Avatar is possibly the biggest film ever. It's long, it's expensive, it pushes the boundaries of what's visually possible, it's a technological tour de force and single handedly justified the push for 3D visuals in absolutely everything. It also made a simply preposterous amount of money.
It's also not that great.
This isn't to say it's bad, necessarily. It's highly polished, tightly plotted - it's to its credit that it's almost three hours long and also rarely boring - and comes with those visuals. The visuals are a celebration of the power of CGI, creating landscapes and geography that is completely impossible but nonetheless breathtaking. From floating mountains to detailed phosphorescent landscapes, the film is a fountain of visual imagination. The closest one can get to criticizing the view is that they are quite reminiscent of more than a few JRPGs - I'm sure I visited every location in FFXII - but they're so vividly realized that it doesn't matter.
Unfortunately, the visuals contain the only imagination. The story itself is a clichéd environmental allegory. The story's center is Jake Sully - Sam Worthington, who cannot maintain an American accent and show emotion at the same time - a former Marine who can't use his legs. With the death of his twin brother, he's directed to become part of the Avatar program, where he controls a big blue dude to interact with the Na'Vi, the indigenous population which has a connection with nature - literally, with some sort of hair USB cable - and is a not very subtle lift of magical Native Americans who show up in these kind of things. He's directed by trigger happy space marine Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and weaselly corporate guy Norm Spellman (Joel Moore) to get intelligence about the place the Na'vi live, so they can blow it up and mine some stupidly named "unobtanium". Unfortunately, he falls in love, with the Na'vi culture but mostly with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and decides that he's got to protect them forever. Also present are Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the gruff scientist with a heart of gold, and Michelle Rodriguez, playing a Michelle Rodriguez role. Guess what happens to her!
The characters are a grab bag of old ideas we've seen before a million times. The plot develops predictably, every plot development is predictable from the moment the film starts, and not one surprise happens in the three hour running time. The sole unique factor for the big battles is the switch between avatar and human, and how it affects the characters' reactions. The big bad just wants oi...I mean "unobtanium" - was there seriously no better names? - and that concern overrides. There are some less than subtle digs about colonialism and US foreign policy, the army guy just wants to blow stuff up and looks for flimsy excuses to do so, and in spite of the vibrant visuals the film is stock black and white - there is good, there is bad, and nothing in between.
It's a case where it's possibly the best film of the type possible - sorry, Fern Gully, you've been eclipsed - and it is so pretty it's tempting to just ignore the number of flaws in the picture. It's such a technological tour de force that it's easy to ignore that it has nothing unique or interesting to say. It's all visual, and while they're good visuals, there's more to film than that.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Business of Fancydancing
For some reason, I suspect Sherman Alexie didn't see himself making many movies. This is possibly correct, since The Business of Fancydancing is his only film. I say this because it plays like Alexie had to say as many things as he could, filling the film with daisy chains of ideas and commentary.
The film is about Seymour (Evan Adams), a celebrity poet and public speaker, who is also aboriginal, and also gay. It's about his struggles to be himself, his cultural identity, his sexual identity, his struggles with his past, his discomfort with the reserve. Back on the reserve is Aristotle (Gene Tagaban), who had potential but is done in by substance abuse, and Mouse (Swil Kanim) who is really good at fiddling but killed by substance abuse. So it's about their struggles too, the problem of reserve life, their identity...
That's a lot of ideas for 106 minutes. Plus there are moments of traditional dance and heavy use of rather good music. So it could be argued that the film is overstuffed.
Which isn't to say it's bad, of course. Alexie has a lot to say, and he tries a number of different experiments in order to say it. The film, in spite of it's clearly minuscule budget - a wild bar is very obviously a high school gymnasium, and all the trick lighting and hints towards the abstract cannot hide this - dabbles in different styles and different ways of storytelling. Yes, this is another symptom of Alexie wanting to get every idea he can compressed into one film, but it helps the end result immensely, bringing to life what amounts to a very internal journey for the characters.
There's a glimmer of brilliance in there, but at the end I hoped that Alexie would just settle down. He has some talent, and he can coax some effective performances out of his actors. He's also got a great deal of things to say, he just stumbles over himself trying to say them all at once. Many brief vignettes and passages rushed through could be the basis for an entire other film, and the struggles with identity can be explored in a much more thorough manner apart from the other stuff that happens.
I found that just saying everything, all at once, diminished the power of the many individual statements made throughout. In his struggle to say everything he wanted, it seems as though Alexie couldn't quite form coherent sentences about the rest of it. Too bad, it is, after all, a mostly good movie.
The film is about Seymour (Evan Adams), a celebrity poet and public speaker, who is also aboriginal, and also gay. It's about his struggles to be himself, his cultural identity, his sexual identity, his struggles with his past, his discomfort with the reserve. Back on the reserve is Aristotle (Gene Tagaban), who had potential but is done in by substance abuse, and Mouse (Swil Kanim) who is really good at fiddling but killed by substance abuse. So it's about their struggles too, the problem of reserve life, their identity...
That's a lot of ideas for 106 minutes. Plus there are moments of traditional dance and heavy use of rather good music. So it could be argued that the film is overstuffed.
Which isn't to say it's bad, of course. Alexie has a lot to say, and he tries a number of different experiments in order to say it. The film, in spite of it's clearly minuscule budget - a wild bar is very obviously a high school gymnasium, and all the trick lighting and hints towards the abstract cannot hide this - dabbles in different styles and different ways of storytelling. Yes, this is another symptom of Alexie wanting to get every idea he can compressed into one film, but it helps the end result immensely, bringing to life what amounts to a very internal journey for the characters.
There's a glimmer of brilliance in there, but at the end I hoped that Alexie would just settle down. He has some talent, and he can coax some effective performances out of his actors. He's also got a great deal of things to say, he just stumbles over himself trying to say them all at once. Many brief vignettes and passages rushed through could be the basis for an entire other film, and the struggles with identity can be explored in a much more thorough manner apart from the other stuff that happens.
I found that just saying everything, all at once, diminished the power of the many individual statements made throughout. In his struggle to say everything he wanted, it seems as though Alexie couldn't quite form coherent sentences about the rest of it. Too bad, it is, after all, a mostly good movie.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Better Luck Tomorrow
Let's talk about squandered potential. It's sort of relevant to today's movie, Better Luck Tomorrow, plot-wise, but it's much more relevant when it comes to that film's director and co-writer Justin Lin. Here's a movie that showcases lots of potential, from a director with a interesting and uniquely Asian American point of view. That's a good point of view! We should see more movies from that point of view.
The film is about a group of kids of Asian descent - mostly Korean from what I can tell - who are all associates in their school. The main character is Ben (Parry Shen) a slightly shy, slightly oblivious, but mostly intelligent young man who, along with aggressive and slightly annoying friend Virgil (Jason Tobin) and Virgil's cousin Han (Sung Kang) are roped into an elaborate test cheating and ultimately drug dealing scheme by Daric (Roger Fan). In the periphery, Ben wants to pick up Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), who happens to be dating the obscenely rich Steve (John Cho). Eventually these plot threads collide violently and the entire thing ends with a bit of superficially happy ambiguity, similar to the look of slight regret right at the end of the Graduate.
In spite of Ben being the main character, focus, and narrator, the real driving focus of the film is Daric, and his obsessive need to be respected and belong. He drives the events, from writing an article about Ben being a "token Asian" on the basketball team to introducing the group to all the schemes. The main group is clearly marginalized within the school system, though this is not always explicit, and Daric does everything he can to get the approval, or at least begrudging respect, of the people around him.
That thread of needing to prove something to the people around them is something common to the characters. They struggle for good grades and Ivy League scholarships to prove their value, either to themselves, their peers, or their parents - which are never seen on screen. They enter into criminal activities to prove that they aren't just the good smart kids, but have a violent streak, an aggressive streak, or to simply get the approval of their peers. Virgil, for example, flashes a gun around constantly in order to seem tougher than he is, though when actual violence appears he cannot handle it.
I won't claim to know the struggles of Asian people in a western society - I'm as white as the driven snow - but of course Lin does, and he makes a film that could only have been made by someone experiencing this kind of life. Lin clearly has a lot to say about growing up, and growing up in the shadow of great expectations and subtle discrimination.
So, naturally, I'm rather disappointed that Lin has abandoned meaningful and interesting films and has become the series director for Fast and the Furious. Much of Better Luck Tomorrow makes me curious about what he's going to do next, but his filmography in subsequent years has been by the book action films and, well, the Fast and the Furious. Maybe that spark of creativity is still there, but I wonder if Lin has been done in by his expectations of himself.
The film is about a group of kids of Asian descent - mostly Korean from what I can tell - who are all associates in their school. The main character is Ben (Parry Shen) a slightly shy, slightly oblivious, but mostly intelligent young man who, along with aggressive and slightly annoying friend Virgil (Jason Tobin) and Virgil's cousin Han (Sung Kang) are roped into an elaborate test cheating and ultimately drug dealing scheme by Daric (Roger Fan). In the periphery, Ben wants to pick up Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), who happens to be dating the obscenely rich Steve (John Cho). Eventually these plot threads collide violently and the entire thing ends with a bit of superficially happy ambiguity, similar to the look of slight regret right at the end of the Graduate.
In spite of Ben being the main character, focus, and narrator, the real driving focus of the film is Daric, and his obsessive need to be respected and belong. He drives the events, from writing an article about Ben being a "token Asian" on the basketball team to introducing the group to all the schemes. The main group is clearly marginalized within the school system, though this is not always explicit, and Daric does everything he can to get the approval, or at least begrudging respect, of the people around him.
That thread of needing to prove something to the people around them is something common to the characters. They struggle for good grades and Ivy League scholarships to prove their value, either to themselves, their peers, or their parents - which are never seen on screen. They enter into criminal activities to prove that they aren't just the good smart kids, but have a violent streak, an aggressive streak, or to simply get the approval of their peers. Virgil, for example, flashes a gun around constantly in order to seem tougher than he is, though when actual violence appears he cannot handle it.
I won't claim to know the struggles of Asian people in a western society - I'm as white as the driven snow - but of course Lin does, and he makes a film that could only have been made by someone experiencing this kind of life. Lin clearly has a lot to say about growing up, and growing up in the shadow of great expectations and subtle discrimination.
So, naturally, I'm rather disappointed that Lin has abandoned meaningful and interesting films and has become the series director for Fast and the Furious. Much of Better Luck Tomorrow makes me curious about what he's going to do next, but his filmography in subsequent years has been by the book action films and, well, the Fast and the Furious. Maybe that spark of creativity is still there, but I wonder if Lin has been done in by his expectations of himself.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Das Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment is quite famous in the annals of psychology, in spite of being fairly poorly run and executed. Making one group prisoners and the others guards, it all quickly got out of hand, with rampant mistreatment of prisoners by the guards ensuing. It was inept, poorly handled, and unethical. So, imagine if it got even worse! That's the motive behind Das Experiment, a German film inspired by the events.
