Author: Bentley

Writings

Great ExpectHATions: Mrs. Havisham’s link between Toxic Mothers and Their Daughters

Bentley

Mrs. Havisham is a well-known character. It’s true. Even if someone hasn’t read Charles Dickson’s classic “Great Expectations”, there’s a good chance they’re still very familiar with the great expectations a toxic mother has over her children.

The discussions and blogs I’ve read of Mrs. Havisham mainly focus on her relationship with Pip. It seems understandable since Pip is the protagonist of the story. He is the benefactor of Mrs. Havisham’s effort to bring sorrow and pain to the men of the world. The problem I have with that singular focus is that it misses the bigger and far more damaging character dynamic hidden right under our noses – namely the one between Mrs. Havisham and Estella.

You see, yes, Pip was hurt, manipulated, and used, but here’s the thing, he wasn’t the only one. Mrs. Havisham’s pain was not going to be satiated with the virgin blood of just one boy. She had a steady flow of wide-eyed and bushy-tailed suitors at the ready to be sacrificed. The story Great Expectations could have easily focused on any one of the boys that ended up into the evil queen’s service and then fed into the heart break machine. There really isn’t anything special about Pip. The story cannot exist, however, without Estella.

Estalla was the adoptive tool of a mad-woman for a purpose and while discussions about how she was the tool of madness are readily available, the who was the target of that madness is sorely lacking. I know what you are thinking, “Its Pip.” But its not. “Yes, Mrs. Havisham used Estella to hurt those boys.” No, no… you only think that because the story is told from that perspective. What you think is that Mrs. Havisham was a jilted lover who wanted all male-kind to feel the pain of what happened to her. But sorry, your 7th grade teacher told you wrong, that is not who it was meant to hurt. Estella wasn’t supposed to hurt boys, she was supposed to hurt another girl. Let’s go back.

First of all, who is Mrs. Havisham? We know she is an older wealthy woman, living in her past pain in a mansion rotting away at its core. But who is Mrs. Havisham? We know she lives alone and was hurt by all the men she couldn’t get to stay in her life. A woman of wealth who is used to the finer things in life but unable to buy the happiness she deserved. But WHO IS MRS. HAVISHAM? Mrs. Havisham is a narcissist.

Let’s be honest, if Mrs. Havisham wanted to hurt anyone, she could have gone about it simply with a stick and smacked the boys until her arm was tired. She could have found submissive men wanting to be chained up and flogged daily. She could have kidnapped unsuspecting boys. She could have cleaned herself up and courted men by the dozens and jilted them all back, but she didn’t… she used Estella. You have to first understand that a narcissist cannot live in a universe where someone they deem inferior to them can achieve what they’ve lost. A controlling and narcissistic mother who’s lost every man she’s courted cannot live with the thought of her daughter’s happiness! No. Mrs. Havisham’s plot wasn’t about having what she always wanted, this was about ruining someone else – and that someone else wasn’t Pip. It was Estella.

Even if you’ve never read Great Expectations (and you should), you know who Mrs. Havisham is. She might be in your family, your mother-in-law, or she might be you. Personally, I’ve known quite a few of them. The first Mrs. Havisham I knew was my late grandmother who’s toxic influence on my parents has no doubt influenced my connection to a great many Estella’s. That in itself is worth a whole discussion: why did Pip love the girl used to hurt him? Why, when I did my damnest to weed out that specific thing, do I still end up at the mercy of Mrs. Havisham like some wicked plot twist at the end of a scary movie?

The M.O. is always the same. A single older woman, not just single, bitterly single, ie. hurt in someway by the man she gave everything too. A woman attracted to men based on the wrong criteria: money, looks, or, in my grandmother’s case, social status. My grandfather, the preacher, died long before I was born, and my grandmother never found it in her soul to connect with another man. For decades I always thought it was because she loved him so much, but once truth about the life of a black woman in the south during the civil rights era under a religious hegemonic crux came to light, I realized it had nothing to do with love. Preachers aren’t exactly saints, and the aires put on by those in religious families are many. She hated men, but not being able to rid herself of the image she lived under, she hid that anger inside of her – for nearly half a century.

