|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Movies | |
|
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Sister Clodagh's Superficially Spiritual, Ambitiously Agnostic Last-Rites-of-Spring Movie Quiz Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, and Dr. Anton Phibes, are also available... This time around, Sister Superior Clodagh "has fashioned a quiz organized loosely around themes of religious belief and representation in the movies", which, now that I think about it, isn't a particular specialty to me. Perhaps it's my 16 years of Catholic schooling (and exposure to actual nuns) that has caused me to neglect religious filmmaking, or maybe it's because most films examining religion aren't particularly sympathetic. Whatever the case, here are my answer's to Sister Clodagh's quiz: 1) Favorite movie featuring nuns I had a tough go on this one. There are a lot of movies with nuns, but few where the nuns are actually prominent characters. My first thought went to Two Mules for Sister Sara, a movie I don't even remember that well, except that I remember enough to know that it doesn't really qualify for this question... I've actually not seen this quiz's namesake in Black Narcissus, so that's a no go. Looking at the other answers at SLIFR, I see one that works for me though: Sister Mary Stigmata (a.k.a. The Penguin) in The Blues Brothers. The nuns I've come into contact with never contained mystical powers, nor did they smack their students with rulers, but I grew up in the namby pamby 80s. I've heard stories, though. (Oh, and in the course of one of the other questions below, I found Dead Man Walking - which is a great movie featuring nuns... among other things.) 
I'll go with Ronin (with The Manchurian Candidate being my favorite), but while I've seen at least 5 or 6 other Frankenheimer movies, I probably should also take a look at Seven Days in May and Seconds (which would be the punniest answer to this question, tee hee). 3) William Bendix or Scott Brady? Hell, I don't really know who either of these people are... But looking at their filmography, I see that Scott Brady was in Gremlins, which is pretty awesome. Then again, I can't even picture him in that and William Bendix is in a few movies I'd like to catch up with at some point: Hitchcock's Lifeboat and William Wyler's Detective Story. But not having seen those movies, I guess this one goes to Brady on a technicality. 4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see? Have you ever done so in real life? I have certainly never done so in real life (though I do seem to recall a huge line stretching around the block for Return of the Jedi in my youth... I don't remember how long it took to get in, but I'd be surprised if it was six hours). At this point in my life, I can't imagine doing that for simple entertainment purposes - heck, I get annoyed when I have to wait more than a minute or two to buy a ticket these days. But I suppose that if someone invents a movie that will confer some sort of powers (or immortality or something) to its audience, I'd be willing to wait the six hours for that. I'm not holding my breath though. 5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie I can't say as though I've seen any of his movies, though perhaps I have seen an episode of The Twilight Zone that he directed (if so, I have no remembrance of it). I have done an exhaustive ten-second analysis of his filmography though, and shall thus declare Death Takes a Holiday a movie that interests me. So there. 6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins? Peggy Cummins, because I've actually seen movies that she's in... and I even recognized her name. Poor Ann Savage... but it's hard to compete with Gun Crazy and Curse of the Demon. 7) First movie you remember seeing as a child As if I needed a reason to question the reliability of human memory, this question hurts. The first movie that jumped into my head was The Terminator, but that came out way too late to be my first movie, and I know I've seen others before it. As previously mentioned, I remember the line for Return of the Jedi, but my memories of that showing must have been superseded by the dozens of other times I've watched that movie. I do remember watching Dumbo at some point. I have no idea how old I was at the time, but I'd put that at around 4 years old, as that age is where my mind points to as containing the first real, concrete memories (including a distinct memory of asking how old I was - I may have done that before, but I was 4 years old when I started actually keeping track of my age). 8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie made you want to bolt from the theater screaming? I can't say as though I've ever wanted to do that. I can only remember walking out on a movie once, for Tank Girl, which was emphatically not what I wanted to watch at the time. I do remember getting sick in Cloverfield - and I'm not typically prone to motion sickness either - but instead of bolting from the theater screaming, I simply closed my eyes until my body was able to establish some sort of equilibrium. 9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum? Robert Mitchum, hands down. I mean The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (both of 'em), and Out of the Past... heck, even Scrooged. Tough to compete with Mitchum's filmography. 10) Best movie Jesus This is a tough one, as most of the obvious choices are from movies that I'm not that big a fan of... I honestly can't think of a truly great performance as Jesus. Dafoe's Jesus is pretty good, I guess, except that's not really the Jesus I know. I've never seen Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and from what I hear, the movie ain't particularly good (though he's apparently good in it). Honestly, the best answer I've seen for this one is John Turturro from The Big Lebowski.... 11) Silliest straight horror film that you're still fond of There are probably dozens of answers I could give here, as I tend to enjoy silly horror films, but the only real possible answer for me is Phantasm. Granted, I does still strike a nerve at moments and can be genuinely compelling, but it's low budget and horrible acting sometimes make the film laughable. In particular, the sequence where the Tall Man's finger turns into a bug is a masterpiece of silly cinema. It's a movie that I've always loved though, perhaps because it is earnest, but silly.  Greatest Special Effects Ever Emily Blunt by default, as I've actually seen movies she's in. This is mildly unfair though, as I'm much more familiar with the filmic period of Blunt than the filmic period of Gray (who was most active in the 30s and 40s). 13) Favorite cinematic Biblical spectacular Ben-Hur, hands down my favorite Biblican spectacular, probably because it only touches on the Bible peripherally. Most of the other Biblical epics struggle to compete with the minds eye from having read the Bible from a young age. Ben-Hur is based on a novel and had multiple film adaptations before the Charlton Heston, William Wyler take that I love so much, but it still feels like an "original" story, something I value more and more in these days of remakes and marketing-driven films. 14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor The obvious answer is the "I hate sand" monologue from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, but I wasn't really laughing at the time because I actually wanted those movies to be good. I don't really have a list of unintentionally hilarious cinematic moments, but I could probably come up with hundreds of examples if given enough time. Another few that just came to me: several moments in The Happening are just cringe inducingly funny (I'm thinking about the scene where Marky Mark pleads with his students to care about the bees, or the scene where he tells this completely off-the-wall story about how he went to a pharmacist or something), and then there's the scene where Miles Dyson dies in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which is just hysterically funny in a moment that is supposed to be deadly serious. 15) Michael Fassbender or David Farrar? Michael Fassbender, though again, we're hit with two different time periods, and I'm much more familiar with Fassbender's work than Farrar's... Also, Fassbender is pretty fucking awesome. 16) Most effective faith-affirming movie I had a hard time with this, then the ideas just kept pouring through to the point where I can't pick a favorite. I'll start with a pair of Christmas classics: It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, then move to more modern times with Field of Dreams and one that I saw in the SLIFR thread that I would have never thought of, but which fits: Groundhog Day. 17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism People seem to take different stances on agnosticism, so this question will definitely provoke different sorts of answers depending on how you define agnosticism. Some think it's all about doubting or questioning the existence of a deity, and their answers indicate such (including snarky ones like "anything directed by Michael Bay makes me question the existence of a god"). Personally, I tend towards the notion that agnosticism is really about the difference between belief and knowledge - I think we are all agnostics of a sort, even if we call ourselves Christian or athiest or Muslim or whatever. The movie that comes to mind here is Contact, which explores the subject at angles. I don't think the movie is perfect and some aspects haven't held up as well as I'd like, but I do love the conflict at the heart of the story. Science versus religion, fact versus faith, knowledge versus belief. I have not read the book, and from what I understand, the film stops short. But judging on the film itself, I think it makes a certain sorta sense that aligns with a lot of my feelings on the myriad subjects tackled. In essence, I don't see the conflicts described as being all that conflicting. Science and religion sometimes struggle with the same questions, but their approaches are so fundamentally different, and the questions so impenetrable and that I think both are necessary... 18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical I generally hate musicals, so I have no idea, but I'll choose the most obscure thing that comes to mind, which is a song from Stingray Sam that consists mostly of the two parents' names and their offspring's name, which is a portmanteau of the parents' names - for example, Fredrick and Edward produced Fredward. It's a brilliant song. Here, watch it: 19) Third favorite Howard Hawks movie The Big Sleep, with His Girl Friday being my favorite, and Rio Bravo being my second favorite. In all honesty, the answer could be any of those three, depending on my mood, as I love them all. I also have an affection for Sergeant York, but that's a more sentimental and personal thing... 20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow? I'm going to have to take a mulligan here, as I'm not really that familiar with these actresses' filmographies. I've frequently observed that I need to get better acquainted with the silent era, though I've not made much progress in that direction. 21) Movie most recently seen in the theater? On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming? Most recently seen in the theater was The Cabin in the Woods (which I loved), though after tonight, it will be The Avengers. On Blu-Ray, it was The Thing remake/prequel/reboot thing (pun intended) that strikes me as being an object lesson in how CGI effects are inferior to practical effects. Also, it was a fine, but pretty unnecessary movie that doesn't really come close to the classic Carpenter version. On streaming, it was Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a documentary about the Filipino exploitation scene in the 60s and 70s (this will come up later in the quiz). 22) Most unlikely good movie about religion I have not seen Life of Brian in many years and thus don't remember much about it other than it was funny and surprisingly thoughtful. 23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton? Yeah, so I don't really know either of these guys. Skelton sticks out in my head, but I don't really know his filmography that well. And Phil Silvers was in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, which I remember enjoying despite the fact that it's a bit overlong. 24) "Favorite" Hollywood scandal Not much of a scandal follower myself, so I can't really think of many, except perhaps the Hollywood blacklist stuff, but even then, I'm not too interested in that sort of thing. I'd rather watch movies than gossip about actors and actresses, thanks. 25) Best religious movie (non-Christian) This was surprisingly difficult, as most every religious movie I've seen seems to involve Christianity in some way or another. The Wicker Man came to mind, but that's not really a serious exploration of paganism, and much of it is played off of the Christian leanings of the main character. A Serious Man is a great movie and it's got a lot to say about Judaism. I've got to give credit to the guy who answered I Walked with a Zombie, which also brings to mind The Serpent and the Rainbow, both of which (superficially) involve Voodoo. It's been so long since I've seen Gandhi that I'm not sure how religious it really was... Jeeze, this question is harder than it should be. 
Erm, yeah, once again I'm not terribly familiar with any of their work, but I'll go with King Hu for his work with the Shaw Brothers and his work on Wuxia Pian pictures. 27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat This is a deceptively difficult question to answer, but I'll say dialogue, writing in general, and originality would be welcome in modern movies. Hollywood seems to be stuck in this weird marketing mindset which says that movies can't be successful unless they're based on an existing property. Hence the recent spate of remakes and reboots, along with the trend towards franchises that's been on the march for several decades now. It's not so much that this stuff is inherently bad as that it's seemingly pervasive these days, to the point where Hollywood is putting out movies based on board games (which I'd honestly not mind if they actually went out of their way to hire someone talented to write an interesting story - I'd love to see that sort of thing flourish, but from what I've seen, that ain't happening). Conversely, American independent cinema is running too far in the opposite direction, making unpalatable, aggressively insular, "personal" films that are often actively hostile to their audience. That sort of middle-ground where movies can be entertaining but still very good seems to have been lost. 28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie Shocking confession: I've never actually seen a Federico Fellini movie. I should probably get off my butt and see 8½, but I've heard so much about that movie and despite the praise, it never sounds even remotely interesting to me. Ditto for La Dolce Vita. Call me a philistine, I guess. 29) The Three Stooges (2012) - yes or no? Sure, why not? I've never been much of a Three Stooges kinda guy, and I probably won't see this in the theater, but I'm not actively opposed to it either. This might just be my temperament though, as there's a question like this in every quiz, and I'm pretty sure I always answer "yes" because perhaps it feels like censorship to say "no" and who am I to judge what other folks like. 30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly? Boy do I suck at these. I don't really know either one that well, but I'll go with Patsy Kelly. Because I said so, that's why. Also, she's apparently in Rosemary's Baby. So there. 31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory I have no frickin idea what the "best" conspiracy theory is, but one I just ran across thanks to that Machete Maidens Unleashed! documentary is that one of the women who went over the the Philippines to film one of the many women-in-jungle-prison movies made there was never heard from again. The folks at SLIFR have identified a couple of other good ones though, such as the rumor that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings on the Universal lot and the one where Steven Spielberg directed Poltergeist. But the best one is probably The Dark Side of the Rainbow.... 32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie I'm going to go with The Godfather, for a number of reasons. The big knock against the film is that it's "romanticized" or "sentimental", but I think that completely misses the point. Like a lot of great gangster movies, The Godfather does show a sorta romantic aspect to the mafia of olden days, but it also doesn't shy away from the nasty stuff either, and the very end of the film is quite disheartening. There's also a lot to be said about the cycle of violence in the film that many folks seem to gloss over. I suppose a lot of this is arguable, but perhaps that's why The Godfather is a classic. 33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise) I'm having a lot of trouble with this one, in part because it's either too specific, and I can't think of an example that matches that criteria, or it's too vague, and nearly any movie that makes me think would qualify. I lean towards that more general version, but again, that means that there are so many movies that could fit into the answer to this question that it would really be unfair to answer with one or two movies... and I don't have time to list out hundreds! Well, that wraps up this edition of the movie quiz. I know I'm really bad at the actor/acress vs actor/actress questions, but I still love these quizzes and am already looking forward to the next one (which will hopefully be in the summer instead of skipping a season like this time).... Posted by Mark on May 06, 2012 at 07:46 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:. 
Sunday, April 22, 2012
The Cabin in the Woods It's difficult to talk about this movie without spoiling it, but I'll start with the notion that if you're a fan of horror movies, you should really go see this(more spoilertastic commentary will be below the fold). This is rather strange, as the movie isn't entirely a horror film, though it contains lots of horror elements and tropes. It's not really a horror comedy either, though it is very funny at times. It's got satirical elements, but it's not really a satire. It's a strange beast, but a very interesting one. Movies like this don't come around that often, so check it out. Again, trying to avoid spoilers here, but looking at the filmmakers is instructive. The film's got a script from Joss Whedon, which should tell you something, and then you've got Drew Goddard, a regular in the Whedon and J.J. Abrams writers stable. In other words, expect genre deconstruction and mysterious folk lurking in the shadows. Or something. It's certainly not a perfect film, but it's probably the best thing I've seen so far this year, and the most fun too. Unfortunately, it's hard to talk about it for fear of spoiling. It's not a movie that relies on a single twist or anything and you can tell from the movie's title what's coming. Heck, it's not so much a title as it is a premise: kids go to a cabin in the woods. Guess what happens next? But Whedon and Goddard make the sub-genre feel fresh in a way you don't see very often. Again, it's not reliant on a big surprise, but rather a series of small twists and tweaks, starting from the first scene in the film, none of which are particularly earth-shattering on their own, but which build upon each other to create an effective cumulative result. Again, if you're a fan of horror movies, you need to see this. Well, that's probably enough trying to skirt around the details. Spoilers aho, fun ahoy! So very quickly, yes, there are five kids (each conforming to a stereotypical archetype like "The Fool" and "The Virgin") that go to spend the weekend in a remote cabin in the woods. And yes, they are attacked by a family of redneck zombies after they read some latin aloud whilst investigating a creepy basement. But the most interesting thing about the movie is that the kids are basically being manipulated by some sort of shadowy organization; an effort lead by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins. At first, this organization seems like the villain, but it seems that this ritual destruction of youth at the cabin is actually necessary to forestall an even bigger disaster - the rising of the Lovecraftian elder gods. Of course, the kids don't play along quite as expected, and while first half or two thirds of the movie are pretty conventional, the shit really hits the fan in the last third. When we first find out what the kids were facing (redneck zombies!), I was a little disappointed... but then you get that last sequence of the film, where everything just goes crazy. Horror fans will delight in all of the references (throughout the whole film, but especially in the climactic sequences). Unfortunately, the film doesn't quite stick the dismount. It's going fantastically for a while, but then Sigourney Weaver shows up and delivers some clunky exposition that didn't quite hit the right note for me. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't ruin the movie or anything, and the ultimate outcome of the film is fine. To use the gymnastics metaphor, this movie is like a routine that starts off conventionally, well performed, but nothing we haven't seen before. But then, about two thirds of the way through, some really amazingly acrobatic stuff starts happening, leading to a huge dismount. The movie doesn't stumble, but it's not an entirely clean landing either. It's the sort of thing where the audience at home is exhilarated by the performance, but the announcer says something like "Ohhh, that's gonna cost them a tenth of a point" or something absurd. Still very high scores and everyone cheers, but not quite a perfect 10. There's a ton of metaphorical possibilities with this movie though. For example, Devin Faraci effectively argues that the Whitford and Jenkins characters are actually the heroes... or maybe anti-heroes of the piece, not the kids: That's the real twist of the movie. After all, you know right from the start that the events in the cabin are being controlled. But the assumption is that this is something insidious, something evil. I've seen a lot of reviews that utterly misunderstand the truth about Downstairs. The truth is that these guys are saving the world. Once a year they engage in a sacrifice that saves the world. It's terrible, and you may have issues with how they go about it - especially the way they blow off steam partying and betting - but the reality is that there are dark forces that needed to be contained, and this is how it's done.Whedon and Goddard have apparently often compared themselves (in the roles of writer/director) to the Whitford and Jenkins characters (the ones manipulating the kids in the movie). If they're the filmmakers, then the elder gods could be the audience - us. Or you could say that the elder gods are the studio execs and we're the kids being slaughtered. You could go the more serious rout and claim that the young are being sacrificed at the behest of their elders. In any case, there's lots to chew on here, especially in the realm of media and the audience relationship with creators. It calls to mind a lot of other films, while still being distinct and worthwhile on its own. I'm think of The Truman Show or maybe even Rubber, which are a little more explicit in their exploration of audiences, but still quite effective. Many of the questions that are called to mind in this movie surround the tropes and conventions of horror, which you could argue have become stale and are somewhat disturbing in and of themselves. I mean, why do we enjoy watching the young get slaughtered by monsters? Seeing this movie now also paints The Hunger Games in a less flattering light, as that book/movie never really worked for me. I could tell it wanted me to be asking these same questions, but I was never immersed enough in the world to care. The Cabin in the Woods has a lot of things that I'd think would pull me out of the story too, but they never really did. I mean, the logistics of capturing, storing, and maintaining the monsters would be pretty absurd, as is the notion of the "Red Button" (though I appreciated the touch of the two step activation system - it's not a button anyone would ever want to press, but if you're going to build it, it's comforting to know that they made it safe enough that it wouldn't be accidentally triggered!) I could probably ramble on and on about the symbolic interpretations of the movie or all of the references, but I'll just end with a few of my favorites:
Posted by Mark on April 22, 2012 at 07:51 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Weird Movie of the Week Last time on Weird Movie of the Week we discovered some presidential badassery. This time, we've got a ripping tale of aliens, nazis, and lasers: 
Watching Zone Troopers, you get the feeling that it's accidentally ten times better than it's meant to be. The plot and dialogue seem like they were written on a comic shop toilet stall: Four likeable WWII soldiers named things like "Sarge" and "Mittens" stumble across enemy lines and the Reich's most carefully guarded discovery: a massive interplanetary spacecraft. One of its pilots has escaped unharmed, and joins our boys in a full-metal lazer-battle against Hitler's lil' shits. We even get to see Eva Braun's boyfriend get smacked straight in the kisser!Ah, the 1980s. Apparently this movie is actually real and is available through the magic of Manufactured-on-Demand DVD from MGM. Or something. Posted by Mark on April 04, 2012 at 08:25 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
IV, V, I, II, III, VI Have you figured out what this post title is about? Yes, folks, it's time for some epic Star Wars geekery. Fortunately for me, Rod Hilton has done all the legwork in a very long and well argued essay. The title of this post is known as the Ernest Rister sequence, and it represents the order in which the Star Wars films should be viewed. There have traditionally been two main strategies for ordering the series. George Lucas would have us watch them in chronological order, which is obvious lunacy for numerous reasons (which Hilton studiously trots out), but most of us nerds have decided that the natural progression is actually in order of release (which is IV, V, VI, I, II, III). There are less flaws with that ordering. Hilton's reasoning here is a bit stilted, as it rests entirely on the "Special Edition" versions of Star Wars, but to my mind, the primary problem with the release order strategy is that the series then ends with a whimper. The prequels provide background and little else, and even that background is largely already known. Ending a six movie marathon with III would be quite a downer. We could add a third strategy here for those bitterest of nerds, which is simply IV, V, VI without any acknowledgement that there were other Star Wars movies. Hilton, to his credit, acknowledges the charm of this option (and even links us to some Despecialized Editions of the movies), but he also sought out other orderings, just in case you actually do want to watch the other three movies. Enter the Ernest Rister sequence: IV, V, I, II, III, VI. The argument for this strategy is surprisingly compelling: George Lucas believes that Star Wars is the story of Anakin Skywalker, but it is not. The prequels, which establish his character, are so poor at being character-driven that, if the series is about Anakin, the entire series is a failure. Anakin is not a relatable character, Luke is.Hilton goes on to then suggest his own variant of the Enest Rister sequence, which he calls the Machete Order: IV, V, II, III, VI. Haha, I see what he did there. Search your feelings, you know it to be true! Episode I doesn't matter at all. You can start the prequels with Episode II and miss absolutely nothing. The opening crawl of Episode II establishes everything you need to know about the prequels...Hilton has a very detailed and, naturally, nerdy description of why this is the superior sequence. For my part, I find this an acceptable order. My biggest concern is Vader's shocking revelation in Episode V. As long as that surprise is maintained, I'm pretty happy with the ordering, and there are a lot of things to like about the Rister or Machete ordering. Unfortunately, my nieces have already be indoctrinated (using the traditional order of release sequence), so I can't test the theory out on them, but if another opportunity to introduce someone to the series ever comes up, I might give it a shot. One nice thing about the Rister/Machete order is that both start with the best movies in the series, and once you get past the reveal in part V, you can lay out the strategies to the person watching and see which way they'd like to go. Ok, so I think that's enough nerdiness for now. (Thanks to JVL for the link) Posted by Mark on March 14, 2012 at 09:26 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Tasting Notes - Part 5 Yet another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately: Television
Posted by Mark on March 07, 2012 at 08:03 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Favorite Films of 2011 Once again, I find myself attempting to sum up a rather unusual year for movies. Here we have a year of movies that managed to transcend mediocrity, but none which achieved true greatness. There were a ton of good movies released this year, ranging from a good way to spend a few hours to... a very good way to spend a few hours? Again, nothing seemed to really hit on all cylinders this year. The theme of 2010 was a questioning of reality. I don't see a theme in 2011, but I do see some patterns. The one that sticks out to me is that there seemed to be a preponderance of art house genre pictures. These movies tend to be low budget schlock-fests, even when they're good. But this year, several talented directors took on unusual genres, and instead of schlock, we got deliberate pacing punctuated by visually spectacular moments of beauty. From cosmic existentialism (The Tree of Life, Melancholia, Certified Copy) to straightforward action (Drive) to westerns (Meek's Cutoff), we got a ton of unusual takes on standard genres this year. There are even more examples that will be listed below. Does this really qualify as a Theme (capital T) for 2011? Probably not, but it's the pattern I'm most struck by... it seems that all the interesting movies this year were playing with form and genre... As of this moment, I've seen 75 movies that would be considered 2011 releases. Add in the 19 movies I saw at Fantastic Fest, and that brings the grand total up to 94 movies. This is a record for me, though probably much less than a lot of critics would see in a year. The standard disclaimer goes double for this year: creating a list like this is an inherently subjective process, and I seemed to have struggled with the list more than expected, to the point where I'm having trouble orienting films on a pure 1-10 scale. For the past several years, I've always had a pretty easy time with the top 5 movies of the year. I would have a little more trouble with the 6-8 picks, and the final two were always impossible to pick. This year? I feel like I've got 10 movies I want to cram in those 9 and 10 slots, with maybe a few in the 6-8 realm... As such, I'm breaking from tradition this year and listing out my top 10 in alphabetical order. A bit of a cop out, sure, but what are you going to do? Sue me? I used to put this list together by trying to figure out the best films of the year, but in the past few years, I've been gravitating more towards my favorite films. There were films I really respected this year that never quite connected with me the way they did with critics, so I have a feeling my list will be more personal and unusual than most top 10s... Indeed, this is probably the least commercial list I've ever put together (there are normally at least a few big budget Hollywood type films on the list, but not so much this year...) My hope is that this will make for a more interesting list to read, but enough babbling, let's get this show started: Top 10 Movies of 2011 * In alphabetical order
* Also in alphabetical order
But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:
These are films that are almost universally recognized in critics' circles, but which didn't really connect with me. Again presented without comment and in no particular order: Should Have Seen Despite the record number of movies I saw this year, there were still a few that got away. This could be because of limited distribution, or because I just didn't find the movie that compelling until after it was out of theaters or something like that... Again presented without comment and in no particular order:
Anyways, stay tuned next week for the annual Kaedrin Oscars Liveblogging event! It should be a real corker. Posted by Mark on February 19, 2012 at 07:17 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Taxonomy Platforms The human brain is basically a giant correlation machine. Well, ok, that's a drastic simplification, but I've often written about how correlation and induction play an important role in life. This is a large subject, but today I want to focus on one result of our predilection towards correlation: our tendency to develop complex taxonomies. For books and movies, we've got genres. For beer, we've got style. Retail stores have departments. You name it, chances are that there's a complex taxonomy describing variations (you'll notice that this post tends to consist of examples from my obsessions with movies, beer and technology, but this would all be relevant to a wide variety of subjects). This tendency invariably leads to nerdy arguments about specific examples and where they fall within the taxonomy. Is Inglourious Basterds Science Fiction? Are comic book movies science fiction? Should we make a distinction between science fiction and science fantasy? What exactly constitutes a West Coast IPA? What do we call Black IPAs? What are the defining characteristics of a Weblog? What are some examples of the Hillbilly Horror genre? Take a trip down TV Tropes lane, and you're guaranteed to find a comprehensive list of genres, sub-genres, and myriad conventions or cliches. Why go to all this trouble to categorize everything? What is it about the internet that seems to magnify these discussions? Well, the most obvious reason for such excessive categorization is that it will communicate something about the particular instance being discussed. Categorizing movies into various genres helps us determine what we're in for when we sit down to watch a movie. Style guidelines communicate what kinds of characteristics to expect from a beer. Genres and styles provide a common ground for both creators and critics, and the reduce the pool of possibilities to a more manageable number. Those are good things1, but they're really only scratching the surface of why we taxonomize. Most people get frustrated by taxonomies. It seems that every genre, every style, is inadequate, especially when their favorite instance is pigeonholed into a particular category. Hence, we get the aforementioned nerdy debates on the nature of science fiction or west coast IPAs. Genres and styles are blurry along the edges, and there's a great deal of overlap. Individual works often fit into many categories. If one were so inclined, they could make each category excessively inclusive or moderately narrow, but worrying about the blurry edges of taxonomy is kinda missing the point. In the parlance of hackers, the blurry edges of taxonomy are a feature, not a bug. I've been reading Steven Johnson's book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, and he makes a fascinating observation that genres are the stacked platforms of the creative world: For understandable reasons, we like to talk about artistic innovations in terms of the way that they break the rules, open up new doors in the adjacent possible that lesser minds never even see. But genius requires genres. Flaubert and Joyce needed the genre of the bildungsroman to contort and undermine in Sentimental Education and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Dylan needed the conventions of acoustic folk to electrify the world with Highway 61 Revisited. Genres supply a set of implicit rules that have enough coherence that traditionalists can safely play inside them, and more adventurous artists can confound our expectations by playing with them. Genres are the platforms and paradigms of the creative world. They are almost never willed into existence by a single pioneering work. Instead, they fade into view, through a complicated set of shared signals passed between artists, each contributing different elements to the mix. I love the description of genres fading into view, perhaps because you could say that genres never really come into full clarity. That may frustrate some, but that inherent blurriness is where taxonomies derive power and it's what allows geniuses to create their most amazing works. And this does not just apply to art. In Brew Like a Monk, Stan Hieronymus relates an anecdote from Michael Jackson (the beer critic, not the pop star):
As Hieronymus later notes, if we didn't make "rules," we wouldn't know when to break them. That is the power of taxonomy. It gives us a place to start. It gives us the basic rules and techniques. Defining such conventions may seem limiting, but it's actually freeing. You have to understand those conventions before you can break them or combine them properly, which can sometimes result in something inspirational and brilliant. Ironically, this seems to happen with such regularity that I'm sure many "innovations" we see today are repeats of previous revolutions. As Johnson notes, genres and style are part of a stacked platform. They're built on top of even more basic building blocks, notably technology. Technology often recontextualizes existing taxonomies, opening them up to subtly different interpretations. The same innovative idea can be magnified and mutated into something different by technology. It's very rare that something completely new emerges from history. It's more likely something that has existed for a long time, but slightly tweaked to match the times. Taxonomies are platforms. They are not limiting. You build things on top of platforms, and that's why we go to the trouble of categorizing everything we can. 1 - Nerdy fury on the internets is one thing, but for the most part this isn't really controversial stuff. However, once you start placing taxonomies on human beings, things get a little more complicated. If one were so inclined, an interesting discussion on the nature of prejudice as it relates to the human penchant for correlation could yield interesting insights. Unfortunately, this is not a post for that more weighty (and controversial) subject. Posted by Mark on February 12, 2012 at 09:21 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Weird Movie of the Week Last time on Weird Movie of the Week we examined a touching tale of bovine mutation. This time, we've got presidential badassery: Posted by Mark on January 25, 2012 at 07:22 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
My Most Anticipated Movies of 2012 Before I get started on recapping the 2011 movie landscape (yes, I know most folks are already done with their year end recaps, but here at Kaedrin, we work at a more leisurely pace), I thought I'd look ahead at 2012. My impression of 2011 is an odd one. I really enjoyed many movies I saw, but there were few that really blew me away. It's not quite a year of mediocrity, but it isn't a spectacular year either. 2012, though, is shaping up to be at least very interesting and possibly one of the best years in a long time... The Obvious Blockbusters: Most folks already know these movies are coming and they're also something of a known quantity, so I'm separating them out. There are, of course, other big blockbusters coming, but these are the ones I'm most interested in:
It seems like 2012 is brewing up a lot of original screenplays with talented directors, which is a welcome development. And an exciting one too!