Here, we have taxi driver and sometimes journalist Tarek (Mauritz Bleibtreu) as one of the prisoners, attempting to get things completely out of hand in order to get a better story. He gains the attention of guard Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), who is in the process of going quite literally mad with power. Their antagonism is one of the drivers of the story, though eventually Berus just goes completely nuts, kills a guy, kidnaps most of the scientists, and gets all the guards to go along with him because they think this is all part of the experiment. It gets out of hand.
Also, Maren Eggert is Dora, she wanders around in her underwear. Her characters has no purpose whatsoever.
For the most part, the movie is a pretty interesting tale of psychological warfare. The Berus/Tarek conflict is a strong base for the film to build on, contrasting Berus' pathological need for control nicely with Tarek's need to get a good story. It's an interesting attempt to get to the psychological implications of the experiment, and by telling the story through the perspective of someone trying to ratchet up the intensity, it has a compelling anti-hero at its core.
In the need to keep continually raising the stakes, it also wanders in the river of implausibility. It's not so much implausible because of the treatment prisoners receive, nor is it implausible that some guards would develop sadistic tendencies. No, what's implausible is that the guards would turn on the bosses themselves. See, in the experiment, the people in charge of payment are the scientists. Locking up the scientists and assaulting them? Not going to happen, for the same reason the wardens at real prisons aren't locked up and assaulted: If you do that you're going to get fired and go home without pay.
The last act is meant to ratchet up the tension, but it just becomes completely unbelievable. Is it seriously going to get to the point where the guards even turn on the scientists in charge? Even if the lead guard is in it to beat guys up and overcompensate for smelling bad, the others will remember that he's not the boss, the scientists are, and beating up the scientists is a bad idea.
Also, real prison guards tend to not kill the prisoners. That's a pretty basic part of prison guarding, don't kill anyone.
It's not like the ineptitude of the inspiration needs to be enhanced anyway, and it could become just as compelling a film even without the outlandish last act. The need to ratchet up the tension does not serve the story, because it is unnecessary. Why do we need more than the regular batch of inhumanity? It's good enough to make the real story compelling, and at least it doesn't tread deeply into the realm of implausibility.
Here, we have taxi driver and sometimes journalist Tarek (Mauritz Bleibtreu) as one of the prisoners, attempting to get things completely out of hand in order to get a better story. He gains the attention of guard Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), who is in the process of going quite literally mad with power. Their antagonism is one of the drivers of the story, though eventually Berus just goes completely nuts, kills a guy, kidnaps most of the scientists, and gets all the guards to go along with him because they think this is all part of the experiment. It gets out of hand.
Also, Maren Eggert is Dora, she wanders around in her underwear. Her characters has no purpose whatsoever.
For the most part, the movie is a pretty interesting tale of psychological warfare. The Berus/Tarek conflict is a strong base for the film to build on, contrasting Berus' pathological need for control nicely with Tarek's need to get a good story. It's an interesting attempt to get to the psychological implications of the experiment, and by telling the story through the perspective of someone trying to ratchet up the intensity, it has a compelling anti-hero at its core.
In the need to keep continually raising the stakes, it also wanders in the river of implausibility. It's not so much implausible because of the treatment prisoners receive, nor is it implausible that some guards would develop sadistic tendencies. No, what's implausible is that the guards would turn on the bosses themselves. See, in the experiment, the people in charge of payment are the scientists. Locking up the scientists and assaulting them? Not going to happen, for the same reason the wardens at real prisons aren't locked up and assaulted: If you do that you're going to get fired and go home without pay.
The last act is meant to ratchet up the tension, but it just becomes completely unbelievable. Is it seriously going to get to the point where the guards even turn on the scientists in charge? Even if the lead guard is in it to beat guys up and overcompensate for smelling bad, the others will remember that he's not the boss, the scientists are, and beating up the scientists is a bad idea.
Also, real prison guards tend to not kill the prisoners. That's a pretty basic part of prison guarding, don't kill anyone.
It's not like the ineptitude of the inspiration needs to be enhanced anyway, and it could become just as compelling a film even without the outlandish last act. The need to ratchet up the tension does not serve the story, because it is unnecessary. Why do we need more than the regular batch of inhumanity? It's good enough to make the real story compelling, and at least it doesn't tread deeply into the realm of implausibility.
Friday, August 27, 2010
District 9
Science fiction is often used to give a little distance between the viewer and a hot button topic. Sometimes it doesn't work, such as in Star Trek VI, which was such a heavy handed allegory about the collapse of the USSR it rang false throughout. Sometimes it does, such as the best film about immigration and racism I've seen all year, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/">District 9.
So, here we're in South Africa, where a big alien ship has stalled, and the passengers have been moved to a slum called District 9. They're treated poorly, and then people complain that they commit crimes and are unruly, not realizing that having them in a slum situation likely doesn't help matters. Since they are planned to be relocated to a new district, clueless bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copely, in a star making turn) is charged with serving eviction notices and generally getting them to cooperate. It goes quite badly, and leads him to become more like them than he anticipated.
So the entire thing has a bit of an obvious allegory going on, and that's pretty unavoidable given the content. It doesn't help itself by making a lot of the human characters obviously evil, which is usually a death knell for subtlety. The late film hero moments can feel kind of awkward for this reason, as Wikus does sort of kill lots of people.
So why does it work? Well, Copely sells the weedy bureaucrat who is forced to go against what he used to just accept. He's never a perfect character - even late film he does some extremely cowardly and dick-ish things, rare for a hero - but he's strangely likable, even when he's right there with the evil company doing bad things. He's a nice guy, the kind of guy you probably wouldn't want for a boss but who you'd go for coffee with and buy a couch from. He's a recognizable happy center.
It also works because it's such a good action movie that it doesn't give you time to recognize how simple it is being drawn. The themes are obvious, and ever present, but nobody ever dwells upon them. It is a big, impressive action spectacle that relies on the themes to give a purpose for the action.
Still, being a big action movie leads to the people killed, and one wonders if they couldn't learn, like Wikus before them, that the aliens are actually nice guys. If we learn more about people - or space people - by hanging out with them, I wonder if some of the cannon fodder could have gotten along with the aliens if given the chance. I can understand some characters being just completely bad, but most of the soldiers are just soldiers, it feels somewhat uncomfortable just blowing them up.
Sometimes it can be too clever. Flipping between documentary style and more typical film making is an interesting choice - and the documentary talking head interviews are a great way to do exposition without being really annoying about it - but it seems a bit indecisive, as though it doesn't know what it wants to be.
It's far from a perfect movie, and there are also some points where the script doesn't consider if a twist quite makes sense in context. Still, it's possible to be imperfect and still quite good, and as a statement of purpose, District 9 is evidence that director Neill Blomkamp is one to watch.
So, here we're in South Africa, where a big alien ship has stalled, and the passengers have been moved to a slum called District 9. They're treated poorly, and then people complain that they commit crimes and are unruly, not realizing that having them in a slum situation likely doesn't help matters. Since they are planned to be relocated to a new district, clueless bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copely, in a star making turn) is charged with serving eviction notices and generally getting them to cooperate. It goes quite badly, and leads him to become more like them than he anticipated.
So the entire thing has a bit of an obvious allegory going on, and that's pretty unavoidable given the content. It doesn't help itself by making a lot of the human characters obviously evil, which is usually a death knell for subtlety. The late film hero moments can feel kind of awkward for this reason, as Wikus does sort of kill lots of people.
So why does it work? Well, Copely sells the weedy bureaucrat who is forced to go against what he used to just accept. He's never a perfect character - even late film he does some extremely cowardly and dick-ish things, rare for a hero - but he's strangely likable, even when he's right there with the evil company doing bad things. He's a nice guy, the kind of guy you probably wouldn't want for a boss but who you'd go for coffee with and buy a couch from. He's a recognizable happy center.
It also works because it's such a good action movie that it doesn't give you time to recognize how simple it is being drawn. The themes are obvious, and ever present, but nobody ever dwells upon them. It is a big, impressive action spectacle that relies on the themes to give a purpose for the action.
Still, being a big action movie leads to the people killed, and one wonders if they couldn't learn, like Wikus before them, that the aliens are actually nice guys. If we learn more about people - or space people - by hanging out with them, I wonder if some of the cannon fodder could have gotten along with the aliens if given the chance. I can understand some characters being just completely bad, but most of the soldiers are just soldiers, it feels somewhat uncomfortable just blowing them up.
Sometimes it can be too clever. Flipping between documentary style and more typical film making is an interesting choice - and the documentary talking head interviews are a great way to do exposition without being really annoying about it - but it seems a bit indecisive, as though it doesn't know what it wants to be.
It's far from a perfect movie, and there are also some points where the script doesn't consider if a twist quite makes sense in context. Still, it's possible to be imperfect and still quite good, and as a statement of purpose, District 9 is evidence that director Neill Blomkamp is one to watch.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Ghost Writer
On release, it was impossible to talk about The Ghost Writer. Everything was filtered through a lens of director Roman Polanski's transgressions, interest in which was revived quite close to the film's release. To discuss the film was to discuss Polanski, and more than one critic read more into the experience than what was intended. It was a potential last film, it could be historic, after all.
To be fair, the film is about a man in exile due to crimes which happened several years before, not unlike Polanski. However, former prime-minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is not meant to be Polanski by any means, instead being a slightly smarmier Tony Blair. The ghost writer of the title is Ewan McGregor, brought in to replace the old ghost writer after he kills himself under lightly mysterious circumstances, eventually leading to the uncovering of an elaborate conspiracy surrounding the otherwise quite mundane Lang.
It's actually a clever tactic, making the former Prime Minister as boring as possible. The assignment, in the beginning, is straightforward. The new ghost is brought in to punch up Lang's autobiography because it is, frankly, terrible. It's presented as just a dull job, and constant shots of McGregor sleeping reinforce this. It's funny, because it makes the twists seem all the more interesting, since on the surface we're not looking at a spectacular or interesting man, just another PM. Ho-hum, right?
Polanski, for all his faults, knows how to make a thriller, and I seriously doubt it's even possible for him to make a bad one. So the Ghost Writer isn't a bad thriller. There are twists, it's a slow reveal, and one is often intrigued by just how deep things go. It's something Polanski has done before to great effect, and here it is clearly the work of a master of pacing and atmosphere.
Unfortunately, that master is just going through the motions on this one. To quote one of the characters, the words are all there, they're just in the wrong order. The story is actually good, but the leaps required to hit the right beats don't hold up very well. A key twist relies on a poorly designed website - never, ever a reliable source - and some characters just don't seem to exist, if that makes sense. They're there, they have dialog, but they're not really blessed with personality or interest. Also, while the final shot is beautiful, the questions it prompts are not quite the ones which it intends to.
