Woman: Did you like it?
Man: (vigorously yet apologetically shakes his head)
Woman: Yeah. I hear you. I'm sorry. We should have seen Guardians again.

This review is the first to use a new format. Because that's what you do when something isn't working, Woody Allen. You grow from it. You learn from it. And then your product will get better.

I'm going to be honest. I'm not a Woody Allen fan. I don't appreciate his history as a human being, and I don't appreciate his recent remarks on not casting black actors. However, I sat through his last movie, Midnight in Paris, to see what I was missing.

Unfortunately, I didn't find much to miss.

I was forced to watch Magic in the Moonlight, although there was a boycott on this film for the director's blatant and racist disclusion of POCs. Someone else paid for it, and I still felt absolute dirty guilt as I sat through the 90 minutes of white people doing white things.

The question then becomes: can a movie be separated from the artist? Can we enjoy a piece of art when the creator obviously has some beliefs issues? It is a question we come up against with Ender's Game, and it surfaces once more with Woody Allen.

I think the answer to this hard question is twofold. First, we have the question of royalties and money. Because I went to see this movie, Woody Allen made money. Did he make a bunch of money? No. But he still made something. By seeing art made by artists we don't wish to support, we support the artist. This becomes difficult when the artist's work is amazing and awe-inspiring and does some good in the world, although the artist himself does not do these things outside of the art's world.

But what if the piece itself is harmful? What if the piece itself is just no good? This is the second portion of the answer. If the piece itself has hateful or inclusive issues, then do we forget how there are other good parts to the piece? And do we go into the experience too biased to come to an honest conclusion?

Magic in the Moonlight does not have anything sinister in it, except for the fact that there is still an elephant missing oh my GOD where did the elephant go?! But beyond the magic elephant, to the naked eye, no racist words are uttered, no violent propaganda or improper romantic this and thats are had. It's a pretty boring movie about rich white people doing stupid rich white people things. In the midst of their richness and elitism is a story about a man who is trying to decide if the world runs on science or magic.

But see, that's the problem. This movie is not seen as wrong. The first five minutes of the film is Colin Firth in yellow face pretending to be a magician named Wae Ling Soo.

What?

We then move on with Emma Stone calling Colin Firth from the Orient and acting as a Chinese. No one ever points out that Firth was in yellow face, and he is the only thing close to a non-white person we see. In fact, the Other in this film is pretty little waify Emma Stone and her mother, because they're American and poor and from Kalamazoo.

This would be fine because it fits the time and the story, but only if the author knew this was wrong.

So can we really pull away from the narrator or the writer? As writers, aren't we the least bit responsible for social awareness? Why can't Woody Allen point out that perhaps all of these people are rather silly and rather pampered and you can tell something about Firth's character because he dresses as "a Chinese?"

I don't have the answers. I only have a lot of questions.

The movie itself, morality aside, is not worth the trouble. Firth and Stone are both brilliant actors, but they are so enamored with Woody Allen being the director that they act like anyone else who has been to the Woody Allen School of Acting in One of Woody Allen's Films. They speak quickly, punching the script and not their character. They move like puppets or pawns being moved around a chess board. At one point, when Firth must make a proposal, he nearly gets to breathe as a professional performer, but the script moves too fast and he loses his chance for freedom from the puppet master.

Is it fair to call him a puppet master? Perhaps I'm being too partial.

The story has been done before. You know immediately what is going to happen. The ending would have been cute a hundred and fifty years ago when Wilde and Shaw were still hot and new. Unfortunately, the world has moved forward and developed from where we were. Woody Allen still uses a typewriter and doesn't believe in the internet.

I give this movie a C-. If you enjoy Woody Allen, I would be curious to hear what you have to say, or if I'm right in believing that this was not a stroke of genius. If you like spiritual movies, you will not like this movie. If you like rich white people with parasols playing ukeleles, driving in fancy cars, and sunbathing on the beaches of Southern France, you are in for a treat.

"Well, that was nightmare-fueled."