There are some movies in the pipeline that may or may not be released in 2012. But when they do come out, I'd probably be interested in them:
For whatever reason, these films aren't inspiring as much interest in me as they seem to be in everyone else...
Posted by Mark on January 01, 2012 at 06:02 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Holiday Horror 'Tis the season... for cheesy horror movies! It's something of an annual tradition here at Kaedrin, though the pickings are getting a bit slim these days. Two of the three movies below are only slightly related to actual holiday scares. That being said, I always seem to have fun with these movies, even if they aren't so great:
Posted by Mark on December 18, 2011 at 02:17 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Nerding Out on Star Trek Star Trek has been in the news lately, as J.J. Abrams preps the new movie. It seems that Khan will be the villain again (originally thought to be played by Benicio Del Toro, but that has apparently not happened), though there is also apparently a secondary villain who plays an older mentor to Khan. Or something. It was the obvious choice and I'm interested in seeing what Abrams does with the new movie, but in a lot of ways, it's also a disappointing and lazy choice. Not just because Khan was the villain in the original second Star Trek film either. As Devin Faraci also notes, I think one of the things people forget about is that one of the reasons that film worked so well was that Khan wasn't the obvious choice: Khan wasn't an obvious choice for the original Star Trek II. Basically Harve Bennett watched every single episode of the original series because he thought Star Trek: The Motion Picture lacked a good villain, and took a shine to Space Seed; while it was always regarded as one of the better episodes of the series, Khan wasn't quite the iconic villain he is today.I think I would have rather seen Abrams go in a completely different direction. Either mining the original series for other obscure characters to update for the big screen, or maybe even - and I know this is crazy talk - creating a new character from scratch. The Star Trek reboot was extremely popular, so they've got a built in audience for this next installment. As long as you can make a trailer with a bunch of lens flares, swish pans, and explosions, people are going to go see the sequel. Why not take a chance? Khan is an iconic villain because of his context - none of which has been built up in this new reboot universe. Anyway, I got to thinking about the existing movies and just for shits and giggles, I ranked them from favorite to least favorite below. Mostly because this post just wasn't nerdy enough. Here goes:
A sentient nebula chases the ship, which has nowhere to hide, because usually it would be in a nebula. Data adopts a dog, snake, and parrot.Heh, great stuff. Speaking of great stuff, RedLetterMedia has reviews of all the Next Generation movies (in the same style as their brilliant Star Wars prequel reviews) that are certainly worth checking out. Well, I think that covers all the Star Trek nerdery I have right now, so there. I hope you enjoyed it. Posted by Mark on December 11, 2011 at 07:40 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
The 2011 Holiday Movie Season The holiday movie season has traditionally been Hollywood's dumping ground for Oscar bait. Prestige pictures are rushed out the door to meet eligibility requirements, and film nerds rejoice that we're actually getting some more intelligent, subtle fair. Well, in recent years, the trend hasn't quite reversed, but big tentpole action films are being released during the holidays now. Avatar came out on Christmas, for instance, and this year, we've got stuff like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. But there are still some interesting looking movies coming out as well, so here's a few that I'm looking forward to:
I'm actually a little more on top of things than I thought I was with this year's crop of movies. Part of it is that I've managed to catch up with several films on DVD/BD lately. I'm sure a few other things will pop up between now and when I actually compile my top 10 of 2011, but as of right now, this is looking like a banner year (especially if you add in my Fantastic Fest watching) in terms of movies seen... Posted by Mark on December 07, 2011 at 09:02 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Weird Movie Synopsis of the Week Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we saw a tale of Elephant vengeance. Against Nazis. This time, courtesy of my friend Dave, we've got a touching story of bovine mutation: "In this unsettling chiller, a genetic experiment intended to boost bovine fertility goes awry when one of the cows spawns lethal mutant offspring."Short, but sweet. Does it surprise anyone that this is a film that is available on Netflix streaming? I thought not. According to Dave, this movie is actually much more well-made than the premise might lead one to believe. I guess we'll just have to see about that, won't we? The movie is called Isolation, and IMDB has rated as a rather hefty (for this kinda movie) 5.9 rating from 2500+ users. Posted by Mark on November 16, 2011 at 08:21 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
6WH: Week 6 - The Slasher Calendar (Again) I've done this before, so I won't go over why so many slasher films are centered around holidays and dates, but yeah, they are. I don't know that I've seen every holiday slasher, but there are certainly enough that you could create a calendar of events throughout the year, with at least one or two slashers per month. Fortunately, there are some holidays that are still open, so if I were to actually make a slasher, Flag Day is still available (perhaps I could combine it with jellyfish and crocoroids). Anyway, in visiting the calendar this year, it's become clear that I've exhausted most of the good holiday slashers, and am in the distinct second or third tier. But no matter. Slashers are like cinematic comfort food. So let's get on with it:
Posted by Mark on October 30, 2011 at 08:03 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Dr. Anton Phibes' Abominably Erudite, Musically Malignant, Cursedly Clever Halloween Horror Movie Quiz Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, and Professor Ed Avery, are also available... But now, here are my answers to the sinister Dr. Phibes: 1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release. It is perhaps dreadfully uncool to pick the film the entire quiz is named after, but my pick is honestly The Abominable Dr. Phibes. It's a fine film by itself, but it's also much more influential than most of its contemporaries, influencing the likes of Seven and even Saw (not to mention the franchise that spawned and the whole torture porn sub-genre). 2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences? This is quite a difficult question. For one thing, a lot of movies that get remade have no real need of a remake - they're perfect the way they are. So what does need a remake? Well, there are some movies, no matter how great they are, that are just products of a different time, and could use some updating. There are some movies that just don't have enough of a budget or production value, and they could also benefit from a remake. Finally, there are movies that have a really neat premise that fall down when it comes to execution. That last one is especially difficult because they're not normally good or beloved, and thus are unlikely to be greenlit by a studio exec. But for the purposes of this question, there are no studios or commercial concerns, so what movie to pick? Well, when it comes to classics, the obvious choice would be Creature from the Black Lagoon - the only of the old Universal monsters that hasn't been updated and redone ad nauseum. The reason for the Gill-Creature's lack of remake probably has less to do with the popularity of the character than to the fact that it was one of the few Universal creature features that was totally original. Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy (which is mildly arguable, but I'm including it anyway) are so popular because the characters are in the public domain (Universal owns some aspects of the appearance of the various monsters, but that is easily avoided because the characters themselves are not). Because of this, characters like Dracula can be continually reinterpreted and reinvented for new audiences and generations. Indeed, Dracula has racked up over 200 appearances in film - one of the most portrayed fictional characters in all of cinema. But the Gill monster? It will never be as popular because Universal had so tightly controlled the copyright... at least, not until the film enters the public domain. On the other hand, maybe it's a silly movie that wouldn't survive a reinvention. But we won't know unless we get someone talented to give it a shot, and it's probably worth trying. 3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David? Well, I've never been much of a Dark Shadows kinda guy, so I'm afraid I can't really give a good answer for this, except to say: Jonathan Frid. Because I feel like it. 4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you. There are a lot of questions like this in these quizzes, and my answers tend to fall on a particular era of film: Silent Films. In keeping with that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is probably the one classic horror film that has so far eluded me. Along with several hundred others, but I keep thinking to myself: Self, you should really become more acquainted with the Silent Era. And then I promptly ignore that impulse. Indeed, for this year's 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon, I had originally intended to devote a week to silent films (including Caligari), but there's only one week left, and I really want to watch me some slasher films. But I will get to silent horror at some point. Oh yes. 5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre. A truly difficult and tricky question. Does someone like David Cronenberg count? He spent the first decade or so of his career putting out solid or even great horror films, but he has since moved on to other genres (mostly). How about John Carpenter? He's made two of my favorite movies of all time (Halloween and The Thing), but he's also made some stinkers and he hasn't even made a decent movie in over 15 years (though I have yet to see The Ward). Maybe it's just that I'm bad at picking favorites. Names are just coming to me. Mario Bava. Don Coscarelli. Alfred Hitchcock (does he count?) Sam Raimi. Wes Craven. Jeeze, we could be here for a while. I'll stop now. 6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele? Hey, I'm actually mildly familiar with these two. Mildly. I'll go with Ingrid Pitt, because I've seen her in more things, but Barbara Steele is no slouch... 7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature. A tough one. The Gill Creature kinda qualifies (is that really sci-fi?), but in the interest of variety, I'll go with The Blob. There's something just so great about the inhuman, unfeeling nature of the blob. 8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic. Aliens is the first to come to mind, but while it's quite a tense affair, I don't know that I would call that a horror film (though the Alien certainly was) so much as an action/adventure/thriller. The other obvious choice is Bride of Frankenstein, a film many believe is better than the original (though I'm not with them on that, it's still among the best sequels). And while I wouldn't call anything in the Friday the 13th series "classic", I do have an inordinate fondness for Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. Yeah, did I say I have trouble picking favorites? Because I do. Oh, and Phantasm II. And definitely Evil Dead II. Ok, I'll stop now. 9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas. This one's really hard, because there are so many horror series, all of which run out of gas from time to time, only to be revitalized (even if only for a short time). There are probably a bunch of Dracula movies that would fit that mold. But what the hell, I'll just say A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which just stopped the series in its tracks (not that it was soaring so high at that point, but still) and I don't think it ever really recovered... 10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.? These two actors have over 500 films to their credit. Yikes. I'll go with Lon Chaney Jr., for The Wolf Man alone. 11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray? Last horror movie I saw in the theater was Paranormal Activity 3 (I was surprised that the series had not worn out it's welcome - I generally enjoyed it). On DVD, it was Lucio Fulci's goretastic The Beyond (fun, but not much to it other than gore, which I will grant, is pretty awesome in that movie). On Blu-Ray, it was Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, a mildly diverting film that was enjoyable enough, though again, nothing special. On Netflix Streaming, it was The Sentinel, a decent 70s haunted house film that is nevertheless kinda sloppy and disjointed and very weird. Interesting, but nothing to go crazy about. 12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster. The most obvious answer would be Godzilla, though I've never been a particularly huge fan of those movies. The "fiend" part of the question does indeed open this up to probably too broad of a category, so I'll just leave it at Godzilla. 13) Favorite Mario Bava movie. Oh, this is a difficult one, but after a microsecond of thought, I'll go with Blood and Black Lace. Impeccable.  Blood and Black Lace Oh, this is an easy one, right? Cause there aren't that many actors or actresses that do a lot of horror films, right? RIGHT? Ok, fine, I'll go Boris Karloff for the actor, and Jamie Lee Curtis for the actress. 15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie. John Carpenter's Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. Another question that could probably have a thousand answers, unfortunately. 16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett? Again with the Dark Shadows? I decline to answer. Ok, fine, Joan Bennett. There. You happy now? 17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t? When I was in fifth grade, I hated horror films. Or, at least, I was terrified of them and avoided them at all costs. Then, one halloween, I spent the night at a friend's house, and we watched Halloween. Nothing like peer pressure to get you to watch something you wouldn't normally watch. And I was shocked to realize that I loved the movie. I was hooked. I started watching all the 80s slashers that came on TV (through my fingers at first, then when I realized that it wasn't that bad, I really started to eat up horror films), and now I watch nothing but horror movies for the six weeks leading up to Halloween every year. Not to mention all the other horror films I watch throughout the year. 18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie. I can't say as though I've seen a lot of his movies, but Empire of the Ants comes to mind. 19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about. This is a hard one because "obscure" can be a relative term. What constitutes obscure for a horror fanatic? It's difficult, because horror fanatics watch a lot of obscure movies just for the hell of it. But my pick will be Mute Witness, a movie that I rarely hear about, even in horror film circles. I won't ruin it by talking too much about it, but it's about a mute woman who witnesses a murder and then has to escape the clutches of the murderers, even though she's in a remote area and can't speak. 20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no? Yes. Look, it's a disgusting concept, but I have to admit that the first film is reasonably well made and even restrained. It was nowhere near as bad as I feared. On the other hand, the sequel is pretty foul. But even that is well shot and there's something interesting about what he chose to do in that movie. These are films I would probably never recommend to anyone, but if you're inclined to watch disgusting movies, these are fine. 21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”? The aforementioned IMDb - The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence is certainly a candidate, but the one that came to mind after that was Martyrs, a film I have a lot of respect for, but which also made me wonder what the hell I was doing watching this thing. 22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film. Genres are inherently fuzzy. That's part of their charm! That being said, a couple examples would be Blue Velvet and The Silence of the Lambs and maybe even Se7en. Did I mention that I'm bad at picking just one film? 23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott? Alright, Jesus, I'll watch Dark Shadows, ok? Just stop giving me these choices! 24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied? I haven't been around too much of this sort of attitude, so I don't really have an answer prepared, but I'm sure I could come up with something about the nature of fear or something. And quite frankly, anyone who's so lacking in empathy that they can't understand why someone would *gasp* like something different than them, is probably not worth responding to... 25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre. Brian Collins and his amazing Horror Movie a Day. I don't know how he does it. 26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie. A difficult one, as the most frightening stuff, for me, is the stuff that's not shown. But just to answer the question, I'll say Phantasm has quite a few shots that haunt me... 27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie. Well, I've already mentioned my first viewing of Halloween, so I'll call out my first viewing of Paranormal Activity. Before it got hyped to high heaven, it was just a small film, struggling to get a release. The filmmakers managed to wrangle some midnight screenings (and later used footage of the crowds in their trailer), one of which I got to attend. It was a big and fun crowd, there were lots of scares, and as a midnight showing, I didn't get home until around 2:30. And if you've ever seen the movie, you know that all the bad things that happen... happen at around that time. Let's just say that I stayed up for a while after that. 28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why? Two films come to mind. Scream's postmodern approach made it ok to make horror movies again. I know a lot of people don't like it or love it, but it is an important film, if only for the influence it's had on the genre. The other film would be The Blair Witch Project. It wasn't the first found footage, mock-documentary film (nor was it even the only one made that year!), but I think it might be the most effective one, and given the strength of the format over the past decade or so, I think that deserves a callout. 29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film). "Death of the first born" from The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Ironically, an quasi-unsuccessful curse, as well. But it was elaborate and horrifying, moreso than most of the others.  The Abominable Dr. Phibes Well, at least you didn't say I could only pick one movie.
And there you have it, another great quiz. I'm already looking forward to the next one! Posted by Mark on October 26, 2011 at 07:28 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
6WH: Week 4 - Wes Craven The six weeks of Halloween continues with three as yet unseen Wes Craven horror films, including some of his most recent work. Craven's an interesting director. He's worked primarily in horror and he's made at least two or three seminal films in that genre, but even his "lesser" works generally have something going for them. Even in films that don't necessarily work, he always manages to strike a nerve or two, which is more than could be said for most other directors. This week, I watched three of his films:
Posted by Mark on October 16, 2011 at 07:15 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
6 Weeks of Halloween: Week 3 - Val Lewton Horror In 1939, RKO-Radio Pictures was the smallest of the major studios. Its first ten years had been tumultuous, but things were looking up. They had just offered the talented youngster Orson Welles a multimillion dollar contract, hoping to capitalize on his success in their radio division. Welles' first film was Citizen Kane, which opened to critical praise and has gone on to be frequently cited as the greatest film ever, but which also lost money for the studio at the time. In addition, Charles Foster Kane was obviously based on newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who took the film none too kindly. In response to Welles' hubris, Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film, intimidated theaters into following suit, and threatened RKO exects with exposing fifteen years of suppressed Hollywood scandals. Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons was even less successful. After some leadership shakeups, one of the ways RKO sought to reverse their fortunes was to focus on B movies, and specifical B horror movies. Enter Val Lewton, who was offered "artistic freedom" if he accepted a few conditions:
Posted by Mark on October 09, 2011 at 08:51 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Fantastic Fest Dispatch #3 Coming down the homestretch, only a few movies/events left to go over. See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #2.
Posted by Mark on October 05, 2011 at 06:06 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Fantastic Fest Dispatch #2 As mentioned in the first dispatch, Fantastic Fest was quite a hectic but fun week for me. I don't really have much to say in terms of an introduction, but there are some thoughts on the festival itself interspersed with the movie reviews below. Also, just to mention that this technically represents the second week in my annual 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon. It doesn't take the general form of most 6WH posts, but there's plenty of horror and weirdness below, so enjoy! See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #3.
Update 10/5/11: Added some images to this post. Fixed some typos. Added links to other FF dispatches. Posted by Mark on October 02, 2011 at 11:12 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Fantastic Fest Dispatch #1 So things have been quite busy so far. Not much time to really record detailed thoughts, but since it's Sunday, I'll list out a few of the movies I've seen earlier in the week. Tons of fun stuff going on, but quite frankly, not much time to discuss. I'll probably have more time to cover movies next weekend (and since I'm traveling on Wednesday, probably no post then either)... Also, this is technically the first week of the 6 Weeks of Halloween Marathon. Not all of the below movies are horror and thus aren't necessarily Halloween movies, but they're all pretty weird and at least a few are pretty horror-focused. See also: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3.
