Initially I was content to keep up with movies and/or TV shows, or really any media, but eight years of a Republican Administration totally ruined the economy, and since it takes 2 years for a movie to get made, things are still pretty iffy on the Hollywood side. Even things I was excited about beforehand... now, it's like, "Eugh. I was excited about Tron Legacy? I hope my unborn children never read these."
So things sort of stalled out after Thor, which I suspect will retain a certain limited rewatchability in the coming years (albeit not the first 20 minutes of it)... Kenneth Branagh is not coming back for the sequel, so perhaps we'll have some modest improvement there come 2013. In the meantime, what's a geek left with?
The Avengers is next summer, as is The Dark Knight Rises. Cowboys and Aliens comes out later this month, and the Joss Whedon co-scripted Cabin in the Woods finally landed a release date this October, two years after it finished filming.
But first, a paragraph about Joss Whedon:
A lot of people will rant against his particular oeuvre of work, and as much as that annoys me, I'm starting to realize they're well within their rights. Shows like "CSI" (or indeed, anything with Jerry Bruckheimer's name on it) are designed to appeal to the largest number of people possible, but I daresay those people will never love that thing as much as they love their favorite book, or favorite, say, car. Joss Whedon is happy to say he appeals to a niche audience, and I'm ready to let him. Because he has said, and I've quoted (paraphrased) this here before, "I'd rather make something 3 million people love, than something 30 million people like." Granted, he probably won't apply that to The Avengers, but he's still pretty nerdy.
You know who else is nerdy? Harry Potter fans.
If Star Wars fans are dorks for dressing up like Chewbacca and Slave Leia (hopefully not at the same time), then Harry Potter fans are dorks for dressing up like Hermione and Severus Snape (actually, there's a mash-up that totally works). And their last movie is coming out in a week.
NOT GEEK
I've seen the first Harry Potter movie, then 3-7. As this is the non-geek section, I don't know that I could even include the books here if I HAD read them (I haven't), but a shitload of fantasy-literature has been rushed to the bookshelves because of this series, and I've read a small sampling of it. The movies I've seen were all entertaining, if some felt a bit rushed. Also then you have people behind you as you walk out of the theater, saying, "YOU KNOW, THE REASON HARRY'S FRIEND BEAUREGARD KENSINGTON WAS WEARING A POSEY IN THAT SCENE WAS BECAUSE HIS PARENTS WERE BOTH MURDERED BY DEATH-EATERS ON A TUESDAY, AND AS A RESULT HE CAN NO LONGER DIGEST LACTOSE. IT'S IN THE BOOKS. THE BOOKS ARE SO MUCH BETTER. YOU SHOULD READ THE BOOKS."
If you like the books so much, read the books again. If any book you have ever loved has ever been turned into a movie, it got screwed up. You know it, I know it, the American people know it.
A "niche" market means something is made for a small group of people who love a thing. In movies this is called a "cult" following. A small amount of people love this thing and will fight for it, but Hollywood can't make any money off it. You know what we call that in the publishing industry?
A "book."
There are so many books, that EVERY book is a niche market. Even something like "The Da Vinci Code" still sold less copies than the last Ke$ha album*, and that thing was on the best-seller list for a year. Because if it's in hard-cover, you plunk down $30 one time, and it's your book. You own it. You can lend it to a friend, and re-read it for free as many times as you like.
And somewhere someone in Hollywood is saying, "What a stupid business model."
Movies, on the other hand, are made to appeal to the highest number of people possible, and therefore make the most amount of money possible. This is why a small art film might make $5 million it's entire theatrical run, and your favorite mainstream movie might cap out between $50 to $150 million... and then Transformers 3 made $200 million its first week. Because any brain power is removed, and it's just explosions for no reason. ANYONE can enjoy that.
"But Warren," you might say, "Transformers 3 IS my favorite mainstream movie."
To which I respond, "Get the hell off my blog."
So, anyway, to tie this up: Every movie made from a book is dumbed down not because the director is stupid (though in the case of Harry Potter One and Two, he was), but by design.
You know where shit is less stupid? Other than in books, I mean:
GEEK
In 2001, when the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's and/or Philosopher's Stone came out, that was the only thing that happened to a successful book: You make a movie of it. You hire a director who has directed something else that made money (in this case, Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire), you hire a screenwriter who has written any movie, ever, put out a press release to make people excited about casting, and there you go. Guaranteed income, just because your movie has "Harry Potter" in the title. Who CARES if it's good? IT'S HARRY POTTER. IN MOVIE FORM. OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
(this same unexplainable phenomenon is why Smallville was on TV for ten years).
Now, I'm not hating on Harry Potter. Like my Non-Geek counterpart, I enjoyed movies 3-7 very much, enough to keep going back to the theater for each sequel. They're not all created equal, but they're all still a good time at the movies. The first film made enough money, and the books sold enough copies, that 7 movies (or now 8) were all but guaranteed. Because, again, in 2001, a popular book got made into a movie. The end.
But now it's 2011, and something has changed over the last decade. Sure, we all had 500 channels in 2001 as well, but so have we seen the advent of actual long-form literature get turned into something other than a TV movie (yes, that happened once too, but even that capped out at 4 hours or so, unless you were "Roots"). The book "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" was turned into a 13-episode first season of "Dexter." The book "Dead Until Dark" was turned into the first season of "True Blood." And so on. Game of Thrones. Even "Flash Forward." Serialized television has become the next big thing, because even though shows like "CSI" and "Law & Order" remain popular, there is a growing interest in televison shows where you can actually see character development, rather than just wait 60 minutes until someone says, "The character named (blah) killed the victim by (insert ridiculously complicated, scientifically impossible explanation here)." Snoozeville. Pass the remote.
Another book series that (sort of**) got turned into a TV show was the "Dresden Files" series by Jim Butcher, a story about a licensed private investigator in modern-day Chicago, who also happens to be a wizard. In fact, he's the only person listed in the phone book under "wizard," and thus his client base can be pretty eclectic. The first book in the series was the authors first novel (the same can be said for J.K. Rowling), but while Harry Potter was designed to stop at book 7, "The Dresden Files" releases its 13th full novel this summer, amongst short stories and novellas published in other compendiums. The style is similar to Harry Potter in only one way:
These stories cannot be contained in a two hour film (and also magic... okay, two ways. But that's it).
In a movie, you have 3 acts... 5 acts if you can keep your audience interested. Person A received a goal, they spend the middle of the movie chasing said goal, there is a showdown at the end of the movie. Sometimes it's circuitous, like in Bridesmaids, where there was no set goal, only a list of shenanigans until the stated goal was eventually reached (the wedding). But while some books are designed to take place in two hours (say, for example, any heist novel), some books are episodic and work better as such.
The Sookie Stackhouse novels are one example (now "True Blood").
"Harry Potter" is another.
So is the Lord of the Rings, but Peter Jackson has a stranglehold on that, so let's bring this back to Harry Potter:
I'm watching Deathly Hallows Part I, and they get to the bit where Harry, Hermione and Ron have to infiltrate the such-and-such bureau of magic (yes, I KNOW it's called the whatever, HUSH). You know, the joint with the horizontal elevator. In the movie this entire sequence takes maybe 10 minutes, 15 tops, and I was told it's much longer in the book.
Unfortunately, the first movie came out in 2001. Had the book been optioned in 2011, Harry Potter would be a 13-episode series on Showtime or HBO.