That said, it's exactly what you expect, a competent thriller made by a guy who could make one in his sleep. This is no bad thing, and even flawed and imperfect there is a good movie here, one which is constantly interesting and compelling. Just not the greatest movie, and maybe that explains why just as much attention was paid to the director's troubles as the film itself.
To be fair, the film is about a man in exile due to crimes which happened several years before, not unlike Polanski. However, former prime-minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is not meant to be Polanski by any means, instead being a slightly smarmier Tony Blair. The ghost writer of the title is Ewan McGregor, brought in to replace the old ghost writer after he kills himself under lightly mysterious circumstances, eventually leading to the uncovering of an elaborate conspiracy surrounding the otherwise quite mundane Lang.
It's actually a clever tactic, making the former Prime Minister as boring as possible. The assignment, in the beginning, is straightforward. The new ghost is brought in to punch up Lang's autobiography because it is, frankly, terrible. It's presented as just a dull job, and constant shots of McGregor sleeping reinforce this. It's funny, because it makes the twists seem all the more interesting, since on the surface we're not looking at a spectacular or interesting man, just another PM. Ho-hum, right?
Polanski, for all his faults, knows how to make a thriller, and I seriously doubt it's even possible for him to make a bad one. So the Ghost Writer isn't a bad thriller. There are twists, it's a slow reveal, and one is often intrigued by just how deep things go. It's something Polanski has done before to great effect, and here it is clearly the work of a master of pacing and atmosphere.
Unfortunately, that master is just going through the motions on this one. To quote one of the characters, the words are all there, they're just in the wrong order. The story is actually good, but the leaps required to hit the right beats don't hold up very well. A key twist relies on a poorly designed website - never, ever a reliable source - and some characters just don't seem to exist, if that makes sense. They're there, they have dialog, but they're not really blessed with personality or interest. Also, while the final shot is beautiful, the questions it prompts are not quite the ones which it intends to.
That said, it's exactly what you expect, a competent thriller made by a guy who could make one in his sleep. This is no bad thing, and even flawed and imperfect there is a good movie here, one which is constantly interesting and compelling. Just not the greatest movie, and maybe that explains why just as much attention was paid to the director's troubles as the film itself.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Clash of the Titans
I've seen the original Clash of the Titans, though it's quite telling that I don't remember very much about it. There was some charming stop motion, a kraken, and assorted Greek things. Given that the film was such a memorable event, it stands to reason that the new Clash of the Titans is something equally memorable and distinct.
Given that it's 2010 rather than 1981, a few changes have been made to the formula. For one, stop motion is out like Ricky Martin and Lance Bass, replaced by shiny, shiny CGI - and I do mean shiny, the armor of the Gods is so glittery it's reminiscent of a prom photo circa 1987. The camera swoops and shakes, the script is slightly darker and more extreme, and the film owes an obvious debt to Lord of the Rings, especially in how it takes in sweeping landscapes.
The story largely does remain the same. Sam Worthington is Perseus, the generically handsome demi-god, who grows up with a family so wholesome you know they won't make it very far into the film. After they're completely expectedly killed, he decides he doesn't like gods very much, and is charged with slaying the Kraken, which is to be released by Hades, played by a combination of Ralph Fiennes and CG glitter - not sure why Hades has glitter, but there you go - as part of an elaborate plot to weaken Zeus, played by Liam Neeson and even MORE glitter. He goes on an epic quest involving giant scorpions, a disapproving Mads Mikkelsen, a sexy Gemma Arterton, lots of landscape shots, and a need to behead Medusa, as often happens in these greek myth movies.
Surprisingly, for all the mythology and big CGI battles, the film is surprisingly boring. One culprit might be the general overuse of CGI in all movies. While the original was charming in its silly stop motion animation, CGI can take the wonder and imagination out of a picture. There's no question of how they did the various stunts, we know, they had a bunch of computers render big beasties. When anyone with a PS3 and God of War 3 can see equivalent visuals, the magic is kind of sapped.
The script is also pretty dull, in the end. When you're working with material as well known as Greek mythology, the last thing to do is just go through the expected motions - oh boy, I wonder where the shiny shield is in Medusa's cave? - and Clash of the Titans doesn't stray very far from the beats followed by the original. Since the original wasn't that interesting to start with, it keeps it from being too compelling.
Putting Mr. Excitement himself Sam Worthington at the middle of the film is another stroke of dullness. I know, the guy was the star of Avatar, but he's still an actor most remarkable for how unremarkable he is. He's just some guy, and while that works in some contexts - like Avatar - when he's supposed to be a demi-god it kind of deflates the title.
At least Worthington has a bit of restraint in his performance, something nobody else in the film does. The acting here is bizarre, with over emoting, and BIG. ACTING. MOMENTS. which would make William Shatner hide in shame. It's bizarre, nobody in the film acts like a real person, the king of the bad acting being Luke Treadaway, who plays Prokopion. He's amazing, it's an acting train wreck, and he flails around wide-eyed. You just have to ask what is wrong with this character, and while that might be partially intentional it's blissfully distracting.
Still, it says a lot when the lunacy of one minor performance can trump the entire rest of the film. The CG battles won't stick with me, though I do remember one being confusingly edited. The story, I've seen it before, done better, and I'm not referring to the 1981 original - I am, however, referring to a Saturday morning cartoon series of which I can't remember the name. I'm not sure wh
Given that it's 2010 rather than 1981, a few changes have been made to the formula. For one, stop motion is out like Ricky Martin and Lance Bass, replaced by shiny, shiny CGI - and I do mean shiny, the armor of the Gods is so glittery it's reminiscent of a prom photo circa 1987. The camera swoops and shakes, the script is slightly darker and more extreme, and the film owes an obvious debt to Lord of the Rings, especially in how it takes in sweeping landscapes.
The story largely does remain the same. Sam Worthington is Perseus, the generically handsome demi-god, who grows up with a family so wholesome you know they won't make it very far into the film. After they're completely expectedly killed, he decides he doesn't like gods very much, and is charged with slaying the Kraken, which is to be released by Hades, played by a combination of Ralph Fiennes and CG glitter - not sure why Hades has glitter, but there you go - as part of an elaborate plot to weaken Zeus, played by Liam Neeson and even MORE glitter. He goes on an epic quest involving giant scorpions, a disapproving Mads Mikkelsen, a sexy Gemma Arterton, lots of landscape shots, and a need to behead Medusa, as often happens in these greek myth movies.
Surprisingly, for all the mythology and big CGI battles, the film is surprisingly boring. One culprit might be the general overuse of CGI in all movies. While the original was charming in its silly stop motion animation, CGI can take the wonder and imagination out of a picture. There's no question of how they did the various stunts, we know, they had a bunch of computers render big beasties. When anyone with a PS3 and God of War 3 can see equivalent visuals, the magic is kind of sapped.
The script is also pretty dull, in the end. When you're working with material as well known as Greek mythology, the last thing to do is just go through the expected motions - oh boy, I wonder where the shiny shield is in Medusa's cave? - and Clash of the Titans doesn't stray very far from the beats followed by the original. Since the original wasn't that interesting to start with, it keeps it from being too compelling.
Putting Mr. Excitement himself Sam Worthington at the middle of the film is another stroke of dullness. I know, the guy was the star of Avatar, but he's still an actor most remarkable for how unremarkable he is. He's just some guy, and while that works in some contexts - like Avatar - when he's supposed to be a demi-god it kind of deflates the title.
At least Worthington has a bit of restraint in his performance, something nobody else in the film does. The acting here is bizarre, with over emoting, and BIG. ACTING. MOMENTS. which would make William Shatner hide in shame. It's bizarre, nobody in the film acts like a real person, the king of the bad acting being Luke Treadaway, who plays Prokopion. He's amazing, it's an acting train wreck, and he flails around wide-eyed. You just have to ask what is wrong with this character, and while that might be partially intentional it's blissfully distracting.
Still, it says a lot when the lunacy of one minor performance can trump the entire rest of the film. The CG battles won't stick with me, though I do remember one being confusingly edited. The story, I've seen it before, done better, and I'm not referring to the 1981 original - I am, however, referring to a Saturday morning cartoon series of which I can't remember the name. I'm not sure wh
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Repo Men
Forest Whitaker, Jude Law, Liev Schriber, come clean about that hooker you murdered. Maybe Alice Braga should also come clean about it, though I suspect she's just taking any Hollywood role she can find to establish herself as an actress. Regardless, we all know you killed that hooker guys. Why? Well, you're all talented actors who have a bit of a box office draw. You're all actors who should, by all logic, have free reign to choose your projects and pick anything which you want. You are all actors who, by no means, should be starring in Repo Men.
In a world which looks like Blade Runner with extra gushy gore, Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are Repo Men named Remy and Jake. What do they repo? Organs! Sweet, gushy, artificial organs, after people default on their sub-prime loans, issued by Liev Schriber's Frank, who is so slimy he apparently is also on a Nickelodeon game show. Remy loves being a repo man, even though his wife does not approve, and he and Jake go on many repo adventures as they murder hundreds of people to get their organs back, serving a business model which can't possibly sustain itself. Eventually, Remy has a change of heart - both metaphorical and literal - and realizes that he's pretty goddamn evil actually. Also, there's Alice Braga, who plays a singer who had every body part replaced. Her character is of dubious importance, though since I like her I'll say she was great in City of God and leave it there.
Repo Men packs one hour of story into two hours, stretching the premise so thin that it could be used as a salad strainer. Everyone in the film has a shiny new artificial organ, though everyone's also past due on their payments. How does this business model work exactly? We all know that the sub prime mortgage collapse did in a lot of large companies - the film seems to think it's clever to reference such an event years after the fact, because it's cutting edge - and if everyone's defaulting on their loans - and has to get an expensive repo job on their body parts - how does the company profit exactly?
If we were going to talk about plotting, there are so many rabbit holes to go down. The first half of the film is accompanied by Jude Law's ridiculous, half-jokey narration, which doesn't really add much in the way of context or anything, and presents a misinterpretation of Schrodinger's Cat so egregious that millions of quantum physicists were literally angry with rage. In the second half, we're presented with massive plot holes, ridiculously sloppy writing and some extremely heavy handed moments. Of course, there's a reason for this, that reason being a plot twist so awful that M. Night Shyamalan would find it beneath him.
I felt for the actors. These are talented people who just happened to kill that hooker - there really is no other logical explanation - and they are given a script with dialog that causes physical pain and doesn't make any sense. You want to rescue them, take them away from this set and to a production of a good movie, that isn't awful in every way.