Mrs. Havishman was also angry, and that anger manifested itself in many ways, the way it was channeled through Estella wasn’t just poetic, it was life. The first few times the mother does it, it comes off as harsh, but  for someone that has been giving their child advice since they were born, it eventually comes off as love- but its not. I don’t know if I can make the argument that a narcissistic mother doesn’t love her child, but I will say that sowing seeds of discord in a child’s life is not because of love. It’s because of pain and because of bitterness. Most importantly, it is because of envy. Envy at the possibility of success where she has no doubt failed. Mrs. Havishman was a prima dona and a prima dona doesn’t fail at something unless it is something that simply can’t be done. The way a toxic mother keeps her daughter emotionally hostage and then systemically pours her demons into her child is not fiction, it is art, ugly, horrible, toxic art and Charles Dickson was a master at painting it. 

Anytime I’ve found potential bliss and happiness with an Estella, there came the mother… bitter, angry, whispering into her ear a sweet poison of love. “Make him do this… if he doesn’t then he doesn’t love you. Tell him to buy that… if he can’t then he’s not good enough. He will never turn from his happiness and purpose, for us, and you will leave me an abandoned old woman because of him!”

My mother was never good enough for my father, according to my Grandmother. She found the flaws in an otherwise perfectly normal human being. My dad was Estella, he was there to hurt and channel pain to any other woman that dare seek the happiness she’d be robbed of. The cycle continued as I’ve seen it play out over multiple engagements and marriages in my own life. I cure myself now because I saw it coming every time but I stayed. I could tell when she would be speaking to her mom, and her mom would drip venom of deceit into the ears of my loves. The thing is, none of those women ever said it to me. Mrs. Havisham never told me that I was good for nothing. None of them ever told me to abandon my dreams. None of them ever told me anything because it wasn’t about me, just like it wasn’t about Pip. It was always about Estella.

They say the first step to recovery is admission, and I’ve admitted to myself a thousand times this is an issue, but I have yet to discover a solution. I dare not consider the solution in the book, I was thinking more along the lines of having a relationship where my biggest enemy isn’t the mother of the woman I’m in love with? A woman who’s mother wants to see her daughter happy? Not dating a woman who listens to her jealous friends, sister, aunts, or mother?

I thought about blogging about the specifics of my prior relationship but, as I wrote, the heat pouring onto the page cooked my computer and made me realize that this is story deserving of its own book. So I’m working on that as we speak. I just know its gonna hurt a lot of feelings. As far as a solution goes? The best I’ve come up with is don’t date Estella and don’t be a Pip. Walk away from situations like that no matter how attached to it or no matter how deep into it you’ve gone. Oh course, that makes me the jilter. That makes me abandoner. That makes me the guy who left her! The bad guy in every story, and I believe, as reflected in my writings, sometimes you really have to be the bad guy.

Characters

Rex Gedeon

Bentley

It began when the Reptilites were taken off their home planet and bio-engineered to be used for war.  After generations of genetic engineering, the Reptilites achieved a more advanced state of being, and eventually, they recognized that their existence amounted to slavery.

The Galactic State granted Reptilites with emancipation, not so much for morality reasons, but to find a more diplomatic and economic means to contain the Reptilites from becoming an increasing menace. The Reptilies were compelled to settled on a planet called Reptilia, a desolate planet that most life forms would find difficult to survive on, but the Reptilites made due. Despite an official home, many Reptilites remained scattered throughout the Observed Realm of the galaxy, not knowing who or what they really were. One such Reptilite, Rex Gedeon, felt there had to be more to life than being a species without purpose and without history. He sought to learn of his true origins and what he found inspired him. He led a slave revolt and traveled the Observed Realm to free his kin from the boon of slavery.  The freed Reptilites joined Rex Gedeon as he led them into war, a war for their own cause. A war to reclaim their home planet – Earth.

Rex Gedeon, though savagely made, understood the value of intellect and struggled to get his mind on par with his adversaries. He plotted with a vindicative human named Lotus who had a score to settle with the nations of Earth. Together they engineered a powerful means to fight a heavily armed, and technologically advanced human race, and pray nothing be so bold as to stand in their way.

