Dave Bautista is a national treasure

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 may take an unusual honor on my blog: most times tagged in one of my posts before actually being seen by me. Before Friday night's viewing, I had already talked about the movie five times, in subjects ranging from my anticipation for it, to my reluctance to see it, to my annoyance over its director's tweets, to its poster campaign.

And now that I have finally see it, I have a very similar takeaway to the first movie:

Dave Bautista is awesome.

Dave Bautista was the best part of the first movie, and indeed continues in that regard here. Not only is he the funniest character, but he also has the best character arc (of sorts), and the most touchingly genuine scenes. Drax the Destroyer is easily my favorite Guardian, but more than that, he may be one of my favorite Marvel characters, period.

And that's thanks to Bautista.

As you likely already know, Bautista is one of those who has followed in the footsteps of Dwayne Johnson and made the transition from professional wrestling to acting. He may be the best example of that successful transition other than Johnson himself, who is a true force of nature in the entertainment world, having recently become the highest paid actor in Hollywood. (And if the rumors are to be believed, even a possible candidate for president -- and I can see no reason why he would not win there as well.)

But while Johnson is undoubtedly a singular phenomenon of charisma and I always enjoy watching him, I cannot say he has always been good. Without even delving into his filmography, where I'm sure I could find other examples, I'll mention his weak performances in such films as Southland Tales and Central Intelligence. I wanted to like him in those films, but he was just bad.

Dave Bautista has yet to be bad. At least, not in any film I've seen.

In 2017 we've already gotten two examples of the ways he's improved the films he's in. It's not that difficult to be the best thing in a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, because I'd argue the material is a little overrated, but it's quite something else to be the best thing in a Blade Runner movie. Indeed, I've gone on record saying that Dave Bautista was my favorite part of Blade Runner 2049, and given that he's only in one ten-minute scene, that's really saying something.

What is it about Bautista? It's hard to put my finger on it. But he has something undefinable that all good actors share: a sense of intelligence he brings to the work, which shines through even when the character is not intended to be particularly smart. Given his hulking frame, Bautista has never been cast as a genius, though the spectacles he wears in Blade Runner 2049 do give him something of the aspect of an intellectual. But acting smarts are a powerful form of intelligence that make even a dumb character seem shrewdly played.

And that's what Bautista does. He seems keenly able to focus in on the core of a character and bring out its essence.

Not only that, he can play a range of emotions, from serious to comic. In Guardians of course his function is comic, but even in the two different movies he exemplifies a different kind of comedy. In the first, his lines are funny because he doesn't understand they're funny, and in fact is incapable of doing anything but speaking his mind. In the second, he's a bit more overtly funny, as his character has made a choice to get in touch with the funny things in the world and laughs regularly. When an actor is required to laugh heartily for a role, rarely does it seem as genuine as Bautista makes it here.

Of course, neither should Bautista be mistaken for just a comedic performer. In Blade Runner 2049, it's the world weariness he brings to that character that's so striking. He's been living humbly, quietly, as a rogue replicant just trying to play out the string in peace, despite a sadness that must make his days unendurable. Bautista communicates all of this with a few glances and lines of dialogue. He's switched on. You can see the light emanating from him.

It strikes me as funny that I am making these estimations about him based only on four films. In addition to the three I've already mentioned, I've also seen Bautista in Spectre, where he really is pretty much used just for his muscle and physique, as a henchman. And while I can't remember him making an impression on me one way or another in that film, when he came up recently in discussion, a friend made a pitch for how good he is in that movie too. If I didn't find the rest of that movie pretty boring, I might watch it again just to pay special attention to the intelligent touches he undoubtedly brings.

Bautista is 48, three years older than Johnson, so it's hard to tell if this is just the start of many other great things, or whether we've already seen the best Bautista has to offer. But age is certainly not a consideration for Johnson, as there's every reason to expect he will look just about as he does now for another ten years. The same could certainly be said for Bautista, and if other casting directors out there see what I see -- and how can they not -- we may get plenty of Bautista roles beyond his next appearance as Drax in Avengers: Infinity War.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here with a wild prediction: Dave Bautista is going to win an Oscar.