Action movies can often get away with an awful script if the action is good. The action is not good, just gory. There's lots of squishy gooey surgery scenes, and people are stabbed with alarming frequency. There's also a fight scene that tries to rip off Old Boy but then decides it takes too much effort to film such an intricate sequence and just becomes quick cut and filled with unnecessary stabbing. A good stabbing can sometimes be a valuable piece of punctuation in a good picture, but when everyone gets stabbed what's the point?
It's amazing that something so awful can get past script approval, budget approval, shooting, editing, test screenings on the way to wide release. Producers want to make money, that's their job, so surely someone down the line thought "Wait, what are we making? Why are we doing this? Why did I approve this script? This is terrible! The reviews will be universally awful! Audiences will stay away in droves! What was I thinking?" Perhaps the producer also killed a hooker?
The soundtrack's good though.
In a world which looks like Blade Runner with extra gushy gore, Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are Repo Men named Remy and Jake. What do they repo? Organs! Sweet, gushy, artificial organs, after people default on their sub-prime loans, issued by Liev Schriber's Frank, who is so slimy he apparently is also on a Nickelodeon game show. Remy loves being a repo man, even though his wife does not approve, and he and Jake go on many repo adventures as they murder hundreds of people to get their organs back, serving a business model which can't possibly sustain itself. Eventually, Remy has a change of heart - both metaphorical and literal - and realizes that he's pretty goddamn evil actually. Also, there's Alice Braga, who plays a singer who had every body part replaced. Her character is of dubious importance, though since I like her I'll say she was great in City of God and leave it there.
Repo Men packs one hour of story into two hours, stretching the premise so thin that it could be used as a salad strainer. Everyone in the film has a shiny new artificial organ, though everyone's also past due on their payments. How does this business model work exactly? We all know that the sub prime mortgage collapse did in a lot of large companies - the film seems to think it's clever to reference such an event years after the fact, because it's cutting edge - and if everyone's defaulting on their loans - and has to get an expensive repo job on their body parts - how does the company profit exactly?
If we were going to talk about plotting, there are so many rabbit holes to go down. The first half of the film is accompanied by Jude Law's ridiculous, half-jokey narration, which doesn't really add much in the way of context or anything, and presents a misinterpretation of Schrodinger's Cat so egregious that millions of quantum physicists were literally angry with rage. In the second half, we're presented with massive plot holes, ridiculously sloppy writing and some extremely heavy handed moments. Of course, there's a reason for this, that reason being a plot twist so awful that M. Night Shyamalan would find it beneath him.
I felt for the actors. These are talented people who just happened to kill that hooker - there really is no other logical explanation - and they are given a script with dialog that causes physical pain and doesn't make any sense. You want to rescue them, take them away from this set and to a production of a good movie, that isn't awful in every way.
Action movies can often get away with an awful script if the action is good. The action is not good, just gory. There's lots of squishy gooey surgery scenes, and people are stabbed with alarming frequency. There's also a fight scene that tries to rip off Old Boy but then decides it takes too much effort to film such an intricate sequence and just becomes quick cut and filled with unnecessary stabbing. A good stabbing can sometimes be a valuable piece of punctuation in a good picture, but when everyone gets stabbed what's the point?
It's amazing that something so awful can get past script approval, budget approval, shooting, editing, test screenings on the way to wide release. Producers want to make money, that's their job, so surely someone down the line thought "Wait, what are we making? Why are we doing this? Why did I approve this script? This is terrible! The reviews will be universally awful! Audiences will stay away in droves! What was I thinking?" Perhaps the producer also killed a hooker?
The soundtrack's good though.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Little Mermaid
Yes, I am watching a large number of Disney movies lately, what's it to you?
In a short, and not especially detailed version of a fairly long amount of history, Disney had turned itself irrelevant by 1989, becoming a theme park company and TV studio rather than a film company. Worse still, animator Don Bluth decided to make his own animated movie studio, with blackjack and hookers*, and his films were doing better at the box office. Then the company was almost taken over, Michael Eisner was given the reins, and The Little Mermaid stumbled onto a formula that Disney rode like the town bicycle: make it a catchy musical!
*The presence of blackjack and hookers is unconfirmed and possibly an awkward joke.
Oh, and what a catchy musical! The songs here are plain solid, no question, from the downright hilarious "Poisson Poisson" song to the catchy "Under the Sea" to the very pretty "Part of your World". Disney had gold here, and they learned how to mine that gold pretty consistently for the next 10 years. I sometimes wonder if the film's success might have been partially due to everyone humming "Under the Sea" when leaving the theater.
The Little Mermaid is based on the premise that teenage girls are stupid. Teenage girls ARE stupid, there's no way around this, and teenage boys are just as stupid. People are idiots from about 14-20, I'm sure there's a study confirming this. Ariel, today's teenage girl, is rebelling against her father, because he doesn't let her hang out with humans. Then she spots generically handsome Prince Eric, who she immediately falls deeply in love with and makes a series of increasingly dumb decisions in order to get closer to.
Teenage girls love generically handsome men - witness the current popularity of the Twilight series, or the previous popularity of boybands and people named Corey. In the interest of fairness, teenage boys love attractive ladies who wear only seashells, so it's understandable that our prince falls for Ariel at first glance. It's one of those love stories where you wonder how long it'll last, because hell, this relationship is based on ogling.
I might be down on the film, but while it moves towards a pre-ordained happy ending, it actually is pretty effective at capturing the problem with teenagers. They're rebellious for no reason, consumed by lust and hormones, and very stupid. The villain is evil because she takes advantage of these flaws we humans all share, that being our love of our kids and our immense stupidity in our teenage years.
The happy ending does throw a strange wrench in the gears, simply because there's not really enough of a consequence for their actions. While getting there is inconvenient, they do get married at the end, which kind of confirms their instincts were right. I know of more cases of teenage stupidity where the instincts were wrong from beginning to end, and they didn't end in a pretty ending with fanfare.
Then again, I know of relationships forged in moments of teenage rebellion and idiocy which worked, and 30 years later the couple is stronger than ever. Yeah, it's the exception more than the rule, but maybe it means a story like the Little Mermaid isn't necessarily all wrong. Sometimes love works, even if everyone involved is making ridiculous decisions to get there. The Little Mermaid is just a rare example of raging idiocy working out in the end.
In a short, and not especially detailed version of a fairly long amount of history, Disney had turned itself irrelevant by 1989, becoming a theme park company and TV studio rather than a film company. Worse still, animator Don Bluth decided to make his own animated movie studio, with blackjack and hookers*, and his films were doing better at the box office. Then the company was almost taken over, Michael Eisner was given the reins, and The Little Mermaid stumbled onto a formula that Disney rode like the town bicycle: make it a catchy musical!
*The presence of blackjack and hookers is unconfirmed and possibly an awkward joke.
Oh, and what a catchy musical! The songs here are plain solid, no question, from the downright hilarious "Poisson Poisson" song to the catchy "Under the Sea" to the very pretty "Part of your World". Disney had gold here, and they learned how to mine that gold pretty consistently for the next 10 years. I sometimes wonder if the film's success might have been partially due to everyone humming "Under the Sea" when leaving the theater.
The Little Mermaid is based on the premise that teenage girls are stupid. Teenage girls ARE stupid, there's no way around this, and teenage boys are just as stupid. People are idiots from about 14-20, I'm sure there's a study confirming this. Ariel, today's teenage girl, is rebelling against her father, because he doesn't let her hang out with humans. Then she spots generically handsome Prince Eric, who she immediately falls deeply in love with and makes a series of increasingly dumb decisions in order to get closer to.
Teenage girls love generically handsome men - witness the current popularity of the Twilight series, or the previous popularity of boybands and people named Corey. In the interest of fairness, teenage boys love attractive ladies who wear only seashells, so it's understandable that our prince falls for Ariel at first glance. It's one of those love stories where you wonder how long it'll last, because hell, this relationship is based on ogling.
I might be down on the film, but while it moves towards a pre-ordained happy ending, it actually is pretty effective at capturing the problem with teenagers. They're rebellious for no reason, consumed by lust and hormones, and very stupid. The villain is evil because she takes advantage of these flaws we humans all share, that being our love of our kids and our immense stupidity in our teenage years.
The happy ending does throw a strange wrench in the gears, simply because there's not really enough of a consequence for their actions. While getting there is inconvenient, they do get married at the end, which kind of confirms their instincts were right. I know of more cases of teenage stupidity where the instincts were wrong from beginning to end, and they didn't end in a pretty ending with fanfare.
Then again, I know of relationships forged in moments of teenage rebellion and idiocy which worked, and 30 years later the couple is stronger than ever. Yeah, it's the exception more than the rule, but maybe it means a story like the Little Mermaid isn't necessarily all wrong. Sometimes love works, even if everyone involved is making ridiculous decisions to get there. The Little Mermaid is just a rare example of raging idiocy working out in the end.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Cowboy Bebop - The Movie
The common complaint when a TV series reaches the big screen is that it's like a regular episode, but bigger. It's a bizarre complaint, because the creators are trying to bring what is good about the series to the screen, and deviating too far would make it something completely different from what the series was in the first place. When you watch a series like Cowboy Bebop, an extra long episode is what you want anyway, because the episodes work as really good little movies.
Taking a completely different tack from Serenity, Cowboy Bebop doesn't use the film to unravel unanswered questions and put a neat little bow on things. Granted, the TV series actually ended the way the creator wanted to, so there's less incentive to do that. Instead, we've got a mystery that's a bit more complex than usual, taking place mid-series. The Bebop's crew is investigating some guy named Vincent, who's spreading a complicated biological weapon and killing lots of people, culminating in stopping him from killing even more people.
Placing the film mid-series kind of deflates a bit of the tension. You know none of your leads are going to die, and you know the day will be saved. I'm not sure that matters though, because even in the regular series there was really no danger of Spike and Jet dying, at the bare minimum, and while Faye and Ed's connection were more tenuous than the two central characters there was a confidence that they would come back. So the film works the same way the series does, just longer.
That's a good thing! The series was always best when it explored complicated villains, and there was always a lot of good action, and it filled 25 minutes with more character development than some long running film series' do in their entire run. Now, we get 2 hours to go deeper, explore characters more thoroughly, and have the mystery take a little longer to unravel for us. This is a great idea, and the idea of watching long Cowboy Bebop should be appealing to everyone.
Not that it's perfect. The villain's motives seem a little muddled, and the ending is surprisingly abrupt. Yeah, the plot itself had pretty much finished, but it seemed like there was still a little more story to tell. Faye also spends a lot of time tied up on the floor, which felt a little gratuitous.
Still, watching the world's longest Cowboy Bebop episode is a great way to spend time, and there's plenty of action and mystery to go around. When people complain something is just a longer version of a regular season episode, point to this, as an example of why that's sometimes what you want.