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Novels

Chapter: A Thousand Words

Bentley

Mason looked around her bedroom, and it took her a moment to realize she was still awake. There was a pulsating throb around her head, and even though her eyes hurt, they still detected a blinking light in her peripheral vision. She reached for her phone.

Twenty-four missed calls.

Mason hadn’t slept in the three days following her attack, neither could she remember what she did during that time. Her laptop was on the floor with no power.

I haven’t been to work.

After pacing around her room with a brush in her hand for a few minutes, Mason walked down to the kitchen, pulled out some milk, bread, and cheese and set it on the counter while she tugged aimlessly at her hair; then she went back to her room. There Mason stood for a moment – forgetting why she walked in there. Not to waste the trip, she put on some clothes, picked up her phone and laptop, and left to go to work. Everything she pulled out of the fridge was still sitting on the counter top.
The traffic along the Hwy 29 seemed light, but she squinted her eyes trying to remember how to get on 395. Glancing at her map, she realized she passed her exit and was going the wrong way. Mason commanded her car to take her to work, and it went back around East to the Harold Amos. While it drove, she called her mother.

Voicemail.

With a raspy voice, Mason said, “Hey, mom. Thanks for the card. I got the money; I told you I didn’t need you to pay me back. Just let me know if you need anything. Love you.”

Mason sat in the parking lot outside of the lab and looked at the security guard pacing in front of the doorway.

Her drowsy eyes blinked, and she sighed.

The lab was full of chatter, yet none of it made sense to Mason. She aimlessly moved lab samples across the room. When she sat them down, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror to see a dark purple swelling developing under her eye. Her dark skin that once showed a chocolate color seemed gray. Lightly, she touched her faced, and her intern came up and startled her.

“Did you see what Christian sent?” Tina asked.

“Ah! Uh, no? What did he send?” asked Mason with puffy eyes. Everything smelled like copper to her.

Tina walked to the terminal and began accessing Christian’s report. “Christian sequenced the DNA strands you sent him to isolate the synthetic bonds contaminating the nucleotides. Then he created an algorithm to ignore all the synthetic bonded material.”

Paula, another worker, walked up to Tina’s display. “Synthetic bonded what?”

“I think he’s bullshitting us,” April, Mason’s partner, said to Paula. “What does he consider synthetic DNA?”

The intern presented the data findings: “He said he realized this strand was similar to the structures that enable frogs to secrete poison from their skin. So he made algorithmic adjustments with the other unknown strands,” Tina reported. “After he got a working sequence, he even instructed the system to recreate what the creature looked like.”

“What it looks like?” April asked. “As in, using the DNA we have a picture of the dinosaur?”

Tina opened the sketch file.

April noticed Mason hadn’t said a word the whole time, and Mason’s head hung low. “You all right, hun? You look sick?” April asked.

“I knew it! He’s full of shit!” Paula shouted out loud to the others as soon as she saw the image. April rushed over to have a look.

“Are you kidding me? They’re making fun of us. Why are they so immature?” April wondered.

“Because they think it’s funny,” Paula said, chastising Christian’s digital reconstruction of the animal. “We’ll get them back.”

Tina shrugged, looking sideways at the picture- a hybrid dinosaur with human-like features. “It’s a clever drawing.”

“Belongs in a comic book. I knew he wasn’t serious,” Paula huffed.

“So what’s that mean,” Tina was confused. “It’s not an animal?”

“It means he’s patronizing us. We kept insisting it was a dinosaur, so he sequenced the DNA until he got something to shut us up.” Paula examined the picture further. “That’s not even a dinosaur; that’s a… I don’t know what that is.”

Tina left the station to tend to her routine, and she emptied out a large crate filled with potted plants.

Mason couldn’t muster the energy to argue, so she found solace in the restroom where she was only accompanied by the sound of a leaky faucet.