And the sequence in the bureau of magic would have been an ENTIRE EPISODE. Take the actors playing the kids, give them the week off, and their human-disguises walk in before the opening credits on their undercover gig. At any second they could be found out, they have time to nearly be caught in so many more situations, and rather than a quick "OMG!" in the middle of the movie, you have the climax of 58 minutes of cable TV ending with Harry standing up and saying, "YOU SHOULD NOT TELL LIES!" ... then they run. They dash for the exit, with Voldemort's cronies fast on their heels. They reach the exit just as the bad guy dives for them..... BOOM. Closing credits. See you next week for another exciting episode.
That's the way it should be, because while 8 Harry Potter movies take up maybe 16-17 hours of entertainment, a 7-season TV series means (1) each book is now one 13-hour movie, and 13x7 = 91, and (2) All that shit you're so pissed off that they left out, but forgave them cuz you understood it had to be movie-length? All that's back in. Then a three-month summer vacation. Then back next fall for Book Two.
Because Making a movie from a book is SO last century.
A fleshed out story with characters you love can now exist on television, and not just in the form of Lucy getting into another wacky adventure every week. They change over time, and "Mad Men" winning a best-drama Emmy for 3 seasons running is a good indicator of that... as were the 3-in-a-row best comedy wins for "30 Rock." Sure, it's wacky and often low-brow (not that there's anything wrong with that), but the characters changed over time, in both shows. You're rewarded for watching each week. Back in the 80's, the only time a character changed on Who's the Boss or Miami Vice was when somebody had a baby, or got shot, or was having a contract dispute behind the scenes. Nobody is going to buy 8 seasons of "Who's the Boss" on DVD. At least I hope not. What a disturbing thought.
Anyway, my entire point here is: This is why I didn't blog out X-Men: First Class. Though technically the source material was not one book, it was many, that entire movie felt like it was one 13-hour first season of a TV show, hacked up and crammed down into a 2-hour movie. And that actually made me mad. Because what was left over was STILL that good.
I'm gonna find me something non-movie related to bitch about.
But have fun at Harry Potter 7.5, and if we're real lucky and eat all our vegetables and say our prayers, maybe we'll get a 7-season TV show remake in 2025, after Rowling's next book bombs, and TV-special effects catch up to what "Avatar" had to offer.
Because, I mean, seriously. Do you REMEMBER the special effects in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? What a bunch of crap.
xoxo
WGH
p.s.
*Yes, I'm sure if you googled the numbers, Ke$ha didn't outsell the Da Vinci Code, because no one is buying books or CDs anymore. No one buys Ke$ha CD's in France, for example, while TDVC sold 40 million copies worldwide. But even with such a big seller, people who loved that book FREAKING loved it. I worked at a bookstore the entire 2 years it was on the best-seller list. Nobody ever came in and said, "Stop what you're doing, I HAVE to find Season 3 of 'House' on DVD."
**"The Dresden Files" TV show in no way resembles the books. The lead character has the same name, both are wizards, both are set in Chicago, both had their parents die in mysterious circumstances, and both have a female cop friend with the last name 'Murphy.' That's it. Everything else has been changed, and for the worse, which I guess is a given when you're a TV show executive-produced by Nicolas Cage.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Total Thor-Fest
NOT GEEK
It was a fun movie with the right amount of explosions and funny one liners.
That's it. That's all I have to say about it. Sometimes one side has more to consider than the other.
I give it a B, B-, depending on how much CGI BUGS the SHIT out of you.
GEEK
The director is Kenneth Branagh. Marvel made a big deal out of this and they were right to do so, because he's a Name. Not a Name in the sense of "He's a good film director" (he isn't), but simply a Name in the sense that.... you've heard of him, he's famous enough to generate buzz. Comic Nerds might not even cry foul because Branagh the Director has domain over a separate Nerd Kingdom: Shakespeare. So internet buzz was genuinely positive, or at least optimistic.
The problem with this, and I called it at the time too (did it still count if I didn't have a blog?), is that Kenneth Branagh hasn't had a commercial hit, OR a good movie, since before Clinton was President. He is not good at this. What little success he DID have came when he was in a relationship with the ethereal, expansively talented, Oscar-winning Emma Thompson. A woman who left him when he nailed Helena Bonham-Carter (hindsight, much?). ET went on to win an Oscar, KB went on to direct no-budget Shakespeare adaptations for Showtime. I've seen them. They are visually and conceptually below average. "As You Like It" literally lays there like a bloated corpse, daring you to poke it with a stick.
After the overblown, much-hyped, mediocre-received "Hamlet" in 1996, he didn't direct anything for four years, no doubt to lick his wounds and figure out what other pretentious, self-serving project he wanted to work on next. In 2000 and 2006 he did two other Shakespeare adaptations (Love's Labour's Lost, and As You Like It, respectively), the first of which had a higher budget than the second, neither were memorable nor interesting to look at. The acting was adequate, but that's what happens when you get good actors. Under no circumstances should you rent these from Netflix. Even if you're a fan of interesting Shakespeare productions (which I am), neither of these are good. This is a failed director trying to get a toehold back into the industry.
And so someone listened, and gave him "Sleuth" (2007), a movie which is only kind of not very good on its own, and then a complete failure when held up next to the original with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. AND YET THEY GAVE HIM THE THOR JOB ANYWAY.
All of these movies were bad, Branagh's last that was a big hit was "Dead Again" in 1990, which was 21 years before Thor. You know, when Chris Hemsorth was seven.
Anyway, in failing to be concise yet again, the upshot is this: Kenneth Branagh is a shit director. He might be able to direct theatre, yes, he seems to have a knack with actors. But that is only one small part of film directing, a job which also includes shot selection, lenses, depth of field and length of shot, all of which Branagh has proven time and time again that he is no damn good at, and he has shown no progress in getting any damn better. He simply doesn't care.
THOR: The first act of this movie is wasted. It opens on some humans in the desert, who then run into Thor. Then there's a brief flashback that shows how Thor got there, and this brief flashback goes on for 45 FUCKING MINUTES. It is the entire first act of the movie, and CGI is layered onto it like the producers never saw a single movie after "The Phantom Menace," they commit every sin except for a main character MADE of CGI (wisely, they make the head of CGI-bad guys an actual actor in makeup. This works spectacularly well and creates the only bit of menace in the entire overblown battle sequence). Watching cartoons bounce off each other for 45 minutes is uninteresting if you've ever played a video game in your life. It is every bit as awful as the first act of Spider-Man 3. Thor, Act 1: F.
Finally we get back to Earth. Character development actually begins here, and despite the films terrible track record up to this point, Branagh actually stands back and lets his actors emote, in a movie where they are not required to. Portman seems genuinely concerned, yet distracted by her work. Hemsworth seems bold and douchey, yet distracted by his lust for glory. And Tom Hiddleston as Loki bothers to give his character layers, when other action movies would just have him walk in and recite plot points. The jokes fly quickly, there's no one character just to be comic relief. The humor is situational, and it works. When it's time to get serious, everyone gets serious. The production design is quite lovely. The costume design is so lazy it looks like the non-Vikings just put on whatever was in their closet and went to work. Act 2: A.
The last third of the movie has a lot of shit blow up, which is fine, but then Thor goes back to Asgard and shit blows up there too, and it's all CGI bullshit and despite the city/planet looking absolutely fantastic, you're basically left with CG characters beating each other up on a CG rainbow bridge. I don't fucking care. The interesting stuff happens between the actors, and that's what any geek will be talking about the next day. Not Geek? You may not mind the CG so much. I am a geek, and I was there for Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi made many an enemy that day. Act 3: B-.