Taking a completely different tack from Serenity, Cowboy Bebop doesn't use the film to unravel unanswered questions and put a neat little bow on things. Granted, the TV series actually ended the way the creator wanted to, so there's less incentive to do that. Instead, we've got a mystery that's a bit more complex than usual, taking place mid-series. The Bebop's crew is investigating some guy named Vincent, who's spreading a complicated biological weapon and killing lots of people, culminating in stopping him from killing even more people.
Placing the film mid-series kind of deflates a bit of the tension. You know none of your leads are going to die, and you know the day will be saved. I'm not sure that matters though, because even in the regular series there was really no danger of Spike and Jet dying, at the bare minimum, and while Faye and Ed's connection were more tenuous than the two central characters there was a confidence that they would come back. So the film works the same way the series does, just longer.
That's a good thing! The series was always best when it explored complicated villains, and there was always a lot of good action, and it filled 25 minutes with more character development than some long running film series' do in their entire run. Now, we get 2 hours to go deeper, explore characters more thoroughly, and have the mystery take a little longer to unravel for us. This is a great idea, and the idea of watching long Cowboy Bebop should be appealing to everyone.
Not that it's perfect. The villain's motives seem a little muddled, and the ending is surprisingly abrupt. Yeah, the plot itself had pretty much finished, but it seemed like there was still a little more story to tell. Faye also spends a lot of time tied up on the floor, which felt a little gratuitous.
Still, watching the world's longest Cowboy Bebop episode is a great way to spend time, and there's plenty of action and mystery to go around. When people complain something is just a longer version of a regular season episode, point to this, as an example of why that's sometimes what you want.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Tarzan
Do you like Phil Collins? Do you looooove Phil Collins? That's the question you have to ask yourself if you intend to watch Disney's Tarzan, a mostly acceptable Disney film which also features liberal sprinkling of Phil Collins and montages.
The story goes that one day a man with an awe-inspiring mustache and his wife move to Africa. They build a big elaborate cabin and listen to lots of Phil Collins music. Also fans of Collins are a family of apes, who just had an adorable baby. Unfortunately, there's a big mean leopard about, and it eats the adorable baby. In spite of his abilities to grow amazing facial hair, the leopard also eats the man and his wife, though their child survives. As a result, said child is adopted by a lonely ape, and we learn valuable lessons about love, adoption, fitting in, and listening to the music of a former Genesis drummer and current bald man.
It actually is a mostly interesting film. Tarzan's journey to find himself and learning about where he came from is pretty good, and his interactions with Jane and trigger happy evil man Clayton are just as compelling as the wacky ape parts. It's also very beautifully animated, meshing 3D and 2D in often fascinating ways, proving that they can live together in perfect harmony and are actually more attractive this way - I'll take a million Tarzans over something that looks like Bolt.
That said, there's also stuff that is less successful. Rosie O'Donnell, who plays best buddy ape Turk, is annoying. Actually, the middle part of that sentence wasn't really necessary on second thought. There's this elephant that hangs around who doesn't seem to fit in anywhere but as a plot device, and I am really quite sick of Phil Collins now.
It's pretty standard fare and I'm not going to call it the best thing Disney has ever done. On the other hand, it's solid entertainment and has a number of really interesting quirks and twists as it goes. It's pretty good entertainment, and it is actually fairly decent as a whole. Unless, of course, you don't like Phil Collins. The number of people that applies to is surprisingly high, isn't it?
The story goes that one day a man with an awe-inspiring mustache and his wife move to Africa. They build a big elaborate cabin and listen to lots of Phil Collins music. Also fans of Collins are a family of apes, who just had an adorable baby. Unfortunately, there's a big mean leopard about, and it eats the adorable baby. In spite of his abilities to grow amazing facial hair, the leopard also eats the man and his wife, though their child survives. As a result, said child is adopted by a lonely ape, and we learn valuable lessons about love, adoption, fitting in, and listening to the music of a former Genesis drummer and current bald man.
It actually is a mostly interesting film. Tarzan's journey to find himself and learning about where he came from is pretty good, and his interactions with Jane and trigger happy evil man Clayton are just as compelling as the wacky ape parts. It's also very beautifully animated, meshing 3D and 2D in often fascinating ways, proving that they can live together in perfect harmony and are actually more attractive this way - I'll take a million Tarzans over something that looks like Bolt.
That said, there's also stuff that is less successful. Rosie O'Donnell, who plays best buddy ape Turk, is annoying. Actually, the middle part of that sentence wasn't really necessary on second thought. There's this elephant that hangs around who doesn't seem to fit in anywhere but as a plot device, and I am really quite sick of Phil Collins now.
It's pretty standard fare and I'm not going to call it the best thing Disney has ever done. On the other hand, it's solid entertainment and has a number of really interesting quirks and twists as it goes. It's pretty good entertainment, and it is actually fairly decent as a whole. Unless, of course, you don't like Phil Collins. The number of people that applies to is surprisingly high, isn't it?
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Badlands
When you hear about something based on a true story, somehow you begin to expect something that is a bit less true than is being advertised. A bit of sensationalizing, perhaps, a combing through of the parts people expect with a large quantity of dramatic license to massage it through. So if Badlands is based on the true story of a young couple hiding out after one of them kills lots of people, you'll likely expect something that's a bit of an action thriller about young love and copious amounts of sex. That's not what you get when you watch Badlands.
Okay, it's about young love, that much is true. Martin Sheen at his sexiest plays Kit, a sexy garbage man who is sexy, and 25. Sissy Spacek is Holly, a 15 year old girl who does music lessons and baton twirling. They fall in love in a slightly creepy relationship, which Holly's dad (Warren Oates) does not approve of, for obvious reasons. Kit kills Holly's dad and she goes on the run with him, because teenage girls are stupid.
However, instead of being about these hot and sexy young lovers sexily loving each other in a young way, it turns into something very different. It is, more than anything, a meditation on loneliness, as the pair's only companion is the car they steal and acres of empty space. This is partially due to Kit needlessly killing everyone he comes across, so you're not quite sympathetic for them, but the film does a good job of emphasizing just how alone and apart from the world they are. Sometimes they're just the only object in frame apart from an empty sky and an emptier field. It just emphasizes their isolation.
The film is also quite pretty, in spite of the awful '70s film stock which was de rigueur. Shot composition is often breathtaking, always beautiful, and sometimes does a better job of telling the story than the script. It's about two people in the middle of nothing, and the shots are perfect at emphasizing their situation.
That said, the film is far from perfect. Spacek's narration doesn't really serve much purpose, apart from reminding us that she's a teenage girl and thus stupid - this is a trait shared with teenage boys by the way, it's just that there aren't any in the film to call out for their stupidity. Kit's character is obviously charming, a point emphasized by the later scenes where he charms all the people who tried to arrest him, but he's not very consistently charming, which undermines it a bit. Also, mountains of Saskatchewan, are you serious? Gales of laughter right there.
Still, it does what it seems to have intended all along, and it does a good job. The film presents the loneliness of people who brought it on themselves in a surprisingly sympathetic manner, and is pretty strong overall as a film. It could easily be seen as boring, but if you're in the right mindset, it's almost therapeutic.
Okay, it's about young love, that much is true. Martin Sheen at his sexiest plays Kit, a sexy garbage man who is sexy, and 25. Sissy Spacek is Holly, a 15 year old girl who does music lessons and baton twirling. They fall in love in a slightly creepy relationship, which Holly's dad (Warren Oates) does not approve of, for obvious reasons. Kit kills Holly's dad and she goes on the run with him, because teenage girls are stupid.
However, instead of being about these hot and sexy young lovers sexily loving each other in a young way, it turns into something very different. It is, more than anything, a meditation on loneliness, as the pair's only companion is the car they steal and acres of empty space. This is partially due to Kit needlessly killing everyone he comes across, so you're not quite sympathetic for them, but the film does a good job of emphasizing just how alone and apart from the world they are. Sometimes they're just the only object in frame apart from an empty sky and an emptier field. It just emphasizes their isolation.
The film is also quite pretty, in spite of the awful '70s film stock which was de rigueur. Shot composition is often breathtaking, always beautiful, and sometimes does a better job of telling the story than the script. It's about two people in the middle of nothing, and the shots are perfect at emphasizing their situation.
That said, the film is far from perfect. Spacek's narration doesn't really serve much purpose, apart from reminding us that she's a teenage girl and thus stupid - this is a trait shared with teenage boys by the way, it's just that there aren't any in the film to call out for their stupidity. Kit's character is obviously charming, a point emphasized by the later scenes where he charms all the people who tried to arrest him, but he's not very consistently charming, which undermines it a bit. Also, mountains of Saskatchewan, are you serious? Gales of laughter right there.
Still, it does what it seems to have intended all along, and it does a good job. The film presents the loneliness of people who brought it on themselves in a surprisingly sympathetic manner, and is pretty strong overall as a film. It could easily be seen as boring, but if you're in the right mindset, it's almost therapeutic.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Resident Evil
Some films can evoke a specific time and place. Sometimes it's intentional, since a good period piece can bring a bygone era to life, or a genre tribute can revive a style long dormant. Sometimes, it's unintentional, and the period evoked likely wasn't the period intended. Resident Evil reminds me of the '80s, but in this case, I don't think that was the intent.
Why is that? Well, in some ways, it's the manner in which it's shot. There's lots of spooky smoke machines and a muddy palette that evokes the '80s for me. It also starts with a slow zoom on a frame much smaller than the screen, which I haven't seen since then. In other ways, it's just a campy zombie picture, and campy action is something I associate with the '80s for some reason. This is a film that Cannon Films would gladly attach their name to. It's got marines, things to shoot, action beat, and typical scary movie slow zooms followed by quick cuts, because that's shocking.
The story itself doesn't quite make logical sense. There's a big scary lab run by a computer which manifests itself as a little girl because that's a little creepier. Some virus gets out and the computer decides to kill everyone in a series of elaborate ways. A team sets out to investigate and is killed in ways which suggest the computer is an asshole - there's a hallway with lasers where they are toyed with for no obvious benefit - and then zombies show up. The core team played by Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, Matt Addison, James Purefoy, and Martin Crewes investigate, have mysterious secrets and mostly get killed by zombies. There's even some bad CGI to connect it with the Playstation original.
One of the main faults is that nothing happens for any logical reason. The entire existence of the McGuffin of the day - the T-Virus, which zombificates people - doesn't make much sense, the computer's elaborate killing of people doesn't seem especially logical itself, the entire go down and shut the computer off plan seems unnecessarily risky, though not as risky as giving it the power to kill everyone. Character motivations are never adequately explained and sometimes contradictory, and in some cases the reasons for the characters even being there doesn't make sense.