Update: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3 have been posted. Posted by Mark on September 25, 2011 at 01:31 AM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Netflix's Woes, Continued In the wake of Netflix's pricing increase, it's been estimated that they've lost somewhere around 1 million customers. On Sunday night, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings attempted to explain the move. He starts off the announcement by saying "I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation." He then proceeded to explain how he would make up for everything... by totally screwing over customers even more. Essentially, Netflix is splitting into two independent entities (both owned by the same parent, for now). One is the DVD by mail service, which will work the same as ever, but which will not be named Qwikster. The other is the streaming service, which will retain the Netflix name. I see no reason to do this, but whatever. Maybe it's an accounting thing. But then Hasting drops the bombshell: "Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated." Um, what? All the sudden, this whole thing went from baffling to insane. The ratings you give movies on Netflix won't be reflected on Qwikster (and vice versa), if you want to change address or credit card info, you have to do so on both sites, and you presumably won't be able to tell if a movie is available on streaming when looking at the Qwikster website. Now look, I'm not a Netflix hater. I love the service and even with the price increase, it's a great value. I remember the old days of Blockbuster and do not want to return. I even defended their price increase back in July, essentially calling all the controversy an infantile response to Netflix's reasonable reaction to unreasonable studio demands. If the studios charge 10-100 times as much for Netflix to stream movies, it's only natural that the price would increase. But this new change is utterly ridiculous. What's more, it seems to make no sense whatsoever. I'm not an expert in business practices, but I can't find a single compelling reason to make this change at all. There isn't a single operational benefit to the switch and there's now a massive usability hurdle placed in front of the customer. I suppose there could be some sort of internal accounting or business or stock reason to make this change, but even that doesn't make sense. In July, their stock was nipping at $300 a share. Now? It's at around $130 a share. How does this benefit them? My guess is that the stock will rebound a bit, but that they'll continue to bleed subscribers. The only thing I can think of is that Netflix really does want to just sell off the DVD business and focus on streaming. Depressing the stock prices the way they have means that maybe potential investors will see it as a more attractive investment or something. I don't understand why that would be a viable option, but it's the only thing I can think of... For the first time since subscribing to Netflix over 6 years ago, I'm looking into alternatives. I will most likely keep their streaming service, but the way they're setting up the DVD service seems to beg customers to look for alternatives. Before the split, Netflix was a unique value proposition. You had access to nearly every movie available on DVD. The streaming selection was limited but growing, and you could always fall back on DVDs if needed. Now? There's no compelling reason to use either of Netflix's services. The only thing that could save this would be if Netflix actually expanded their streaming selection significantly, something I don't see happening anytime soon. And if they keep bleeding customers the way they are, their position at the bargaining table will only get worse as time goes on. Streaming may be the future of video content, but there's a fairly significant chicken-and-egg problem that needs to be solved first. In order to get favorable deals with the studios, the streaming service must boast a very large number of subscribers. In order to get those subscribers, a streaming service must boast a very large selection. Again, I don't see how this move helps Netflix in any way. In the end, I'm flabbergasted. I just cannot comprehend what is going on right now. Netflix was great while it lasted. It's a shame it's going away. Posted by Mark on September 21, 2011 at 02:52 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Link Dump - Action in Movies Edition Some interesting movie-related links I've run across of late:
Posted by Mark on September 14, 2011 at 09:02 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
No. So this story is a week old at this point, but it's so amazingly stupid that I can't seem to wrap my head around it. It seems that George Lucas is still screwing with the original trilogy, and he's made the most egregious and ridiculous change yet in the new release of the original trilogy on blu-ray. Here it is (stick with it, the change is about 30 seconds in): It’s hard to believe this because Vader crying ‘Noooo!’ was one of the most widely derided aspects of Revenge of the Sith. It’s easy to believe because Lucas is so out of touch and loves the idea of on the nose symmetry between the two trilogies.And the story has been confirmed by multiple sources, including the NY Times. It's a flabbergasting change, for a million reasons. Of course, there are tons of stories about it all over, and folks are already creating funny mashups and posting screenshots of canceled orders (I think that's my favorite response actually). But really, no parody is needed. Lucas's antics have gone beyond the point of outrage or controversy (like some of the other changes Lucas has made) and into pure comedy gold. Russ Fischer notes that: "There is a troll at work here; we just don’t know yet if it is George Lucas, or some anonymous prankster." At the time, the story hadn't been confirmed yet, so Fischer was thinking of the whole thing as a hoax. However, even though it's not a hoax, I think Fischer was on to something there. I think George Lucas is trolling us. I think it's become clear that he is literally playing a practical joke on us, one that has been decades in the making. He spent several years making these amazing movies that everyone would grow to love, only to abandon the whole thing when he finished. Fifteen years later, he put his long-term practical joke in motion by tweaking the old films (Greedo shooting first being the most egregious change), then releasing three poorly made prequels. Not satisfied with the reaction to this (which, granted, made him even richer), he continued his changing of the classics (even convincing Spielberg to change E.T.!), noting that fans went bonkers over every change, no matter how small. He even went and ruined Indiana Jones while he was at it. But none of these things were good enough, and strangely, he seemed to keep making money off of these atrocities. Every troll gets to this point, sooner or later. When Lucas realized that he could do anything, I think he actually sat down one day and wondered to himself: Everything I've done so far has been small potatoes, how can I really piss these people off? Lots of people have speculated about why Lucas has made the changes he has. Some think it's pure greed - for every change he makes, he can sell a new copy to the same old customers. But that rings hollow. The real prevailing wisdom here is that George Lucas actually believes he is making the movies better. He is an artist! And this is his vision! Or something like that. Well, maybe he really is an artist. Maybe this is his crowning achievement. It's not an achievement in film though, it's an achievement in trolling. I know it's unrealistic to expect that these Blu-Rays won't sell. They will. But the only way to defeat trolls is to ignore them. Or perhaps applaud their trollishness... and then ignore them. Well played, Lucas. But I'm not buying your movies anymore. Posted by Mark on September 07, 2011 at 09:00 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Tucker & Dale vs Evil In horror movies, taking a vacation in the woods never seems to work out so well. There are a number of variations on the theme, including the traditional slasher (exemplified by the Friday the 13th movies) and, of course, the Hillbilly Horror subgenre in which a bunch of kids find themselves in a rural area (usually in the deep south or, most notoriously, West Virginia), hunted by inbred cannibals. As it turns out, hillbilly horror cinema is a surprisingly deep subgenre, including the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Cabin Fever, Deliverance, Wrong Turn, and dozens of others. Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a new horror comedy that takes full advantage of that tired premise by turning it on its head. It begins with the typical establishing shots of Hillbilly Horror, following a group of college kids as they go camping in the woods of West Virginia. I don't want to give too much of it away, but the twist is that after the initial sequence, this film is told from the perspective of the hillbillies... and it doesn't quite play out like you'd expect.  Tucker and Dale Again, I don't want to ruin the movie, and quite frankly, I'd recommend avoiding the trailer, as it gives away a number of the comedic beats in the film. It is perhaps not a perfect film, but I was quite taken with it. It's currently available on Comcast's VOD (and perhaps other cable providers' VOD services), though it is a bit expensive (still cheaper than most theaters though). I believe it's slated for a limited theatrical release later in the month as well. It's well worth checking out, especially for fans of horror. Incidentally, writer/director Eli Craig was the guest on the /Filmcast last week, which is where I heard of this film in the first place. Check out the episode (and the After Dark episode)... Posted by Mark on September 04, 2011 at 01:21 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Weird Movie of the Week Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we looked at a horror movie featuring bunny suit wearing chainsaw murderer. This time, let's examine a movie about elephants. And Nazis. According to IMDB's surprisingly informative user review, Elephant Fury has a rather interesting history: Sensation director and actor Harry Piel made the film "Panik" in the period 1940-1943 that was banned by the Promi: the animals running loose from a zoo after a bombardment reminded in 1943 too much of the real bombardments and in Berlin indeed one day the animals from the zoo were running through the streets. The only copy of the film was later destroyed by a bombardment also, while after the war the negative was confiscated by the Russians. In 1951/2 Piel was able to reclaim the negative, shot some additional material and edited a new version under a new title.By all accounts, it's not particularly good, but the entire thing is available on YouTube (embedded above) and the short description is tantalizing: "Wild Animals Escape Zoo to attack Nazis". Note that the animals do not escape the zoo and attack Nazis. They escape to attack Nazis. Motivation is important, even to animal actors. Posted by Mark on August 31, 2011 at 08:45 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Apes It's not the worst movie ever made. In fact, it's pretty good. Much better than I expected. It has its problems, and I'm still not entirely convinced that it needed to exist in the first place, but now that it does, it's probably worth checking out. It does not start well, though. The first scene in the movie is an ape-poaching sequence. It's not terrible, but it's also pretty pointless and doesn't really connect that solidly with the rest of the film. It's not until the second sequence in the film that the bad really gets horrible. I'm going to quote, from memory, some dialogue from the script. It's approximate, but I think you'll be able to see why it's so bad. JAMES FRANCO: Cliché.Yeah, but from these inauspicious beginnings, the film slowly starts to reverse itself. Interestingly, and perhaps appropriately, it doesn't really right itself until Caesar (which, without getting into details, is basically James Franco's pet ape) grows up and starts to demonstrate his real intelligence. The special effects of the film are getting a lot of buzz. In particular, Andy Serkis's motion-capture performance as Caesar is even being mentioned as a potential Oscar nominee. Not all of the effects are perfect, but those folks over at Weta Digital know where their bread is buttered, and so the really important parts are done extremely well. One of the problems with the film is that once Caesar begins to gain his independence, the human side of the story becomes less important. By the end of the film, the humans really don't have much to do. Oh sure, there are a couple human villains, but James Franco, for example, doesn't really have much to do once you get to the midpoint of the film. A lot of the human side characters are never really given much to do, even though some are played by really good actors. The thing I like about the movie is that the film doesn't quite succumb to the traps that are set up early in the movie. For instance, without getting into specifics, the Apes and humans aren't really at war. There is one really fantastic action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge, and there are some "villains" among the humans, but for the most part, there isn't a full scale war here. The apes aren't out for revenge and they're surprisingly restrained and reasonable. In the end, there are some real clunkers in the dialogue, and there are some plot holes and really major, groan-inducing clichés, but the film manages to overcome them. It ends much stronger than it begins, which is actually a nice change of pace. I feel like a lot of movies start well and fall apart in the second or third act. This is a film that starts poorly, but gets better, leaving you with a good feeling at the end. It's definitely worth a watch, but maybe as a matinee or DVD. I've got some more spoilertastic comments in the extended entry, for those that have already seen it. Here be the spoilers:
Posted by Mark on August 24, 2011 at 09:20 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Fantastic Fest A couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet and booked my trip to Fantastic Fest, a movie festival focusing on genre film (mostly horror, fantasy, SF and action). It takes place in Austin, TX and is primarily held at a couple of big theaters there, notably the Alamo Drafthouse (I've never been to one, but from all reports, they're great). Everything I've heard about this festival is that it is amazing, especially for genre-hounds like myself (and this year's festival aligns pretty well with the beginning of my annual 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon). They haven't announced the schedule yet (and they should totally get on that), but they have released a bunch of the movies that will be showing. I'm really psyched to see a bunch of these films. Many genre films and filmmakers don't get wide releases, so it will be really nice to be ahead of the game on some of these. Even more interesting is the fact that I haven't heard of the grand majority of the films announced so far, which hopefully means I'll be discovering some films that I wouldn't normally have even had the chance to see. Again, they haven't announced the schedule, but I figured I should take a look through the two blocks of released titles to see what I'm interested in. I suppose there's no real guarantee that I'll get to see all the films I want, but I'm definitely hoping to catch up with most of these films:
Posted by Mark on August 21, 2011 at 07:33 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
More on Spoilers I recently wrote about the unintended consequences of spoiler culture, and I just came across this post which has been making waves around the internets. That post points to a study which concluded that readers actually like to have a story "spoiled" before they start reading. The U.C. San Diego researchers, who compiled this chart showcasing the spoiler ratings of three genres (ironic twist stories, mysteries or literary stories), posited this about their findings: "once you know how it turns out, it’s cognitively easier - you’re more comfortable processing the information - and can focus on a deeper understanding of the story."Jonah Lehrer apparently goes so far as to read the last 5 pages of the novels he reads, just so he has an idea where the story's headed. He clearly approves of the research's conclusions, and makes a few interesting observations, including: Surprises are much more fun to plan than experience. The human mind is a prediction machine, which means that it registers most surprises as a cognitive failure, a mental mistake. Our first reaction is almost never “How cool! I never saw that coming!” Instead, we feel embarrassed by our gullibility, the dismay of a prediction error. While authors and screenwriters might enjoy composing those clever twists, they should know that the audience will enjoy it far less.Interestingly, a few years ago, I posted about this conundrum from the opposite end. Author China Miéville basically thinks it's extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to write a crime story or mystery with a good ending: Reviews of crime novels repeatedly refer to this or that book’s slightly disappointing conclusion. This is the case even where reviewers are otherwise hugely admiring. Sometimes you can almost sense their bewilderment when, looking closely at the way threads are wrapped up and plots and sub-plots knotted, they acknowledge that nothing could be done to improve an ending, that it works, that it is ‘fair’ (a very important quality for the crime aficionado - no last-minute suspects, no evidence the reader hasn’t seen), that it is well-written, that it surprises… and yet that it disappoints.There's a lot to parse out above, but I have two thoughts on the conclusions raised by the original study. First is that there may actually be something to the cognitive benefits theory of why people like this. The theory and methodology of interpretation of text is referred to as hermeneutics*. This is a useful field because language, especially figurative language, is often obscure and vague. For example, in the study of religious writings, it is often found that they are written in a certain vernacular and for a specific audience. In order to truly understand said writings, it is important to put them in their proper cultural and historical context. You can't really do that without knowing what the text says in the first place. This is what's known as the hermenutic circle. It's kinda like the application of science to interpretation. Scientists start by identifying a problem, and they theorize the answer to that problem. In performing and observing their experiment to test the problem, they gain new insights which must then be used to revise their hypothesis. This is basically a hermeneutic circle. To apply it to the situation at hand: When reading a book, we are influenced by our overall view of the book's themes. But how are we to know the book's themes as a whole if we have not yet finished reading the parts of the book? We need to start reading the book with our own "pre-understanding", from which we hypothesize a main theme for the whole book. After we finish reading the book, we go back to each individual chapter with this main theme in mind to get a better understanding of how all the parts relate to the whole. During this process, we often end up changing our main theme. With the new information gained from this revision, we can again revise our main theme of the book, and so on, until we can see a coherent and consistent picture of the whole book. What we get out of this hermeneutic circle is not absolute and final, but it is considered to be reasonable because it has withstood the process of critical testing. This process in itself can be fulfilling, and it's probably why folks like Jonah Lehrer don't mind spoilers - it gives them a jump start on the hermeneutic circle. Second, the really weird thing about this study is that it sorta misses the point. As Freddie points out: The whole point of spoilers is that they're unchosen; nobody really thinks that there's something wrong with people accessing secrets and endings about art they haven't yet consumed. What they object to is when spoilers are presented in a way that an unsuspecting person might unwittingly read them. The study suggests that people have a preference for knowing the ending, but preference involves choice. You can't deliberately act on a preference for foreknowledge of plot if you are presented the information without choosing to access it.And that's really the point. Sometimes I don't mind knowing the twist before I start watching/reading something, but there are other times when I want to go in completely blind. Nothing says that I have to approach all movies or books (or whatever) exactly the same way, every time. And context does matter. When you see a movie without knowing anything about it, there can be something exhilarating in the discovery. That doesn't mean I have to approach all movies that way, just that the variety is somethings a good thing. * - Yeah, I plundered that entry that I wrote for everything2 all those years ago pretty heavily. Sue me. Posted by Mark on August 17, 2011 at 06:03 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Old Podcast Episodes I sometimes discover a podcast long after it's started, and if I like it enough, I'll head back through the archives to check out some older episodes. In honor of some of the gems I've found by doing so, here are a few really good episodes that are probably worth listening to:
Posted by Mark on August 10, 2011 at 09:56 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Recent Podcastery I like podcasts, but it's depressingly hard to find ones that I really enjoy and which are still regularly published. I tend to discover a lot of podcasts just as they're going through their death throes. This is sometimes ok, as I'm still able to make my way through their archives, but then I run out of content and have to start searching for a new podcast. I will often try out new podcasts, but I have only added a few to the rotation of late. Here's some recent stuff I've been listening to:
Posted by Mark on July 27, 2011 at 10:01 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Streaming and Netflix's Woes A few years ago, when I was still contemplating the purchase of a Blu-Ray player (which ended up being the PS3), there was a lot of huffing-and-puffing about how Blu-Ray would never catch on, physical media was dead, and that streaming was the future. My thoughts on that at the time were that streaming is indeed the future, but that it would take at least 10 years before it actually happened in an ideal form. The more I see, the more I'm convinced that I actually underestimated the time it would take to get a genuinely great streaming service running. One of the leading examples of a streaming service is Netflix's Watch Instantly service. As a long time Netflix member, I can say that it is indeed awesome, especially now that I can easily stream it to my television. However, there is one major flaw to their streaming service: the selection. Now, they have somewhere on the order of 20,000-30,000 titles available, which is certainly a huge selection... but it's about 1/5th of what they have available on physical media. For some folks, I'm sure that's enough, but for movie nerds like myself, I'm going to want to keep the physical option on my plan... The reason Netflix's selection is limited is the same reason I don't think we'll see an ideal streaming service anytime soon. The problems are not technological. It all comes down to intellectual property. Studios and distributors own the rights, and they often don't want to allow streaming, especially for new releases. Indeed, several studios won't even allow Netflix to rent physical media for the first month of release. In order for a streaming service to actually supplant physical media, it will have to feature a comprehensive selection. Netflix does have a vested interest in making that happen (the infrastructure needed for physical media rentals via mail is massive and costly, while streaming is, at least, more streamlined from a logistical point of view), but I don't see this happening anytime soon. Netflix has recently encountered some issues along these lines, and as a result, they've changed their pricing structure. It used to be that you could buy a plan that would allow you to rent 1, 2, 3, or 4 DVDs or BDs at a time. If you belonged to one of those plans, you also got free, unlimited streaming. Within the past year or so, they added another option for folks who only wanted streaming. And just a few weeks ago, they made streaming an altogether separate service. Instead of buying the physical media plan of your choice and getting streaming "for free", you now also need to pay for streaming. I believe their most popular plan used to be 1 disc with unlimited streaming, which was $9.99. This plan is now $16.98. As you might expect, this has resulted in a massive online shitstorm of infantile rage and fury. Their blog post announcing the change currently has 12,000+ comments from indignant users. There are even more comments on their Facebook page (somewhere on the order of 80,000 comments there), and of course, other social media sites like Twitter were filled with indignant posts on the subject. So why did Netflix risk the ire of their customers? They've even acknowledged that they were expecting some outrage at the change. My guess is that the bill's about to come due, and Netflix didn't really have a choice in the matter. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Netflix had to temporarily stop streaming all of its Sony movies (which are distributed through Starz). It turns out that there's a contractual limit on the number of subscribers that Sony will allow, so now Netflix needs to renegotiate with Sony/Starz. The current cost to license Sony/Starz content for streaming is around $30 million annually. Details aren't really public (and it's probably not finalized yet), but it's estimated that the new contract will cost Netflix somewhere on the order of $200-$350 million a year. And that's just Sony/Starz. I imagine other studios will now be chomping at the bit. And of course, all these studios will continually up their rates as Netflix tries to expand their streaming selection. So I think that all of the invective being thrown Netflix's way is mostly unwarranted (or, rather, misplaced). All that rage should really be directed at the studios who are trying to squeeze every penny out of their IP. At least Netflix seems to be doing business in an honest and open way here, and yet everyone's bitching about it. Other companies would do something sneaky. For instance, movie theaters (which also get a raw deal from studios) seem to be raising ticket prices by a quarter every few months. Any given increase is met with a bit of a meh, but consolidated over the past few years, ticket prices have risen considerably. Ultimately, it's quite possible that Netflix will take a big hit on this in the next few years. Internet nerd-rage notwithstanding, I'm doubting that their customer base will drop, but if their cost of doing business goes up the way it seems, I can see their profits dropping considerably. But if that happens, it won't be Netflix that we should blame, it will be the studios... I don't want to completely demonize the studios here - they do create and own the content, and are entitled to be compensated for that. However, I don't think anyone believes they're being fair about this. They've been trying to slow Netflix down for years, after all. Quite frankly, Netflix has been much more customer friendly than the studios. Posted by Mark on July 24, 2011 at 06:33 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
First Contact As it turns out, Aliens from other planets do exist. On the other hand, whether intelligent life exists is apparently still open for debate: First Contact from Media Design School on Vimeo. Posted by Mark on July 20, 2011 at 06:06 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 03, 2011
The Unintended Consequences of Spoiler Culture Chuck Klosterman's recent article over at Grantland (Bill Simmons' new site) features some interesting musings on twist endings and the spoilers that can (potentially) ruin them. ...could The Sixth Sense exist today?It's an interesting premise, but even Klosterman admits that it's impossible to know for sure. He gives a few examples: the aforementioned The Sixth Sense, the semi-recently concluded TV show Lost, and the new TV show The Killing. I think part of the problem with the article, though, is that it lacks some of the context of what makes these particular twists work. Take The Sixth Sense. Writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, as of right now, is almost comically known for his reliance on twists, but it's important to remember that back in 1999, Shyamalan was an unknown. The movie was basically a Bruce Willis vehicle, and even then, it was dumped into theaters in August, the month Hollywood releases movies to die. So what does all that mean? Well, there wasn't much buzz about the movie beforehand - few people were following the making of the movie, thus they didn't have to worry much about spoilers on the internet (and while it's probably worse today, there were still plenty of movie rumor sites active back in the day). The only thing the filmmakers needed to do was to ensure that the marketing didn't give away the twist1... and luckily, the film had other readily marketable elements. Shyamalan's problems came later and are mostly his own fault. After the twist ending of Unbreakable, he had pretty much pigeon-holed himself as a twist ending writer. Twists rely on an audience that isn't expecting a twist. This works in a movie like The Sixth Sense because there were lots of other things going on. The reason the twist works so well is that the film wasn't asking you to explain anything throughout the film. The ending provided an answer to a question we didn't realize needed asking. And it did so in a way that didn't feel cheap or contrived. It just fit. But it probably wouldn't work so well if you were looking for it all throughout the film. This is where Klosterman's point comes in. Once you're known for writing twists, it becomes much more difficult to pull them off. I readily agree that Shyamalan and Damon Lindelof (of Lost) will have trouble writing a new movie/show that is heavily reliant on twists... but only because both of those writers have abused the twist in their previous work. The same goes for most TV series, especially police procedurals, all of which tend to fall into certain established patterns of red herrings, etc... A while ago, in reference to Hitchcock's earliest works, I made a similar observation: ...the "twist" at the end of the story wasn't exactly earth-shattering. These days, we're so zonked out on Lost and 24 that our minds immediately and cynically formulate all the ways the filmmakers are trying to trick us. Were audiences that cynical 80 years ago? Or did the ending truly surprise them?In this respect, Klosterman is certainly correct: if audiences are looking for your twist, you're going to have a really rough time. So writers known for their twists - even if it's just one big twist - will have to contend with that. The problem here is that this doesn't necessarily mean that Hollywood is skewing away from twists... just that writers like Shyamalan and Lindelof are. Nothing's stopping anyone else from writing a twist ending, and there's no real shortage of examples, even in the past couple years (I have a whole category devoted to plot twists in the yearly Kaedrin Movie Awards). They just happen to come from movies where we're not necessarily looking for the twist2. Klosterman also points out that hiding the twist can also lead to disappointment. His chief example: Take the 2008 sci-fi film Cloverfield: The marketing campaign was flawless. Without revealing any aspect of the story, the trailers for Cloverfield made it clear that something cataclysmic was going to happen in New York, and that this massive event was some unthinkable secret. Considering how the media now operates, the makers of Cloverfield did a remarkable job of keeping its details clandestine. Yet this secrecy probably hurt the film's ultimate reception — when people realized it was "only" an updated version of a traditional monster movie, they were often disappointed.Well, that's certainly one way to look at it. Another way to look at it was that audiences were disappointed because the movie kinda sucked3. Also, that's a "twist" manufactured by marketing, not one related to storytelling or anything. In a very real sense, Super 8 has similar issues, though I think that ended up being a much better movie. Ultimately, I think the "twist" is here to stay. Oh sure, it may go away for a while as the Shyamalans and Lindelofs of the world move on to more straightforward narratives. But the twist will make a comeback soon enough, just when we least expect it. Which is, of course, the whole point of a twist. 1 - This is not a trivial challenge. Terminator 2: Judgment Day provides an interesting example. Watch that film with a blank slate, and you'll notice that it's written as if the audience doesn't know that Schwartzenegger's terminator is a "good guy" and that Robert Patrick's T-1000 is the villain. In the absence of marketing, it would be reasonable for someone not familiar with the movie to assume that it's following the same pattern as the previous installment. When I was little, I was a huge Terminator fan, so I distinctly remember a lot of the marketing surrounding T2... and they gave all of it away. Of course, the reveal happens relatively early in the film, but I still remember finding it a bit weird that they spent so much time trying to obscure what everyone already knew. 2 - The first example that came to mind was kinda odd because it's not very prominent in it's film (and I doubt anyone would call it out in a discussion of twists), but I always liked it: the last scene in Batman Begins (in the board room, not the action sequence on the train) is wonderful, and I think it did more to cement how much I liked that movie than anything else. It fits very well with the story, and there are even hints about it earlier in the movie. But it's an action film and the twist was far away from most of the central plot points, so I never saw it coming. 3 - I guess that's a bit unfair. The film has its merits, but most people who saw it complained about the shaky cam much more than the fact that it was a monster movie. Seriously, even I had problems with the camerawork in that movie making me sick, and I'm normally fine with that sort of thing. The premise is actually the best part about the movie - a monster movie told from the perspective of normal folks fleeing the attack. No spunky scientist teaming up with a hardened military veteran to take down the monster, just normal folks trying to survive. Unfortunately, the execution of this was... lacking. Posted by Mark on July 03, 2011 at 03:23 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Tasting Notes - Part 4 Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately: Television
Posted by Mark on June 26, 2011 at 06:22 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Horror Class of 1981 So a bunch of horror movie websites are collaborating on an examination of horror films from 1981. Six sites, 5 films each, 30 films total. When I found out about this from Brian Collins' post on BAD (Collins is the man behind Horror Movie a Day), I quickly put together a top 5 of my own. I'm clearly outclassed here though - all of my films, even the obscure ones and honorable mentions, are featured among the 30 featured films. In any case, 1981 was a surprisingly good year for horror films. Folks who follow my 6 Weeks of Halloween posts know that I'm a big fan of slasher films, and in 1981, slashers were at the height of their popularity. You apparently couldn't go a week without a new slasher film being released. Most were horrible, I'm sure, but the year wasn't limited to slashers either. There were also a couple of the finest werewolf movies ever made released in 1981. There were psychics and ghosts and demons and even killer piranhas. A banner year for horror, which is surprising because the 80s don't exactly have the best filmic reputation for horror (especially having just come after the excellent 70s horror). So without further ado, my top 5 1981 horror films (in alphabetical order):
And for reference, here are the links to the aforementioned sites' (much more comprehensive) writeups:
Posted by Mark on June 15, 2011 at 09:24 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Two (Bad) Movie Ideas At lunch with some coworkers today, the inevitable topic of Palau came up. You see, we all work for a retail website and most of us live in Pennsylvania. Anyone in PA who has attempted to order online will no doubt recognize the pet peeve when filling out the Shipping Address: You enter your info, tab to the State field and press "p", expecting to see Pennsylvania come up... but instead, we get Palau. This brought to mind a video I recently saw on the interwebs. It's from Jellyfish Lake in Palau. It's a surreal video, and quite dissonant if you're used to typical jellyfish, but these have apparently evolved differently: "Twelve thousand years ago these jellyfish became trapped in a natural basin on the island when the ocean receded. With no predators amongst them for thousands of years, they evolved into a new species that lost most of their stinging ability as they no longer had to protect themselves." So my first movie idea was a killer jellyfish movie, filmed at Jellyfish Lake in Palau. Andy why not, they've done it for every other type of creature, even seemingly ambivalent ones. The video linked above is almost scary all by itself. You just want to scream, Look out, Jellyfish! Oh God, they've surrounded you! Run! Go! Get to the choppah! All we'd really need is a decent physical actor/actress, a good makeup guy (for the gore), and a camera that can operate underwater. Just imagine all the cool shots that could be in this movie. Indeed, the typically boring horror movie POV shot could be quite effective here - jellyfish have an interesting, irregular pattern of movement, which could make for a really good staling sequence. The great thing about this is that it would not involve any CGI - all practical effects, and in the case of the Jellyfish swarm, I apparently won't even need to do anything special. This could be a great (bad) movie. Of course, the topic then shifted into Sci-Fi (sorry, SyFy) original movies like Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. In speculating on the origins of Gatoroid, I stumbled upon my second movie idea. You see, I figure that our story starts with an alligator that has taken up residence in the sewer system beneath a popular gym. Like all gyms, there are lots of steroid abusing muscle-men in residence. But! One day, the police make a drug raid, and in order to avoid getting arrested, our juicing heroes flush all their illegal drugs down the drain... right to our hapless alligator, who unwittingly ingests said drug/sewage cocktail, thus ceasing to be an alligator and turning into Gatoroid! Now, assuming that's not how it actually happens in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, I think we're on to something here, but to avoid copyright woes, we may have to switch our monster from an Alligator to a Crocodile, thus making him Crocoroid. Now all I need is a few million dollars. Update: A coworker comments: "Why not make Crocoroid's achilles' heel be jellyfish? Then you only have to make one movie." I've made him an executive producer. Posted by Mark on June 08, 2011 at 09:02 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Professor Ed Avery's Cortizone-Fueled, Bigger-Than-Life, Super Big Gulp-Sized Summer Movie Quiz Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to 1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché I seem to have read this question differently than everyone else. I thought it meant we had to give a cliché that, depending on our mood, we liked or didn't like. Others seem to have taken it as meaning your mood at the time of answering the quiz, pick a favorite or least-loved cliché (which is certainly a lot easier than the first one). Well, my cliché kinda/sorta falls into my original reading: I hate/love fakeout dream sequences. Most often seen in horror films, they can be very effective... but they're also overused, often even within the same movie. Some abusers of this include Event Horizon and The Descent (and yet, I really enjoy The Descent). The other thing that often bothers me about movie dreams is that they're so weird. I mean, that's sorta the appeal of dreams in the first place, but dreams in movies often just play out as special effects extravaganzas. And like most special effects, they need to be used to enhance the story. The trick is that the dream sequence needs to have some sort of purpose beyond the ability to mortally threaten the protagonist without actually mortally threatening them, or some other silly shock... Unless it's a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, in which case, all bets are off. Or, I suppose, the dream sequence in A Serious Man. So yeah, dream sequences. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate them. 2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past? I'm honestly having trouble coming up with one, which bothers me because I'm sure it's something I've done before... 3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton? Who? If there was ever a time for me to lie about having seen films, it would be these quizes! 4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie I can't say as though I've seen any of his movies, though I'm sure I'm quite familiar with his work on Looney Tunes (he seems to be a big Porky Pig director)... 5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no? Yes, but probably only because Kubrick earned his bullshit with other efforts. It's a good movie, though it is quite unpleasant to watch. 6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson) What an amazingly strange question! There really can't be that many qualifying films here, but I'll go with Sleepaway Camp and it's shocker ending. (One of the other commenters answers Psycho, but I'm not sure that really counts as dysphoria). 7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively? I'm not terribly familiar with her filmography, but I'm going with Melanie Laurent, based solely on her performance in Inglourious Basterds. Blake Lively is a fine young actress, but it's hard to compete with a film like that... 8) Best movie of 2011 (so far...) According to my records, I've seen 15 movies thus far this year, and my favorite three are Rubber, Hanna, and I Saw the Devil (if I have to pick one, it would be Rubber)  Do scars count as a deformity? If so, the first that come to mind are Harrison Ford's scar on his chin and Tina Fey's left cheek scar. I don't think it matters in either case though. 10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway) Why isn't pompous ass an option? Or all of the above? 11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva? I'm not overly familiar with either of them, but I'll go with Carey for his work with Kubrick on The Killing and Paths of Glory. Also, he was apparently on Airwolf. 12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences This is an extremely difficult question. Writers are rather low on the totem pole in Hollywood, so it's difficult for most screenwriters to gain any lasting momentum after their initial break. And usually, critics are pretty receptive to those first big success films. Two people came to mind for this: Christopher McQuarrie (of The Usual Suspects fame) and Andrew Kevin Walker (of Se7en fame). Both have relatively small filmographies, but only because much of their work goes uncredited in films. 13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming Theatrically, it was X-Men: First Class, and entertaining and fun superhero movie that actually seems pretty forgetable. On DVD, it was Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, an unpleasant but very well crafted Peckinpah wester set in modern times. On Blu-ray, it was The Tourist (and hey, it's got a script by Christopher McQuarrie), which I enjoyed a lot more than I was expecting (though I can see why critics were baffled by it). On streaming, it was Transcendent Man, a documentary about Singularity proponent Ray Kurzweil (very interesting and well worth a watch). 14) Favorite film noir villain The first that came to mind was Orson Welles's Harry Lime, from The Third Man. Menace with a grin.  The immediacy of deciding what to watch and then being able to watch it moments later. The biggest problem, of course, is that the selection isn't particularly great just yet. But someday hopefully soon, it will be... 16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus) Once again, I'm pretty unfamiliar with both of these, though France Nuyen was in one of those Planet of the Apes sequels! 17) Favorite Kirk Douglas movie that isn't called Spartacus (Peter Nellhaus) I hate to go with the obvious answer, but clearly Paths of Glory is the winner here. 18) Favorite movie about cars A difficult question because while the movies that keep coming to mind have memorable cars or car chases in them, they aren't really about cars. Some that I eventually thought of: Mad Max/The Road Warrior and Death Proof. And there are, of course, tons of popular choices that I've never seen... 19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor? I got nothing, though Marie Windsor seems to have been in a couple movies that I've actually seen, so I guess she wins by default. 20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul That's a tough one, if only because of just how many Stephen King adaptations there are. I'm not actually a huge fan of King, but I did really enjoy The Stand... and that TV mini-series was kinda lame (especially once you got past the first episode). I think IT, Salem's Lot, and Christine could probably use some updating, though each of those movies/mini-series has its pluses (though the recent Salem's Lot kinda sucked). 21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences Does Johnny To count as low-profile? I mean, he's probably the most exciting action director working in Hong Kong today, but he still seems to be overshadowed by the likes of Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and John Woo. If he doesn't work, I also thought of Ti West (The House of the Devil) and Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), both of whom are young, but who have shown a lot of promise. 22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross) I have to admit that I find Robert De Niro distracting in most movies these days. It doesn't help that the movies he chooses seem to be pretty bad these days (though I suppose I do enjoy a few of them). 23) Best place in the world to see a movie I wish I had a better answer to this, but I can't really think of anything. There are a number of components here, but for me it would be a combination of technical matters (i.e. nice seats, unobstructed view, good video and audio quality, etc...) and a good crowd to watch movies with (i.e. a crowd of film lovers who won't interrupt during the movie, etc...) If there are theaters that consistently display these attributes, then I'd be all for them. There's not much around here that qualifies though. Perhaps, someday, an Alamo Drafthouse will show up! 24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden? No contest: Sterling Hayden. The Godfather, The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle, Dr Strangelove, and many more make him hard to beat here. 25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film I have, sadly, not seen any Ozu films. Perhaps I should pretend to have seen some and say Floating Weeds. Or something. 26) Most memorable horror movie father figure The obvious answer is Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but since there's already been too much Kubrick talk in this quiz, I'll go for a less obvious answer: Bill Paxton's character from Frailty.  Not being particularly familiar with Sensurround, it seems like a surround-sound type of audio system which would benefit a lot of horror movies, though no specific movies are coming to mind. 28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds? I'll go with Chris Evans here, as I think he's taken some more chances, though I think both of the actors are pretty decent. 29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era An interesting subject. There are a lot of "character actors" or "that guys" (or "that gals") out there - Filmspotting even did a top 5 on this subject just a few weeks ago, and it's hard to beat that list. However, the one that came to mind (that isn't on Filmspotting's list) was William Fichtner. A quintessential "that guy" in my opinion. 30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, most recently seen in Blow Out. 31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie Another mulligan needed here, as I don't think I've ever actually seen any of his movies... 32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams? Julie Adams, because her name sounds familiar, not because I know what I'm talking about. 33) Favorite Universal-International western Yet another mulligan on this one. Not a genre I'm particularly well versed in... 34) What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie? (Sal Gomez) I suppose 3D would qualify, though that ship has pretty much sailed. I now try to watch the 2D version if at all possible. 35) Favorite actress of the silent era This would imply that I know enough of the silent era to answer, which I don't. 36) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette) I suppose that would be as Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood, though once again, I have to note that I'm not terribly familiar with the man's filmography. 37) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi) Let's see, for the best remakes, I'll say Ocean's Eleven and The Departed are worthy remakes (I'd include True Grit, but I haven't seen the original). The worst remakes category is a little harder, as I generally try to avoid bad movies! Nevertheless, I've seen some of the Platinum Dunes horror movie remakes, and most of them are pretty terrible. 38) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do? Ensure their equipment is functioning properly, and police the theaters to throw out unruly/obnoxious people. Moviegoers can stop being so unruly/obnoxious. And that just about covers it. Posted by Mark on June 05, 2011 at 03:31 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Weird Movie of the Week Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we looked at a Hitchcockian tale of mustache disappearance. This time, we've got a bloody, gory and supremely weird movie trailer: Wow, I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Of course, creepy bunny suits have a surprisingly deep cinematic history, but this one goes a few steps further than normal. Devin Faraci has the lowdown on the film: It looks kind of hackneyed and silly but also nicely shot - at least much more nicely shot than a movie featuring a bunny suit wearing chainsaw murderer should be. I did some research and at first got excited that this film was about a truly bizarre urban legend from Fairfax County, Virginia that has also spread to Washington, DC. The legend is about a maniac in a bunny suit who attacks people with an axe at a railway overpass. Supposedly it’s based on fact.Wow. Considering that the film was made in 2009 and was apparently never released, I'm betting we won't even be able to watch this if we wanted. But according to the film's offical Myspace page (Myspace? Yikes.) there's a sequel in the works: The little germ of a idea has sprouted into a full on 20 page treatment.... a full script is not that far behind. There seems to be a wealth of ideas as to how to continue the story with the characters of Bunnyman. What's really positive about this, is after watching the film, everyone wants to see more. The character has sparked interest, and people want to know what happens next.Wow. Posted by Mark on June 01, 2011 at 09:11 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Browsing Netflix Taking my cue from Ben, I'm browsing Netflix to see what it's recommending for me. Of course, I can't actually watch this stuff on my nice big-screen TV because PSN is down due to a super-fun security breach and for some reason they won't let me watch Netflix movies without logging in. Thanks, Sony. Anyway, first up, their "Top Picks for Mark":
Posted by Mark on April 27, 2011 at 06:16 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Tasting Notes - Part 3 Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately: Television
Posted by Mark on April 24, 2011 at 06:36 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Weird Movie Synopsis of the Week There are weird movies, and they will often have a funny plot synopsis on IMDB or Netflix, because weird stories become even weirder when condensed. Then there's La moustache. The synopsis from Netflix: Marc (Vincent Lindon) has worn a mustache all his adult life. One day on a whim, he decides to shave it off. Certain his wife will comment on the drastic change in his appearance, Marc is baffled when neither she nor friends notice at all. Even more disturbing is that once he calls attention to it, everyone insists he's never had a mustache.It is, of course, a French film. Greek philosopher Epictetus is often attributed with saying something to the effect of: "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." And so I ask you, gentle reader: when you read that plot synopsis, how did you react? I, of course, added the movie to my Netflix Watch Instantly queue at position #1. (hat tip to Boobs Radley, who is awesome. See also: this.) Posted by Mark on April 21, 2011 at 12:49 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Recent Television on DVD/BD I don't watch a lot of live television, but thanks to the magic of DVD/BD/Netflix Instant, I can catch up on a series pretty quickly if I want to. The biggest issue with this approach happens when the series isn't done yet, and you have to then either slow down and wait between episodes (and deal with things like commercials!) or wait a year or more for the next set of DVDs to come out. That being said, watching a TV series like this can get really addictive, really fast. Here's a few things I've been watching lately:
Update: Damn you, cliffhanger! (Just finished the last episode of Sherlock.) Posted by Mark on March 23, 2011 at 08:35 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Top 5 Long Takes On this week's Filmspotting podcast, the hosts did their top 5 long takes. For the uninitiated, a Long Take in cinema is referring to an uninterrupted shot that lasts a lot longer than the general editing tempo in the film, usually several minutes. Of course, there are a lot of ways to implement this concept. Some filmmakers, like Ozu or Tarkovsky, are known for more static long takes, meaning that the camera is stationary and the action simply unfolds in front of it. Other folks, like Scorsese or Wells, took the concept further by moving the camera to follow the action. This is usually accomplished by mounting the camera on a dolly and rolling it around on preset tracks (or by using cranes) - thus yielding the term Tracking Shot. The invention of the Steadicam in the mid 70s allowed for smooth tracking shots without the tracks. You could say that most Long Take/Tracking Shot combos are a lot more showy and maybe even distracting, but I generally enjoy those sorts of pyrotechnics, so long as they're used for a reason, so that's what I'll be focusing on. Now, there are a lot of really famous long takes, but I don't want to make a super-boring list either, so I'll just mention three of the most famous first: The opening sequence of Touch of Evil is a masterpiece and often tops lists like these. The Coppacabana scene from Goodfellas is another classic that always shows up on these lists. Paul Thomas Anderson was seemingly inspired by Scorsese (though he puts his own touches on it as well) in his film Boogie Nights, which features a couple of bravura sequences, including one where the camera even follows someone as they dive into a pool. There are even some films, like Hitchcock's Rope or Russian Ark, that are comprised of just a hadful of shots (indeed, the latter is only a single take). There are, of course, tons of other famous shots like this, but I'm going to be focused on relatively short takes (in the 3-20 minute range). I'm also going to shoot for some more obscure stuff on my list, including some action films (sorely lacking in the Filmspotting lists). I'm going to try and avoid most of the films on the Filmspotting list as well, so there are some other obvious shots that I'm trying to avoid (of course, they also mention about 30 films in their discussion, so it's hard to be completely unique here).
I do have one honorable mention though, and it's a strange one. I don't think I've ever heard it referenced in long take discussions before, but it's definitely at least 2-3 minutes long. I'm not sure why this one sticks with me so much, but it's the scene in Tarantino's Jackie Brown (which has a couple of good long takes, including another opening shot) where Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) goes to talk to Beaumont Livingston (Chris Tucker) at a hotel. It's a long scene, and the camera follows them around a bit, but stays relatively stationary, despite the fact that they get into a car and drive around for a while. Again, I don't know why, but that scene always sticks in my mind when I think of long takes. Well, I suppose that's enough blabbering about Long Takes. Feel free to share any of your personal favorites in the comments! Posted by Mark on March 13, 2011 at 08:17 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Oscar Liveblogging In accordance with tradition, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars tonight. If you're interested, here are previous installments: [2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004] Check back for frequent updates (starting around 8:30 pm EST), and feel free to hang around and leave comments to play along (I've re-instituted anonymous commenting for the event, though I have added a CAPTCHA to prevent spam - sorry for any inconvenience)... To start things off, here are my predictions for the major awards:
Update 7:59 pm: Yeah, it's still Red Carpet torture time, so not much to say yet. Instead of watching this, I'm going to check out Alex's Oscar Roundup and maybe watch some of the Flyers Wives Fight For Lives. See you at 8:30, when the ceremony actually starts. Update 8:27 pm: I'm looking forward to Source Code, though I'm getting a feeling from the commercial that just played that I'll have similar issues as I had with Duncan Jones' previous effort, Moon. Anyway, only 3 minutes to go. In anticipation of some sort of lame musical number, I'm going to crack open my first beer of the night. I'm starting off relatively tame tonight, with a fancy can of Dale's Pale Ale. Update 8:30 pm: Hurm. The first montage of the night? Over/under is 8. I'm taking the over. Update 8:33 pm: Great opening skit here. Much better than the lame musical number I'm still expecting later in the show. Love the accents when they're making fun of The Fighter. "The naked girl from Love and Other Drugs" Heh. Update 8:37 pm: Is there any young actor that has turned their careers around as dramatically as James Franco? I can't think of any. Of course, like Devin Faraci, I Honestly Believe James Franco Could End Up Doing Porn. Not a bad start to the show though, decent monologue too. Fingers crossed for no musical numbers. Update 8:39 pm: Oh, burn, "Marky Mark". He seems to be a good sport about it, but as someone named "Mark", I have to admit that it's really freakin annoying when people call me "Marky Mark". I imagine it's doubly so for, uh, the real Marky Mark. Update 8:41 pm: Does that count as a montage? I mean, it's just from Gone With The Wind, but still. We'll make that a half-montage (bringing the count up to 1.5). And now, a Titanic quasi-montage. Make that 2 total montages. Update 8:49 pm: Well, that didn't take long. I'm now a few minutes behind due to the magic of the DVR. I simply can't resist! Sorry about that. So I just saw that Alice in Wonderland won Art Direction. Nice job, I guess. Decent speech so far, but you know she's not going to be able to say anything because he's hogging the mic. Update 8:53 pm: She didn't say anything? By choice? Who knows. Maybe she was drunk! Cinematography goes to... Inception! I'm 0 for 1, but I don't mind. And what the hell man, take your glasses off, don't put them on your forehead. Moron. Haha, he chastises the audience for clapping as they're "taking up his time" Update 8:59 pm: Only three minutes behind now. Kirk Douglas takes the stage. I can never think of this guy without picturing his "prestige" moment in Path's of Glory. He's not sounding so great right now though. But he's right, Anne Hathaway is indeed gorgeous. Helena Bonham Carter just gave a look that she knows she's not going to win. Jackie Weaver looks very happy. Mellissa Leo looks nothing like her character. Supporting Actress award goes to... Jesus, I wish I had someone to hold my cane. He's really dragging this out. But I kinda like it. Melissa Leo wins! And I'm 0 for 2. Yay! Update 9:01 pm: Kirk's minder from the mental clinic just ushered him off the stage. Heh. She's really speechless. Kinda nice to see that sort of thing, I guess. Holy shit, she just cursed. Awesome. Stupid delay caught it though. They seem to be giving everyone time to talk, moreso than usual. Nice politics at the end of the speech. Ok, come on, next award. Or montage. Or something. Update 9:06 pm: I love Mila Kunis. Justin Timberlake is Banksy? Heh. Oh come on, who cares about Shrek anymore. Oh, look, I know the first animated short. Because they put it in front of Pixar movies. Timberlake is making fun of old man Douglas, and it's pretty hilarious. And the short that no one cares about wins. Update 9:10 pm: So is that guy, like, 4 feet tall? Or is the guy standing next to him, like, 7 feet tall? He's tiny! Tall guy manages to get some words in as well, despite the music attempting to play him off. And best animated movie goes to: Toy Story 3. Duh. I'm 1 for 3! Update 9:11 pm: He's talking like Toy Story 3 was a hard-sell or something. Weird. Update 9:17 pm: Damn these quasi-montages. We're up to 2.5, I guess. Whoa with the white tuxes guys. Isn't Javier Bardem's accent quaint? Toy Story 3 being an adapted screenplay because it's based on the previous films seems strange to me. Adapted screenplay goes to Aaron Sorkin for the Social Network, because duh. Let's see if he says something good in his speech. It's so obvious that he wrote this speech ahead of time. Heheh. Oh man, they're really trying to get him off the stage. I blame old man Douglas! Update 9:20 pm: The Figher is "Original"? Hehehe. Oscar for Original Screenplay goes to King's Speech. I'm now 3 for 5. Don't call it a comeback! Great speech so far though. "Late bloomer" indeed, oldest person to win this award. Probably also a prepared speech, but it's.. more natural. And he's already being ushered off stage. And he mentions the F word, heeheh. Nice. I can't believe King's Speech was rated R. Update 9:22 pm: And I'm finally caught up to real time again. Since it's still a commercial, I'll just say that this Dale's Pale Ale is pretty awesome for what it is. I could drink the entire 6 pack tonight, I think... Update 9:26 pm: Oh mother fucker! Musical number. "Hugh Jackass" ok, that's kinda funny I guess. Anne Hathaway is very talented, I just can't stand musical numbers. And what the hell, Jackman is apparently right there in the audience. Nice, James Franco is in a dress and "just got a text message from Charlie Sheen." I know you thought I was kidding about the Franco doing porn thing earlier, but now? Not so much, right? Seems very possible. Update 9:28 pm: Is it me, or is the pre-award banter better this year than in previous years. Best Foreign picture goes to In a Better World, and I'm now 4 for 6. Score. She seems overwhelmed, but not as much as Melissa Leo! And she's very gracious and classy, but boring. Update 9:31 pm: There's Christian Bale, rockin the crazy-man beard. It suits him, I think. Update 9:33 pm: Christian Bale wins! I think he might actually be drunk. I know I joke about that sometimes, but seriously, he seems drunk. Or maybe that's just him. He's not embarrassing himself though, and even seems to have a sense of humor about his reputation. Decent speech. I wonder how Marky Mark feels about not being nominated. He's one of the few people not nominated for that movie (not that he deserves to be, but still). Update 9:37 pm: This was a few minutes ago, but I can't get over seeing Geoffrey Rush with a shaved head. It's so... I don't know what to make of that. It doesn't look right. On an unrelated note, I love how JJ Abrams feels no need to tell people what his movies are actually about. I am looking forward to Super 8 mostly because I have no idea what it's about (I gather it's some sort of Area 51 SF/Action thing, but I'm not sure). Update 9:38 pm: Holy shit, the President of the Academy! Run! Save yourselves! Update 9:44 pm: They were only on for, like 10 seconds, but they're like a black hole of boringness. It's like someone scratching the record player. And another montage, this one less quasi- than the others, so I'm putting us up to 3.5 on the Montage count. Man, weird, it's a musical montage too. Still counting it as one full montage. Winner for best musical score goes to: Trentie-poo and Atticus Ross for The Social Network. I'm 6 for 8, a much better showing than I started with. And Trent and Atticus both give a nice, measured speech. Good job fellas, I really like your soundtrack. Update 9:46 pm: Remember what I said about the pre-award banter being good? Yeah, forget that. Interminable. Sound goes to Inception. Racking up the technical awards, Inception is. Writing like Yoda speaks, I am. Update 9:48 pm: Wait, didn't we just do sound editing? Well, the Oscar goes to Inception. Again. Good job guys. Next award please. Update 9:56 pm: Marissa Tomei gets the thankless task of talking about the scientific awards that no one cares about. I would probably find them mildly interesting though. Ohh, burn. "Congratulations Nerds!" Update 9:57 pm: What the hell is Cate Blanchett wearing? Why do I even bother to pick makeup? But I was right, The Wolfman wins! "Gross" as Blanchett says. Rick Baker is a master though. I'm 7 for 9. Doing pretty good now! Classy move letting the other winner talk. "It was always my ambition to lose an Oscar to Rick Baker. Hehehe" Update 9:59 pm: Alice in Wonderland wins best costumes. I didn't realize that anything in that movie was actually real. Ohhh, she's got a cheat sheet! And she's... reading right off it. Um, huh. Lame. Can, uh, someone usher her off stage. Ah, here comes the music. Actually thankful for that this time. Update 10:03 pm: Montage 4.5. OBAMA! YEAHHHHH! OBAMA! LET'S BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN! OBAMA! He's a good president because he likes movies and I can relate to him! Kevin Spacy: moron. Oh shit, an actual musical performance. Shit, shit, shit. I thought we got rid of this last year. Shit. Update 10:05 pm: Oh fuck, they're doing all the songs now. I'm getting another beer. Maybe something stronger than a Dale's Pale is appropriate now. If anyone from work is reading this, I apologize in advance for tomorrow. It's not my fault though. Stupid Oscar musical performances. At least they're all together now. Update 10:09 pm: Or maybe not. They only did 2 of them. Does that mean we have to suffer through 3 more? Can't we just give the award to Randy Newman like we always do and be done with it? Incidentally, I didn't mention it earlier, but this year had several really awesome music scores. The Social Network was certainly a deserving winner, but Inception had a great one, as did Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and even Tron: Legacy. But I guess we can't have Trent Reznor doing a live show at the Oscars, though I wouldn't mind seeing that. Of course, he's all older and boring now. AHHHHHHH. Stella Artois commercial. Sorry. Update 10:13 pm: "Shorts are the hardest categories to pick on your home oscar ballot" because no one gives a fuck, Jake. No one gives a fuck. Sorry, that came off sounding kinda angry. And the winner is... Who cares? Next award please. Update 10:14 pm: She's posing like the Incredible Hulk. Look at those muscles! Update 10:16 pm: "Shoulda got a haircut." Hehehe. Alright, you redeemed me having to sit through the shorts awards. Guy is funny, even giving the straightforward thanks that he does. Nice. Update 10:18 pm: What the hell? Auto-tune!? Wasn't that overplayed, like, years ago? Does this count as a montage? Yeah, definitely. 5.5 montages so far tonight. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? An OSCAR, bitch! Update 10:19 pm: OPRAH! YEAHHHHHHHH! OPRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Update 10:22 pm: Why do all documentaries have to be so activisty. Oscar goes to Inside Job, and I'm 8 for 10. Go me. Still would have liked to have seen Banksy attempt some sort of acceptance speech. Ah this guy seems like a big douche. "Forgive me, I'm going to make a boring, trite political statement." Eh, not that bad, he seemed to pull his punches a bit. If you're going to do it, go whole hog. Scream or something. Update 10:26 pm: Shocking, Billy Crystal is still alive. Of course, his career isn't! Ba-dum-tsshhh. Update 10:29 pm: MONTAGE! 6.5. This is a montage that isn't even about movies though, it's Bob Hope highlights from hosting the Oscars. Haven't we already done this before? We have to have had a Bob Hope montage before. Update 10:33 pm: FIGHT! FIGHT! Did Hereafter actually happen? That's a movie that just disappeared off the face of the planet, isn't it? Inception wins best Visual Effects. Score, I'm 9 for 11. Jesus, there's like five million different people that worked on the visual effects for this movie. Update 10:35 pm: Film editing goes to Social Network and now I'm 10 for 12. Sweet. Nice hug, and nice reference - "We wanna thank everyone that Aaron thanked..." Haha - Oh, and thanks to the academy! Please don't ruin me because I didn't thank you! Update 10:40 pm: So this Weyerbacher Merry Monks beer says it's a Tripel, but it doesn't really taste like a tripel. A little too peppery and boozy. Not bad, though. "How to Train Your Dragon, that's disgusting" Hehehe. "Winters Bone." Haha. Update 10:42 pm: Oh shit, more musical performances. Kill me now. Update 10:44pm: This beer is 9.3% ABV, and it's still not enough to put up with this music. GAHHH. Update 10:48 pm: And the Oscar goes to Randy Newman for Toy Story 3. Like I said we should do, like, an hour ago. Did we really need to suffer through all those other nominees? Yeah, right, you're surprised. I'm 11 for 13. Thank God this award is over. Oh shut up Randy, 4 songs is too much. It's bad enough that we have to listen to your stupid song! Update 10:52 pm: Holy shit, is that Celine Dion? I thought we were done with the music. Gaahh. Run! Run for your lives! She will devour us all! Update 10:53 pm: Yay dead people! Hello Sally! And don't call me Shirly. Update 10:57 pm: That was montage #7.5, and here comes #8.5, for Lena Horn. Update 11:05 pm: Last year, we awarded the Best Director award to a Woman for the first time. This year, we didn't even bother nominating one. Holy shit, Tom Hooper wins, pretty much guaranteeing a Best Picture win for The King's Speech. David Fincher mus be pissed, but he seems to be clapping and happy about it. Class act. And Hooper is at least very kind to his competition. "Triangle of man-love." Ok. I'm 11 for 14, dammit. Update 11:08 pm: The moral of the story is "Listen to your Mother." Right on. Lifetime achievement awards have apparently been relegated to a separate event, like the nerd awards (i.e. the technical awards). Why? They're much cooler than, for example, the short film awards. Update 11:11 pm: What are the odds that Anne Hathaway and James Franco are going to knock boots after the ceremony tonight? Update 11:13 pm: Oh man, I know this is a major award, but they're really drawing it out, aren't they? Update 11:16 pm: Natalie Portman wins! Crowd is really into it... I'm 12 for 15. And she's crying. Just like her role! Thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene. Dammit. She didn't thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene. Classy move thanking people with thankless roles though. Update 11:19 pm: "Flub, drink at home" Don't mind if I do! Update 11:26 pm: I like the way the're doing the big awards better this year than they did the past few years. Surprising amount of applause for Jesse Eisenberg here... But come on, who are we kidding, this is going to Colin Firth, and probably deservedly so. I do think I might have voted for James Franco for this one, but I really can't fault anyone for voting for Colin Firth. And, of course, he wins. 13 for 16, I am. Talking like Yoda again, I am. "I have a feeling my career has just peaked" Hehehe. And a nice, solid, classy, British, dryly funny acceptance speech. Update 11:32 pm: Man, they're playing the King's Speech over the other nominees. Foreshadowing? Thanks a lot. Does this count as a montage? Probably not. But still. Update 11:37 pm: I seem to have truly screwed up my award count. Not only did I wrongly think I picked one correctly, but I seem to have missed an award somewhere. But best picture goes to: big surprise: The King's Speech. 13 for 17, I am. Update 11:37 pm: 13 for 17 works out to around 76 percent, which is pretty decent, though maybe a hair below recent years. Oh well. Overall, a pretty good show. Haha, dude is getting played off by music, good on him for asserting himself. Well, that pretty much wraps up the show, only about 10 minutes over schedule. Not bad, Oscar folk. Wow, Anne Hathaway's new dress really emphasizing... uh, nevermind. Shit, it ends on a musical number. Fuck. This is my last update. Have a good night folks. It's been real. Update 11:43 pm: Haha, they were just playing music from Top Gun. Yeah, so I lied, wanna fight about it? But seriously, this one is my last update. Probably. Posted by Mark on February 27, 2011 at 12:27 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Best Films of 2010 2010 was a really strange year for movies, though in the end, I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people are saying. I think this has to do with the bad first impression made by the abysmal first half of the year. It wasn't until the middle of the year that things began to turn around for me and by the end of the year, things were looking up. Indeed, many of my favorites turned out to have been released in that first half of the year, just with limited distribution. As I caught up with some of the smaller films from earlier in the year, I managed to fill out most of the below list. As of right now, I've seen 81 movies that would qualify as a 2010 release (with the usual borderline 2009 releases that don't make it to my market or DVD until 2010 - usually foreign films). It turns out that this is something of a record for me, though I have to admit that around 50 of those have been watched since November (previous years were generally more spread out through the year) and mostly on DVD or Netflix Watch Instantly. Anyway, this is probably way more than most ordinary folks, but also less than most critics. I had no problem putting together a top 8, but those last two slots were really difficult to fill. Not because I couldn't find a good film to put there, but because there were too many films that I could put there. Many of the Honorable Mentions could easily fit in those last two slots (the first two listed below). The other thing I found really interesting about this year is how thematically similar a lot of films were. I actually mentioned this in a recent book review: One of the themes of 2010 cinema has been a question of reality. Is what we're watching real? Or is it a fabrication? Or perhaps some twisted combination of the two? Interestingly, this theme can be found in the outright fictional (films like Inception certainly induce questions of reality), the ostensibly true story that is notably and obviously fictionalized (a la The Social Network), and most interestingly of all, the documentary. Films like Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop are certainly presented as fact, though many questions have arisen about their verisimilitude. Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck collaborated on I'm Still Here, a supposed documentary about Phoenix's strange transition from a well known actor to a crazy aspiring rapper that Phoenix and Affleck have since admitted was something of a hoax (I have not seen the film, but from what I can see, many of the events certainly did happen, even if they were manufactured). In most cases, audiences don't seem to mind the blurring of reality with fiction (this includes myself), so long as that blurring is made clear (that may sound paradoxical, but it is perhaps better understood as the main component of the Reflexive Documentary: movies that acknowledge the biases of the filmmakers and the subjectivity of the material at hand are more trustworthy than movies that claim objectivity). Indeed, one could probably make a case for the presence of fiction in most non-fiction stories. Bias, subjectivity, and context can yield dramatically different results depending on how they're portrayed.And there are even some other themes that people have been noticing this year (i.e. strong female leads, interesting Mother characters, etc...) This sort of consistency doesn't seem to be present in the past few years, and I found that interesting. Ultimately, I think 2010 has got a bad rap. It's certainly not one of the best years in recent memory, but as usual, I've managed to find a lot of stuff to like. As always, I should note that this list is inherently subjective and of course most people will find something to gripe about. So be it. One thing I've found interesting in the past few years of doing this list is that I've gravitated away from trying to put together a list of the best films, instead favoring my favorite films. What I'm ending up with is a mixture of both components here and it's a tricky line to walk, but I think it ultimately makes for a more interesting list. So without further ado: Top 10 Movies of 2010 * In roughly reverse order
* In alphabetical order
But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:
Despite the fact that I've seen 81 of this year's movies (and that this post features 30+ of my favorites), there were a few that got away... mostly due to limited releases, though a few of the flicks listed below didn't interest me as much when they were released as they did when I heard more about them.