Hollywood movies know that as long as they finish strong, the audience will be happy and recommend the movie and maybe even see it again. The first act can be as weak as anything, as long as there's gigantic set-pieces in the end. Branagh doesn't have a lot of Hollywood muscle so probably had to do what he was told; Jon Favreau had insisted on models and such for the Iron Man movies, the Marvel execs probably just wanted a big CG movie to feel like they were doing their jobs. Well, they got their way, and it made the movie worse. Congratulations, you're a producer.
On the side:
Five credited screenwriters:
WRITTEN BY: Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz and Don Payne
STORY BY: J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Prostovich
Broken down:
Miller and Stentz worked on "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles." When that got cancelled, they went to work on "Fringe." Their geek cred is unimpeachable.
Don Payne used to work on "The Simpsons." When he eventually left that, he wrote "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." It is my theory they brought him in to add jokes.
There's nothing about the screenplay I find off or flawed, my only problem is that Branagh rushes through the entire first act as if he has to go to the bathroom, tilting the camera for no reason and point it at talking shots when he should be shooting reaction shots, and vice versa. Shooting a high-budget movie is NOT the same as shooting a low-budget play. The flaws in the movie lie solely with him; the writers are great. Online buzz say this "Thor" is closer to JMS's Thor in the comics, and I guess that seems to work out okay. Ultimately it's probably out of his hands, though: Prostovich wrote the script back in 2002 for a production that never got off the ground; its doubtful much of his script remains, but they probably had to credit him for legal reasons. JMS, presumably, didn't have much more input.
So from a Geek perspective, that's where we're at. But the thing is, I have a feeling... by the time Captain America rolls around, we'll have forgotten. All that we'll really remember is the "Not Geek" perspective, and that's all anyone can ask. If we're getting the Huge Stack o' Marvel Movies, like we were promised, they can't all be perfect. They just have to be good enough to (a) interest the casuals, and (b) not piss off the hardcore fans. And since there are no hardcore fans of Thor, this was the safest one to trust with a green director.
Onward to Cap, and then The Avengers.
Victory to Marvel, death to Michael Bay.
It was a fun movie with the right amount of explosions and funny one liners.
That's it. That's all I have to say about it. Sometimes one side has more to consider than the other.
I give it a B, B-, depending on how much CGI BUGS the SHIT out of you.
GEEK
The director is Kenneth Branagh. Marvel made a big deal out of this and they were right to do so, because he's a Name. Not a Name in the sense of "He's a good film director" (he isn't), but simply a Name in the sense that.... you've heard of him, he's famous enough to generate buzz. Comic Nerds might not even cry foul because Branagh the Director has domain over a separate Nerd Kingdom: Shakespeare. So internet buzz was genuinely positive, or at least optimistic.
The problem with this, and I called it at the time too (did it still count if I didn't have a blog?), is that Kenneth Branagh hasn't had a commercial hit, OR a good movie, since before Clinton was President. He is not good at this. What little success he DID have came when he was in a relationship with the ethereal, expansively talented, Oscar-winning Emma Thompson. A woman who left him when he nailed Helena Bonham-Carter (hindsight, much?). ET went on to win an Oscar, KB went on to direct no-budget Shakespeare adaptations for Showtime. I've seen them. They are visually and conceptually below average. "As You Like It" literally lays there like a bloated corpse, daring you to poke it with a stick.
After the overblown, much-hyped, mediocre-received "Hamlet" in 1996, he didn't direct anything for four years, no doubt to lick his wounds and figure out what other pretentious, self-serving project he wanted to work on next. In 2000 and 2006 he did two other Shakespeare adaptations (Love's Labour's Lost, and As You Like It, respectively), the first of which had a higher budget than the second, neither were memorable nor interesting to look at. The acting was adequate, but that's what happens when you get good actors. Under no circumstances should you rent these from Netflix. Even if you're a fan of interesting Shakespeare productions (which I am), neither of these are good. This is a failed director trying to get a toehold back into the industry.
And so someone listened, and gave him "Sleuth" (2007), a movie which is only kind of not very good on its own, and then a complete failure when held up next to the original with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. AND YET THEY GAVE HIM THE THOR JOB ANYWAY.
All of these movies were bad, Branagh's last that was a big hit was "Dead Again" in 1990, which was 21 years before Thor. You know, when Chris Hemsorth was seven.
Anyway, in failing to be concise yet again, the upshot is this: Kenneth Branagh is a shit director. He might be able to direct theatre, yes, he seems to have a knack with actors. But that is only one small part of film directing, a job which also includes shot selection, lenses, depth of field and length of shot, all of which Branagh has proven time and time again that he is no damn good at, and he has shown no progress in getting any damn better. He simply doesn't care.
THOR: The first act of this movie is wasted. It opens on some humans in the desert, who then run into Thor. Then there's a brief flashback that shows how Thor got there, and this brief flashback goes on for 45 FUCKING MINUTES. It is the entire first act of the movie, and CGI is layered onto it like the producers never saw a single movie after "The Phantom Menace," they commit every sin except for a main character MADE of CGI (wisely, they make the head of CGI-bad guys an actual actor in makeup. This works spectacularly well and creates the only bit of menace in the entire overblown battle sequence). Watching cartoons bounce off each other for 45 minutes is uninteresting if you've ever played a video game in your life. It is every bit as awful as the first act of Spider-Man 3. Thor, Act 1: F.
Finally we get back to Earth. Character development actually begins here, and despite the films terrible track record up to this point, Branagh actually stands back and lets his actors emote, in a movie where they are not required to. Portman seems genuinely concerned, yet distracted by her work. Hemsworth seems bold and douchey, yet distracted by his lust for glory. And Tom Hiddleston as Loki bothers to give his character layers, when other action movies would just have him walk in and recite plot points. The jokes fly quickly, there's no one character just to be comic relief. The humor is situational, and it works. When it's time to get serious, everyone gets serious. The production design is quite lovely. The costume design is so lazy it looks like the non-Vikings just put on whatever was in their closet and went to work. Act 2: A.
The last third of the movie has a lot of shit blow up, which is fine, but then Thor goes back to Asgard and shit blows up there too, and it's all CGI bullshit and despite the city/planet looking absolutely fantastic, you're basically left with CG characters beating each other up on a CG rainbow bridge. I don't fucking care. The interesting stuff happens between the actors, and that's what any geek will be talking about the next day. Not Geek? You may not mind the CG so much. I am a geek, and I was there for Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi made many an enemy that day. Act 3: B-.
Hollywood movies know that as long as they finish strong, the audience will be happy and recommend the movie and maybe even see it again. The first act can be as weak as anything, as long as there's gigantic set-pieces in the end. Branagh doesn't have a lot of Hollywood muscle so probably had to do what he was told; Jon Favreau had insisted on models and such for the Iron Man movies, the Marvel execs probably just wanted a big CG movie to feel like they were doing their jobs. Well, they got their way, and it made the movie worse. Congratulations, you're a producer.
On the side:
Five credited screenwriters:
WRITTEN BY: Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz and Don Payne
STORY BY: J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Prostovich
Broken down:
Miller and Stentz worked on "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles." When that got cancelled, they went to work on "Fringe." Their geek cred is unimpeachable.
Don Payne used to work on "The Simpsons." When he eventually left that, he wrote "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." It is my theory they brought him in to add jokes.
There's nothing about the screenplay I find off or flawed, my only problem is that Branagh rushes through the entire first act as if he has to go to the bathroom, tilting the camera for no reason and point it at talking shots when he should be shooting reaction shots, and vice versa. Shooting a high-budget movie is NOT the same as shooting a low-budget play. The flaws in the movie lie solely with him; the writers are great. Online buzz say this "Thor" is closer to JMS's Thor in the comics, and I guess that seems to work out okay. Ultimately it's probably out of his hands, though: Prostovich wrote the script back in 2002 for a production that never got off the ground; its doubtful much of his script remains, but they probably had to credit him for legal reasons. JMS, presumably, didn't have much more input.