She gripped the sink and hung her head. The sound of dripping water resonated in her mind. The paint on her fingernails looked brittle and chipped, and her wild hair looked a mess. Finally, the breaths came easily. Her head drooped, and she almost fell asleep where she stood as the rhythm each droplet made plopping on the ceramic hypnotized her…
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Writings

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Bentley

Movies like this make me sad. It is clear this movie had no intentions of being anything other then at cash magnet, and a hype machine to increase studio profits. This movie was made in a board room, not in the heart and mind of a person. I imagine a group of board members got together and calculated the number of die hard TMNT fans still alive that they could sucker into paying for a movie off of 80’s nostalgia alone. They didn’t sit down and ask “how can we make an engaging movie” they asked “how can we make a lot of money?”

When the first, and single, 1984 comic was written, the authors didn’t even have the money to publish it. They just wanted to tell a good story. At best they hoped they could make enough money to pay back the the guy who financed them. They had a genuine idea, that came from their creativity, and a story they wanted to put out there. They didn’t even plan on a sequel or follow up comics. TMNT didn’t have to make sense. Actually, it didn’t make ANY sense. Natures slowest animal as ninjas? Named after artist? Mutated from some secret ooze? Come on, no focus group in the world would approve of such a ridiculous idea like that on purpose. Eastman and Laird did, and it sold like hot cakes.

Paramount pictures didn’t have a fresh idea. Michael Bay didn’t seem like he wanted to inspire. Jonathan Liebesman didn’t show that he had some burning passion to create a work of art. So why did they do it? They all, like everyone before them, wanted to piggy back on the success of an idea that already sold, and market it for more money. The end result showed.  I’m not sure how Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s involvement in this steered it one way or they other, but the movie was void of any artistic value, and coming from a TMNT fan, that hurt. There is a clear difference when someone is genuinely trying their best to entertain you (even if they don’t do the best job), and someone who is trying to distract you with smoke so you wont see they just wanted to take your money. I hate to admit this or say this, because I don’t want to believe it, but here it goes:

It is clear that TMNT is no longer a work of art, it is miniaturized trinket to be sold in gift shops as a novelty item for petty cash.

Plot: Man vs Man

Synopsis: Four pet turtles and a rat anthropomorphize after being experimented on in a research lab for biological weapons and enhancement. The rat, being the oldest, takes the helm and becomes father to the four turtles, teaching them the ways of ninjitsu from an old book found in the sewer. As fate would have it, 15 years later, they would find the city above needs saving, and they will put their ninja skills to the test as they come face to face with elements from their past, and the dangers of their future.

Who should watch this movie: People who don’t have anything better to do at the time and don’t mind throwing a few bucks away, sci fi fanatics that support all sci fi regardless, people who don’t care and can switch their brain off, people who are not fans martial art movies

Ratings: 

Director: 4/10

Actors: 5/10

Screenplay: 6/10

Vieue Mosaic: 2/10

Screenplay review:  The screenplay seems to blend fairly well if one doesn’t get caught up in the slight of hand card tricks. Originally, TMNT was a geniune attempt at art. So when a live action remake/reboot comes a long and tries to make light of something like that, you have to expect a few trade tricks for the popcorn viewer.  The good is, you can ignore it without much trouble, the bad is, you can ignore it because the movie is not engaging. In times like that, I have found, it is better to keep the plot line simple, but this movie goes for the gold and tries to incorporate a few plot twist, and ridiculous connections between the characters. That is where the screen play messes up. Either a)tell your audience to turn off their brain to watch the movie, or b)tell your audience to pay attention to the riveting plot twist.  You can’t have both.  If you wish people to sit there and get spoon fed graphics and insanity, please don’t, all of a sudden, force them to use their brains on something they’ve already disconnected with.  It becomes a chore. No one should have to go back and think on a brainless movie.

The frustrating thing is, this is a reboot, therefore no prior knowledge of the franchise should be needed to understand the movie. However, in such a case, the entire concept of the turtles become more than outrageous, but irrelevant. They could have written the same movie and inserted any two or more characters in their place.

