A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Friday, February 14, 2020

Shazam! (David F. Sandberg, 2019)

Jack Dylan Grazer and Zachary Levi in Shazam!
Cast: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Adam Brody, Faithe Herman, Meagan Good, Grace Fulton, Michelle Borth, Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand, D.J. Cotrona, Marta Milans, Cooper Andrews, John Glover. Screenplay: Henry Gayden, Darren Lemke. Cinematography: Maxime Alexandre. Production design: Jennifer Spence. Film editing: Michael Aller. Music: Benjamin Wallfisch.

When I was a kid, Shazam was Captain Marvel. But lawsuits intervened, so now the red-clad superhero into whom Billy Batson transforms has the magic word he speaks as a name. I always liked the comic books, maybe because they featured the one superhero whose secret identity was that of a kid. And who of us didn't go around muttering "Shazam" under their breath, trying out different pronunciations and emphases in hope that one would really work? The movie based on the character overplays the childishness: I don't remember the Shazam/Captain Marvel from the comics I read being quite so goofy when he transforms -- it seems to me he took on some wisdom and maturity as well as muscles and superpowers when he spoke the word. After all, the S in Shazam stood for Solomon. Still, the movie is good noisy fun for the most part, lacking the reverential tone that sometimes afflicts superhero movies.
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