So from a Geek perspective, that's where we're at. But the thing is, I have a feeling... by the time Captain America rolls around, we'll have forgotten. All that we'll really remember is the "Not Geek" perspective, and that's all anyone can ask. If we're getting the Huge Stack o' Marvel Movies, like we were promised, they can't all be perfect. They just have to be good enough to (a) interest the casuals, and (b) not piss off the hardcore fans. And since there are no hardcore fans of Thor, this was the safest one to trust with a green director.
Onward to Cap, and then The Avengers.
Victory to Marvel, death to Michael Bay.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Art vs. Commerce vs. Explosions
I wanted to do another 'Game of Thrones' thing, but two in a row seems overly... gushy, plus there's other stuff in the world going on. Also it's Friday and even though it's not noon yet, I want some damn chicken and waffles.
NOT GEEK
Reception was decidedly mixed for "Kick Ass" last year, and a review in a local newsweekly cited this and "Hanna" with a very good point: Young girls ARE the new action heroes because adult male action stars are practically expected to walk into the first scene, kill fifty guys with a paper clip, then drive a car off the top of a building while it explodes in the background. If the protagonist is a teenage or pre-teen girl, all of those actions can still manage to be surprising, emotionally effective, or (still) shocking, while for an adult male it's just... rote.
Despite knowing better than to see "Tron Legacy" JUST because of the soundtrack, I did notice the words 'Chemical Brothers' featured prominently on every poster for "Hanna" and had to wonder if the studio thought the group was SO mainstream that it would really sell that many more tickets (probably they did, but no it didn't work). The trailer was confusing as shit. I watched the trailer again after I watched the movie and STILL didn't understand where the trailer was coming from... it made Hanna look like the bad guy. The people cutting the trailer did not know what the fuck they were doing, and the studio exec who said Yes to it also did not know how to do his or her job. These things will kill your movie faster than a racist lead actor.
The action? Ranged from the mediocre to the exceptional. The acting? All top form. The soundtrack? I dug the shit out of it but I know that that genre isn't for everyone. Still, it was bouncy as fuck, and used subtly... there was literally no score for the first 20 minutes of the movie or so, and then it's slowly brought in via feedback and sonic noise.... but then it begins, just as the plot does. BLAM. Well, there's no going back now......
Not to overuse the word, but it's an exceptional and fun time at the movies. It's a highbrow action movie, which shouldn't scare you away: It respects the intelligence of the audience, instead of editing out character in favor of blowing shit up. Also Olivia Wilde tweeted that she loved the movie, which pretty much closed the deal for me.
Because I am a whore.
GEEK
WHAT YOU DIDN'T SEE ON THE POSTER BUT I WOULD'VE LOVED TO SEE:
"From the director of 'Pride & Prejudice' and 'Atonement'."
I mean, really, can you get a better recommendation for an action movie than that? My geek side and non-geek side agree: the trailer was fucking terrible, and that's how theatrical runs are murdered, though the good ones will resurface on DVD. But imagine if the trailer hadn't been cut by someone who was a drooling idiot, and had featured "From the Director of...."
I am a firm believer in the fact the Director makes or breaks the movie. Not the producer-- they are the money, and impose certain economic limitations, but do not make creative decisions (at least never any good ones) ... and not the actors, they are simply talking meat sticks. And yet most Americans can name 328548594058640 actors and about three directors: Spielberg, Scorsese, George Lucas. Maybe Christopher Nolan and James Cameron too if you're really into it, and while I admit most of us are busy and don't have time to be glasses-pushing virginal fatties like me (5'10", 130 lbs, for the record), there ARE names worth remembering, instead of dumbing it down to "From the director of..." in a trailer, or even more retarded, "From the producer of...." or "From the studio that brought you...."
Or my new personal favorite, "This movie uses the cameras that were used in...."
I am the biggest film geek walking the planet, and even *I* don't give a fuck what cameras you used to shoot the movie. Also studios are way too full of themselves, "From the studio that brought you...." is like buying a Ford Escort under the promise of, "From the car company that brought you the Mustang....."
But arrogant rich assholes is an entire different media feed. Back to what's at hand:
"Hanna" won the title for Best Unproduced Screenplay back in 2006, not a list I regularly follow but it's important that these things get made into good movies. Another screenplay garnering such kudos was "Hancock," which was then turned from the original good script into Generic Shitty Will Smith Vehicle #937. And in case I haven't mentioned it here before, Will Smith is an egotistical douchebag. Fuck Will Smith. He hasn't made a good movie since 1997 and people still line up to suck his dick. We as a people need to get over our debilitating Will Smith addiction.
Once again, back to what's at hand:
The dialogue is efficient while not exactly quotable, tells a constantly interesting and slowly revealing story. It doesn't talk down to the audience, you're rewarded for paying attention, the emphasis is on the characters and who they are, not just the next set piece. I've always felt that every generic 90-minute action movie is just a 2-hour drama that got whittled down for simplicity. Imagine if "Heat" had all the talking scenes taken out... you'd be left with something like "Jumper." Lots of exciting things happening and guns going off, but nothing to latch on to emotionally. No, I did not just compare DeNiro to Hayden Christensen.
Joe Wright is the director, he of, again, Atonement and the oh-my-god-I'm-male-why-is-this-movie-awesome Pride and Prejudice. Saw them, loved them, yet still didn't feel obligated to see "The Soloist," and it's not relevant to "Hanna" at all, anyway. When it's time for action, you know it, and it's clearly motivated. When there's no shiny object to distract you for an entire half hour, the characters and plot remain interesting and riveting enough to keep you watching.
The cinematography is gorgeous, and Joe Wright knows how to compose a shot, while occasionally faltering on an action stereotype or two, at other times he'll completely confound expectations and throw you for a loop. The chase scene amongst the shipping containers dropped my jaw as much as the first time I saw the car chase in "Bullitt."
Essentially if you're a big fan of CSI, you will fucking hate this, because whenever I catch a minute of that while flipping channels, I effectively feel lobotomized by the oversimplification and talking down to the audience. Everything is spelled out for you like you're a child, because otherwise you might change the channel to something simpler and more condescending, like Fox News. It warms my heart and puts poetry into my soul to know that Intelligent, Well-Crafted Character Pieces are slowly, from around the fringes of society, making a comeback.
So in that sense, it's from the same age as "Game of Thrones" after all. You are rewarded for paying attention, learning the characters, feeling what they feel.... and not fucking around in the kitchen until you hear an explosion and dash back to the TV to see what's happening. It will actually keep you rapt from start to finish.
And if it doesn't, well.... David Caruso still has a job. But something like "Hanna" can actively move the genre forward, while CSI, Law & Order, or The Expendables just tow the line of the tired status quo.
NOT GEEK
Reception was decidedly mixed for "Kick Ass" last year, and a review in a local newsweekly cited this and "Hanna" with a very good point: Young girls ARE the new action heroes because adult male action stars are practically expected to walk into the first scene, kill fifty guys with a paper clip, then drive a car off the top of a building while it explodes in the background. If the protagonist is a teenage or pre-teen girl, all of those actions can still manage to be surprising, emotionally effective, or (still) shocking, while for an adult male it's just... rote.