"Huh?" you say. "Yeah, he's good, but he will never even get cast in the type of role that wins Oscars, let alone be good enough to actually win the award."

Noted. But when actors are good, they find their way into the strangest of places. And just because you didn't start out as a professionally trained actor does not preclude you from winning an Oscar. Just ask Cher, Jennifer Hudson and Mo'Nique.

Even if all Dave Bautista does in the future is bring soul to Drax the Destroyer again, I'll be there to appreciate the hell out of it.

Oh, and I should not leave this post before actually telling you what I thought about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. The five previous mentions, many of them wary, demand it.

Well, I liked it! "Liked" is as far as I will go, but I did like it just a bit more than the first one. Obviously this is a minority opinion, but the comparison I made to Blade Runner 2049 in my post earlier this week is especially instructive given that Bautista appears in both movies (something I didn't recognize at the time I made the comparison). In that post I said that people who didn't particularly love the first Blade Runner seem to enjoy 2049 better, and that's me for this series. If I had loved Guardians of the Galaxy, like 4.5 stars, and said that Vol. 2 was even better, that would be crazy talk. But since I think Guardians of the Galaxy is a three-star movie, I have no problem telling you that I gave Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 a half star more than that. Oh sure, I have issues with parts of it (particularly the climactic battle and overly sentimental ending), but other parts make up for that, such as the inspired opening sequence.

And Drax. Drax makes up for it. The recurring laughter bit is great, but what I really enjoyed was his relationship with Mantis, the empath and new addition to the cast. What I like about their relationship encapsulates what I like about Bautista's Drax, which is his genuineness. We can tell that they have a little chemistry between them, but it does not develop in the expected ways, primarily because Drax -- who basically cannot lie -- tells her how ugly he thinks she is. He says she is awful to look at and the idea of physical intimacy with her makes him physically sick.

Of course, Mantis is a fairly unique being so she is a bit taken aback by this, but not offended in the way that a more traditionally socialized creature would be. That's what makes her a good match for Drax. And what's nice is that Drax loves her for what's inside her. Even at the end, when we think the movie is going to soften his stance and that he is going to learn to be physically as well as emotionally attracted to her, it doesn't go that way. "You're beautiful too," he says. "On the inside."

If it's wrong to love Dave Bautista, I don't want to be right.

Maximalism

I saw Blade Runner 2049 last night.

You haven't seen it yet, so I'm not going to spoil it for you.

Even to tell you whether I liked it or not. Just don't go to Letterboxd if you follow me there, because you'll see my star rating.

I did want to use today's blog slot to post a funny Blade Runner 2049-related picture, though ... or should I say, Blade Runner Twenty Fourty Nine.

Please note not only the odd decision to spell out the year, but also the careless decision to misspell "forty."

Cinema Kino is one of my favorite places to see a movie, only a few blocks from my work and staffed by nice people. But I have to rib them publicly just a bit for this strange choice as well as this inexcusable gaffe. (It's also not where I happened to see the movie -- this was taken at lunch yesterday.)

It's a real case of maximalism, a particular contradiction when you consider that much of what makes the original Blade Runner captivating is its keen sense of minimalism. (Whether the sequel follows suit, I won't tell you, but I will say that it's hard to be truly minimalist in a movie that runs two hours and forty-three -- or should I say fourty-three -- minutes.)

When I posted this on Facebook, a friend joked that they had lost the box that contains the numbers. Something like this may in fact be the case. This is Australia, after all, where up until recently I'd see numerous instances where an event was posted somewhere, but the time it started was not posted. That type of thing. They're just a bit more laid back over here, and can't be shamed if something appears to have been sort of half-assed. Half of the ass is sometimes all they have to give, and I love them for it.

I did think it was possible simply because this is an arthouse cinema, and generally does not play as many sequels, not that most sequels even have numbers in them these days.