A storm ransacks a town with tornadoes, fire-nadoes, multi-nadoes, and plane-nadoes.

Meanwhile, we watch a motherless family, a single mother, a jerk documentary maker, and a high school darling as they battle to stay alive.

I mean, there's not much else to it.

There's an old saying: Either do it first, or do it best.

This film does neither.

It was done first in the 1990's. I remember, because I was obsessed with tornadoes back then. Mostly, because I lived in Tornado Alley and this had caused me to develop a phobia. In order to battle this phobia, I battled tornado movies like they were slasher films.

Twister did it first. Night of the Twisters did it best.

Into the Storm teeter-totters between being Sharknado and Titanic. The Sharknado moments are laughable, with stinted dialogue and absolutely ridiculous Bay-esque effects that make you wonder if you are actually wearing ScyFy. Not Sci-Fi, mind you. ScyFy.

However, there are these brilliant moments where you forget you're watching a stupid movie, and maybe --- just maybe --- you're watching something that matters in the world.

If you are dragged to this movie, get your notepads ready for the scene where the oldest son and the girlfriend are giving their final messages to the camera. It's heartfelt and it means everything when it comes to writing. Oldest son talks about his brother and how important that brother is. It's a beautiful character moment.

The rest of it? I mean, the planes go up into the twister and crash into each other. Another tornado sweeps up some fire and rages around until it catches someone on fire and sucks them up. All of these are cool moments. And I just didn't care enough.

And forget about the dramaturgy. Funnel clouds are called wall clouds, tornado sirens were represented by the A-Bomb sirens, and we won't even get into why a small town in Southwest America has an international airport.

Plane-nado!

And this is where it gets real sketchy.

There are three girl characters in this movie. The first is a high school girlfriend who is pretty and sweet and smart and totally fodder for the main character.

The second is a single mom who is trying to get home to her daughter but falls in love with the main family's widowed father.

And the third is the dead mom.

While the single mom's story is interesting, it wasn't enough for me. I wanted to see more of her, and less of her getting saved by the dude characters.

When it comes to POCs, there were two. The first was a camera man. He didn't die. He just stayed behind.

The second was the mean principal who wouldn't let people leave the shelter, even when the F5 is barreling closer. 

This one is a good popcorn film if you need to get to the movies and just see something. If you are terrified of tornadoes or really like watching tornadoes, you're gonna love it.

THE MOVIE ITSELF: Yeah, just no. For a theatrical release, this thing wasn't ready. I feel like one writer had talent, another writer was confused as to proper expectations, the special effects team was on board, and the actors were highly underpaid and just didn't care. Good lord, at least it's short.  C

ENJOYMENT FACTOR: I wouldn't watch this one again. There were some cool scenes, but there are cool scenes in good movies. C

VERDICT: If you want a good movie with rounded-out characters, I'd just go see Ninja Turtles at at least be entertained while you're disappointed. C

"Wait, we have to wait for after the credits! It's a Marvel movie."
(five minutes later)
"Wait, what?"

Peter Quill is kidnapped from earth the night his mother dies back in 1988. His mother leaves him two things pivotal to the plot: a mix-tape of her favorite 70's songs, and a need to hold females' hands.

Twenty years later, Peter Quill has grown into Chris Pratt, who is your typical Han Solo-esque scavenger for hire. He accidentally comes across an orb that is wanted by the bad guys, and off he is on his adventure. Following along is Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper as a pissed off raccoon, and Vin Diesel as The Iron Giant Redux ... I mean, Groot. He is Groot. We are all Groot, actually.

It's difficult, really, to explain how much I appreciate this movie and how much frustration I have with this movie. As someone who is a hardcore space opera fan (and writer), I will openly say I don't think this was the strongest story I've seen done in this genre. I do still believe A New Hope and the Firefly series did it better and clearer. However, it was so much better than it could have been.