Let me explain. In the 1984 comics, the satirical nature of the main characters was put against the background of a very dark, and serious plot. A plot of revenge, of honor, of family, and of death.  In the words of Marty McFly, that’s “heavy”. It made you as the reader forget the characters, where they came from, or how much their back story did or didn’t make sense. You focused on the mission. You saw the dangers. You felt the dark confrontation with a murderous villain, who was also drunk with a blood lust of revenge.  The audience could relate to that, and it engaged them. I don’t know if it would worked the same if, in 1984, they drafted the TMNT issue 1 as a comedy, or as a plucky “don’t take me serious” tone. I say this with confidence only because it didn’t work with the 2014 movie.  The plucky and neurotic tone of the movie screamed “don’t take me seriously”, while simultaneously sticking hands in your pocket and taking their cut. The only reason any of the TMNT franchises worked was because of the ground work laid with the dark and serious 1984-86 originals. Btw, Michelangelo wasn’t just a comic relief.

Director review: The way this movie was directed, I believe, is an insult to anyone with even a meager level of intelligence. I believe you tailor your show to your audiences.  Are we too stupid to follow a movie that doesn’t have a orgy of graphics, action that flickers in half second screen shots, shaky camera motions, and lots and lots of cgi? More is better! More more… and bigger! And BOOM! and flicker flicker flicker… until the irises in our eyes get exhausted? I don’t think so.

Let’s talk about the meat of the problem. Marital arts. Cuz know one watches a movie with the word “ninja” in it, unless they expect some martial arts. Martial arts? “Oh no,” says the director, “we just need screen flickers!” wtf? Is TMNT not the quintessential martial arts movie? I mean, NINJA is in the name of the movie.  You would expect to see some really badass fight scenes, not a punch or two thrown here or there. Pouring in a gallon of cgi, just to add a single drop of martial arts sucked… hard! Had the movie completely bombed as a story, but at least delivered on the martial arts,  some next level martial arts, this movie would have done great. However, this movie manages to mess up everything, AND give just a mere few scenes of a punch or two, and a kick and a sweep? Lose. Lose. Lose.

The final fight scene was like, “ok, here is the redemption, he’s been saving it for this moment, oh! OHHHH… hhhh…. that’s it?” Where is the damn ninja in the ninja turtles? Where is the martial arts? As a matter of fact, is there ANY series of fighting that last for more than half a second, before flickering off into some blinky shadows – besides the final scene? Everyone, if you are going to make a martial arts movie, even if it is cgi, put some damn martial arts in the movie. I can’t imagine, for the life of me, watching Rocky, where there wasn’t any boxing. A punch or two of flickered screen shots, and then new scene is not boxing! How about a Chuck Norris film without a fight? How do you watch a baseball movie with barely any baseball? Just the camera flickering to each baseman for half a second, then the home plate, then the stands, then the dug out, the pitch, but flicker to the batter and pitcher a lot during the pitch, and flicker flicker, and instead of a real bat we will have a cgi bat. Oh and lets make the batter 10 ft tall, and super huge because 2014 audience don’t like normal stuff. The batter should fly, and shoot lazer beams out of his eyes, while he runs in slow motion to the bases. Ya know, cuz that’s what American audiences want to see.  Beautiful art like that. It would be very disingenuous to say this 2014 reboot was the only sucky TMNT remake, actually, if it were, I’d be happy. Though I will say, it has the least martial arts of all the ones’ I’ve seen. Even the TMNT Rock Convert had more fight scenes.

The CGI fill in’s are quiet insulting though, as if people are too stupid to enjoy something that doesn’t stress their eye’s ability to focus. Liebesman, you do realize some of us actually have an attention span of more that .5 seconds? We aren’t stupid.

Actor review: From my understanding the actors not only voiced the characters but “played” them too, albeit cgi and body imaging. I think this was a big loss to the movie because in the 1990 version of the film, there was some real martial arts, and it was double tuff. There were real people in real suits doing flips and fight scenes. Cgi really took a lot of that magic away, especially since it didn’t appear that any of the actors were martial artist, hell, not even gymnast for that matter.