So it's dumb, it's kind of low budget and the story doesn't make any sense. I was sort of entertained in spite of it though, and that's because the premise actually sort of works. Why do I say that? Well, you've got a confined space, lots of baddies, and a bunch of plucky individuals who need to escape that confined space. Turns out that setup is remarkably difficult to mess up. I also liked the industrial metal score, it was mostly strong and even kind of catchy.
It's not good, it doesn't make sense, and it's pretty stupid overall. Yet, it makes itself enjoyable in spite of many, many obvious flaws. The real reason why? Because it reminds me of the '80s. It reminds me of those wasted afternoons watching bad '80s films on channels like TBS. I can understand hating it, because it's stupid, but it's bad in the right way.
Why is that? Well, in some ways, it's the manner in which it's shot. There's lots of spooky smoke machines and a muddy palette that evokes the '80s for me. It also starts with a slow zoom on a frame much smaller than the screen, which I haven't seen since then. In other ways, it's just a campy zombie picture, and campy action is something I associate with the '80s for some reason. This is a film that Cannon Films would gladly attach their name to. It's got marines, things to shoot, action beat, and typical scary movie slow zooms followed by quick cuts, because that's shocking.
The story itself doesn't quite make logical sense. There's a big scary lab run by a computer which manifests itself as a little girl because that's a little creepier. Some virus gets out and the computer decides to kill everyone in a series of elaborate ways. A team sets out to investigate and is killed in ways which suggest the computer is an asshole - there's a hallway with lasers where they are toyed with for no obvious benefit - and then zombies show up. The core team played by Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, Matt Addison, James Purefoy, and Martin Crewes investigate, have mysterious secrets and mostly get killed by zombies. There's even some bad CGI to connect it with the Playstation original.
One of the main faults is that nothing happens for any logical reason. The entire existence of the McGuffin of the day - the T-Virus, which zombificates people - doesn't make much sense, the computer's elaborate killing of people doesn't seem especially logical itself, the entire go down and shut the computer off plan seems unnecessarily risky, though not as risky as giving it the power to kill everyone. Character motivations are never adequately explained and sometimes contradictory, and in some cases the reasons for the characters even being there doesn't make sense.
So it's dumb, it's kind of low budget and the story doesn't make any sense. I was sort of entertained in spite of it though, and that's because the premise actually sort of works. Why do I say that? Well, you've got a confined space, lots of baddies, and a bunch of plucky individuals who need to escape that confined space. Turns out that setup is remarkably difficult to mess up. I also liked the industrial metal score, it was mostly strong and even kind of catchy.
It's not good, it doesn't make sense, and it's pretty stupid overall. Yet, it makes itself enjoyable in spite of many, many obvious flaws. The real reason why? Because it reminds me of the '80s. It reminds me of those wasted afternoons watching bad '80s films on channels like TBS. I can understand hating it, because it's stupid, but it's bad in the right way.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Hercules
Know the myth of Heracles? Well, discard that in your mind for a moment, it has little to do with the Disney film Hercules. There's good reason for this. You really can't discuss Zeus with bringing up the messy matter of rape - Zeus loved him some rape - and in the original legend Zeus went around as a woman's husband and did some raping. Then Hera was irate at this and decided to punish Heracles a lot.
Now, in the Disney version, that doesn't happen. Instead, Hera and Hercules are in a rape-free monogamous relationship, and Hercules is their beloved son. Then he's stolen away, made mortal with magic juice, and has to be trained by Danny DeVito. Then he finds a girl named Meg, and they live happily ever after, until her murders their children in a fit of rage.
Disney didn't show that last bit either.
The question here is obvious, why did Disney adapt Hercules? It's a story filled with violence, rape and murder. As such, it's slightly less than family friendly. Take all that away, and you've basically got Bam-Bam Rubble smashing his way through a formula. That's fine, since it's Disney, but they could have really adapted anything if they wanted to have a formula. In spite of the names, it doesn't really involve the real legend.
That would be fine, if it was good. Mulan had some serious plot alterations from the poem on which it was based, but they served a dramatic purpose. Here, it's all bad jokes and light plotting. The story is padded - heavily - by the chorus explaining what's going on, but it doesn't really move the action. The story itself is by the book, and the overall film is just low-tier Disney. When the studio was on, they could make masterpieces, but when they were off, they were just dull.
There are some very weird references scattered throughout which make me wonder just what was going on. Scar from the Lion King becomes a lion skin, the names frequently reference the real story, and small details show that someone knew what they were doing. Then the illusion is ruined by the fact that you know in the back of your mind that they're getting even the basic details wrong, and they're not replacing those details with better ones.
It's also the only Disney film with a nipple, but that's easy to miss.
If I was 8, maybe I would like it, but people who are 8 typically have very low standards. It's not awful, per se, but it's simply not as good as Disney is capable of making. Knowing what they can do - and Mulan is an example of this - it's difficult to watch something in which they aren't at their full potential.
Now, in the Disney version, that doesn't happen. Instead, Hera and Hercules are in a rape-free monogamous relationship, and Hercules is their beloved son. Then he's stolen away, made mortal with magic juice, and has to be trained by Danny DeVito. Then he finds a girl named Meg, and they live happily ever after, until her murders their children in a fit of rage.
Disney didn't show that last bit either.
The question here is obvious, why did Disney adapt Hercules? It's a story filled with violence, rape and murder. As such, it's slightly less than family friendly. Take all that away, and you've basically got Bam-Bam Rubble smashing his way through a formula. That's fine, since it's Disney, but they could have really adapted anything if they wanted to have a formula. In spite of the names, it doesn't really involve the real legend.
That would be fine, if it was good. Mulan had some serious plot alterations from the poem on which it was based, but they served a dramatic purpose. Here, it's all bad jokes and light plotting. The story is padded - heavily - by the chorus explaining what's going on, but it doesn't really move the action. The story itself is by the book, and the overall film is just low-tier Disney. When the studio was on, they could make masterpieces, but when they were off, they were just dull.
There are some very weird references scattered throughout which make me wonder just what was going on. Scar from the Lion King becomes a lion skin, the names frequently reference the real story, and small details show that someone knew what they were doing. Then the illusion is ruined by the fact that you know in the back of your mind that they're getting even the basic details wrong, and they're not replacing those details with better ones.
It's also the only Disney film with a nipple, but that's easy to miss.
If I was 8, maybe I would like it, but people who are 8 typically have very low standards. It's not awful, per se, but it's simply not as good as Disney is capable of making. Knowing what they can do - and Mulan is an example of this - it's difficult to watch something in which they aren't at their full potential.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Mulan
Disney princesses - sorry, Disney Princesses, since it's a brand - are as a whole pretty useless. Their stories tend to revolve around getting a man, keeping a man, being saved by a man, and generally bending to the will of a man. Then, at the end of the day, all they get is a pretty dress. Yet, the princess formula is an integral part of Disney's success, and something which they have made a lot of money on. Still, I imagine some people within the Disney empire was getting annoyed by how completely useless the princesses are, for the most part. Hence, Mulan.
Mulan is counted among the pantheon of Disney Princesses, but unlike, well, all of them, she isn't useless. Hell, the entire film is about how women aren't useless (and possibly also about being a lesbian, but that's reading a lot into it). There's a society that doesn't value women, so Mulan becomes a man and joins the army so her father doesn't have to. Then she kicks everyone's ass and kills thousands of enemy soldiers. She also scores a man, but that part is mostly pushed to the last five minutes because that's really not the focus here.
She essentially beats all odds by not only being a Disney Princess who doesn't suck, but also possibly the most badass Disney character. She certainly has the highest body count, at the very minimum. Her actions are pretty much presented as the pinnacle of badassery, with there being frequent mentions of her being a girl, just to point out that the ladies are doing it for themselves. It's a break from the convention of useless women, a female Disney character who does more than fill out a dress and pick a handsome yet earthy guy.
Of course, it's a Disney film, so formula can't be abandoned completely. Are there catchy songs? Are there ever! Do we get wacky animal sidekicks? Oh baby, ladies and gentlemen, Eddie Murphy as a pointless dragon! It's also got that trademark very pretty Disney animation, which is a highlight, but even as the story breaks some conventions, it strictly adheres to others, and it still does the "heroes have to end the story together" thing that was pioneered a mere 1000 years ago.
Actually, I wonder how much better this might be if it wasn't Disney. The story is fairly violent - war, China fighting off the huns, etc. - and there are several cuts and scenes where you could see the filmmakers straining under the restrictions. A full on bloody spectacle could easily be made - and made well - with this material, and it often feels about a half step too safe.
Still, it was progress, and proof that someone at Disney could make an interesting female character. Yes, they had to dress her up as a man, but still, somewhere in that land of dormant franchises and elaborate theme parks, a nugget of feminism remained. A tiny nugget, that never really got a chance to flourish as the studio was confused by changing tastes and Pixar generally doing a lot better job of filmmaking than they were, which lead to a pile of bad decisions and worse movies, but a nugget. A nugget obscured by the Disney Princesses brand, but a nugget. Hopefully people see beyond the surface glitz of Sleeping Beauty, the naivety of Snow White, the balls to the wall stupidity of Ariel, and the general pointlessness of Jasmine to find that nugget.
Mulan is counted among the pantheon of Disney Princesses, but unlike, well, all of them, she isn't useless. Hell, the entire film is about how women aren't useless (and possibly also about being a lesbian, but that's reading a lot into it). There's a society that doesn't value women, so Mulan becomes a man and joins the army so her father doesn't have to. Then she kicks everyone's ass and kills thousands of enemy soldiers. She also scores a man, but that part is mostly pushed to the last five minutes because that's really not the focus here.
She essentially beats all odds by not only being a Disney Princess who doesn't suck, but also possibly the most badass Disney character. She certainly has the highest body count, at the very minimum. Her actions are pretty much presented as the pinnacle of badassery, with there being frequent mentions of her being a girl, just to point out that the ladies are doing it for themselves. It's a break from the convention of useless women, a female Disney character who does more than fill out a dress and pick a handsome yet earthy guy.
Of course, it's a Disney film, so formula can't be abandoned completely. Are there catchy songs? Are there ever! Do we get wacky animal sidekicks? Oh baby, ladies and gentlemen, Eddie Murphy as a pointless dragon! It's also got that trademark very pretty Disney animation, which is a highlight, but even as the story breaks some conventions, it strictly adheres to others, and it still does the "heroes have to end the story together" thing that was pioneered a mere 1000 years ago.
Actually, I wonder how much better this might be if it wasn't Disney. The story is fairly violent - war, China fighting off the huns, etc. - and there are several cuts and scenes where you could see the filmmakers straining under the restrictions. A full on bloody spectacle could easily be made - and made well - with this material, and it often feels about a half step too safe.