Despite knowing better than to see "Tron Legacy" JUST because of the soundtrack, I did notice the words 'Chemical Brothers' featured prominently on every poster for "Hanna" and had to wonder if the studio thought the group was SO mainstream that it would really sell that many more tickets (probably they did, but no it didn't work). The trailer was confusing as shit. I watched the trailer again after I watched the movie and STILL didn't understand where the trailer was coming from... it made Hanna look like the bad guy. The people cutting the trailer did not know what the fuck they were doing, and the studio exec who said Yes to it also did not know how to do his or her job. These things will kill your movie faster than a racist lead actor.
The action? Ranged from the mediocre to the exceptional. The acting? All top form. The soundtrack? I dug the shit out of it but I know that that genre isn't for everyone. Still, it was bouncy as fuck, and used subtly... there was literally no score for the first 20 minutes of the movie or so, and then it's slowly brought in via feedback and sonic noise.... but then it begins, just as the plot does. BLAM. Well, there's no going back now......
Not to overuse the word, but it's an exceptional and fun time at the movies. It's a highbrow action movie, which shouldn't scare you away: It respects the intelligence of the audience, instead of editing out character in favor of blowing shit up. Also Olivia Wilde tweeted that she loved the movie, which pretty much closed the deal for me.
Because I am a whore.
GEEK
WHAT YOU DIDN'T SEE ON THE POSTER BUT I WOULD'VE LOVED TO SEE:
"From the director of 'Pride & Prejudice' and 'Atonement'."
I mean, really, can you get a better recommendation for an action movie than that? My geek side and non-geek side agree: the trailer was fucking terrible, and that's how theatrical runs are murdered, though the good ones will resurface on DVD. But imagine if the trailer hadn't been cut by someone who was a drooling idiot, and had featured "From the Director of...."
I am a firm believer in the fact the Director makes or breaks the movie. Not the producer-- they are the money, and impose certain economic limitations, but do not make creative decisions (at least never any good ones) ... and not the actors, they are simply talking meat sticks. And yet most Americans can name 328548594058640 actors and about three directors: Spielberg, Scorsese, George Lucas. Maybe Christopher Nolan and James Cameron too if you're really into it, and while I admit most of us are busy and don't have time to be glasses-pushing virginal fatties like me (5'10", 130 lbs, for the record), there ARE names worth remembering, instead of dumbing it down to "From the director of..." in a trailer, or even more retarded, "From the producer of...." or "From the studio that brought you...."
Or my new personal favorite, "This movie uses the cameras that were used in...."
I am the biggest film geek walking the planet, and even *I* don't give a fuck what cameras you used to shoot the movie. Also studios are way too full of themselves, "From the studio that brought you...." is like buying a Ford Escort under the promise of, "From the car company that brought you the Mustang....."
But arrogant rich assholes is an entire different media feed. Back to what's at hand:
"Hanna" won the title for Best Unproduced Screenplay back in 2006, not a list I regularly follow but it's important that these things get made into good movies. Another screenplay garnering such kudos was "Hancock," which was then turned from the original good script into Generic Shitty Will Smith Vehicle #937. And in case I haven't mentioned it here before, Will Smith is an egotistical douchebag. Fuck Will Smith. He hasn't made a good movie since 1997 and people still line up to suck his dick. We as a people need to get over our debilitating Will Smith addiction.
Once again, back to what's at hand:
The dialogue is efficient while not exactly quotable, tells a constantly interesting and slowly revealing story. It doesn't talk down to the audience, you're rewarded for paying attention, the emphasis is on the characters and who they are, not just the next set piece. I've always felt that every generic 90-minute action movie is just a 2-hour drama that got whittled down for simplicity. Imagine if "Heat" had all the talking scenes taken out... you'd be left with something like "Jumper." Lots of exciting things happening and guns going off, but nothing to latch on to emotionally. No, I did not just compare DeNiro to Hayden Christensen.
Joe Wright is the director, he of, again, Atonement and the oh-my-god-I'm-male-why-is-this-movie-awesome Pride and Prejudice. Saw them, loved them, yet still didn't feel obligated to see "The Soloist," and it's not relevant to "Hanna" at all, anyway. When it's time for action, you know it, and it's clearly motivated. When there's no shiny object to distract you for an entire half hour, the characters and plot remain interesting and riveting enough to keep you watching.
The cinematography is gorgeous, and Joe Wright knows how to compose a shot, while occasionally faltering on an action stereotype or two, at other times he'll completely confound expectations and throw you for a loop. The chase scene amongst the shipping containers dropped my jaw as much as the first time I saw the car chase in "Bullitt."
Essentially if you're a big fan of CSI, you will fucking hate this, because whenever I catch a minute of that while flipping channels, I effectively feel lobotomized by the oversimplification and talking down to the audience. Everything is spelled out for you like you're a child, because otherwise you might change the channel to something simpler and more condescending, like Fox News. It warms my heart and puts poetry into my soul to know that Intelligent, Well-Crafted Character Pieces are slowly, from around the fringes of society, making a comeback.
So in that sense, it's from the same age as "Game of Thrones" after all. You are rewarded for paying attention, learning the characters, feeling what they feel.... and not fucking around in the kitchen until you hear an explosion and dash back to the TV to see what's happening. It will actually keep you rapt from start to finish.
And if it doesn't, well.... David Caruso still has a job. But something like "Hanna" can actively move the genre forward, while CSI, Law & Order, or The Expendables just tow the line of the tired status quo.
Monday, April 18, 2011
26 Things I Learned from 'Game of Thrones' Episode 1
--If you like a woman, fuck her from behind. Whores are for missionary and cowgirl.
--It doesn't matter what kinky shit you're into. The royal family has you beat.
--It doesn't matter what you saw. If you desert your post, your head is forfeit.
--If your mom tells you not to climb something, DON'T CLIMB IT.
--It is acceptable to call the King fat, so long as he calls you fat first.
--All dwarves are bastards in their fathers eyes.
--Yes, you can have a dog. Provided you walk it, clean up after it, train it, and bury it if it dies.
--If the King asks you to go somewhere, you fucking go. If the Prince asks you how old you are, run for your fucking life.
--There is no Dothrakian phrase for "Thank You."
--If less than three people die at a Drogo wedding, it is considered a boring affair.
--Having 40,000 sexual partners is acceptable, provided it wins your brother his throne back.
--If the dead people are not where you left them, do not go looking for them.
--The penalty for interrupting public sex is half your entrails.
--He who passes the sentence must also carry it out.
--Once the man next to you has begun fucking a whore from behind, it is common courtesy to allow him to finish before taking your turn. If you interrupt him, no one may re-enter the whore until one of you is dead.
--Let me give you some advice, bastard: Never forget who you are. Wear it like armor. And it can never be used to hurt you.
--If you live in a castle, and you hear two people having sex..... ignore it.
--If you are not sure about the quality of your breasts, your brother will give you his honest opinion.
--If you're 10 and learning to be a man, don't do it anywhere near your tomboy older sister. Also, relax your arm and don't over-think it.
--In the absence of black people, the man in the darkest cloak dies first.
--If you are female and under 18, you are either good at sports, or a vacuous shallow whore. There is no in between.
--Everyone manning the Wall is a red-shirt Ensign. Jon Snow is the only exception.
--If you are walking in the forest and the man you're facing suddenly looks at you in a frightened manner, do not look at him questioningly. Drop to the ground immediately and question it later.
--The carriage is for the prince and princess. Kings ride a fucking horse.
--Fossilized dragon eggs are still pretty.
And finally,
--If you are a European actor, you will grow up to do quality work like this. If you are an American actor, you will be cast as an extra in "Transformers 3."
--It doesn't matter what kinky shit you're into. The royal family has you beat.