Still, I'd have gone with just "Blade Runner" rather than spelling out the whole title ... and then also misspelling it.

Movies that seem like passwords

In scanning down the list of movies I've seen with my critics card -- a list I have no purpose in keeping other than obsessiveness -- I couldn't help but notice that consecutive slots were taken up by Mother! (or is it mother!?) and Patti Cake$.

And I thought "Those would make good passwords."

For those of you who don't know, I reset passwords. It's one of a hundred things I do in my job working on a service desk, but it's one of my most regularly recurring tasks, something I do as many as five times on an average day. I've even got my personally developed script down exactly:

"Okay, I'm going to give you the password in upper and lower case letters and numbers and symbols, and I'm going to use the military alphabet, so for example if it's the letter 'A' I'm going to say 'alpha.'"

I say these exact words as many as five times a day, and then I get a password that looks something like this -- D!7*(xB -- and give it to the end user.

(And yeah, I've got my military alphabet down cold, because I'm a hard-ass muthafucka.)

Don't know where that came from. Maybe it's all this talk about Patti Cake$. Or, the talk I'm about to launch into.

Setting aside all discussions of the quality of the movie, which I liked a lot (it's a bit like Hustle & Flow meets 8 Mile), its title makes for a valid password in my organization's complex 7 password criteria. In order to set a valid password, it has to be at least seven characters long and contain three of the following four: an upper case letter, a lower case letter, a number and a special symbol. (What makes them so "special," I don't know.)

Patti Cake$ certainly qualifies. It's 10 characters long, has two upper case letters, seven lower case letters, and a valid "special symbol," which is no guarantee -- it won't accept just any old weird symbol you can find on your average keyboard. In part to avoid conflicts with coding, I assume, the [ and the { and even the & are right out. You can't even use a ~, but I suspect that's because it's a major pain in the ass to have to explain to your average person what a "tilde" is, especially when most of them don't know the difference between a colon and a semi-colon. (Making matters more complicated, in Australia the parenthesis is referred to as a "bracket," while [ is called a "square bracket" and { is called a "fancy bracket.") Strangely, you can select either < or >, but for some odd reason, when these characters come up as part of a system-generated password, they prevent you from successfully setting a preferred password, which begs the question why they appear among the eligible characters in the first place.

The one area Patti Cake$ falls short is by containing a space, so you can just knock that right out. Oddly, though, the space is recognized as part of password if you are cutting and pasting and accidentally cut a space either before or after the password. The system will reject the password under those circumstances. Don't ask me. I don't understand these things.

The other thing that makes this a good password is that a common method of setting a complex 7 password is to type a real word that's easy to remember, only replace certain letters with symbols or numbers that look like them. The most common are things replacing an "a" with @, an "i" with 1, an "e" with 3 or, yes, an "s" with $.

Now Mother! is a slightly different story. Let's again set aside discussion of the film's quality (I liked it, it's like ... well, I'm not even going to get into what two or maybe 50 movies "meet" each other in this movie). If this were your password, it would perfectly qualify by being exactly seven characters, containing no spaces, having both upper and lower case letters and using a valid special symbol (the exclamation mark is also sometimes referred to as a "bang," but only among IT geeks, never to the general public).

Lately, though, I'm seeing the title written as mother!, lower case, and damn sex, lies and videotape for making other films think they can come along and do this. If that is indeed how Darren Aronofsky intended the title to be, it's no longer a valid password as it is missing the upper case letter, giving it only two of the four necessary content criteria.

Now if you want a valid administrator password, then you need to opt for the movie I'm seeing on Thursday night: Blade Runner 2049 (again excising the spaces). Administrator passwords have the stricter standard of a complex 13 requirement, which still permits you to use only three of the four (there are no numbers in my current administrator password) but requires it to be at least 13 characters. Blade Runner 2049 clocks in at 15 characters, even without the spaces.

I gotta stop taking work home with me.