Megan Fox acting as a neurotic tv reporter was confusing, and that’s seriously the best I can give it. I don’t ever fault the actors for their material from the writing staff, or for the cheesy lines. It’s not their fault. An actor is paid to say the lines they were given. Sooo I’m not sure if Fox was suppose to be sucky corny because of her lines, or was just sucky corny just because.  Having only seen her in Transformers and TMNT 2014 it is extremely difficult to judge any diversification in her acting. She seems like the same person in both, with the same facial express and emotions. Both characters they all sucked btw, let’s be clear…. like not even close to good. I can’t tell if it is Fox though, because both of those films, produced by Michael Bay, were cash in’s on 80’s fan fare. So it is possible the movie didn’t give much for her to work with at all.  I will have to make a point to watch her in a completely unrelated movie. Curiously though, why is April O’neil always a new reporter in the films? She wasn’t originally a news reporter, she was a lab assistant to Baxter Stockman, so it doesn’t make any sense that a reboot would even need to hold to the tv news reporter theme.

Tony Shalhoub and Danny Woodburn acting as splinter, who looked like a wet dog, was forgettable. Splinter looking completely gross was not Shalhoub’s fault, but nonetheless, it made it uncomfortable to look at. I wanted to never see Splinter at all- well, I take that back. There was exactly one full second where Splinter is fighting Shredder with a sword (not a spoiler cuz it’s in the trailer), that looks very cool. One second of joy is all we got, that’s all they gave to us, and the rest of the time Splinter is jumping around in slow motion through cgi, and getting his ass kicked in flickered screen shots while whipping his tail about. I am no die hard fan of the 90’s films, but Splinter’s voice then was beyond perfect. So much for that character. Gross mangy dog.

Jeremy Howard as Donatello was the weirdest of the turtles, but I really didn’t mind him at all. He had the most interesting, nice guy, personality, and the wearables of electronics actually touched home to the modern 2014 audience. It completely dispelled any semblance with him being a ninja, and made fight scenes with him look dumb, but he had a little more character depth than the rest if only because he wore it for everyone to see.

Pete Ploszek and Johnny Knoxville as Leonardo came off, well, so so. Not too bad considering the way he leaped on to the scene like a bad ass, and then opened his mouth spoke like lil biznitch. Alas, that is the type of voicewe typically associate as Leonardo. Thought not the voice I gave Leo in my head when I first read the comics. So that begs the all importat question: If this is a reboot, why did they conveniently keet all of the worse character traits from the worse stereotypical cartoons? Reboot? Whatever.

What in the world was up with Michelangelo. Some parts were a little haha, but for the most part, he was down right weird. Rocking a shell necklace kinda turned my nose. Shell necklace??? Frankly, most of these characters were absolutely gross to look at. The personality, once again, was fresh off the stereotypical cartoons, nothing original to see here folks. Just a reboot, but isn’t really a reboot at all.  Thanks Noel Fisher for the revolutionary display.

And clearly the asshole, Raphael. Who Alan Ritchson seems to play quite well actually.  Thumbs up Ritchson. Being an asshole is acting too, and it counts. Even if it is a miserable character trait to play, somebody’s got to play it, so I can at least end the actor commentary with a half hearted smile for that.

 

Full Synopsis (Spoilers):

Well, I don’t want to,  but I gotta do it.

The movie starts off with a comic strip that looks a lot like the original 1984 comics, as Splinter monologues over the pages. This is immediately odd considering this is a reboot. Why bother with the 1984 connection? Nevertheless, the movie starts off dark, like the old comics- so at first it seems promising. The problem with some of the TMNT movies (and network cartoons) is they that left the dark aspect of vengeance and danger out and put in plucky comedy. Starting the 2014 movie dark and solemn, makes you think that they will indeed take a different approach. Wow, so cool,right? Not after the opening credits, it is clear… nope – the neurotic, nassal pitched tv reporter and plucky camera man completely trash any notion this is a serious toned flick. Oh well.

Why oh why do they insist on making Apirl a tv news reporter in every incarnation?