--It doesn't matter what you saw. If you desert your post, your head is forfeit.
--If your mom tells you not to climb something, DON'T CLIMB IT.
--It is acceptable to call the King fat, so long as he calls you fat first.
--All dwarves are bastards in their fathers eyes.
--Yes, you can have a dog. Provided you walk it, clean up after it, train it, and bury it if it dies.
--If the King asks you to go somewhere, you fucking go. If the Prince asks you how old you are, run for your fucking life.
--There is no Dothrakian phrase for "Thank You."
--If less than three people die at a Drogo wedding, it is considered a boring affair.
--Having 40,000 sexual partners is acceptable, provided it wins your brother his throne back.
--If the dead people are not where you left them, do not go looking for them.
--The penalty for interrupting public sex is half your entrails.
--He who passes the sentence must also carry it out.
--Once the man next to you has begun fucking a whore from behind, it is common courtesy to allow him to finish before taking your turn. If you interrupt him, no one may re-enter the whore until one of you is dead.
--Let me give you some advice, bastard: Never forget who you are. Wear it like armor. And it can never be used to hurt you.
--If you live in a castle, and you hear two people having sex..... ignore it.
--If you are not sure about the quality of your breasts, your brother will give you his honest opinion.
--If you're 10 and learning to be a man, don't do it anywhere near your tomboy older sister. Also, relax your arm and don't over-think it.
--In the absence of black people, the man in the darkest cloak dies first.
--If you are female and under 18, you are either good at sports, or a vacuous shallow whore. There is no in between.
--Everyone manning the Wall is a red-shirt Ensign. Jon Snow is the only exception.
--If you are walking in the forest and the man you're facing suddenly looks at you in a frightened manner, do not look at him questioningly. Drop to the ground immediately and question it later.
--The carriage is for the prince and princess. Kings ride a fucking horse.
--Fossilized dragon eggs are still pretty.
And finally,
--If you are a European actor, you will grow up to do quality work like this. If you are an American actor, you will be cast as an extra in "Transformers 3."
Friday, March 25, 2011
What If You Spent $50 Million on a CGI Man Taking a Shit?
SUCKERPUNCH
(2011, "directed" by Zack Snyder)
GEEK / NOT GEEK
It's kind of difficult to comment on the movie, without just writing, "Terrible," and clicking the submit button. To write a good comment, one must write WHY it is terrible... but where to begin? If someone came into your home, and took a shit in the middle of your living room, would you need to explain in a calm manner, three reasons why the person was wrong for doing such a deed? No. You'd toss them by their ear out onto the street, left with the unenviable task of having to clean up. Perhaps you'd even call the police.
If, on the other hand, you spent $50 million (or whatever the budget was; it was too high, in any event) to have someone take a CGI dump in your living room... is that any better? There are three actors in this movie, and only three: Scott Glenn, Jena Malone, and Carla Gugino. Four, if you count Jon Hamm, but he's not in the movie long enough to matter. There are these three, and everything else is there to talk until it's time for another special effect. Jena Malone isn't even required to do any of these things (i.e. act), but because she has actual experience as an actress, bothered to create a character and reflect an emotional state during the 'story.' Everyone else just showed up, put on the costumes, and talked until the director said 'cut.' Vanessa Hudgens should have been a clue.
Even if the story is awful, unmemorable, or predictable (Suckerpunch is all three), other Hollywood movies may rely on memorable action sequences or visuals. In a movie roughly 100 minutes long, these action sequences take up roughly five minutes of screen time. Then Snyder detonates an explosive in New York. Again.
It's not so much that Zack Snyder hates audiences, it's just that he's incredibly naive, like a 12-year-old suddenly given the keys to his dads liquor cabinet. He wants you to like a character, he makes them female and puts them in a low-cut top. He wants you to hate a character, he makes that character a rapist or molester of children. He does this again and again; these appear in every movie he's ever made, save for his first (and best) film, Dawn of the Dead, which was written by someone else entirely. Someone who understands subtlety and character development. Realize, too, that I'm saying this about a movie where a smarmy rich dude accidentally chainsaws his most recent sexual partner.
Whatever fancy visuals made it to the trailer for Suckerpunch, the movie is this: Zack Snyder wrote a script with his camera-man, and it is neither funny nor exciting. It's a 100-minute demo reel, and considering this is his fifth movie, he really should have actually created something with weight, by this point.
I went in with low expectations (especially after his shitty cover version of Watchmen and a movie about CGI owls that was so bad, even the trailer couldn't give it life), expecting that even if the movie rose slightly above these expectations, I'd have something to show for it. I paid half-price for a matinee, and not only do I feel ripped off, I feel physically violated.
I'm not going to call the police, but I am going to be mad for a week, because even though I've cleaned my floor, the smell lingers on. 3/10.
(2011, "directed" by Zack Snyder)
GEEK / NOT GEEK
It's kind of difficult to comment on the movie, without just writing, "Terrible," and clicking the submit button. To write a good comment, one must write WHY it is terrible... but where to begin? If someone came into your home, and took a shit in the middle of your living room, would you need to explain in a calm manner, three reasons why the person was wrong for doing such a deed? No. You'd toss them by their ear out onto the street, left with the unenviable task of having to clean up. Perhaps you'd even call the police.
If, on the other hand, you spent $50 million (or whatever the budget was; it was too high, in any event) to have someone take a CGI dump in your living room... is that any better? There are three actors in this movie, and only three: Scott Glenn, Jena Malone, and Carla Gugino. Four, if you count Jon Hamm, but he's not in the movie long enough to matter. There are these three, and everything else is there to talk until it's time for another special effect. Jena Malone isn't even required to do any of these things (i.e. act), but because she has actual experience as an actress, bothered to create a character and reflect an emotional state during the 'story.' Everyone else just showed up, put on the costumes, and talked until the director said 'cut.' Vanessa Hudgens should have been a clue.
Even if the story is awful, unmemorable, or predictable (Suckerpunch is all three), other Hollywood movies may rely on memorable action sequences or visuals. In a movie roughly 100 minutes long, these action sequences take up roughly five minutes of screen time. Then Snyder detonates an explosive in New York. Again.
It's not so much that Zack Snyder hates audiences, it's just that he's incredibly naive, like a 12-year-old suddenly given the keys to his dads liquor cabinet. He wants you to like a character, he makes them female and puts them in a low-cut top. He wants you to hate a character, he makes that character a rapist or molester of children. He does this again and again; these appear in every movie he's ever made, save for his first (and best) film, Dawn of the Dead, which was written by someone else entirely. Someone who understands subtlety and character development. Realize, too, that I'm saying this about a movie where a smarmy rich dude accidentally chainsaws his most recent sexual partner.
Whatever fancy visuals made it to the trailer for Suckerpunch, the movie is this: Zack Snyder wrote a script with his camera-man, and it is neither funny nor exciting. It's a 100-minute demo reel, and considering this is his fifth movie, he really should have actually created something with weight, by this point.
I went in with low expectations (especially after his shitty cover version of Watchmen and a movie about CGI owls that was so bad, even the trailer couldn't give it life), expecting that even if the movie rose slightly above these expectations, I'd have something to show for it. I paid half-price for a matinee, and not only do I feel ripped off, I feel physically violated.
I'm not going to call the police, but I am going to be mad for a week, because even though I've cleaned my floor, the smell lingers on. 3/10.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
I Will Not Apologize for Disliking Halo
NOT GEEK
I suck at video games. I used to be good-- when the NES was still a thing-- but then I got distracted for a few years by college and girls and learning to drive. Also beer. Suddenly I pick up a controller again and I'm supposed to know complex military tactics. Fuck you. THAT'S why I have Uno and Pac-Man on my XBox.