Posted by Mark on February 20, 2011 at 06:27 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Lost Over the past year or so, I've been making my way through seasons 2-6 of Lost. I watched the first season on DVD shortly after it came out, and after following along with the broadcast for a couple weeks of season 2, I resolved to stop watching until I had some indication that the show would actually end (i.e. I was worried the writers would continually make stuff up and withhold any answers indefinitely). I dutifully avoided most contact with the series until early last year. By that time, the writers had declared a definite ending point and from observations of friends' responses to new episodes, I gathered that the show was picking up steam, rather than bogging down. As you might imagine, given the fact that I pretty much ignored the series for a few years there, I'm not a huge fan of the series. I didn't actively dislike it either, I was just never hooked or convinced that it was going anywhere interesting. But then there were some things I was able to glean about what was happening and then Netflix made all of the seasons available on their Watch Instantly service, at which point, I had no real excuse to keep avoiding it. I burned through season 2 pretty quickly, though again, I was pretty unimpressed. Season 3 was even more of a slog, though I had been warned that this was the case. Apparently during the course of Season 3, the writers/producers agreed on an ending (or at least, how many more seasons/episodes remained). There was an almost immediate improvement in the quality of the episodes, but again, I was not terribly impressed. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying myself. I had no issues burning through a bunch of episodes all at once, and having the entire series at my fingertips made that prospect all too easy. Nevertheless, I never really had a problem taking a break either. Last year, I gave up Television for Lent. Despite just having started season 3, I had no problem staying away for 40 days. Later in the year, when I had finished season 5, but season 6 wasn't available on DVD/Netflix yet, I wasn't all that broken up about it. If this was a show that I loved, such delays would have been quite frustrating. As it was, I'm lucky I even remembered to check for season 6. Ultimately, I'm glad that I did. I still have a lot of issues with the series as a whole, and even the last season itself, but in the end, I found it to be a worthwhile venture. I've tried to avoid Spoilers for most of this post, but there are some things you may not want to know and there are definitely spoilers towards the end of the post. To summarize my thoughts, I found the ending of the series to be emotionally satisfying, but not intellectually satisfying. This is actually an interesting reaction for me, because I usually respond in the opposite way. For example, a few years ago, I saw the movie Capote and thought it was fantastic. The writing, the acting, the direction, cinematography, just about everything about the film was extremely well done. On an intellectual level, I found it amazing. On an emotional level, I didn't connect with it nearly as well. I have no idea why. There were a couple of scenes towards the end of the film where I kept thinking to myself This is devastating! and yet, I never actually felt devastated myself. I only really recognized the devastation on an intellectual level. There are lots of other movies I feel similarly about, and it's a real shame, because that feeling (or lack of feeling, as it were) leaves those films feeling a bit hollow in my mind. Lost (at least, the final season) ended up being the opposite, especially when it came to the "Flash-Sideways" sequences. Nothing seemed to make much sense intellectually, but it was emotionally satisfying nonetheless. I'm sure there are tons of people who hate those sequences. They're full of sticky-sweet sentimentality and schmaltz. I'm a guy who doesn't mind a happy ending, but lots of people seem to hate them. You often see these people excoriating Hollywood cinema for this sort of thing, and to be honest, they're not entirely wrong. But sometimes they are, and for me, Lost worked. At least, in that specific respect, it worked. I think my problems with the series have primarily to do with a few early choices that the writers seemed to get away from in later seasons. First, the series initially seemed like a science fiction story. It is not. It is a fantasy. But the writers attempted to use tropes from SF to spice up their story (in particular, the Dharma Initiative and time travel subplots), and that does represent a bit of a problem because the explanation for a lot of the mysterious happenings on the island basically amount to something like "A wizard did it!" or "It was magic!" Even when it comes to the time travel stuff, there isn't really any science in that fiction - it's all fantasy. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that sort of thing, but leveraging SF tropes implies a certain plausibility that Lost could never really deliver. Once I realized this, I became a little more accepting of some of the more ridiculous aspects of the series, most of which can be summed up as: The island is a weird place and Jacob has weird powers. However, I think there were a number of times when the series established some convention or set of rules, then went ahead and broke them for no other reason than that it would, like, totally make for a sweet cliffhanger. I think this is, in large part, why the series is not intellectually satisfying for me. This sort of inconsistency was especially frustrating from a characterization standpoint. Jack and Kate love each other, but then Kate loves Sawyer, but Sawyer's evil, no wait he's just a con-man with a heart of gold, but then he does something evil again, but he's really a good guy, but no, he's only out for himself, but then he gets married and settles down and now he wants to kill Jack, but Jack loves Juliet, but Juliet is married to Sawyer even though she really loves Jack, but they're divorced and did I mention that Sawyer is selfish and only looking out for himself but that he's in love with Kate, no, wait, I meant Juliet and then Ben loves Juliet but she doesn't really care, but Jack and Juliet are divorced and Kate and Jack are together but then they're separated and Jack wants to leave the island, but only until he wants to return to the island because it's his destiny, but no, really it's Hugo's destiny, but Jack still has some sort of destiny on the island and isn't meth awesome!? Now, here's the thing: most of that is actually fine. I don't have a problem with a character who changes their mind or goes through something traumatic and is changed in the process. The issue is that many of these changes happen only because the plot requires them to, not because of a natural outgrowth or reaction of the character. Even worse, the plot often doesn't require such twists - they're only included to make for a snappy cut to commercial or cliffhanger ending. So you get these weird character reversals where Kate wants to leave the island, but she doesn't want to leave, but she does, but she doesn't. All within the course of, like, 15 minutes. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating. I didn't make a note every time I thought to myself: Wait, what? Why would this character do that? Oh dammit, end of episode, fuck! But I know I had such thoughts often. (If I ever rewatch the series, I will try to document these occurrences). Perhaps towards the end of the fifth season and leading into the sixth, this issues seemed to straighten out a bit. I didn't have nearly as many problems during the sixth season. Maybe that's because my brain was so addled by the previous seasons that I knew what to expect, but still, things seemed more consistent. Of course, this only leads to my next question, which is: What the hell were the first 5 seasons for again? I mean, there's a very basic conflict at the heart of the Lost universe. Jacob vs. Smoke Monster. Protect the magic golden light. That's really it. The rest of the series is basically just some messed up people trying to work through some personal issues. Some of them think the island can help, most don't, but in the end, the island brought them together and ultimately brought out the best in them (well, in a bunch of them). That's all background though, and the aforementioned central conflict? It isn't even revealed in the series until, like, late in the fifth season. We don't even hear Jacob's name until the third season, and even when we think we've seen him, we haven't. I can accept the fact that it takes a good amount of time to establish characters and their backgrounds and the series is fantastically complex when it comes to that web of character interactions, on and off the island, in the future and in the past. But did we really need 4-5 seasons of that before we got on with the actual story? Well, this post is turning into a bit of rant about the things I didn't like about the series, and that's not what I initially set out to do. None of the above is to say that the series isn't worthwhile. Indeed, much of it could be construed as nitpicks. I don't think it's possible to have a show air for 6 seasons and not have such nitpicks. Shit happens. A cast member want to quit, so you need to write a quick exit (bye bye, Mr Eko!). Other cast members demand way too much money and a couple others get a DUI so they all need to be written off. These things happen. And even then, the writers managed to build a story with, like, a hundred main characters. That sounds like hyperbole, and I suppose it is, but it's not that far off. What's more, most of those characters are interacting, before, during, and after their stay on the island. The non-linear exploration of such connections is actually pretty impressive in its own way. If you're a science fiction type, you certainly won't be impressed because there's no real explanation beyond "Magic" or "Destiny" or "Fate" or something, but there is something admirable about the number of characters and the extent to which their stories were woven together. The "Flashback" conceit was something I was quite dubious about at the beginning of the series, but the writers managed at least one shocking twist in that respect. The "Flash-forward" was a brilliant idea, and it was quite well executed. The "Flash-sideways" of the last season was a little baffling, but quite resonant from an emotional perspective. So we come back to my basic feeling about the series: satisfying on an emotional level, but not on an intellectual level. I have my issues with the series, but it's still a well produced, well written series that can get addictive at times (of course, I was able to stop when i wanted as well, but there were a lot of Dammit! Ok, one more episode! moments as the writers laid one of their cliffhangers on me - even some of the lame ones that break character are still compelling in some way). Posted by Mark on January 26, 2011 at 08:36 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher One of the themes of 2010 cinema has been a question of reality. Is what we're watching real? Or is it a fabrication? Or perhaps some twisted combination of the two? Interestingly, this theme can be found in the outright fictional (films like Inception certainly induce questions of reality), the ostensibly true story that is notably and obviously fictionalized (a la The Social Network), and most interestingly of all, the documentary. Films like Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop are certainly presented as fact, though many questions have arisen about their verisimilitude. Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck collaborated on I'm Still Here, a supposed documentary about Phoenix's strange transition from a well known actor to a crazy aspiring rapper that Phoenix and Affleck have since admitted was something of a hoax (I have not seen the film, but from what I can see, many of the events certainly did happen, even if they were manufactured). In most cases, audiences don't seem to mind the blurring of reality with fiction (this includes myself), so long as that blurring is made clear (that may sound paradoxical, but it is perhaps better understood as the main component of the Reflexive Documentary: movies that acknowledge the biases of the filmmakers and the subjectivity of the material at hand are more trustworthy than movies that claim objectivity). Indeed, one could probably make a case for the presence of fiction in most non-fiction stories. Bias, subjectivity, and context can yield dramatically different results depending on how they're portrayed. It is in this frame of mind that I picked up The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale. It was immediately obvious that I was in for something that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. As Summerscale herself acknowledges in the introduction (page XIII): This book is modelled on the country-house murder mystery, the form that the Road Hill case inspired, and uses some of the devices of detective fiction. The content, though, aims to be factual. The main sources are the government and police files on the murder, which are held in the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, and the books, pamphlets, essays and newspaper pieces published about the case in the 1860s, which can be found in the British Library. Other sources include maps, railway timetables, medical textbooks, social histories and police memoirs. Some descriptions of buildings and landscapes are from personal observation. Accounts of the weather conditions are from press reports, and the dialogue is from testimony given in court.Even with the acknowledgement, the book is an odd amalgam of embellished factual accounts of a horrific murder, straightforward biographical information of the titular Johnathan Whicher and the family Kent, and a survey of mid-nineteenth century detective fiction. There are times when Summerscale follows one of these three tangential threads too far, but for the most part, she manages to weave them together in a deft and engaging fashion. The mystery at the center of the book concerns a gruesome murder of three-year-old Saville Kent in 1860. Local police bumbled through the investigation, eventually leading the government to dispatch Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Jack Whicher to the small town to investigate. Whicher sized up the situation and quickly came to the shocking conclusion that the murderer must have been a member of the Kent household. Everyone from Saville's father to his nursemaids came under suspicion, though Whicher favored Saville's half-sister, Constance Kent. However, Whicher had been brought into the case nearly a week after the murder. The evidence was mostly circumstantial and most leads had gone cold before he even started the case. And it was a very odd case. It's easy to see why fiction authors appropriated so much from the story in later novels. Every clue, every piece of new information, every close examination of the evidence at hand seemed to make the case less clear. Summerscale writes (page 75): The family story that Whicher pieced together at Road Hill House suggested that Saville's death was part of a mesh of deception and concealment. The detective stories that the case engendered, beginning with The Moonstone in 1868, took this lesson. All the suspects in a classic murder mystery have secrets, and to keep them they lie, dissemble, evade the interrogations of the investigator. Everyone seems guilty because everyone has something to hide. For most of them, though, the secret is not murder. This is the trick on which detective fiction turns.Summerscale delves into the tricks of Whicher's trade from time to time, and it does make for fascinating reading. I love to read about the devils in the details on which something like this murder mystery hinges. For instance, one of the mini-mysteries the case presents us with is a missing nightdress. This sounds like a minor detail, but Whicher immediately seizes upon the missing clothing as a precious clue. Summerscale takes the opportunity to describe the origins of the word "clue" and why Whicher was so keen on solving the mini-mystery of the missing nightdress (from page 68): The word ‘clue’ derives from ‘clew,’ meaning a ball of thread or yarn. It had come to mean ‘that which points the way’ because of the Greek myth in which Theseus uses a ball of yarn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The wirters of the mid-nineteenth century still had this image in mind when they used the word… a plot was a knot, and a story ended in a 'denouement', an unknotting.Summerscale then proceeds to detail several cases where Whicher himself managed to solve a crime due to the fortuitous discovery of unique or identifiable clothing, eventually concluding (from page 70): The thread that led Theseus out of the maze was true to another principle of Whicher’s investigation: the progress of a detective was backwards. To find his way out of danger and confusion, Theseus had to retrace his steps, return to the origin. The solution to a crime was the beginning as well as the end of a story.I have a fascination with such details, so of course I wouldn't have minded if Summerscale indulged in more of such analysis, but it's clear that she was trying to walk a tight line. I would be easy to stray too far from her focus on the mystery and the man sent to investigate, and she manages to walk that line well enough. Whicher is an interesting man in himself. Most of what we know about him is in his police reports and correspondence. I would have loved to read more about the man, but from what I can tell, Summerscale has unearthed every conceivable piece of knowledge about the man, and still came up a bit short. As a plain-clothes detective, he obviously avoided attention as much as possible, which probably explains some of the missing information - for instance, there doesn't appear to be any pictures or paintings of the main available. That being said, he's certainly a worthy subject for study. He seems to possess keen observational skills as well as a knack for finding holes in a story and clues. He appears quite confident in his perceptions, though as the subhead of the book notes, he is somewhat shaken by the mystery at Road Hill House. His initial investigation yielded no convictions and he returned to London a different man, though I think calling this his "Undoing" is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Indeed, after Summerscale establishes the central mystery, I feared that the subhead implied that no solution would really be found. Fortunately, there is a closure of sorts, though I will not spoil the book by delving too deeply into that here. Suffice to say that by the end of the book, we are a bit closer to what actually happened, though the inherent difficulty of rebuilding a picture of the past is one of the themes of the book. In today's day and age, with TV shows like CSI showing what you can do with forensics in explicit detail, it's easy to forget how difficult it would be to figure out what happened in the past (and to be honest, even given the advanced forensic technology available, shows like CSI still gloss over the difficulties of a murder investigation). Mr. Whicher had no such forensic luxuries in his day and had to rely on his cunning and intuition, perhaps moreso than would be comfortable with modern populations. Indeed, one of the undercurrents of the book is how England was reacting to the notion of a "detective" - a concept that was somewhat new to the world. Many felt that detectives were too intrusive and seedy, in it only for the money or glory. Whicher does not seem like that type though. He's reserved and curious, confident in his prowess, but honorable in his manner. Of course, I'm basing my opinion of the man on what could be argued is a partially-fictional representation of the man and his actions. This question of what is real and what is fiction is something that kept coming to mind while reading this book. Part of that might be the year in film, as previously mentioned, but I think other readers would find such questions arising when reading the book as well. Of the three main components of the story I mentioned earlier (murder mystery, biography, and survey of detective fiction), it is the latter that calls reality into question the most. There seems to be a general idea that quoting fiction in a formal argument is bad form, and as such I can see some people being taken aback by Summerscale's book. While impeccably researched and sourced, she does give the book a flare you don't normally see in non-fiction. As she mentions in her introduction, she uses many devices of detective fiction in her writing. She directly references detective fiction of the day, as well as authors like Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and Wilkie Collins (Arthur Conan Doyle is not really referenced until later in the book, as Doyle did not start writing his Sherlock Holmes books until well after Whicher's heyday). Some of these references are to non-fiction - Dickens interviewed Whicher, for instance, and Summerscale includes many of Dickens' insights into Whicher and the case at Road Hill House - but some references are directly from detective fiction. Again, some might find that inappropriate, but I'm sympathetic to such techniques, and I think Summerscale does an exceptional job mixing fact and fiction, to the point where I don't think the book would be as informative or interesting if it didn't mix those seemingly incompatible components. Ultimately, I think this combination yields some insights that a traditional scholarly effort might have missed, and I quite enjoyed the book for the way it treated both real and fictional detectives (page 304): Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional - to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story," observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death.It was a good read, and I would recommend it to any one interested in mysteries or the era. Special thanks to longtime Kaedrin reader and friend, Spencer, for giving me this book. Posted by Mark on January 23, 2011 at 03:48 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Arbitrary Awards So we're finished with the formal awards, but there are always some other awards that don't really require a lot of nominees... and there are some movies that have something so uncommon that it's worth bringing up. Interestingly, some of these awards have actually become a yearly thing, despite never really being conceived as such. In any case, here they are:
* Sorry, I forgot. It's not a train, it's a missile the size of the Chrystler building! Please accept my humble apologies. Posted by Mark on January 19, 2011 at 08:10 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
2010 Kaedrin Movie Award Winners! The nominations for the 2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. Today, I'll be announcing the winners of those formal awards. Later in the week, I'll cover less traditional categories in what we like to call the Arbitrary Awards, and at some point in the near future, I'll post my top 10 of 2010 (this will most likely happen in early to mid-February). So let's get this party started:
Posted by Mark on January 16, 2011 at 06:45 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards It's finally time for the 5th Annual Kaedrin Movie Awards! As of today, I've seen 69 movies that would be considered 2010 releases. This is on par with the past few years [Previous Installments here: 2006 2007 2008 2009], but a little less than last year. Regardless, this post marks the beginning of my end of the year recap (only a little more than a week late!) The categories are the same as last year, but will proceed a bit differently. I'll post all the nominations today, but I don't think I'll be announcing one or two winners a day (as I've done the past few years), instead opting to announce them all at once next Sunday. 2010 has been an unusual year for movies. In particular, the first half of the year was pretty disheartening. It wasn't until about mid-summer that things started turning around, and as I've been playing catchup for the past couple of months, I've been finding some diamonds in the rough from the first half. In the end, while I don't think it's been a particularly good year for movies, I think that abysmal first half has ruined the year's reputation. That or the endless parade of mediocrity that seems to be this year's theme. There are a couple of movies I'm still hoping to catch up with before I release my top 10, but there's no reason to delay the awards for that. Besides, one of the points of these awards is that they allow me to give some love to films that I like, but which aren't necessarily great or are otherwise flawed (as such, the categories may seem a bit eclectic). Some of these movies will end up on my top 10, but the grand majority of them will not. The rules for this are the same as last year: Nominated movies must have been released in 2010 (in the US) and I have to have seen the movie (and while I have seen a lot of movies, I don't pretend to have seen a comprehensive selection - don't let that stop you from suggesting something though). Also, I suppose I should mention the requisite disclaimer that these sorts of lists are inherently subjective and personal. But that's all part of the fun, right? So here are the nominees for this year's awards: Best Villain/Badass It's been a bad year for villainy... I was able to fill the category, but only by putting some real stretches on the list. As with previous years, my picks in this category are for individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a group).
Heroes, on the other hand, are having a much more badass year. There were so many choices, I had to actually cut a few people off the list and I still ended up with a very large list... Again limited to individuals and not groups.
Another lackluster year for comedy. I ended up pulling a few unconventional choices into the list...