There is one scene that encompasses my feelings for this movie. All of the characters sit around, hemming and hawing over whether or not they're going to "do the thing" or "not do the thing." The discussion goes on for so long, I actually spaced out in the middle of a space opera. However, the movie knows what cliche ground its treads. All of the heroes stand up one by one, pledging to "do the thing." Finally, Rocket Raccoon stands up and says, "There. Now I'm standing, too. Are you happy? We're all a bunch of jackasses standing in a circle."

It's self-aware and breaks cliches, just not as well as Whedon did in both Avengers and Firefly. Rocket doesn't meet the expectations of Hulk smashing Loki mid-monologue, nor does it live up to the memories of Mal Reynolds throwing a thug into his ship's turbine when the thug threatens the crew.

Beyond that, Chris Pratt's Quill is a well written character, but his bigotry toward women and his wavering character arch isn't enough to allow him to stand as a grown, fleshed out character. Perhaps that's part of his arch, that he is a boy as of right now, but I really wanted to like him as much as I like Andy Dwyer. Or hell, as much as I like Luke Skywalker or Chris Pine's Kirk. Luke's obsession with Leia in the first film comes off as kiddish, and we expect chauvinism from James Kirk. Quill is supposed to be a good, decent Southern boy. And yet he has a whole scene dedicated to showing off the literal scars left by women to whom he done wrong.

The other characters, Drax excluded, also felt like we'd seen them before. Groot was the Iron Giant, Rocket was Tony Stark and Jayne the Hero of Canton. Even Saldana's green lady felt like a less assertive version of Uhura. Perhaps the comics were a breakthrough, but we're coming up on 2014. It's kind of like trying to be surprised by The Lord of the Rings movies after decades of riffs from the original source material.

As for the plot, it was winding, complicated, and had way too many moving parts.

If you're a writer looking to study space adventures, this is a nice beginning, but please go watch Firefly. And then watch the first three Star Wars films. Then pick up some Ray Bradbury and read that to round it out. This is a good door opener, but the world is still in need of a real meaty epic in space.

Gamora is a lethal assassin, but that doesn't mean her neckline has to be anything but boob-tastic. The other girls are seen as slaves, servants, and forgotten one night stands. Oh, unless you count the mom, and then they're also seen as weak, wispy cancer patients on their death beds.

While it could have been worse, it did not pass the Bechdel test. While some male characters like Quill and Rocket are a softer sort of emotional male, there's just not much in the way of ladies. We do have Glen Close playing the head of an entire race, but she's in literally two scenes.

I will say, that Gamora's sister the cyborg was amazing and I would argue more ruthless than her male counterparts. But to say that Gamora is the lead in this movie is not seeing Quill for what he is and not giving an honest look as to who does what. While you watch this film, you decide for yourself who the "hero" is. Gamora is a hero, but Pratt is the protagonist.

This is all so very surprising, since the head writer was a woman. Although the director, James Gunn, was said to have had last say. And Gunn was the one who said Pratt shouldn't play Quill because he was "fat."

I would say that boys are gonna like this one. I would also say that space adventure fans will adore it, although please don't think it's the Star Wars of our generation. I was told that before going in, and it is not. Which I think accounts for my disappointment. I also believe that people who see themselves as outcasts will find a special place for Guardians in their hearts.

I also would recommend this to anyone who has lost someone lately, especially a parent. When you see it, you'll understand, but it is a therapeutic exercise to watch while you're trying to make sense of close death.

THE MOVIE ITSELF: The movie is a good movie, I'm not going to cheat it out of that praise. Is it the game changer we've been waiting for in the sci fi community? No. But is it better than Thor and The Phantom Menace? Yes. Do they do the comic justice? Of course. We're not talking about a Watchmen situation here. The special effects are wonderful, although Rocket doesn't really compare to Caesar in Apes. The acting is great. The script is funny. But it does lack that special legendary umph factor. A-

ENJOYMENT FACTOR: A lot of fun for everyone. There's the talking raccoon for kids, the romance, the heroics, the grief, the comedy. It's all here. Everyone involved had a good time. Just don't ruin it by waiting around after the credits. A-

VERDICT: Go see it. Go enjoy it. And then go home and write that game changing space opera. Please. I want to see it. A-