April who was trolling for stories in Brooklyn stumbles on Foot Clan activity she’s warned everyone about. After being ignored by the stations so much, she takes matters into her own hand. She’s in hot pursuit. The first fight scene is simply not enough for a martial arts movie. The film gets more depressing once you realize the level of fighting you can expect. So far it’s all about April (thank your agent), and even the first fight scene is mostly shots of April again (thank your agent). Yay.  You don’t see much action, actually, you don’t see ANY action. You see shadows and screen flickers, and of course, April O’neal. The first Foot Clan/Turtle fight is still forgivable, you figure maybe they are setting up, and trying to establish the fact that they are ninjas, and not to be seen. That’s great and all until you realize it’s just a cheap trick for a movie with no real martial arts to show… so they don’t show any.

The scene cuts to Shredder, tied up, and beating a foot clan member to death. Nice little taste of action, though this movie is far from a martial arts movie thus far. Now I watch Karia speak with Shredder. I get the feeling movies produced under the hand of Bay all have one female character. The doe eyed, deer in the headlight female, with heavy breathing. Anyway, Karia is instructed to do some damage and lucky April O’Neal is there to witness it. That’s cuz she’s an ambitious reporter. You go girl.

Queue the white girl running alone through the subway. Queue the doe eyes. Queue the heavy breathing and deer in head light look. Oh yea, don’t forget to make her walk backwards and please keep the camera zoomed into her face while she continues to walk backwards in the dangerous… completely abandoned…. subway. (yawn) And three… two… one… caught from behind. OMG! So surprising! But now the real action is about to happen right? I mean, this is a martial arts film, and we are now a quarter into the movie with only a punch or two from the Shredder, so this is the big scene we have been waiting for… wait for it… wait for it… NOTHING.

The subway fight is simply the camera pointed along the wall of the subway watching bodies thrown against it. That’s really cheap. There has been no martial arts or fighting at all in this movie thus far. Not to mention the flickering lights, and flashy screen flicks are cheap ways to make it look like action. The idea that you are trying to show them as unseen ninjas is crap. In the Mirage comics, the turtles were clearly unseen by many of their opponents, but the comics showed them. For instance, in one comic Donatello left his bo staff on the floor and when a ninja entered the room, the ninja saw the staff and cautiously walked over to it to pick it up, all the while D hid in the ceiling, then D dropped unseen behind the ninja, disarmed him from the back, and when the ninja turned, D hit him from the side. D was unseen that whole time by the ninja, but we, the audience, saw him and the action. The comics didn’t just show the ninja, they showed you everything, and highlighted the ninja skills of the turtles..

By this time, I’m very upset. What’s going on? I’d normally walk out and ask for a refund or credit for another movie, but hey, I’m writing a review so I’m sticking with it.  The interaction between April O’neal and the turtles for the first time has been played to death in the trailers. The only person I don’t like in this is Michelangelo’s quirky behavior and weird movement. I don’t know why it is so disturbing to look at. It can’t just be his shell necklace, his entire mannerisms are weird. These turtles looking like monsters. Anyway, queue the doe eyes and deer in head light look, with heavy breathing… and next scene.

Once April makes the connection to her old pets and the ninja turtles, I have checked out. How convenient. Lazy writers couldn’t come up with a better story line and want to add this little connection for their convenience is hardly innovative. The turtles were her dad’s experimental pets, super conveniently color coded?  This is definitely not artistic, and we are a third of the way through the movie. It is very clear this movie will not play out well considering the director and writer fails thus far. Although Whoopi Goldberg is definitely doing a good job of playing the asshole station producer. Having dated a news reporter before, I’d almost say Whoopi was at risk of being TOO nice.

April goes to her father’s old partner, who works with Shredder, who also betrayed her father (too many connections and twist for a brainless movie, keep it simple in brainless movies), and she tells him everything about the turtles, he tracks her down, and the Foot Clan and Shredder ambush the turtles at their plush pad.

Can I talk about the plush pad for a second? Why are the turtles living in an underground condo? What happen to the dirty, sewer conditions they lived and trained inside the darkness. Don’t throw the “reboot” word around, because it is clear this is not a reboot, this is a cash pull. They haven’t innovated anything to call this a reboot. Bulking up the turtles and slopping cgi over it does not a reboot make. They pulled the same character arch from the cartoons, cgi’d it up in order to entice 80’s nostalgia.  The problem is, the turtles were poor, and had nothing but each other. Like Rocky who had to train in squalor, the turtles trained all the same.