Still, it was progress, and proof that someone at Disney could make an interesting female character. Yes, they had to dress her up as a man, but still, somewhere in that land of dormant franchises and elaborate theme parks, a nugget of feminism remained. A tiny nugget, that never really got a chance to flourish as the studio was confused by changing tastes and Pixar generally doing a lot better job of filmmaking than they were, which lead to a pile of bad decisions and worse movies, but a nugget. A nugget obscured by the Disney Princesses brand, but a nugget. Hopefully people see beyond the surface glitz of Sleeping Beauty, the naivety of Snow White, the balls to the wall stupidity of Ariel, and the general pointlessness of Jasmine to find that nugget.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Smokey and the Bandit Part 3
I recently complained that Smokey and the Bandit II didn't do what it says on the tin. Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 does, and yet, it's somehow worse. How does that work?
Well, for all their flaws, the first two movies had a story. It wasn't a good story, or a deep one, but it existed. There was a forward momentum, something to follow, some characters that you could conceivably care about. This doesn't have that. The story? No real story, just a destination, with no real connection from point a to point b. It's a collection of silly vignettes that have nothing to do with each other.
Hell, the warning signs come early. No Burt Reynolds - well, there's a pointless cameo, but he's largely absent - no Sally Field and the director was not Hal Needham. Is it that hard to get Hal Needham? He's not exactly an A-list director. He's barely even a C-list one, how crap does your production have to be if you can't get Hal Needham? Jackie Gleason is back, though he phones it in, and Jerry Reed grows a mustache and turns into the Bandit. Yet, while he actually turned in a pretty respectable performance in the first two, he's possibly the most annoying thing on screen.
So, let's cover what is done right. There are a lot of stunts, and many are well done. They don't really serve much purpose, but if you want to see cars crash through things, well, this is a movie where that happens. The breadth and depth of things being crashed through is vast. It's a very impressive variety of pointless crashing. Also, in one scene you can see a nipple if you look closely.
That's it.
Some stuff is just weird. Some scenes were heavily, and obviously, dubbed in post production. Reportedly Jackie Gleason also played the bandit in the first cut, which wouldn't have made sense, and I wonder if that change explains the variety strange cuts and general incomprehensibleness of the goings on. Other strange things are nudists and having our heroes stumble into an orgy. That seems like an odd choice when the film really is only good if you're 8 or watching it on TBS while making a cake. Speaking of the orgy, that sequence is weird, as the bandit character and the smokey seem to be in entirely different worlds, as one goes to a rather dry novelty hotel and the other picks up a tranny hooker.
But mostly it's just bad. The comedy isn't funny, and there's no reason to care what happens. It's just a series of slow motion car crashes, without any reason to follow or care. It forgot that while lightweight, pointless and often stupid, the first two Smokey and the Bandit movies were, well, movies. They had stories, characters, and even a little tension. Not great stories, characters, or tension, but they were there. This just has cars crashing into things. I'm pro cars crashing into things, but unless there's a reason for it, what's the point?
Well, for all their flaws, the first two movies had a story. It wasn't a good story, or a deep one, but it existed. There was a forward momentum, something to follow, some characters that you could conceivably care about. This doesn't have that. The story? No real story, just a destination, with no real connection from point a to point b. It's a collection of silly vignettes that have nothing to do with each other.
Hell, the warning signs come early. No Burt Reynolds - well, there's a pointless cameo, but he's largely absent - no Sally Field and the director was not Hal Needham. Is it that hard to get Hal Needham? He's not exactly an A-list director. He's barely even a C-list one, how crap does your production have to be if you can't get Hal Needham? Jackie Gleason is back, though he phones it in, and Jerry Reed grows a mustache and turns into the Bandit. Yet, while he actually turned in a pretty respectable performance in the first two, he's possibly the most annoying thing on screen.
So, let's cover what is done right. There are a lot of stunts, and many are well done. They don't really serve much purpose, but if you want to see cars crash through things, well, this is a movie where that happens. The breadth and depth of things being crashed through is vast. It's a very impressive variety of pointless crashing. Also, in one scene you can see a nipple if you look closely.
That's it.
Some stuff is just weird. Some scenes were heavily, and obviously, dubbed in post production. Reportedly Jackie Gleason also played the bandit in the first cut, which wouldn't have made sense, and I wonder if that change explains the variety strange cuts and general incomprehensibleness of the goings on. Other strange things are nudists and having our heroes stumble into an orgy. That seems like an odd choice when the film really is only good if you're 8 or watching it on TBS while making a cake. Speaking of the orgy, that sequence is weird, as the bandit character and the smokey seem to be in entirely different worlds, as one goes to a rather dry novelty hotel and the other picks up a tranny hooker.
But mostly it's just bad. The comedy isn't funny, and there's no reason to care what happens. It's just a series of slow motion car crashes, without any reason to follow or care. It forgot that while lightweight, pointless and often stupid, the first two Smokey and the Bandit movies were, well, movies. They had stories, characters, and even a little tension. Not great stories, characters, or tension, but they were there. This just has cars crashing into things. I'm pro cars crashing into things, but unless there's a reason for it, what's the point?
Friday, July 16, 2010
Smokey and the Bandit II
There are two reasons people want to watch Smokey and the Bandit. Reason 1, to see a man with a mustache drive a black Trans Am recklessly. Reason 2, to see Jackie Gleason swear and play a jerk cop. Smokey and the Bandit II, unfortunately, decides that the main reason people want to watch a Smokey and the Bandit movie is to watch some bad comedy. This is an erroneous assumption.
The story must be a meta commentary on the production. Jerry Reed is eager to do a silly run like in the first movie for muchos dineros. Burt Reynolds is a washed up drunk coaxed into another race in order to further his fame and fortune. Sally Field - who is introduced in a way that must have been commentating on her contract negotiations - also wants money. And Jackie Gleason plays so broad that he has to play three different characters. There's also a literal elephant in the room, perhaps referencing the metaphorical one, that nobody besides Jerry Reed wanted to be there.
It's a retread, and a bad one. There's a dearth of car stunts - no black Trans Am until 25 minutes in, not even a stunt until 47. Everyone is visibly annoyed and wanting to be somewhere else - with the exception of Reed, who actually seems to be enjoying himself, as though he just likes to be on camera. There's really only one notable stunt sequence - though it's a biggie, with what looks like hundreds of cars destroyed - but until we get there we've got a lot of pointless elephant-based drama, bad comedy.
I liked that the relationship between the Field and Reynolds characters collapsed between films, that was believable. It seemed like the natural conclusion, as they had nothing in common and a relationship forged in high stress circumstances. I also like that it made fun of Reynolds' ego a lot, since it's clear he's got a big one. I didn't like how even with a pointless story it didn't really have an ending - it seemed like they just ran out of movie - I didn't like how it tried to setup an even more awful sequel, but more than anything, I didn't like that it didn't do what it says on the box.
Nobody cares about anything but the stunts with this kind of movie, and the first one realized it. This either didn't have the budget or the effort needed to do what it says on the box. If you're going to do an unnecessary sequel, at least keep doing what made the first one so... decent. Don't turn it into a bad comedy, that's forgetting why people watch in the first place.
Good lord, there's another one of these things?
The story must be a meta commentary on the production. Jerry Reed is eager to do a silly run like in the first movie for muchos dineros. Burt Reynolds is a washed up drunk coaxed into another race in order to further his fame and fortune. Sally Field - who is introduced in a way that must have been commentating on her contract negotiations - also wants money. And Jackie Gleason plays so broad that he has to play three different characters. There's also a literal elephant in the room, perhaps referencing the metaphorical one, that nobody besides Jerry Reed wanted to be there.
It's a retread, and a bad one. There's a dearth of car stunts - no black Trans Am until 25 minutes in, not even a stunt until 47. Everyone is visibly annoyed and wanting to be somewhere else - with the exception of Reed, who actually seems to be enjoying himself, as though he just likes to be on camera. There's really only one notable stunt sequence - though it's a biggie, with what looks like hundreds of cars destroyed - but until we get there we've got a lot of pointless elephant-based drama, bad comedy.
I liked that the relationship between the Field and Reynolds characters collapsed between films, that was believable. It seemed like the natural conclusion, as they had nothing in common and a relationship forged in high stress circumstances. I also like that it made fun of Reynolds' ego a lot, since it's clear he's got a big one. I didn't like how even with a pointless story it didn't really have an ending - it seemed like they just ran out of movie - I didn't like how it tried to setup an even more awful sequel, but more than anything, I didn't like that it didn't do what it says on the box.
Nobody cares about anything but the stunts with this kind of movie, and the first one realized it. This either didn't have the budget or the effort needed to do what it says on the box. If you're going to do an unnecessary sequel, at least keep doing what made the first one so... decent. Don't turn it into a bad comedy, that's forgetting why people watch in the first place.
Good lord, there's another one of these things?
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Smokey and the Bandit
Some movies are intellectually stimulating, deep, and artistically challenging. That does not describe Smokey and the Bandit. There's really not much substantive in this film at all, though of course that doesn't mean it's a complete loss.
Truth be told, if you're watching the film you're really not looking for much in the way of story. Burt Reynolds is the Bandit, Jerry Reed is the Snowman, and they're trying to get beer from Texas to Georgia for a bunch of money. On the way they meet a runaway bride played by Sally Field, and misogynist, racist, and all around objectionable Buford T. Justice, given life by Jackie Gleason, who happens to be the potential father-in-law of said runaway bride. Also in a starring role is a black Trans Am, which goes really fast.
Plot exists solely to give some motivation for some super fast driving and to destroy as many 70s full sized sedans as possible. We're introduced to a fraternity of CB radio enthusiasts, as though the CB industry had heavy investment in the film. Everything happens as an excuse to drive fast and smash stuff.
Is there anything necessarily wrong with that? Well, if you're looking for substance, yes. Smokey and the Bandit was seemingly designed to allow director Hal Needham to film lots of stunts - he's a former stuntman after all - and provide a light Saturday afternoon of entertainment. It's the kind of film that works perfectly on a channel like TBS, there to watch between other programs with every minute leading to something a bit amusing or an impressive stunt. The story is kept as bare as possible because you really don't have to follow it, so why bother?
This isn't to say that the film is meritless, just really lightweight. The junk food of cinema, let's say, but even junk food can be really tasty sometimes. Plus, there are some things that it does right. For one, it's really well cast. Field is great at being simultaneously charming and very annoying. Reynolds has an effortless, bad boy charm and Reed has a strange neurotic charm which also somehow works. The star of the show, really, is the Trans Am, which has this redneck cool that shouldn't be nearly as appealing as it is.
The best actor of the show, by contrast, is Gleason. He manages to make Buford T. Justice into a really horrible asshole that you never object to so much that you hate him, but always just enough that you want him to lose. Every loss where you might feel sorry for the guy is always ended by a perfectly chosen line where you are reminded that this man is an ass. It makes it okay to root against him, but also okay to like it when he's on screen. He's the kind of person you love to see fail, which is good, since he fails a lot.
