Netflix. This is a movie that cost almost $400 million to make and has so far recouped more than $2 billion – with a B – worldwide. Big Business, this. So I wanted to see what $400 million looks like burning up on a screen. My screen, as it turns out, since I had no desire to drop $15 on a theater ticket when the flick came out last April. Sitting in a packed auditorium with 13-year-old boys chattering like monkeys is not my idea of fun. So what does $400 million look like on fire?

It looks like a lot of computer-generated imagery supplemented by noise, more characters with speaking parts and convoluted backstories than I care to count, planets where anyone can breathe without oxygen tank assistance and phenomenally powerful, mystical devices with names I am ill-prepared to pronounce.

No way I could summarize the plot here, beyond the observation that the antagonist looks like an oak tree covered in shit and he wants magic stones to fit in his metal glove (or "gauntlet," if you want to be particular about it) so he can obliterate half the life in the universe by snapping his fingers, which makes him marginally worse than Hitler. Or possibly Trump. When his glove is fully tricked out, this tuff guy looks like he's been accessorizing at boutiques favored by George Michael. The villain’s name is Thanos, which I do know is derived from the Greek word for “immortality,” suggesting he’ll be a tough bastard to beat when the next installment of this franchise opens in April 2019. Marvel excels at cliffhangers; keep 'em coming back for more.

You can read this film as an anti-capitalist screed, as some have, though that seems ludicrous given the amount of money these Marvel films make. You can read the film as a dire warning on totalitarianism, though I’m skeptical the world really needs such another warning, given the prevalence of mad would-be tyrants running amok these days.

Was I entertained? Marginally. I have a kickin’ surround sound system and it got quite a workout from all the booms and bangs. For my own troubles, I got a three-Aleve headache and a bunch of questions I suspect can only be answered if I watch earlier Marvel films and get caught up on who’s who and what’s what, which I am not wont to do. I also wonder how much good could be done in the world with $400 million, rather than give Robert Downey Jr. profit participation so he’ll have money to go buy another bong.

At 2 hours and nearly 40 minutes, calling the film Infinity War almost seems like truth in advertising.

Behold the churlishness of a middle-aged man, a film snob whose preferences run to black & white foreign films with beautiful women and subtitles. I should have known better.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

No Rush, Thanks

By Steve Evans

I love rock documentaries. Any chance I get to learn context and meaning behind the music, I jump on it. Sometimes I get lucky and encounter an unintentional comedy disguised as a rock doc, leaving me sputtering with laughter. Rob Reiner’s great mockumentary This is Spinal Tap (1984) relentlessly skewered rock and roll pomposity and stupidity, of which there remains no shortage.

Sometimes, though, you don’t need a work of satire to help high-minded musicians look foolish. Often, they don’t need any help.

This set the scene for my viewing of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, a film about the Canadian power trio’s 40-odd year career. The picture came out eight years ago, though I had successfully dodged it until last night when, in a fit of tedium, I cracked into a six-pack of particularly good beer and cued up that Rush doc. Eons ago, when I was in high school, Rush was an anomaly. If you listened to them at all, it was just to tide you over in-between Zeppelin albums. From the first time I heard the band, I thought a root canal could be no more painful. Or a spinal tap. Not even sure why I watched the damn documentary last night, except beer was involved.

But I’m glad I did. This is a band that should be slapped for writing a song titled By-Tor and the Snow Dog, which still makes me giggle decades on. Their early success, 2112, is a ponderous space-rock concept album that devotees say is best experienced, if not understood, under the influence of vodka and Quaaludes. From my high school days I recall the band’s biggest fans were people you wouldn’t want to be alone with.

The stumbling block for me was always Geddy Lee, the band’s bassist. His banshee-shrieking, kicked-in-the-balls vocals could resurrect a cemetery of skeletons who’d abandon their graves in mute protest. Tunes like Tom Sawyer and Freewill (a wince-inducing ode to whack-job Ayn Rand) were staples of MOR classic rock radio stations. Still are, for all I know. My best recollection of Rush in their heyday was making fun of them with my own band of hooligans out at the lake, blasting the local FM station on a boombox and striking absurd rock-hero poses on the sand whenever a Rush tune was played. Some music ages well. Some music does not. Some sounds just as ludicrous as the day the tunes were pressed into vinyl.

What elevates this documentary to comedy gold is the occasional interview with one of the band’s celebrity fans. When a no-talent peanut head like Jack Black starts using the words “Rush” and “intellectual” in the same sentence, it’s time to pop another beer and stare in amazement that absolutely no one, except me, is laughing. And Sweet Baby Jeebus laff I did, until my tears fell like rain.

Cinema Uprising Copyright © 2018 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.