Interestingly, this is a pretty decent year for young actresses, as the grand majority of nominees are female. As with previous years, my main criteria for this category was if I watched a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they've done (or where they came from). This sometimes happens for even well established actors/actresses, but not so much this year...
Sometimes even bad movies can look really great...
I'm a total genre hound, despite genres generally receiving very little attention from critics. This is a category normally dominated by Horror, but there's at least one solid SF nominee (and another two that are sorta mixtures). The list is still weighted more towards Horror, but a respectable showing for both genres: Best Sequel A surprisingly long list of options this year (in each of the 4 years I've been doing this, there's only been 3 options). Now, at least one of these is a pretty bad movie, but I included it anyway.
Always a difficult award to figure out, as there are different ways in which a movie can disappoint. Usually, expectations play just as big a part of this as the actual quality of the film, and it's possible that a good movie can win the award because of high expectations. Best Action Sequences This was a decent year for action, though not especially a standout year. This award isn't for individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film. Best Plot Twist/Surprise Not a particularly strong year for the plot twist either, though there are a few standouts.
This is always a strange category to populate because the concept is a bit nebulous, but nevertheless, there are a few interesting choices... 2010's 2009 Movie of the Year A 2009 movie I didn't get to see until 2010... This is always a problem for the amateur movie lover. Towards the end of the year, 500 movies come out, but they only play in New York or LA for a grand total of like 3 hours (enough for 2 showings at each theater!) Plus, there's always a movie I dismissed and neglected to see which I end up seeing a year later and loving. A few good ones this year (er last year, no this year):
It looks like there isn't a clear leader in nominations, but there are 4 films coming in at 4 nominations each: Inception, Kick-Ass, Machete, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Nipping at their heels is a whopping 5 films with 3 nominations each, including: True Grit, Winter's Bone, Triangle, The Millenium Trilogy Movies (perhaps an unfair advantage there), and, surprisingly, Paranormal Activity 2. Even more films have 2 nominations each, and more than that with just 1. Overall, 34 movies were nominated (not including the 2009 movies or the "disappointment" award), which is still a pretty good showing, I think. So I'm going to give it a week and then hopefully announce all the winners next Sunday, followed by some Arbitrary awards and (eventually) a top 10. Posted by Mark on January 09, 2011 at 10:42 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
2010 Catchup Progress, Part 2 The year has ended, but the 2010 Catchup continues. Last time around, I had only seen about 5 of the movies on my original list, but I've been some pretty good progress since then, knocking about 10 more movies off the list (plus 2 additional films that weren't even on the list):
Posted by Mark on January 02, 2011 at 08:37 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Professor Hubert Farnsworth's Only Slightly Futuristic Holiday Movie Quiz Good news everybody! Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to Professor Farnsworth: 1) Best Movie of 2010 Well, I'm still catching up on a lot of 2010 releases and I'm terrible at picking favorites, but as of right now, I'll have to go with the relatively boring choice of The Social Network or Inception. Nevertheless, those are the two movies I connected with the most this year. 2) Second-favorite Roman Polanski Movie These days I find it hard to separate the "fugitive child rapist" part from the "great filmmaker" part of Polanski, but I guess I'll have to go with Rosemary's Baby as my second favorite. 3) Jason Statham or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Well, they both make some rather craptacular films, but Statham seems to actually have a few really good films to his credit. Plus, I hate professional wrestling. 4) Favorite movie that could be classified as a genre hybrid I thought this would be a lot harder, but the answer came pretty quickly: Alien. The two most prominent genres being blended here are science fiction and horror, and it's a superb example of both genres. 5) How important is foreknowledge of a film’s production history? Should it factor into one’s reaction to a film? I've been thinking a lot about film critics lately. In particular, the age old question of why critics like different movies than mainstream audiences. Without going into too much detail, I think the primary differentiator is the knowledge and appreciation of context. For instance, in order to truly enjoy a movie made a hundred years ago, you have to have some knowledge of what it was like to live back then and also be aware of the limitations of film at the time, and so on. Indeed, it might even be worthwhile to look into what effects the film had on society at large. I suppose someone without that cultural and historical context can still enjoy the film, but not as deeply as someone who has studied all those external factors. Now, "foreknowledge of a film's production history" is but a narrow part of a film's context, but it's certainly relevant. Whether or not it "should" factor into one's reaction is almost irrelevant. All of one's knowledge factors into one's reaction to a film. What one should do, however, is be aware of this fact. Context is not limited to the direct knowledge of the film itself, but all knowledge. One of the reasons people enjoy rewatching movies is that while the movies don't change, we do, and so rewatching a film involves incorporating new knowledge and perspectives, which can still be illuminating. So I'd say it's important, that it should factor into one's reaction, and that as long as one acknowledges their perspective, it's probably a good thing. 6) William Powell & Myrna Loy or Cary Grant & Irene Dunne Not particularly familiar with the pairings, but Cary Grant & Irene Dunne, because I said so. 7) Best Actor of 2010 My first instinct is James Franco for 127 Hours. However, a few others popped into my head: Christian Bale in The Fighter, Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, and maybe a few others. Also, I haven't seen a few films with contenders, like The King's Speech. But I'll stick with my instinct on this one for now. 8) Most important lesson learned from the past decade of watching movies I think the aforementioned recognition of the role and importance of context in our reactions to movies is a big one. A lot of our reactions to films are colored more by context than I think we care to admit. Luckily, acknowledging that is the first step towards getting a more complete understanding of film. 9) Last movie seen (DVD/Blu-ray/theater) In theaters, it was True Grit, which was great. I was a little worried about Jeff Bridges' voice in the trailer. Something sounded so off, so manufactured about it. But in the context of the film, it was fine. And the Coens, as usual, are fantastic at this whole moviemaking thing. On Blu-Ray, it was Easy A, which was breezy, clever, and fun. Much better than expected! On DVD, it was Silent Night, Bloody Night. Among the not-so-crowded holiday horror sub-genre, it's near the top, though I think it's also a bit overrated. Also, I think it's time to add a new option to the list: Netflix Watch Instantly (or, at least, streaming). I'll go first, the last thing I saw on Netflix streaming was Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, an interesting look at someone I never thought much about (despite the fact that she's impacted my professional life in some ways). 10) Most appropriate punishment for director Tom Six I don't think he necessarily deserves punishment, but the ironic thing to do would be to make him the middle piece, if you know what I mean. 11) Best under-the-radar movie almost no one else has had the chance to see This is a difficult question because the reason "almost no one else has had the chance to see" something is that it didn't get a very wide release and/or isn't available on DVD. Unfortunately, that's almost as likely to affect me as it is anyone else! However, there are a few movies I've seen that might qualify. The first one that came to mind was Playing Columbine, a documentary about video games and their impact on society. I was really taken with this movie when I saw it at the Philadelphia Film Festival a few years ago, but it never really got a release and its DVD is not widely available (it's not even available on Netflix, though you can buy one for $35 from their website), so "almost no one else has had the chance to see" it. I don't know that it's worth the price of the DVD, but if you get a chance to see it and you like video games (heck, even if you don't), it's well worth watching. 
12) Sheree North or Angie Dickinson Angie Dickinson, because, come on, Rio Bravo. Then again, Sheree North is Babs Kramer. But Dickinson. 13) Favorite nakedly autobiographical movie Though it certainly didn't happen the way it was portrayed on screen, I'll go with Adaptation. If you require something more traditional, I guess you'd have to go with Almost Famous. 14) Movie which best evokes a specific real-life place I'm finding this one extremely difficult to answer. The first thing I thought of was the recent spate of Boston-set films that seem to portray the gritty underbelly of the town... but then, I've only been to Boston a few times and I'm certainly not up to speed on their criminal undergrounds. Next, I thought of 127 Hours because I saw that recently and it also has a very well established sense of space and location. I felt like I knew the geography of the area despite never having been there before. I don't think any of those are really good answers to this question, but that's what I came up with. 15) Best Director of 2010 Given my choice for best movie, the obvious answer would be David Fincher. The Coen Brothers probably deserve some consideration as well as a few others, but Fincher seems to take the cake. 16) Second-favorite Farrelly Brothers Movie Hmmm, well, I guess it would have to be There's Something About Mary, though I do have a soft spot for Kingpin. 17) Favorite holiday movie I go back and forth between the two classics: It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. If forced to choose, I guess I'd go with Capra's masterpiece, but again, they're both classics. 18) Best Actress of 2010 The first actress that came to mind was Noomi Rapace for her performances in the Millenium trilogy movies from Sweden, but then Natalie Portman was also great in Black Swan, as was Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone. Heck, maybe even Emma Stone in Easy A. But as with the actors, I'll stick with my instinct on this one... 
19) Joe Don Baker or Bo Svenson At first, I thought: how could this not be Joe Don Baker. But when I look them up on IMDB, I notice that Svenson is in a ton of movies I like. As bit parts, sure, but still. I'll stick with Joe Don Baker though, as he was my first instinct... 20) Of those notable figures in the world of the movies who died in 2010, name the one you’ll miss the most I think I'll go with what has to be a common answer to this one: Leslie Nielsen. 21) Think of a movie with a notable musical score and describe what it might feel like without that accompaniment. The first thing that came to mind was the soundtrack to John Carpenter's classic Halloween. Part of the reason I'm choosing this one is because the story of how the music was created is famously due to the fact that an executive saw an early cut of the film without music and thought it wasn't scary. I've actually written about this before, quoting Carpenter himself: I screened the final cut minus sound effects and music, for a young executive from 20th Century-Fox (I was interviewing for another possible directing job). She wasn’t scared at all. I then became determined to "save it with the music."And save it he did. Another example from the world of horror would be John Williams' score for Jaws, which incorporates a long build-up of tension that is eventually released in horror. 22) Best Screenplay of 2010 So Aaron Sorkin's work on The Social Network is certainly worth consideration here, but I'm going to go with Inception. You'll note that I didn't include Christopher Nolan in my discussion of best director, and I think that's because he's more notable as a writer than as a director. It's the ideas and storytelling that he excels at. I suppose you could argue that Inception is overly dependent on exposition and info-dumps, but I think the puzzle-like structure of the plot is an achievement in itself. 23) Movie You Feel Most Evangelistic About Right Now Well, if someone wanted a suggestion for something in theaters now, I'd suggest True Grit. If they have Netflix, I'd suggest Exit Through the Gift Shop (a documentary about street art, with a twist) or, probably the most obscure movie here, Blood Into Wine (a documentary about wine-makers in Arizona, including Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan). 24) Worst/funniest movie accent ever John Malkovich's ridiculously over-the-top performance as Teddy KGB in Rounders features the absolute worst/funniest accent ever. "Mr. Son of a bitch, let's play some cards!" 
25) Best Cinematography of 2010 Roger Deakins' work in True Grit comes to mind. 26) Olivia Wilde or Gemma Arterton My first thought was Olivia Wilde, but that's only because I know who she is. It turns out that I knew Gemma Arterton too, but not as well. Neither has a particularly impressive resume and I like them both, so I'll stick with my first instinct (though Arterton was my favorite part of the horrible Quantum of Solace, and she wasn't even the main Bond girl). 27) Name the three best movies you saw for the first time in 2010 (Thanks, Larry!) Excluding 2010 releases (since we're already talking a lot about them in this quiz): The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Blood and Black Lace. Honestly, it was a bit of a slow year for me in terms of older films and I didn't make it very far on my list of the Greatest Movies I've Never Seen. Ohh, I forgot about The Birds - that should definitely be on this list... 28) Best romantic movie couple of 2010 Love and Other Drugs comes to mind. It's a pretty cliched film, but the two leads have a great chemistry together. Plus, nudity. 29) Favorite shock/surprise ending Ever? That's incredibly difficult. I suppose I have to acknowledge Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, but I think that's mostly due to the fact that I was so young and impressionable at the time. Psycho has a pretty great ending that actually managed to surprise my jaded teen self... And I have to admit that Lone Star caught me completely off-guard. Se7en has a good one, and while I know a lot of people don't like it, I do think The Usual Suspects has a fantastic twist ending. I could keep going and never actually reach a favorite. 30) Best cinematic reason to have stayed home and read a book in 2010 Well, I don't need a cinematic reason to read a book, but I suppose the craptacular first half of the year (which, as I'm discovering on DVD/BD/Netflix, wasn't as craptacular as I thught) was a pretty good reason to stay home. Then again, the worst movie I saw in theaters this year came out relatively recently: Skyline (which is absolutely terrible, though I have to admit that I love the gloriously stupid ending). 31) Movies in 2011 could make me much happier if they’d only _______________ Uh, be better? Good movies are always welcome. I suppose we could do with less 3D BS as well. Well, there you have it. Posted by Mark on December 29, 2010 at 01:46 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale Early Christian history shows a lot of attempts by Church leaders to attract followers by setting their holidays to coincide with existing festivals and celebrations. In the case of Christmas, the Church chose December 25, as it coincides with pagan winter solstice festivals that were popular in most cultures. As such, most of the folklore surrounding Christmas is an amalgam of both Christian and Pagan traditions. Examples include Christmas trees, mistletoe, and, of course, Santa Claus. Santa Claus, as we know him, can largely be traced back to the poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas, published in 1823 and written by Clement Clarke Moore. However, Moore was pulling from a long tradition of Christmas gift givers, which were, in themselves, pulling from older pagan traditions. And while our current vision of Santa is jolly, many of the precursors are more varied. We all know about the "naughty or nice list", but we generally shy away from graphic descriptions of what happens to the naughty. Many older traditions did not. Case in point, the Finnish "Joulupukki", which translates to "Yule Buck" or "Yule Goat". One of the reasons pagan cultures chose to celebrate the Winter solstice is that the shortest days of the year are in December, and once you reach the solstice, the days start to get longer again. In Finland, these festivals would celebrate the return of the daylight and would often feature a personification of the evil spirits that were leaving as the days got longer. These spirits were often wore goat skins and horns and demanded presents. It was a loathsome creature, and it frightened children (which parents no doubt used to their advantage, getting their kids to act nice). Once the Christian traditions reached Finland though, this somehow got flipped around, with the spirits now benevolent and delivering presents instead of wreaking havoc. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a new Finnish movie that wonders what would happen if we discovered the original "Joulupukki". According to the research of the film's main character, young Pietari, the original Santa was not a very pleasant character, so villagers tricked him into freezing water, then covered the resulting ice cube in sawdust and so many rocks that they created a new mountain. Cut to present day, and a crazy American businessman is attempting to find the real Santa, and is excavating a nearby mountain, much to the dismay of local Reindeer ranchers. Pretty soon, their Reindeer show up dead and children start to go missing. This is not your typical holiday movie, nor even is it your typical holiday horror film, a subgenre I've been exploring over the past few years. It takes a while to get going and while I enjoyed the ending, it was a bit of an anti-climax, as you never really get to see the true horrific power of Santa (on the other hand, I do wonder if that sort of explicit explanation would lose something)... That being said, the film has a dark, dry sense of humor that isn't quite explicit, but which made me laugh out loud several times. This is the debut film of writer/director Jalmari Helander, and it's clear that he has a good eye for interesting visuals and while he does not resort to many horror tropes, he does manage some creepifying visuals, such as the weird wooden dolls that Santa's little helpers leave behind while they're kidnapping naughty children or, heck, even Santa's little helpers themselves. The ending of the film escalates into the absurd, but in an entertaining and welcome way. My favorite part was when young Pietari suddenly turns into an 80s action hero and starts dropping one liners like "It's either me or Santa. I suggest Santa." (OK, fine, that was 2 lines, but still.) I'm still not entirely sure what to make of the epilogue, though it's still a wonderfully absurd notion. In the end, I don't know that this is up there with the Christmas horror classics like Black Christmas, but it's probably still an upper tier picture, and it's well worth a watch for fans of dark holiday shenanigans. *** Update: After the movie, I headed over to the local beer bar, Eulogy, and had a nice Austrian beer called Samichlaus. Guess what that translates to. Posted by Mark on December 22, 2010 at 08:29 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
2010 Catchup Progress So the great 2010 Movie Catchup has proceeded quite well so far and while there are still many things I've yet to see, I've made good progress:
Posted by Mark on December 12, 2010 at 04:21 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
2010 Movie Catchup So the general consensus seems to be that 2010 hasn't been a particularly good year for movies... and for the first half of the year, I was definitely in agreement. Things have turned around a bit since then, though, and it's looking like some of the smaller films from earlier in the year are being released on DVD/BD around now. Normally, I've got a ton of current-year movies under my belt by this time in the year - usually around 60-70. When I finished off the 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon last month, I took a loot at my list and saw about 30 movies from 2010. So all throughout November, I've been playing catchup on 2010 movies. I've made some headway, but there's still quite a few movies I want to catch up with before I put together the annual awards and top 10. So let's start with new movies that are coming out in December:
Posted by Mark on December 08, 2010 at 08:51 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tasting Notes... Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post [Previous Editions: part 1 | part 2]. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately: Television
Posted by Mark on November 28, 2010 at 07:37 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Link Dump A few interesting links from the depths of teh interwebs:
Posted by Mark on November 17, 2010 at 09:16 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Double Feature While not quite the accidental double feature I ran into a few weeks ago with Catfish and The Social Network, I saw a pair of movies this weekend that share an uncommon type of protagonist. Both are a bit off the beaten path and thus don't really have a ton of mainstream appeal, but they're both worth watching... The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and (for the moment) final movie in Stieg Larsson's "Millenium Trilogy". It has the unfortunate reputation of being the worst of the three films, but while I can certainly see where that comes from, I think the problem lies more with the source material than the films. Which is not to say that the source material is bad or anything, just that this film and the second film are really part of a single whole. The first film made for a great introduction and featured a solid, self-contained story. The two sequels are intertwined. You can't watch one without needing to see the other. The common complaint about this third film is that it basically represents a rehash of the entire series, and there is something to that complaint. However, I find that there's also something satisfying about how things play out, even if they do so in a mostly predictable fashion. For me, the thing that the first film had that the sequels don't is the relationship between Lisbeth Salandar and Mikael Blomkvist. That was what impressed me most about the first film, but in the sequels, the plot requires a physical separation of the characters and the interactions through intermediaries just aren't the same. And in this film, the majority of screen time belongs to Blomkvist, who isn't as interesting as Lisbeth (who spends most of her time in a hospital, jail cell, or courtroom, and her interactions are mostly speechless). So perhaps it isn't quite as good as the first two films, but it's still a worthy effort that's better than most of its competition. To me, the first film is clearly the best. The two sequels, taken as a whole are quite good, but can't quite recapture the magic of the first. It's rumored that Larsson left behind plot outlines and half finished works for a number of additional sequels, and the original trilogy has been far too successful to let those sit unfinished. This could, of course, be a blessing or a curse. There are many pitfalls possible in potential sequels to these three films, but there is also the possibility of recapturing the magic. Also, while I'm not normally enthused about Hollywood remakes of foreign films (especially when they're made so close together in time), I have to admit that the talent being assembled for the remakes looks promising. There are certain similarities between Lisbeth Salandar and the hero of Winter's Bone, yet they're very different characters. Ree Dolly is the primary focus of Winter's Bone, and she's a 17 year old who's faced with a sick mother and two kids to raise (not her kids - they're her brother and sister). She does not live for herself; everything she does is for the benefit of others. Early on in the movie we learn that she dreams of joining the army. Later, we find out that the only reason she would do so is because of the signing bonus, which would be a boon to her cash-strapped family. So aside from being strong and independent, she doesn't really share anything else in common with Lisbeth Salandar, but that's enough. Roger Ebert actually catches on to the most courageous thing about this character in his review: Ree is played by Jennifer Lawrence, a 19-year-old newcomer who has already starred in Jodie Foster's next film. Lawrence embodies a fierce, still center that is the source of her heroism. She makes no boasts, issues no threats, depends on a dogged faith that people will do the right thing — even when no one we meet seems to deserve that faith. “Don't ask for what's not offered,” she tells her little brother, although the lives of her parents seem to be an exercise in asking and not offering. Did she raise herself?(emphasis mine) That she "depends on a dogged faith that people will do the right thing" is an interesting and rare thing in a thriller of this nature. Usually you can expect this sort of independent movie to be so steeped in misery that the only resulting feeling is despair. But this film is different. The "faith" espoused by Ree is something that makes her much more courageous than most film heros. It's not glamorous and it won't earn her any fanfare, but it gets the job done. This isn't to say that everything is fluffy bunnies and rainbows, but there is a very "real" feeling to the film. The story is relatively straightforward. Ree's father, a meth cooker by trade, has disappeared after putting the family's house up as collateral on his bail bond. If he doesn't show up for the trial, the family will loose the house. When Ree is informed, she says "I'll find him," with the quiet determination and resolve that is uncommon for folks in her situation. The film does bog down a bit as Ree goes from person to person, many of whom are seemingly from the same family (though the relationships are rarely very clear), and eventually begins to piece together what happened to her father. The film is perhaps a bit too long considering how simple the story is, and thus the pacing is a bit too slow, but it's still a striking movie. Filmed on location in the back woods of Missouri, the setting is atmospheric and evocative. In a time of economic downturn it seems appropriate, but I suspect the setting of this film was the same even when business was booming. Visually, the film is stark and while not showy, it's effective. The acting is great, especially the lead (as already mentioned, Ree is played by Jennifer Lawrence in an Oscar-worthy performance) and her uncle, played by John Hawkes. Given the nature of the story, there would be a real danger of falling back on caricature, but writer/director Debra Granik never lets that happen, which is quite impressive. In the end, I really enjoyed both of these movies, even though both suffer from some flaws that many would find deal-breakers. I don't expect either to really broach the top 10 at the end of the year, but they're both quite interesting in their own ways and I'm glad I got to see them... Posted by Mark on November 14, 2010 at 04:10 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
6WH: Week 6 - No Discernable Theme Week These six weeks have absolutely flown by, but lucky for me, Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, which is basically giving me an extra week of horror watching.