GEEK
The XBox has been in my apartment about two years, and the games I have enjoyed most, INITIALLY (I stress that point), are....
1) Wet
2) Borderlands
3) Left 4 Dead (both)
I am aware-- Anyone who knows anything about games, knows that "Wet" sucks. A hardcore gamer here in town told me it reminded him of John Woo's "Stranglehold," which I then checked out just to see if the comparison was apt. Strangehold came out when I was still working at Borders (so 2004-5 roughly), and by 2010 standards, it was pretty crap. Your character hit more targets only if you were jumping through the air in slow-motion. That got repetitive and boring after five minutes. I quit the game after ten and sent it back. "Wet" was exactly like this, except you could also run up walls and do flips. That only took about 10-15 hours to tire of, or maybe I kept expecting boobs.
Borderlands was spectacular, with a levelling system, and a crazy variety of guns that actually forced you to think about what you were going to keep vs. drop. I played it for like a month straight, then I went back to start again with a second character, since you're given four to choose from. The second time through, it felt boring and frustrating, because I'd already beaten all those levels, and it took so long to level up. So.... I went back to my original character. Soon after, I don't know if the game got too hard, or if it reached the upper limits of my skill, but I had to quit. Still, really, really fun up until that point.
I don't play Halo, because going online, it's even harder to find a good game than it would be on a PC. I've beaten 1 & 2, but Halo seems to be more about the culture than the individual gameplay. It's all about going online and playing versus other people in an arena mode, and I spent college doing that with Counterstrike (which had a superior vs-mode, because it contained actual objectives, not just 'kill or be killed'). Halo online is just point and blast. It reminds me of Quake. Which was also repetitive and dull.
Left 4 Dead is more co-op, which I appreciate. The game's AI decides whether or not you're getting a grenade here or more ammo there, so after over a year I haven't tired of it.
The gaming industry is more interested in safely making lots of money, than being innovative or creating something interesting, but ultimately they'll have to listen to the geeks-- not the accountants-- if they want to remain successful. For every big, stupid, shallow money-maker like the "Bayformers" movies, it's always something with actual thought put into it, that drives the genre forward and spawns new creative ideas for both the artists, and the consumers, to enjoy.
I'm not going to claim "Iron Man" or "Batman Begins" were great intellectual achievements, but in the case of the latter, literally no one previous had ever had the balls to take the comic book genre so dead seriously, and make a movie as dark as they could. It worked. Because it's all about taking risks.
"Call of Duty Five: Modern Warfare Seven: This Time With Grenades 3" is not taking a fucking risk.
There's a reason Pac-Man single-handedly spawned this industry in the first place. And to do so, it didn't need an online option to let your friends play as ghosts.
I suck at video games. I used to be good-- when the NES was still a thing-- but then I got distracted for a few years by college and girls and learning to drive. Also beer. Suddenly I pick up a controller again and I'm supposed to know complex military tactics. Fuck you. THAT'S why I have Uno and Pac-Man on my XBox.
GEEK
The XBox has been in my apartment about two years, and the games I have enjoyed most, INITIALLY (I stress that point), are....
1) Wet
2) Borderlands
3) Left 4 Dead (both)
I am aware-- Anyone who knows anything about games, knows that "Wet" sucks. A hardcore gamer here in town told me it reminded him of John Woo's "Stranglehold," which I then checked out just to see if the comparison was apt. Strangehold came out when I was still working at Borders (so 2004-5 roughly), and by 2010 standards, it was pretty crap. Your character hit more targets only if you were jumping through the air in slow-motion. That got repetitive and boring after five minutes. I quit the game after ten and sent it back. "Wet" was exactly like this, except you could also run up walls and do flips. That only took about 10-15 hours to tire of, or maybe I kept expecting boobs.
Borderlands was spectacular, with a levelling system, and a crazy variety of guns that actually forced you to think about what you were going to keep vs. drop. I played it for like a month straight, then I went back to start again with a second character, since you're given four to choose from. The second time through, it felt boring and frustrating, because I'd already beaten all those levels, and it took so long to level up. So.... I went back to my original character. Soon after, I don't know if the game got too hard, or if it reached the upper limits of my skill, but I had to quit. Still, really, really fun up until that point.
I don't play Halo, because going online, it's even harder to find a good game than it would be on a PC. I've beaten 1 & 2, but Halo seems to be more about the culture than the individual gameplay. It's all about going online and playing versus other people in an arena mode, and I spent college doing that with Counterstrike (which had a superior vs-mode, because it contained actual objectives, not just 'kill or be killed'). Halo online is just point and blast. It reminds me of Quake. Which was also repetitive and dull.
Left 4 Dead is more co-op, which I appreciate. The game's AI decides whether or not you're getting a grenade here or more ammo there, so after over a year I haven't tired of it.
The gaming industry is more interested in safely making lots of money, than being innovative or creating something interesting, but ultimately they'll have to listen to the geeks-- not the accountants-- if they want to remain successful. For every big, stupid, shallow money-maker like the "Bayformers" movies, it's always something with actual thought put into it, that drives the genre forward and spawns new creative ideas for both the artists, and the consumers, to enjoy.
I'm not going to claim "Iron Man" or "Batman Begins" were great intellectual achievements, but in the case of the latter, literally no one previous had ever had the balls to take the comic book genre so dead seriously, and make a movie as dark as they could. It worked. Because it's all about taking risks.
"Call of Duty Five: Modern Warfare Seven: This Time With Grenades 3" is not taking a fucking risk.
There's a reason Pac-Man single-handedly spawned this industry in the first place. And to do so, it didn't need an online option to let your friends play as ghosts.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Furiouser and Furiouser
#ff - Go read the blog known only as SHAN! SHAN! SHAN! I have been totally one-upped this week by one of my friends getting to a Kurosawa movie before me, and I take full responsibility. I have no excuse other than I am a fat, lazy American.
(who's the sex machine that gets all the chicks? SHAN! then I can dig it).
I've seen a handful of Kurosawa movies, the best of which was "Rashomon" which I recommend to everybody. It's a familiar concept (one story told from four perspectives) and while in 2011 you might think it's played out.... KUROSAWA INVENTED IT. I've only ever had, like, three movies that put my jaw on the floor, and this was one of them.
So as long as we're talking about cinematic masterpieces that will span generations and have redefined all cinema that would follow it...........
FAST AND FURIOUS
(2009, dir. Justin Lin)
NOT GEEK
I saw the first one when it came out, because as hard as you may find it to believe, there was a time when Vin Diesel was not a punchline. To his credit, he's managed to ride that one-note concept for near-on a decade now, without slipping into self-parody (sup, Chuck Norris. sup, Ben Affleck. Sup, Kevin Costner. Sup, Russell Crowe).
No interest in the second two (part 2: Paul Walker sucks. part 3: Lucas Black sucks more), but the fourth one got good reviews and Netflix essentially makes them free, so I figured, what the hell.
The opening action sequence is not only exciting, it makes sense and is not ruined by ShakyCam. The last two seconds of it are enough to either chase you out of the room, or make you reach for the popcorn. If you like popcorn, read on...
It's a five-act structure, and the cast of characters are all given their moments, even characters who haven't been around since the first movie. The acting is good (except for Paul Walker). I'm not claiming Vin Diesel is a great actor, but in this movie he plays only to his strengths, meaning he (a) doesn't say much, and (b) constantly looks ready to do violence. It works for him. Meanwhile, Paul Walker in a suit looks like a penguin in a sarong.