Anyway, half the movie goes by before any real martial arts gets seen and its just the turtles practicing as kids. I do like it, its just too little and much too late. Especially the slice and dice pizza homage to the 90’s flick. I like it, but I’m already too bitter to enjoy it. My word Splinter looks gross. Back to the movie. April goes to the turtles, Eric Sacks tracks them, they get ambushed and action ensues. Juicy, meaty, ninja fighting action, and Splinter getting off.  Even if it is a lot of light flickering for no reason whatsoever, you still accept it. I mean, at this time, we’d accept anything. And for a half of a second, Splinter looks like a master next to an over budget robotic mechatronic Shredder. For about a minute or two, the action looked pretty good. Then fizzled out greatly with the capture of the turtles in a shadowy, flickery cgi slow mo beat down of Splinter.

The point is, the turtles (3) get capture, the Foot Clan want to drain their blood to extract the mutagen, and infect everyone in New York with a deadly virus. OMG, so that’s why Aprils father died, because he found out the secret plan, what a twist! W/e they want to infect NYC so Sacks can make millions on the cure, and Shredder can rule the city in chaos. As if the federal government would never ever step it, right? Raphael rescues the turtles and he gets a beat down by Shredder. Queue a 99% cgi fight scene down the slope of a mountain, bam bam, they end up with a final show down on top of the Empire State building with Shredder and the Turtles. By this time it is clear money has been wasted. No matter how good the final fight scene ends up being.

Considering they are in broad daylight, alone on top of the building, it would take an act of spite for the director to do any sort of flickery cut scenes. So you’d think it would be ok, right? Instead of flickery cut scenes, it is a vomit inducing dizzy camera spin. The camera literally revolves around Shredder (like Bad Boys II, oh that Michael Bay school of directing) while he unleashes hell.  Not only that but there is a need to try and tackle two “riveting” plot lines at once in this brainless movie. One with Shredder and the turtles, and two with April O’neal, her camera man (why is he here?) vs Eric Saks. The fight scene between the turtles and Shredder is a cgi ass whooping, and camera constantly pans and circles around as if to make it more spectacular. I can assure you, I will be rewatching Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li fight scenes with a still camera, in awe, before I rewatch anything from this movie. The great martial artist actors of old have proven that jerky and quick camera movements don’t make martial art fight scenes any more enjoyable. But there we have it. The turtles get their asses handed to them proper, until they use an old leap frog trick to kick him off the roof to make him pull a 80’s Joker style death(?).

Oh yea, Raphael cries and says the L word. The end.

 

Writings

What is Vieue Mosaic?

Bentley

Vieue Mosaic is the way you see art, and, in turn, the way a work of art draws you into its world. It is what allows the artist to connect their imagination with other people and impose upon them a new reality, a new world that exists only in the minds of those that can feel it. Vieue Mosaic is a connection between literature and its reader that implants seeds within the mind, and then nourishes the imagination until it blossoms something real- that isn’t there.

Look at my featured image and tell me what you see. Shards of broken glass? Hardly! You see something that truly isn’t there, and what is there is not what you see. Why do you envision people where broken glass exist? Because that is what the creator intended and that’s art. This effect is what I call a vieue mosaic. It’s not technical, it’s not restrictive – it just is. Vieue mosaic is a fluid ability to create art that draws in the mind, ignites the imagination, and moves the heart!

“Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.” – Theodor Adorno

Why do you feel such disdain for the antagonist of that book you like? How can mere words cause your heart to feel heavy, or a sadness to overtake you? Because that is the superpower you get for being born human. Empathy. Curiosity.  Passion. All artist forms in themselves, one only needs to assert it. Vieue Mosaic is an expression of a person’s imaginative power to travel into another o the world created by the author.

So full speed ahead. Buckle yourself into your rocket ship, and take yourself to new worlds that only exist in a secret place- your imagination.

 

Feature Image: Concetta Perot