Posted by Mark on October 24, 2010 at 08:12 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
6WH: Week 5 - Slashers Coming down the homestretch already? The past 5 weeks have absolutely flown by... There's still a bunch of movies I want to watch and I'm not sure I'll even be able to get to them. In any case, this week, I got back to basics and went with a favorite sub-genre, the slashers! They've been a staple of previous years, but I specifically attempted to decrease my consumption this year because I like to mix things around a little. So far, I think I've done a pretty good job of that, but I couldn't stay away for too long - here's what I watched:
Posted by Mark on October 17, 2010 at 02:25 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
6WH: Link Dump: Other Halloween Movie Marathons It would seem that I'm not the only one watching lots of horror movies in preparation for Halloween. Here are a few blogs I follow that have been watching tons of movies:
Posted by Mark on October 13, 2010 at 08:02 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
6WH: Week 4 - Zombies! The Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon continues with some zombies! I've never actually been that big a fan of zombie movies. Sure there are a few good ones and they have a certain amount of influence within the genre, but there's something that never really connects with me. They're such a blank slate that you can apply almost any sort of sociological message to them, which is one reason we see so many zombie movies. This isn't to say that the sub-genre of zombie movies is worthless though, and I can certainly accept that many people find these movies and their repetitive tropes to be comforting (after all, I'm a self-admitted slasher fan). Indeed, I don't mind the more mindless entries in the sub-genre, it's when pretensions start to run high that I start to waver. Nevertheless, there have always been some zombie movies that I've wanted to see for one reason or another, and below are three:
Posted by Mark on October 10, 2010 at 04:10 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
The Catfish Network I saw two movies this weekend and it turns out that I'd inadvertently stumbled into a great double-feature. Based on the cryptic but positive comments on the /Filmcast a few weeks ago (not their recent review), I made a mental note to see the movie Catfish. I knew nothing about the movie except that a couple people on the internet found it interesting. In this world of constant film scoops and trailers that spoil the movie, it's pretty rare for me to see a movie without ever having heard of it, so I relish these opportunities. Also opening this weekend is a movie I knew too much about: The Social Network. Directed by David Fincher with a script by Aaron Sorkin, this was one of the years most hotly anticipated films. The original teaser trailer, featuring a striking cover of Radiohead's "Creep" by a Belgian girls' choir and a quasi-cheesy montage of Facebook clicking, was intriguing, but the expanded trailer that featured actual footage of the film was... not so encouraging. Fincher's track record of the past few years has been a bit spotty. I really liked Zodiac, but it certainly had its problems. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a bit of a mess, but it was watchable. In both cases, I think my problems were more with the script than with Fincher (though I guess you could say his judgment of what to work on was lacking). So when i saw that Fincher was making a movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, I was a bit skeptical. The involvement of Aaron Sorkin did pique my interest for a bit, but then I realized that his record over the past few years has also been a bit spotty. The trailers did nothing to help my skepticism... so imagine my surprise when I ended up loving the movie. It is, of course, a really strange movie. I don't normally care for biopics, but this one gets it exactly right - it focuses on one, well defined episode in someone's life (where most biopicks get bogged down in tangents and don't really have a point). This is a good thing in any case, though perhaps it's even moreso because Zuckerberg is only 26 years old (or perhaps they were forced to limit their scope because he was so young). Anyway, the movie is fantastic. Sorkin's script is crackling with fast-paced, witty dialogue, the actors seem to be able to handle that, Trent Reznor's score is surprisingly well matched, and Fincher ties it all together. The most interesting thing, though, is that I have no idea how much of it is true. It's not a documentary and I'm positive the story has been simplified and dramatized. Seeing that alone would have been interesting, but seeing it on the same day I saw Catfish was positively serendipitous. You see, Catfish is also about Facebook (after a fashion) and it actually is a documentary. And yet... I have no idea how much of it is true. I don't want to give anything away with Catfish, so I'm not going to go into too much detail. There is definitely something real about the documentary, but there's also something a little fishy (pun intended!) about it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Even if it was entirely fake (and it's not), it would be a worthwhile story (albeit one with relatively low stakes). The Social Network tells the story about the founding of Facebook. Catfish depicts one of the interesting effects that Facebook has lead to (though it's not entirely reliant on Facebook)... If you're into movies, it's a great double-feature to take in. Posted by Mark on October 06, 2010 at 07:20 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
6WH: Week 3 - Ozploitation! Last year, I had the good fortune of watching Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!. I love these types of documentaries about a narrow spectrum of movies. Making-of documentaries about a single film tend to get a bit repetitive, but in a movie like Not Quite Hollywood, you can cover dozens of interesting films (in this case, the film covers tons of obscure films from Australia's exploitation film industry). Unfortunately, not a ton of these films are available on DVD/Netflix, but I was able to find several for this week's Halloween movie marathon:
Posted by Mark on October 03, 2010 at 08:01 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
6WH: Slasher Statistics There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one: you can never have sex. BIG NO NO! BIG NO NO! Sex equals death, okay? Number two: you can never drink or do drugs. The sin factor! It's a sin. It's an extension of number one. And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, "I'll be right back." Because you won't be back. -- Randy (Scream, 1996)The slasher film is an unusual beast. It's often criticized for its lack of originality, simplistic premises, repetitive nature, and strict adherence to formula. Of course, it's often praised for such qualities as well. For fans of the slasher, watching a new film that follows the formula is like eating comfort food. Ahhh, horror comfort food. Watching an '80s bodycount film, I find, is relaxing. You kinda know what's going to happen and all of the characters act in predictable ways, but that's why it's like putting a sweater on on a chilly day.The funny thing about this is that the so-called formula isn't exactly precise. I've written about genres in general before: A genre is typically defined as a category of artistic expression marked by a distinctive style, form, or content. However, anyone who is familiar with genre film or literature knows that there are plenty of movies or books that are difficult to categorize. As such, specific genres such as horror, sci-fi, or comedy are actually quite inclusive. Some genres, Drama in particular, are incredibly broad and are often accompanied by the conventions of other genres (we call such pieces "cross-genre," though I think you could argue that almost everything incorporates "Drama"). The point here is that there is often a blurry line between what constitutes one genre from another.As such, it's usually easy to spot a Slasher flick, even if there are lots of traits that are uncommon or unique. That being said, there are a number of characteristics common to a lot of slasher films:
So to me, the "true" slasher film was made between the years of 1978 and 1996, with the primary concentration being in the early 80s. Sure, there were a ton of influential films made before 1978 that featured or established important tropes, but none of those films even approached the success of Halloween and it's imitators. Similarly, films made after Scream were forced to acknowledge the tropes and conventions of the sub-genre, and thus they shouldn't really count. In 1992, Carol Clover coined the term Final Girl to describe the lone surviving character at the end of slasher films, and a new controversy was born. Because of its seemingly rigid conventions, the slasher film is ripe for post-modern interpretations and deconstructions, and it's easy to get carried away with such things. Clover started a more academic discussion of the sub-genre, and it's continued for the past 18 years. The discussion has mostly revolved around the role of women in these films, with the general contention being that more women are killed than men, and in a more graphic way. There have been papers arguing one way or the other, and as you might expect, none are particularly definitive. Which brings me to a relatively recent scholarly article, Sex and Violence in the Slasher Horror Film: A Content Analysis of Gender Differences in the Depiction of Violence (.pdf). Published in 2009, the article summarizes the existing arguments and, more notably, attempts to do a pretty thorough quantitative analysis of 50 slasher films. The article is detailed and thorough enough that it would be of interest to any fans of the genre, even if it's possible to nitpick a number of details in their methodology. Given what I wrote about above, I think you can see where my nitpicking was focused. In particular, I was baffled by the film sample list (see page 11). Earlier in the article, the authors discuss previous efforts, and dismiss them for various reasons. One of the previous articles is criticized for a small sample size - which is a pretty legitimate criticism. Another is criticized because it selected films by commercial success: The sample size in the Molitor and Sapolsky (1993) study is adequate; however the decision to sample the most commercially successful films may raise problems with sample bias and interpretation of the findings (Molitor & Sapolsky, 1993; Sapolsky et al., 2003). Films featuring frequent presentations of extremely graphic violence may appeal to a smaller audience, generating lower box office revenues. Thus, the findings in the existing research may not reflect the true nature of violent presentations characteristic of the slasher subgenre.This I find less valid, especially given the author's concerns surrounding the impact of slasher films on society. If a film is not commercially successful, it is less influential, almost by definition. All that being said, the authors came up with a new methodology which involved using IMDB's power search capabilities. To my mind, their new methodology is probably just as problematic as previous studies. Their definition of the slasher sub-genre seems a bit broad, and as such, some of the films chosen as part of their study are questionable at best. For one thing, they include several pre-Halloween films and several post-Scream films, which dilutes the sample. Indeed, some of the films are arguably not even slashers. For instance, the inclusion of two Saw films seems like a bit of a stretch. It is true that Saw leverages some similar tropes, but it's also one of the defining films in a different sub-genre - the "Torture Porn" film. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but I can't imagine anyone jumping to Saw when asked to think of a slasher film. The lack of any sort of measurement of influence is another issue. This is a more general problem, but it impacts this study in particular due to the random nature of the sample collection. For instance, there is no way that a movie like Cherry Falls should be used as a representative member of the slasher sub-genre. A study that focuses on commercial success of a film (i.e. box office and home video sales) would never have included that film. Ultimately, these complaints amount to nitpicks. Even with these flaws, some of the study's conclusions are still interesting: Contrary to the findings reported in previous research, the current analysis suggests that there are several differences in the nature of violent presentations involving male and female characters. Male characters in slasher horror films are more likely to experience relatively quick, graphic, and serious acts of violence. Comparatively, female characters are more likely to be victims of less serious and less graphic forms of violence, such as stalking or confinement, with increased cinematic focus on depicting close-up states of prolonged terror. Women in slasher films are also more likely to be featured in scenes involving sexual content. Specifically, female characters are far more likely to be featured as partially or fully naked and, when sexual and violent images are concomitantly present, the film’s antagonist is significantly more likely to attack a woman.This is ultimately not all that surprising, though I do wonder about a few things. For instance, since the Final Girl is a common convention, and since the final battle with the killer is likely to last a lot longer than earlier murders, it would make sense that the violence against women characters is less serious, but prolonged. I suppose one could also argue about the inclusion of non-physical violence as violence, which could get a bit hairy. The stats surrounding nudity and sex are also interesting, though I wonder how they would compare against other film genres (action films, for instance). The study presents the slasher as some sort of outlier, but I don't know if that's the case (not that it would excuse anything). I don't know that any of these correlations can be tied to a causation, but it's interesting nonetheless. It's an interesting article, and well worth a read for anyone interested in the sub-genre. Thanks to And Now the Screaming Starts for the pointer and stay tuned for the next installment of the Six Weeks of Halloween movie marathon. That's all for now, but don't worry, I'll be right back! 1 I'm particularly fascinated by pre-slasher films, of which there are many. Psycho, Peeping Tom, Blood and Black Lace (and other Giallos), Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Black Christmas, Silent Night, Bloody Night, Alice Sweet Alice, The Hills Have Eyes, and so on. Even some older films nor normally associated with slashers presage the idea, like Thirteen Women or And Then There Were None. 2 In particular, April Fool's Day and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, both released in 1986, began to recognize the conventions of the genre and started the self-awareness trend that would culminate in Craven's Scream. There are probably lots of other good slashers made during this 1986-1996 corridor, but the slasher film was seriously on the decline at that point. 3 It might be a bit insulting to Film Noir, but there are some parallels here. Critics basically defined the film noir after the fact and once that definition became popular, all new films that featured noir-like characteristics became known as neo-noir. Of course, this is not a perfect parallel, but there is a similarity here. Once people self-consciously started making noir films, they lost a certain quality, and the same is probably true for the slasher, and in particular, films like Scream and those that followed. Posted by Mark on September 29, 2010 at 08:16 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
6WH: Week 2 - Sixties Horror At first, I didn't think I'd have a recognizable theme this week, but then I realized that these three films were all made in the 1960s (even though one is probably more of a thriller than a horror film, I'm going to let it slide, especially since it does feature several horror hallmarks). So here we go:
Update: Yeah, I should probably mention some other folks doing some horror movie blogging as well. Ben has been infected by my efforts and inspired to watch some horror in preparation for the season (this time, he's going for underwater horror), and of course, kernunrex continues his yearly marathon (which had originally inspired me in the first place). I haven't looked around a ton, but I'm sure lots more folks will be starting up once we reach October... Posted by Mark on September 26, 2010 at 10:00 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Professor David Huxley's Laborious, Licentious Spotted-Leopard Labor Day Film Quiz I'm a few weeks late to the party, but Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another movie quiz. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to Professor Huxley: 1) Classic film you most want to experience that has so far eluded you. The last film quiz had a similar question... and sadly, I still have not watched The Apartment. I don't really have a good excuse for this one either. 2) Greatest Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release ever This is a difficult question, seeing as though I've probably only seen somewhere around 10% of the movies in the Criterion Collection (and many of the ones I have seen haven't necessarily been the Criterion version), but the first thing that came to mind was the Ultimate Three-Disc Special Edition Box Set of Brazil. I think a big part of this is that, at the time, Criterion was the only company putting out DVD releases this thorough, and this one blew me away. It featured two versions of the film - Gilliam's directors cut and the "Love Conquers All" version - and an exhaustive series of special features chronicling the film's production and the studio meddling with the US release that ultimately lead to the creation of a new version of the film that had a happy ending. This sort of treatment isn't that unusual today, but back then, it was, and it was all the more notable because it was created in service of a relatively obscure cult film. 3) The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon? I had to rub my eyes for a second because these questions asking us to pick between two movies (or actors/actresses) usually feature at least one option that I'm not at all familiar with. In this case, I've actually seen both films (it's been a few years, but I've definitely seen both)... yet I'm still having trouble picking. For now, I'll say The Big Sleep, though it's not like I have anything against The Maltese Falcon. 4) Jason Bateman or Paul Rudd? Wow, two in a row where I know what you're asking about. It's another tough one, but for now I'll have to go with Paul Rudd, though Bateman has been coming on strong lately. 5) Best mother/child (male or female) movie star combo The only thing I could really come up with here is Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, which appears to be a pretty common (i.e. boring) answer to this question... 6) Who are the Robert Mitchums and Ida Lupinos among working movie actors? Do modern parallels to such masculine and no-nonsense feminine stars even exist? If not, why not? I'm at a bit of a loss here. I'm no expert on his filmography, but it's not like Mitchum was surrounded by contemporaries who did what he did, and I can't really think of anyone working today that comes close either. The closest I can come is Clint Eastwood, but he's still quite a bit different (interestingly, I was wondering the other day if any younger actors could fill Eastwood's type of role these days?). I have to admit that I'm not at all familiar with Ida Lupino, but when it comes to no-nonsense actresses, someone in the comments of the SLIFR thread mentioned Christina Hendricks. I guess that's cheating, though, as she's more of a TV star. No-nonsense characters seem to be less common these days though, so perhaps that could account for the lack of actors taking on that sort of role (or being type-cast as that sort of character). 7) Favorite Preston Sturges movie The Lady Eve (these questions are easy when you've only seen one film in a director's filmography!). 8) Odette Yustman or Mary Elizabeth Winstead? Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as she's been in a lot of decent movies already (and not so decent movies that I don't really mind). The most notably thing Odette Yustman has been in for me is Fallout 3, where she did voice acting for the Overseer's daughter (she shot me down). 9) Is there a movie that if you found out a partner or love interest loved (or didn't love) would qualify as a Relationship Deal Breaker? I always find stories about this amusing, but I can't think of a single film that would ever provoke this kind of reaction in me. Perhaps if I hated every film she liked, there might be a problem, but in that case, I suspect it would really just be symptomatic of deeper problems. 10) Favorite DVD commentary The tricky part about commentaries is that the best commentaries are usually done for bad movies. There's no pressure to defend poor choices or mistakes, and thus the filmmakers tend to be a little more comfortable and honest about the production. The biggest problem with this is that you actually have to watch bad movies in order to get to these types of commentaries. For instance, I've heard that Joel Schumacher's commentary for Batman & Robin is fantastic because he doesn't really hold back and openly admits mistakes and problems with the production. I have not heard the entire commentary, but I saw a clip once where he admitted to redesigning the batmobile in order to sell more toys (or some such). That's not my answer though - my pick would be Kevin Smith's (and the rest of the cast's) commentary on Mallrats. All of Smith's commentaries are entertaining, but the failure of this movie at the box office adds that extra dimension that can make a commentary great. You get lots of moments between friends, like when Smith and others berate Affleck for liking Malcolm in the Middle, but you also get stories about how the marketing failed the movie and how studio execs convinced Smith to tone down some of his more raunchy humor. It's excellent stuff. (I'd love to see a commentary on Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but Smith was apparently so distraught at some of the behind the scenes wranglings that he didn't want to do one - hopefully once he gets some time and movies behind him, he can revisit this...) 11) Movies most recently seen on DVD, Blu-ray and theatrically On DVD, it was Don't Torture a Duckling, Lucio Fulci's disturbing Giallo (part of my 6WH horror movie marathon). It was a decent film with a few standout sequences, but it doesn't really compare to the top tier of Giallos. On Blu-Ray, it was Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, a self-aware, neo-slasher mock-documentary. It features some interesting components and puts a name to the many conventions of the genre, though the only really new terminology that's coined is the concept of an "Ahab" (basically, in the context of slashers, the primary example of an Ahab would be Dr. Loomis from the Halloween films). Ultimately it's not a great film, but it was an entertaining enough watch. In theaters, it was The Town, Ben Affleck's surprisingly strong sophomore effort as director. It's not going to win awards like Gone Baby Gone, but it's still a solid film. I wish more films like this were made and I'd be more than happy if Affleck spent the rest of his career putting out little crime thrillers set in Boston. 12) Dirk Bogarde or Alan Bates? Ah, there we go! I'm not especially familiar with either of these actors, but I guess I'd give it to Alan Bates, as I've actually seen a few of his movies. 13) Favorite DVD extra Well, I've already given two of my favorite examples (the Behind the Scenes documentaries about Brazil and the Love Conquers All version of the film, and Kevin Smith's commentary for Mallrats...) so I'm having trouble picking another favorite. Kevin Smith does have some other great special features, like the (seemingly) 2 hours of deleted scenes (with introductions) from Dogma. There are some interesting making-of documentaries on my copy of The Terminator and The Thing. Alien and Aliens also have pretty good special features. But now we're just getting into movies I like! Someone in the comments at SLIFR mentioned the Fruity Oaty Bars feature from Serenity, which I find funny (both because it warranted a special feature on the DVD and because someone actually picked it as their favorite extra). In a more general sense, my favorite extra feature is a commentary track (especially if done well!) 14) Brian De Palma’s Scarface— yes or no? Yes. Though I certainly don't get the absolute worship the film receives, it is a reasonably well done movie. 15) Best comic moment from a horror film that is not a horror comedy (Young Frankenstein, Love At First Bite, et al.) The answer here is obviously from Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. I'll chose the title sequence where the camera zooms into Jason's eye, where you then see Jason sashay accross the screen, James Bond style, and swing his trusty machete, filling the screen with blood that eventually spells out the title. I laughed for a solid ten minutes when I revisited the film recently, not remembering that this film was so self-aware. There are several other choices in the film, such as a couple's attempt to bribe Jason with an American Express card, the fact that one of the children in the camp is reading Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit, and the way Jason holds a dismembered arm and cocks his head, as if thinking "Huh, his arm came off. Will wonders never cease." I suppose you could make an argument that this movie is a horror comedy, but most of the film retains the typical, earnest slasher movie style, so I think it counts (and there are a few legitimately creepifying moments, though maybe that's just nostalgic remnants of my childhood poking through). There are actually a bunch of other movies I considered for this, including Evil Dead 2, Dead Alive, Re-Animator, Tremors, and An American Werewolf in London (though again, you might consider at least some of those to be horror/comedies)... 16) Jane Birkin or Edwige Fenech? I got nothing. 17) Favorite Wong Kar-wai movie I have to admit that I'm not a particularly huge Wong Kar-wai fan, so I've not seen a lot of his films. Of the ones I've seen, I'd say In the Mood for Love, which does have a legitimately interesting premise. 18) Best horrific moment from a comedy that is not a horror comedy This one was a lot harder than question 15... Does Raising Arizona count as a comedy? I remember finding The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse a bit creepy when I was younger... I guess another option would be the end of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. 19) From 2010, a specific example of what movies are doing right… I loved Inception and hope its success augurs for more of the same. Even if it's just a few new movies that are not based on existing properties, I think that'd be a win. I'm not tremendously confident of that, but it'd be nice. Another thing that seems to be going well is the concept of digital distribution. I've caught a few movies on IFC On Demand, which means that I can watch some of those hard to find movies without even leaving home (even if it's playing in Philly, this means I can avoid the traffic and the parking, etc...) 20) Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans? Hey, two more people I know. This must be a record. Anyway, I guess I'd probably go with Chris Evans, as he seems to make more interesting choices. 21) Speculate about the future of online film writing. What’s next? I'm not sure. Everything seems to be getting smaller. Perhaps film critics who post exclusively on twitter or some other sort of micro-blogging format. Or the other direction: the return of long-form film criticism. Ultimately, I don't think much will change. Old school outlets and criticism will continue to lose ground to the seemingly endless throngs of online critics who work for peanuts (if that). 22) Roger Livesey or David Farrar? Filmspotting has been doing a Powell-Pressburger marathon, and so they've been talking about these two guys... but I haven't seen either of them, so I can't really pick. 23) Best father/child (male or female) movie star combo The first that comes to mind is Kirk and Michael Douglas, which I guess is a boring answer, but the only others I can think of are also boring. Given my answer to the mother/child question, I suppose I could also go with Tony Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis, just for the sake of symmetry. 24) Favorite Freddie Francis movie (as Director) Not tremendously familiar with his work, but I guess I'll go with Tales from the Crypt. He seems to have a more impressive resume as a cinematographer than as a director. 25) Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth? Seeing as though I've only seen one of these, I've got Bringing Up Baby by default. 26) Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig? I guess I'll go with Tina Fey on this one, though I do really like both (Wiig, for instance, was the best part of Knocked Up, and she was only in it for about a minute or so). 27) Name a stylistically important director and the best film that would have never been made without his/her influence. What started with John Ford westerns moved to Akira Kurosawa samurai films and then back to the westerns with Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. If I have to pick my favorite spaghetti western, it would be The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but the entire sub-genre owes a debt to what came before. 28) Movie you’d most enjoy seeing remade and transplanted to a different culture (i.e. Yimou Zhang’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop.) I was going to think of an answer for this, but then I saw Patrick's answer at SLIFR: "I'd love to see what Hayao Miyazaki would do with the Wizard of Oz." 29) Link to a picture/frame grab of a movie image that for you best illustrates bliss. Elaborate. I had a surprisingly hard time with this. The first shot that came to mind was the end of It's a Wonderful Life. On the other end of the spectrum, I also thought about the end of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, but again, I couldn't get a good screenshot of that (and I suspect that Capra's visual talent outweighs that of Danny Leiner). 
I stink at these, but here are a few: Star Embargos, Inglorious Bastards, The Texas Chainsaw Picnic, Reservoir Puppies, Eyes Wide Open , and hmm, if I had to choose a favorite, it would be the Texas Chainsaw one. And I think that about covers it. See you on Sunday with some 60s horror. Posted by Mark on September 22, 2010 at 10:13 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Six Weeks of Halloween 2009: Week 1 - Giallo Films Halloweentime is my favorite time of the year, and like kernunrex, I celebrate the season by watching a ton of horror movies, eating bite-sized candy, drinking pumpkin flavored beer, and playfully decorating my home with (fake) corpses and mutilated pumpkins. I've got Netflix queue full of movies and only 6 weeks to get through them all, but if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or play along! I'm starting this year with a distinctive Italian sub-genre known as the Giallo. The word "giallo" means "yellow" in Italian, and the sub-genre takes that name because of the distinctive yellow backgrounds on a series of pulpy, Italian crime/mystery novels. 
Posted by Mark on September 19, 2010 at 06:55 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Deep Thoughs on Piranha 3D Piranha is not a good movie, but it is just about exactly what you'd expect and thus, it can be a lot of fun if you go into it with the right mindset. It's one of those movies (like Snakes on a Plane) where movie reviews and ratings won't really sway an audience. This is a movie where tons of ferocious fish chow down on a bunch of obnoxious kids celebrating Spring Break. That either interests you, or it doesn't. Either way, I don't think anyone expects it to be good, and it's not. So this isn't really a review, but I had some assorted thoughts I'd like to share.
Posted by Mark on September 07, 2010 at 01:29 AM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Tasting Notes... Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately: Television
Posted by Mark on September 05, 2010 at 07:24 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Trigger Man An earlier post on Ti West's excellent The House of the Devil lead the cryptic emailer mentioned in that post to recommend West's previous film, the ultra-low-budget Trigger Man. It's an interesting little film, mostly because it is essentially a concentrated version of what some people really hated about The House of the Devil. Like, House of the Devil, the plot of this film is easily summarized: three buddies head out to the woods for a relaxing hunting trip. With a title like Trigger Man and three apparently inexperienced young guys with guns, it played out almost exactly as I expected. But not right away. 