It should also be noted that it's the source of possibly the world's greatest driving song, Eastbound and Down. It's not used as well as it could be - the chase it is used in is actually a surprisingly boring one - but it's a great song and I always drive a little more irresponsibly when it's on the stereo.
So Smokey and the Bandit has merits, it's just not a very deep movie all around. It's fun, more than anything, for the actors, the cast, the crew, and everyone. Nothing wrong with being fun, and that's why it got two sequels, which will be covered in the coming weeks. Why? Because they're included on the DVD I got, that's why! Hope you're prepared for Smokey and/or the Bandit forever.
Truth be told, if you're watching the film you're really not looking for much in the way of story. Burt Reynolds is the Bandit, Jerry Reed is the Snowman, and they're trying to get beer from Texas to Georgia for a bunch of money. On the way they meet a runaway bride played by Sally Field, and misogynist, racist, and all around objectionable Buford T. Justice, given life by Jackie Gleason, who happens to be the potential father-in-law of said runaway bride. Also in a starring role is a black Trans Am, which goes really fast.
Plot exists solely to give some motivation for some super fast driving and to destroy as many 70s full sized sedans as possible. We're introduced to a fraternity of CB radio enthusiasts, as though the CB industry had heavy investment in the film. Everything happens as an excuse to drive fast and smash stuff.
Is there anything necessarily wrong with that? Well, if you're looking for substance, yes. Smokey and the Bandit was seemingly designed to allow director Hal Needham to film lots of stunts - he's a former stuntman after all - and provide a light Saturday afternoon of entertainment. It's the kind of film that works perfectly on a channel like TBS, there to watch between other programs with every minute leading to something a bit amusing or an impressive stunt. The story is kept as bare as possible because you really don't have to follow it, so why bother?
This isn't to say that the film is meritless, just really lightweight. The junk food of cinema, let's say, but even junk food can be really tasty sometimes. Plus, there are some things that it does right. For one, it's really well cast. Field is great at being simultaneously charming and very annoying. Reynolds has an effortless, bad boy charm and Reed has a strange neurotic charm which also somehow works. The star of the show, really, is the Trans Am, which has this redneck cool that shouldn't be nearly as appealing as it is.
The best actor of the show, by contrast, is Gleason. He manages to make Buford T. Justice into a really horrible asshole that you never object to so much that you hate him, but always just enough that you want him to lose. Every loss where you might feel sorry for the guy is always ended by a perfectly chosen line where you are reminded that this man is an ass. It makes it okay to root against him, but also okay to like it when he's on screen. He's the kind of person you love to see fail, which is good, since he fails a lot.
It should also be noted that it's the source of possibly the world's greatest driving song, Eastbound and Down. It's not used as well as it could be - the chase it is used in is actually a surprisingly boring one - but it's a great song and I always drive a little more irresponsibly when it's on the stereo.
So Smokey and the Bandit has merits, it's just not a very deep movie all around. It's fun, more than anything, for the actors, the cast, the crew, and everyone. Nothing wrong with being fun, and that's why it got two sequels, which will be covered in the coming weeks. Why? Because they're included on the DVD I got, that's why! Hope you're prepared for Smokey and/or the Bandit forever.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Se7en
I don't claim to know why genre conventions have evolved as they have over a hundred years of cinema. The two cops which are opposites, serial killers, all the conventions that have sprung up over the years for crime-based films and I've got no idea why they exist. Still, at this point they've become so well known that they become a reference point for something completely apart from a cliche. Se7en is an example of this, a taut disturbing thriller grounded in genre conventions which everyone knows and loves.
I mean, we've got the typical standards here. Morgan Freeman plays a cop who is too old for shit, especially this shit. Brad Pitt is a passionate upstart who lets his emotions run wild. Together, they fight crime, and a serial killer who models his murders on the seven deadly sins. Seen this before? Yes, you have, though perhaps not the seven deadly sins part, and it actually is strangely comforting as the movie starts. Here's something familiar, something tangible that we can identify with after years of movies doing the same thing.
Then it takes a wild turn for the messed up zone, and thank the lord for that.
By basing the movie around two characters which could easily collapse into cliche it becomes a little bit more disturbing overall. The familiar sights are combined with something completely different and more than a little disconcerting, and it's filmed in a moody, tense way which is a complete departure from a typical police film. There is something familiar in the mix, and that makes the content itself more disturbing, and the ultimate conclusion significantly more shocking.
See, what it does is take something we know, love, expect and appreciate and turns it on its head. It's almost a commentary on film cliches in a way, as it takes the most predictable of genres and makes a film that is as unpredictable as you can get, and which goes in directions which nobody can anticipate. It takes cornerstones of enjoyable fiction and turns them in on themselves, a clever and engaging move.
A good film will go somewhere you won't expect, even if that direction makes complete sense as you go through the story. This does that, and for that it has to be one of the best intense thrillers that you will ever find. It's likely not far from the truth that this film made David Fincher's career, and considering the unique, varied and often dark directions he's taken, it's a career we can be grateful for.
I mean, we've got the typical standards here. Morgan Freeman plays a cop who is too old for shit, especially this shit. Brad Pitt is a passionate upstart who lets his emotions run wild. Together, they fight crime, and a serial killer who models his murders on the seven deadly sins. Seen this before? Yes, you have, though perhaps not the seven deadly sins part, and it actually is strangely comforting as the movie starts. Here's something familiar, something tangible that we can identify with after years of movies doing the same thing.
Then it takes a wild turn for the messed up zone, and thank the lord for that.
By basing the movie around two characters which could easily collapse into cliche it becomes a little bit more disturbing overall. The familiar sights are combined with something completely different and more than a little disconcerting, and it's filmed in a moody, tense way which is a complete departure from a typical police film. There is something familiar in the mix, and that makes the content itself more disturbing, and the ultimate conclusion significantly more shocking.
See, what it does is take something we know, love, expect and appreciate and turns it on its head. It's almost a commentary on film cliches in a way, as it takes the most predictable of genres and makes a film that is as unpredictable as you can get, and which goes in directions which nobody can anticipate. It takes cornerstones of enjoyable fiction and turns them in on themselves, a clever and engaging move.
A good film will go somewhere you won't expect, even if that direction makes complete sense as you go through the story. This does that, and for that it has to be one of the best intense thrillers that you will ever find. It's likely not far from the truth that this film made David Fincher's career, and considering the unique, varied and often dark directions he's taken, it's a career we can be grateful for.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Bad Sleep Well
Every so often, I'll mention that a film's subtitles are conspicuously bad. Sometimes, the movie is bad to start with (Immortal Enemy), but it's often the case where bad subtitles are just annoying. Now, the first time I saw The Bad Sleep Well, it was a downloaded copy with awful babelfished subtitles. The movie was clearly good, but the serious tone was undermined by lines like "YOU JUMP DOWN AND DIE!" Now, having watched the classy, well done subtitles on the Criterion release - legitimately, might I add - I can honestly observe the difference a proper translation makes, and also why if a film was good, not even the worst translation in the world can hold it back.
The story was still clear, even if the details were hard to parse. Toshiro Mifune is Nishi, a secretary and son-in-law to powerful guy Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), vice president of the Public corporation, which has something to do with Japanese building contracts. Iwabuchi is corrupt, and powerful enough to get people to kill themselves (an element uniquely Japanese), but he made the mistake of suiciding the wrong man. As a result, Nishi's out for revenge, in a plot that's quite complicated and rewarding in equal measure, with a shocking twist ending.
That story brought me back again, for the second time, even as bad as the translation was, but I appreciated that well written dialog made things a lot clearer. It took away the constant distraction and put the focus squarely on the picture, which is great, because it's a good one. The dueling themes of corruption and loyalty play out in frequently compelling ways. The scheme isn't necessarily complicated, but it also is intricately woven in with the personal relationships between characters. Corruption is a theme, but what corruption does to people is the important part of that theme, and the focus is always on the people rather than the scheme itself.
I'm sure I've mentioned before that Akira Kurosawa makes films like a painter, and this film is no different. Hell, this is the movie that gave me that realization in the first place. Just in the way shots are framed and actors positioned can tell the story of the scene, and sometimes it does more than the necessary exposition in establishing character.
It does have a couple problems. There's a lot of exposition, which can get tiresome as it's not always strictly necessary - sometimes things are explained a bit too much for no clear reason. Kô Nishimura's turn as Shirai requires him to react in shock, which at times seems to border on the ridiculous overacting that sometimes plagues silent films. Still, that's just me picking nits, because that's what I do.
Everyone thinks of samurai epics when they think of Kurosawa, possibly because he was very good at them. However, with this, he proves just as adept with a modern setting and characters. They reach into the core problems of Japanese society - especially of the era it was made - perhaps better than the old samurai, possibly because they're more easily identifiable. The corporate shenanigans are something still relevant 50 years after the fact, and it's one of those films that will always be just a little relevant overall.
The story was still clear, even if the details were hard to parse. Toshiro Mifune is Nishi, a secretary and son-in-law to powerful guy Iwabuchi (Masayuki Mori), vice president of the Public corporation, which has something to do with Japanese building contracts. Iwabuchi is corrupt, and powerful enough to get people to kill themselves (an element uniquely Japanese), but he made the mistake of suiciding the wrong man. As a result, Nishi's out for revenge, in a plot that's quite complicated and rewarding in equal measure, with a shocking twist ending.
That story brought me back again, for the second time, even as bad as the translation was, but I appreciated that well written dialog made things a lot clearer. It took away the constant distraction and put the focus squarely on the picture, which is great, because it's a good one. The dueling themes of corruption and loyalty play out in frequently compelling ways. The scheme isn't necessarily complicated, but it also is intricately woven in with the personal relationships between characters. Corruption is a theme, but what corruption does to people is the important part of that theme, and the focus is always on the people rather than the scheme itself.
I'm sure I've mentioned before that Akira Kurosawa makes films like a painter, and this film is no different. Hell, this is the movie that gave me that realization in the first place. Just in the way shots are framed and actors positioned can tell the story of the scene, and sometimes it does more than the necessary exposition in establishing character.
It does have a couple problems. There's a lot of exposition, which can get tiresome as it's not always strictly necessary - sometimes things are explained a bit too much for no clear reason. Kô Nishimura's turn as Shirai requires him to react in shock, which at times seems to border on the ridiculous overacting that sometimes plagues silent films. Still, that's just me picking nits, because that's what I do.
Everyone thinks of samurai epics when they think of Kurosawa, possibly because he was very good at them. However, with this, he proves just as adept with a modern setting and characters. They reach into the core problems of Japanese society - especially of the era it was made - perhaps better than the old samurai, possibly because they're more easily identifiable. The corporate shenanigans are something still relevant 50 years after the fact, and it's one of those films that will always be just a little relevant overall.
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