In a bad action movie, shit happens for no reason, we don't care about the characters enough to remember their names, the explosions take place for no other reason than because nothing has blown up in a while, and there is One Good Guy, and One Bad Guy. Here, suddenly, none of that is true. It's an 8/10 easily, unless you just hate Vin Diesel on general principal, in which case there's always The Rock.
GEEK
Fuck.
Putting aside the fact, for a moment, that Justin Lin directed the third movie, let us also remember that he directed three episodes of "Community," including the 'Modern Warfare' episode. It was because of that and that alone I saw "Fast and Furious." The man knows his shit. He has one indie hit ("Better Luck Tomorrow") and two shitty studio movies where I'm sure he had little creative control, but then with this and the television, here he emerges, capable of doing talking scenes and action scenes with equal flair.
The movie was written by Chris Morgan, who wrote the third movie, sure, but also wrote "Wanted." Over the top, I know, but other than that bullshit about the Loom, everything was just fun ridiculousness.
Even from a geek standpoint, this film has no right to be good, but it is. The action is satisfying, the dialogue isn't retarded, the film is purdy to look at.
My lone complaint (other than Paul "I'd Much Rather Be Smoking Weed on a Beach" Walker): It's PG-13.
Ordinarily I don't care WHAT the rating is, but this is one of several movies in the last few years where the rating felt like a lie.
There's a sequence in the first third of the movie, where both O'Connor (Walker) and Torretto (Diesel) have to "Try out" for a drug runner, given a GPS map and a finish line and told the first person across that line gets the job. Four contestants start the race.
And the race starts off, and it's exciting and you are shown that each of the four is competent, and why they are worthy of being considered. And then I remember thinking, "This shit is so fucking dangerous. This only makes sense if at least one of these guys dies, to show the audience that shit is serious."
Then one of the cars is T-boned by a minivan.
I say "cars" because that's what happens. We see the driver look surprised, then we see one car hit another car, then the scene cuts back to the race. The accident is never shown or talked about again.
This is ridiculous. If you're showing an illegal race IN TRAFFIC, and one of your racers crashes, if you don't show his broken, bleeding body hanging out the window, then you are being dishonest, and you're cheating the audience. You are editing out Life so you can get a PG-13 rating, and thus (so they say) sell more tickets, all of them to males ages 13-17. Who now see illegal street racing without consequences.
I'm not trying to be conservative about this, I'm just saying that I'm a fucking adult, and if cars are going to speed at 80 miles an hour through busy LA streets, and if there's a crash, I want severed limbs and fireballs. I don't want a dented fender and a quick cutaway just because the producers want to sell tickets to a kid who was three years old when the first movie came out.
Some of the CG is questionable, this movie needed more nekkid women in it. I was entertained enough that I did not feel the need to shout out at the television. The story kept moving, there was more than just One Good Guy and One Bad Guy. I can recommend this. Even the ending left it open to another movie...
.... another movie that comes out next month.
With the Rock.
Vin Diesel vs. The Rock.
Fuck you, Hollywood.
Take my money.
(who's the sex machine that gets all the chicks? SHAN! then I can dig it).
I've seen a handful of Kurosawa movies, the best of which was "Rashomon" which I recommend to everybody. It's a familiar concept (one story told from four perspectives) and while in 2011 you might think it's played out.... KUROSAWA INVENTED IT. I've only ever had, like, three movies that put my jaw on the floor, and this was one of them.
So as long as we're talking about cinematic masterpieces that will span generations and have redefined all cinema that would follow it...........
FAST AND FURIOUS
(2009, dir. Justin Lin)
NOT GEEK
I saw the first one when it came out, because as hard as you may find it to believe, there was a time when Vin Diesel was not a punchline. To his credit, he's managed to ride that one-note concept for near-on a decade now, without slipping into self-parody (sup, Chuck Norris. sup, Ben Affleck. Sup, Kevin Costner. Sup, Russell Crowe).
No interest in the second two (part 2: Paul Walker sucks. part 3: Lucas Black sucks more), but the fourth one got good reviews and Netflix essentially makes them free, so I figured, what the hell.
The opening action sequence is not only exciting, it makes sense and is not ruined by ShakyCam. The last two seconds of it are enough to either chase you out of the room, or make you reach for the popcorn. If you like popcorn, read on...
It's a five-act structure, and the cast of characters are all given their moments, even characters who haven't been around since the first movie. The acting is good (except for Paul Walker). I'm not claiming Vin Diesel is a great actor, but in this movie he plays only to his strengths, meaning he (a) doesn't say much, and (b) constantly looks ready to do violence. It works for him. Meanwhile, Paul Walker in a suit looks like a penguin in a sarong.
In a bad action movie, shit happens for no reason, we don't care about the characters enough to remember their names, the explosions take place for no other reason than because nothing has blown up in a while, and there is One Good Guy, and One Bad Guy. Here, suddenly, none of that is true. It's an 8/10 easily, unless you just hate Vin Diesel on general principal, in which case there's always The Rock.
GEEK
Fuck.
Putting aside the fact, for a moment, that Justin Lin directed the third movie, let us also remember that he directed three episodes of "Community," including the 'Modern Warfare' episode. It was because of that and that alone I saw "Fast and Furious." The man knows his shit. He has one indie hit ("Better Luck Tomorrow") and two shitty studio movies where I'm sure he had little creative control, but then with this and the television, here he emerges, capable of doing talking scenes and action scenes with equal flair.
The movie was written by Chris Morgan, who wrote the third movie, sure, but also wrote "Wanted." Over the top, I know, but other than that bullshit about the Loom, everything was just fun ridiculousness.
Even from a geek standpoint, this film has no right to be good, but it is. The action is satisfying, the dialogue isn't retarded, the film is purdy to look at.
My lone complaint (other than Paul "I'd Much Rather Be Smoking Weed on a Beach" Walker): It's PG-13.
Ordinarily I don't care WHAT the rating is, but this is one of several movies in the last few years where the rating felt like a lie.
There's a sequence in the first third of the movie, where both O'Connor (Walker) and Torretto (Diesel) have to "Try out" for a drug runner, given a GPS map and a finish line and told the first person across that line gets the job. Four contestants start the race.
And the race starts off, and it's exciting and you are shown that each of the four is competent, and why they are worthy of being considered. And then I remember thinking, "This shit is so fucking dangerous. This only makes sense if at least one of these guys dies, to show the audience that shit is serious."
Then one of the cars is T-boned by a minivan.
I say "cars" because that's what happens. We see the driver look surprised, then we see one car hit another car, then the scene cuts back to the race. The accident is never shown or talked about again.
This is ridiculous. If you're showing an illegal race IN TRAFFIC, and one of your racers crashes, if you don't show his broken, bleeding body hanging out the window, then you are being dishonest, and you're cheating the audience. You are editing out Life so you can get a PG-13 rating, and thus (so they say) sell more tickets, all of them to males ages 13-17. Who now see illegal street racing without consequences.
I'm not trying to be conservative about this, I'm just saying that I'm a fucking adult, and if cars are going to speed at 80 miles an hour through busy LA streets, and if there's a crash, I want severed limbs and fireballs. I don't want a dented fender and a quick cutaway just because the producers want to sell tickets to a kid who was three years old when the first movie came out.
Some of the CG is questionable, this movie needed more nekkid women in it. I was entertained enough that I did not feel the need to shout out at the television. The story kept moving, there was more than just One Good Guy and One Bad Guy. I can recommend this. Even the ending left it open to another movie...
.... another movie that comes out next month.
With the Rock.
Vin Diesel vs. The Rock.
Fuck you, Hollywood.
Take my money.
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