I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the deer does not shoot back at our hero, but there's no way that sequence would have carried the weight it did if we hadn't spent the previous 20 minutes trudging silently through the landscape, building atmosphere with every step. As someone who has been deer hunting myself, this movie actually does capture that sort of excitement that can only come after spending a morning waiting for something (anything!) to cross your path. After a while, even a squirrel can be exciting. Of course, that's not all this film has to offer, and while I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen, I did find myself startled when it actually did happen. From that point on, I found myself surprisingly off balance, even when West reverts the film back into quiet nature walk mode (only to jolt me out of my reestablished reverie, I should add). There is even that horror staple of gratuitous gore at one point, but that sort of thing works much better in a movie like this than it does in a lot of other schlock-fests (though I do have a soft spot for slashers, for some unfathomable reason). Later in the film, an eerie abandoned factory makes an appearance, and West takes ample advantage of the strange shadows thrown by overpasses. This is pretty clearly a low-budget film, and at times I did find myself wondering if the stylistic choices were done for artistic reasons, or because of technical limitations (or, as is sometimes happily the case, both). For instance, the film does have a distinct vérité feel. West never goes all Greengrass on us, but a handheld camera is clearly used for most of the shots. This does sorta put the viewer in the position of voyeur, as if if we're actually there, following the characters with a camera (but without the whole found-footage conceit). Indeed, there are numerous shots from behind, following characters as they move. I would be curious what choices West would have made if he had more of a budget. The DVD had a Q&A session with West, cast, and crew, and one of the things that really surprised me was that he says almost none of the film is improvised. The film only has about 20 lines of dialogue, and most of it is pretty simple banter between the three leads (I thought for sure that the Predator reference was an improvisation). After finishing the movie, I contemplated whether it would have made for a good silent film (the concept of a modern-day silent film intrigues me) - and I think it would, so long as you could leave the sound of gunshots and maybe the babbling water of the creek. Ultimately, while I enjoyed the film and found it satisfying, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone but the most strident fans of West or slow burning horror (i.e. people who think The House of the Devil is for speed junkies). Perhaps being immersed in the hustle and bustle of teh internets primed me for spending some down time following some doomed hunters as they trekked through an eerie environment. I guess it's not a film I see myself popping in all the time... It's a wonderful experiment, and I enjoyed it on that level, but it certainly has its flaws. In any case, I guess this means I should check out The Roost (which, I have to say, seems like it would be very different from the other two West movies I've seen). Posted by Mark on August 11, 2010 at 09:34 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Groundhog Day and A/B Testing Jeff Atwood recently made a fascinating observation about the similarities between the classic film Groundhog Day and A/B Testing. In case you've only recently emerged from a hermit-like existence, Groundhog Day is a film about Phil (played by Bill Murray). It seems that Phil has been doomed (or is it blessed) to live the same day over and over again. It doesn't seem to matter what he does during this day, he always wakes up at 6 am on Groundhog Day. In the film, we see the same day repeated over and over again, but only in bits and pieces (usually skipping repetitive parts). The director of the film, Harold Ramis, believes that by the end of the film, Phil has spent the equivalent of about 30 or 40 years reliving that same day. Towards the beginning of the film, Phil does a lot of experimentation, and Atwood's observation is that this often takes the form of an A/B test. This is a concept that is perhaps a little more esoteric, but the principles are easy. Let's take a simple example from the world of retail. You want to sell a new ring on a website. What should the main image look like? For simplification purposes, let's say you narrow it down to two different concepts: one, a closeup of the ring all by itself, and the other a shot of a model wearing the ring. Which image do you use? We could speculate on the subject for hours and even rationalize some pretty convincing arguments one way or the other, but it's ultimately not up to us - in retail, it's all about the customer. You could "test" the concept in a serial fashion, but ultimately the two sets of results would not be comparable. The ring is new, so whichever image is used first would get an unfair advantage, and so on. The solution is to show both images during the same timeframe. You do this by splitting your visitors into two segments (A and B), showing each segment a different version of the image, and then tracking the results. If the two images do, in fact, cause different outcomes, and if you get enough people to look at the images, it should come out in the data. This is what Phil does in Groundhog Day. For instance, Phil falls in love with Rita (played by Andie MacDowell) and spends what seems like months compiling lists of what she likes and doesn't like, so that he can construct the perfect relationship with her. Phil doesn't just go on one date with Rita, he goes on thousands of dates. During each date, he makes note of what she likes and responds to, and drops everything she doesn't. At the end he arrives at -- quite literally -- the perfect date. Everything that happens is the most ideal, most desirable version of all possible outcomes on that date on that particular day. Such are the luxuries afforded to a man repeating the same day forever.As Atwood notes, the interesting thing about this process is that even once Phil has constructed that perfect date, Rita still rejects Phil. From this example and presumably from experience with A/B testing, Atwood concludes that A/B testing is empty and that subjects can often sense a lack of sincerity behind the A/B test. It's an interesting point, but to be sure, I'm not sure it's entirely applicable in all situations. Of course, Atwood admits that A/B testing is good at smoothing out details, but there's something more at work in Groundhog's Day that Atwood is not mentioning. Namely, that Phil is using A/B testing to misrepresent himself as the ideal mate for Rita. Yes, he's done the experimentation to figure out what "works" and what doesn't, but his initial testing was ultimately shallow. Rita didn't reject him because he had all the right answers, she rejected him because he was attempting to deceive her. His was misrepresenting himself, and that certainly can lead to a feeling of emptiness. If you look back at my example above about the ring being sold on a retail website, you'll note that there's no deception going on there. Somehow I doubt either image would result in a hollow feeling by the customer. Why is this different than Groundhog Day? Because neither image misrepresents the product, and one would assume that the website is pretty clear about the fact that you can buy things there. Of course, there are a million different variables you could test (especially once you get into text and marketing hooks, etc...) and some of those could be more deceptive than others, but most of the time, deception is not the goal. There is a simple choice to be made, instead of constantly wondering about your product image and second guessing yourself, why not A/B test it and see what customers like better? There are tons of limitations to this approach, but I don't think it's as inherently flawed as Atwood seems to believe. Still, the data you get out of an A/B test isn't always conclusive and even if it is, whatever learnings you get out of it aren't necessarily applicable in all situations. For instance, what works for our new ring can't necessarily be applied to all new rings (this is a problem for me, as my employer has a high turnover rate for products - as such, the simple example of the ring as described above would not be a good test for my company unless the ring would be available for a very long time). Furthermore, while you can sometimes pick a winner, it's not always clear why it's a winner. This is especially the case when the differences between A and B are significant (for instance, testing an entirely redesigned page might yield results, but you will not know which of the changes to the page actually caused said results - on the other hand, A/B testing is really the only way to accurately calculate ROI on significant changes like that.) Obviously these limitations should be taken into account when conducting an A/B test, and I think what Phil runs into in Groundhog's Day is a lack of conclusive data. One of the problems with interpreting inconclusive data is that it can be very tempting to rationalize the data. Phils initial attempts to craft the perfect date for Rita fail because he's really only scraping the surface of her needs and desires. In other words, he's testing the wrong thing, misunderstanding the data, and thus getting inconclusive results. The interesting thing about the Groundhog's Day example is that, in the end, the movie is not a condemnation of A/B testing at all. Phil ultimately does manage to win the affections of Rita. Of course it took him decades to do so, and that's worth taking into account. Perhaps what the film is really saying is that A/B testing is often more complicated than it seems and that the only results you get depend on what you put into it. A/B testing is not the easy answer it's often portrayed as and it should not be the only tool in your toolbox (i.e. forcing employees to prove that using 3, 4 or 5 pixels for a border is ideal is probably going a bit too far ), but neither is it as empty as Atwood seems to be indicating. (And we didn't even talk about multivariate tests! Let's get Christopher Nolan on that. He'd be great at that sort of movie, wouldn't he?) Posted by Mark on August 01, 2010 at 09:57 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The House of the Devil This month's selection for the Final Girl film club is Ti West's 80s throwback horror film, The House of the Devil. When I was growing up, there was a local legend about a building known as Satan's House (also known as the Cult house, the Devil's house, and probably a dozen other variants). Located in Southeastern PA, not that far from Delaware, the house sits at the top of a hill, and the road that winds around the hill is probably the creepiest part of the whole experience. The windy road is narrow and lined with trees. This alone would not be cause for alarm, but it seems that all of the trees... instead of growing up towards the sky, they grow horizontally, pointing away from the road (as if trying to escape the unspeakable horror of Satan's house). This isn't the best picture of the road, but it gets the point across: 
The funny thing about this is that it's probably just a house, and the trees lining the road probably grow like that because of the way the sunlight hits the area, but the conspiracy theories of Satanism persist even to this day. This sort of irrational fear of Satanism was rampant during the 80s, and director Ti West has latched onto that idea and created a remarkably authentic 80s-style horror movie featuring shifty families, satanic rituals and a creepy house. The film even starts with a cheesy text opening informing the audience that in the 1980s, over 70% of Americans believed in abusive Satanic cults and that another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover-ups... Plus, it's based on a true story! Not sure if it actually is or if West is pulling a Fargo, but it doesn't really matter, does it? The basic premise of the story is that a college student in need of some quick cash agrees to take a babysitting job at said creepy house. And that's pretty much it. However, writer/director West manages to wring a lot of tension out of this simple and seemingly overused premise. I first saw this movie earlier this year, when I was still attempting to fill out my Top 10 of 2009. At the time, I was comparing it to another haunted house movie, Paranormal Activity. There are some superficial similarities here: both movies feature quasi-haunted houses, they both have something of a gimmick at their core (one a "found footage" film, the other imitating 80s conventions), and they're both pretty scary. However, The House of the Devil is made with more artistry and in a more unconventional manner. It's a masterpiece of misdirection and tension building. Unlike the repeated tense and release of Paranormal Activity, The House of the Devil opts to continually build tension while withholding release until the end. This is an interesting approach and the foreboding atmosphere of dread is hard to shake. Of course, from the title of the film alone, you know where it's heading, and aside from one moment early on in the film, it mostly proceeds along an expected path. The other film this reminds me of is Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Both films are an ode to underappreciated grindhouse genre films, albeit films of a different era and genre. Tarantino is going for the great car films of 70s with a little horror mixed in for good measure. West is going for those 80s horror movies where irrational fear of satanism was rampant. I think both films are hugely successful at evoking the feeling of their respective genres, but I think the one major problem with this approach is that these new films suffer from the same major flaws as the films they're imitating. In particular, the pacing is very slow and the characters tend to act pretty stupidly... For film nerds like myself, this isn't really much of a drawback, but it does tend to limit the appeal to more mainstream audiences. It's strange though, because these flaws are so obviously and lovingly reproduced in exquisite detail and with a lot of artistry. Indeed, getting that cheap, grainy filmstock look probably cost way more than doing it "properly" would. That being said, once things begin to happen, the pace picks up and it's very engrossing stuff. I'm still not sure if it would crack my top 10 of 2009, but I will say that I'll be very interested in what Ti West decides to do next (apparently another haunted house style story). As usual, more screenshots and comments in the extended entry... Update 7.26.10: Stacie has just posted her review and links to all the other Film Club Coolies (y'all!). I'm also informed via cryptic second-hand email that Ti West has seen my review and that he said the creepy trees in the photo above are just 10 minutes away from where he grew up, which is pretty awesome. I suppose I should mention that the below screenshots do contain some Spoilers, so proceed at your own risk. 
And that about wraps it up. Posted by Mark on July 25, 2010 at 06:46 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Inception's Sense of Wonder One of the things that really differentiates science fiction from other genres is the emotional thrill derived from expanding your awareness of what's possible. This doesn't always constitute a complete understanding of the universe around you, just a dawning realization that there's more to the story than you've thought (sometimes this can take the form of contemplating the incomprehensible or even just realizing what you don't know). This feeling is referred to as a "Sense of Wonder" (often abbreviated as sensawunda) and while a large portion of science fiction literature manages to evoke such emotions, SF cinema rarely even approaches the same accomplishments. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part, SF movies settle for gigantic spaceships and thunderous explosions and whatnot. The opening shots of the original Star Wars provides us with a typical cinematic example. The camera pans across a sea of stars. You see a spaceship move across the screen. This imparts a frame of reference for the universe of the movie. Then a much larger spaceship (indeed, it doesn't seem like it will end) move across the screen in pursuit of the original. The frame of reference established by the original spaceship is thus immediately revised in light of this new data. Part of this revision is, no doubt, the expectation that the Star Destroyer will probably be dwarfed by something else (and later in the film it is, by the Death Star). This short sequence actually encapsulates a ton of information: the rebels are small and poorly equipped, the empire is large and powerful. The way the ships are framed on screen also underlines the empire's power over the rebels. And so on. The realization of the scale and size of the empire is a very small example of sensawunda. And most films don't even contain that much (indeed, the really mind expanding things about Star Wars aren't really SF so much as they are mystical, but that's probably another discussion). There are analogs to this concept in other genres, most notably the horror genre, but the emotions are distinct (the emotion evoked in horror as you realize the scope of the conflict is fear, tension or suspense, rather than the awe or wonder of SF). Christopher Nolan's new film, Inception, is one of the few films in recent years to actually even attempt to impart a sensawunda, and for that alone, it should be applauded. The interesting thing about Inception is that it manages to impart that sensawunda feeling without relying too heavily on precise explanations of the technology involved. Indeed, I don't think the movie would fare too well if judged solely on the basis of realism. However, despite this lack of precise technological detail, the film does manage to evoke the sensawunda feeling by devising a set of rules and limitations, then playing around within that box to consistently expand possibilities and sometimes even surprise the viewer. The key catalyst for sensawunda here is that all of the various twists and turns in the story are all internally consistent and logical extensions of what has already been established. I don't want to go into too much detail right now simply because I don't want to spoil the movie, but things do get pretty complicated and Nolan does manage to ratchet up the stakes considerably more than I had initially expected. There are some concepts or details that I must admit that I'm not entirely clear on, but even in those situations I have a gut feeling that everything does fit. The critical reception seems to be very positive, though there have been a few high profile dissenters, notably David Edelstein and Jim Emerson. Edelstein writes: Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile. It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix—or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia. The attackers in Inception are anonymous, the tone flat and impersonal. Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.(emphasis mine) I found that last line the most representative of complaints with the movie. Emerson's main complaint, that the dreams in the movie don't seem to be very dreamlike, is instructive, because from what appears on screen, Nolan is clearly not even attempting to make an "untethered dream movie". I think it's funny that Edelstein also throws out a number of other movies, none of which I like better than Inception. I do really enjoy Minority Report, but I don't think it captures that mind expanding sensawunda feeling anywhere near as well as Inception does. If you have a lot of problems with Inception, I really have a hard time believing that you'd think that Dreamscape was a better movie. There is some similarity in basic premise, but I think "Jungian-carnival bravado" is far too much praise for that film (which is an enjoyable enough movie, but also kinda silly and overblown in the way a lot of 80s movies were). The Matrix is the only film on the list that I think gives Inception a run for its money. Both films are derivative in the extreme, though I got a fresher feeling from Inception than The Matrix. On the other hand, The Matrix clearly outclasses Inception when it comes to action. In any case, I don't think any of those films should preclude anyone from seeing Inception. Emerson also seems to hate Nolan's visual style, but to my mind, Nolan is much more distinctive as a writer than he is as a director. It's not the visual style of movies like Inception or Nolan's true masterpiece, Memento, that strikes audiences - it's the way Nolan plays with narrative and time that really differentiates him. This is more a function of the writing and editing than anything else, and even Edelstein admits that Nolan "thinks like a mechanical engineer" when it comes to his scripting (and this is a good thing). The editing in Inception is certainly worth praising here. Though perhaps not as extensive or bombastic as the eding in Memento, there's a real challenge here and editor Lee Smith deserves a lot of credit for whatever degree of suspense you feel as the film reaches its climax. Nolan also seems to do a great job combining various genres and then putting a new twist on them. For instance, Inception contains elements of action films, heist and con movies, and of course, science fiction. Elements from each genre are mixed and matched in a way that hasn't really been done before (at least, not with respect to the layered "ticktock logistics" of the plot). This isn't a straightforward version of any of those genres, nor is it a simple combination. The performances are all pretty good, though I think the real standout is Tom Hardy (of Bronson fame), who just devours the screen. Longtime Kaedrin friend Sovawanea pointed out one of the refreshing aspects of the film: "I found it rather refreshing that they didn't try to contrive a romance in the middle of the mission between Ellen Page and the rest of the guys." There's another element of the characters that I found really refreshing, but I don't want to say it because it might spoil the movie. This has been a slow year for movies, but between Inception and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, things are at least looking up a bit, and both will most likely find their way onto my top 10 list at the end of the year. Posted by Mark on July 21, 2010 at 09:11 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tasting Notes... So Nick from CHUD recently revived the idea of a "Tasting Notes..." post that features a bunch of disconnected, scattershot notes on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. It sounds like fun, so here are a few tasting notes... Television
Posted by Mark on July 14, 2010 at 07:38 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Who Also Played With Fire) Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist who wrote novels in his spare time. Shortly before his death in 2004, he began talks with a publisher, and his completed novels were published posthumously. These novels have met with tremendous success, selling more than 27 million copies in over 40 countries. In 2009, three Swedish films based on Larsson's novels were released in Scandinavia. Though American remakes are planned, the original Swedish films are all being released this year... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released earlier this year and has just recently come out on DVD (it's also available on Netflix's Watch Instantly service). The Girl Who Played with Fire just came out in theaters this week, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is due to be released in October. Together, the three novels/films are known as the Millennium Trilogy, named after a fictional magazine in the stories. I saw the two currently available films this weekend and was quite impressed. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was originally titled Män som hatar kvinnor, which translates to "Men who hate women", a much more accurate description of the themes of the story. The film opens with a disconnected set of sequences introducing the three main characters. This is probably something that works better in text than it does on screen, though the plot quickly connects the dots and it's not long before you know all the players and what's at stake. Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael Nyqvist) is a talented muck-raking journalist (writing for Millennium) who has just lost a libel case in which his sources were found to be fraudulent. He's sentenced to 3 months in jail, but he has 6 months to get his affairs in order. The elderly Henrik Vanger has been getting strange packages in the mail every year, and he believes they're related to a 40 year old missing person case (where his niece disappeared). Finally, there's Lisbeth Salander, an ex-con who works as a security researcher and who has just found out that her current parole officer has had a stroke. His replacement is a sadist pig who uses his position to coerce Lisbeth into providing sexual favors. Vagner hires Blomkvist as a freelance investigator, and Salander eventually joins him in his research. The way these apparently disconnected threads are pulled together is well done and the film contains a perfect balance between plot and character. Most thrillers lean too far in one direction, but Larsson and those who have adapted his work do an exceptional job here. I suspect lesser writers, when confronted with an engaging character like Lisbeth Salander, would be tempted to make the entire film a character study about her. On the other hand, there's also the temptation to put all the emphasis on the mystery of the girl who disappeared 40 years ago. Again, this film strikes the balance well. We get some excellent character establishment when we find out how Lisbeth handles her new parole officer - a sequence that is not necessary for the thriller plot, but which establishes the character of Lisbeth Salander quite well (there's a thematic parallel between Lisbeth's situation and the mystery though). Speaking of Lisbeth, her character is probably the most interesting thing about this movie. She's played with an icy intensity by Noomi Rapace in a performance that should probably be up for an Oscar (though I'm doubting it will be). There is something of a paucity of strong female characters in typical Hollywood cinema these days, so this sort of character is a welcome change of pace. Lisbeth is a tortured soul (let's just say that her parole officer wasn't the first man who hated women that she has run accross), but she's battled through it all, though she understandably has some issues with men. For instance, her relationship with the journalist Mikael Blomkvist is an intriguing one and it manages to walk a rather tricky line. Blomkvist is an old school investigator, while Lisbeth relies on modern technology to do her research. This sort of oil-and-water mixture often plays out through bickering clichés, but not in this film. Once the two characters meet, it doesn't take long for their seemingly disparate styles to merge into a comfortable balance. There is a chemistry between the two and while their relationship grows into the sexual realm, it never feels forced or cloying (another commendable avoidance of clichés). Clocking in at about two and a half hours, the film covers enough ground and paces itself well enough that it doesn't really feel that long. Though we all know there are at least two sequels, the film ends with closure (as opposed to some sort of cliffhanger). In the end, we're left with an exceptional thriller that balances character development and plot in a well-paced fashion. This has been a disappointing year for movies, so to say this film stands out from the pack doesn't really speak to how good it really is. I can almost guarantee it will be at or near the top of my top 10 at the end of the year. For a sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire is quite good, though I don't think it approaches the first. I think the biggest issue I had was that it fell into the trap mentioned earlier about focusing too much on Lisbeth. Many of the other characters from the first film make an appearance here, and a passable mystery is solved, though it appears that all of them are working from different angles. For instance, Lisbeth and Blomkvist rarely interact throughout the film, which mutes one of the more interesting facets of the original film. The film ultimately manages to pull it off, but again, it's perhaps not quite as expertly crafted as its predecessor. Part of the issue, perhaps, is that I have not yet seen the third installment. While the second film ends with a bit of closure, there are still some loose threads which are apparently tied up in the third film. James Berardinelli draws an interesting comparison: In a strange way, the structure of The Millennium Trilogy reminds me of the first Star Wars trio. The first movie establishes the characters while providing a largely self-contained story with a few "hooks" that can be used to further the narrative in additional installments. The second and third movies are inextricably wedded and function best when seen as parts of a whole. Installment #2 is darker than its predecessor and ends in a cliffhanger. Admittedly, it might sound like a stretch to compare a Gen-X touchstone space opera to a Swedish mystery thriller series, but I'm referring only to the rhythms of the stories, not the content.Berardinelli also seems to be a little more forgiving of the lack of interaction in this second film and sees it as an equal to the first (if not better). Perhaps I'll feel that way after seeing the third film, but as of right now, I think the first is noticeably better than the second. In any case, I'm very much looking forward to the forthcoming The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Apparently Larsson was mostly done with a fourth novel and had outlines and story treatments for several others, so there may be even further installments (though with the untimely death of Larsson, one wonders whether proceeding further would be wise). Posted by Mark on July 11, 2010 at 07:40 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Animovie Double Feature A couple more quick reviews of Anime movies I've seen lately.
Posted by Mark on June 13, 2010 at 06:40 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Sequel Charts This set of charts plotting the ratings of various film franchises is rather interesting. Some of them are just about exactly what you'd expect. For instance, the original Star Wars trilogy is very highly rated, and then if falls off precipitously when the prequels start. From there the series begins to climb again and surprisingly begins to reach the heights of the original trilogy. 
There are a number of series that have even more pronounced and steady declines (Jaws, Planet of the Apes). Other series have a more chaotic progression. The even number rule for the Star Trek series is reasonably pronounced, except for part 10 (the reboot is not included, though I imagine it would be higher than the last two). The Indiana Jones series has a similar progression, except it's the odd number movies that are the best. I'm a little surprised at how low Die Hard 2 is in the series (it's at least as good as the other sequels). It's also a bit strange to see the latest Rocky and Rambo installments being so high. Perhaps that's because the source appears to be IMDB, and ratings there tend to favor newer movies for a while (after time, these movies tend to level out to more reasonable ratings). Interestingly, the Lord of the Rings trilogy features the most consistent ratings. There are a lot of series that have solid first and second installments, but the third movie is almost always a big decline. Of course, the listed series are not comprehensive, so I took a few stabs at the missing series. Here, for instance, is the Friday the 13th series: 
I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that parts IV and VI, which seem to be the fan favorites, are as low as they are. Of course, they're pretty high compared to most of the films around them, but still. I expected them to be a bit higher. Also, part 2 and the recent reboot seem extremely overrated. The reboot will most likely come down as time goes on (again, I think newer movies benefit from IMDB's system), but the love for part 2 confuses me. I suppose part 2 does have probably the best final girl in the series (and maybe of all time), but the story is crap and the ending is nigh incomprehensible. And Jason isn't even close to becoming an iconic character in that movie. More series in the extended entry, including the likes of Halloween, Evil Dead, Dirty Harry, Bourne and more! And so we might as well continue the 80s slasher series, here's Halloween: 
Mostly unsurprising. The one major outlier is part 3, which makes sense because that was the one that didn't feature Michael Myers. 
This series is surprisingly stable. However, I think that the second one is a bit underrated, while the fourth through sixth might be a bit inflated. Also notable is the seventh installment, which rockets back up near the original. I'm not a big fan of New Nightmare, but it's definitely more interesting than most of the films in the series and the return of Wes Craven translates pretty well to higher ratings... 
Another extremely stable series, though the second installment is clearly the best. 
A pretty clear and definite decline in the series. Notable in that it's one series that hasn't really had a reboot (not that I want one - totally unnecessary). 
Interestingly, this is the only series in this post to feature a third installment that has better ratings than it's predecessors. I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised by that. I really like Bourne Ultimatum but I wouldn't put it as that much better than the previous two installments. Well, that's all for now. In other news, Flyers lost the Stanley Cup tonight. I'm glad they put up a good fight, but what a terrible goal to lose on... In any case, congrats to Blackhawks fans. Posted by Mark on June 09, 2010 at 09:01 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
The Murnau Stare One of the films I forgot to include in my Greatest Movies I've Never Seen list was Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. It's a 1927 silent film and it features a number of iconic shots - most notably a scene where a woman and man pass through a bustling street (see this clip, about 3:36 in). One of the things I always find interesting about the silent film era is how much of modern cinema is represented, even back then. While technology and budgets have certainly improved, much of the visual language of cinema was coined during the silent era. In particular, Sunrise has a number of impressive tracking shots and the composite special effects are much more effective than expected. The shot that struck me the most, though, was this one: 
In the film, a city girl vacations in the country and tempts a farm man into an affair. She suggests he drown his wife so that he could be free to run away to the city. It's a rather simple premise, but the man is conflicted, and when he takes his wife out for a boat ride, he stops and favors her with the above stare. Does it look familiar? Maybe it's just me, but it bears a striking resemblance to what's called the Kubrick Stare. Head tilted downward, eyes tilted upward. It was a favorite shot of Kubrick, and he often employed it in his movies, perhaps most famously in the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange:  A Clockwork Orange It turns out that the phrase "Kubrick Stare" was coined by cinematographer Doug Milsome, a frequent collaborator with Kubrick. It seems that Kubrick liked to use the look himself when he was feeling angry or mischievous, and it's rumored that his stare was more intense than anything in his films. This shot from a Playboy interview in 1969 captures it reasonably well:  Stanley Kubrick Again, Kubrick is famous for using this shot, and you can see it in most of his films, often multiple times (see the extended entry for more shots from The Shining and Full Metal Jacket) and being a big Kubrick fan, I was kinda surprised to see it, full formed, in Sunrise. Of course, neither Murnau or Kubrick have trademarked that stare. In fact, it's a rather common human expression (indeed, my nieces frequently make that face whenever their crazy uncle Marky does something silly). Filmmakers of the stature of Kubrick or Murnau just managed to capture well enough that it stands out. Kubrick's consistent use of that image made it iconic enough that he sorta made it his own. Now, whenever someone uses a shot like that, it's considered an homage to Kubrick... but watching Sunrise is interesting in that light (seeing as though that film was made a solid 30 years before Kubrick even started making movies). More screenshots below the fold... Jack Nicholson flashes the expression numerous times throughout The Shining:   The Shining Vincent D'Onofrio seems to be using the Kubrick Stare by way of the Thousand Yard Stare (or vice versa?) in Full Metal Jacket:   Full Metal Jacket There are lots of other examples I could use, but I'll leave it at that for now... Posted by Mark on May 23, 2010 at 08:06 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Top 5 Most Anticipated Summer Movies Playing along with Filmspotting's latest podcast, here's a list of my top 5 most anticipated summer movies. Like the Filmspotting hosts, I'm going to avoid the big name blockbusters and try to find some smaller films that I'm interested in... Movies like Inception, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Last Airbender are all well and good, but we've all heard about them... What are the surprise hits, the genre pics, and the just plain weird movies we can look forward to? Part of the reason I wanted to write this post is that I stumbled upon news of IFC Films' VOD program and their plans to brand a genre label, IFC Midnight. It turns out that their lineup for the summer is pretty interesting, and unlike a lot of small, independent films, you can view these in the comfort of your own home (assuming you have access to their VOD service through Comcast and the like) right around the time they come out in theaters (theaters which usually aren't near you, etc...). Not all the films below are going to be available this way, but some is better than none! Anyway, without further ado (and in no particular order):
Posted by Mark on May 16, 2010 at 08:03 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Greatest Movies I've Never Seen, Part 2 One of the questions from the movie quiz I posted about on Sunday had to do with naming a "Movie you feel a certain pressure or obligation to see that you have not yet actually seen". I mentioned there a list of movies I compiled a while ago, The Greatest Movies I've Never Seen. There were 25 movies on that list, and at this point, I've seen 20 of them, so I figured it was time to revisit the list and fill it up with some other classics that I've never seen. So here goes:
Posted by Mark on April 21, 2010 at 08:40 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Professor Fate's Spring-Loaded Great-Racing Spring Break Movie Quiz Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted yet another movie quiz. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... Now, onwards to Professor Fate's questions: 1) William Demarest or Broderick Crawford? Not being overly familiar with either filmography (kinda sad when you see 100+ titles in each), I'll have to go with William Demarest because he has more titles and also because of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (even if it was a smaller role, if I remember correctly). 2) What movies improve when seen in a state of altered consciousness? (Patrick Robbins) I guess you could go with a lot of different things here, but the one that came immediately to mind was 2001: A Space Odyssey (particularly the ending). Other things that came to mind were Altered States and Solyaris. But as someone who rarely alters their consciousness (beyond beer), what do I know? 3) Favorite studio or production company logo? This was a hard one, because who really cares about logos? I looked around at a few logos and came up with Dark Castle Entertainment, which has a logo that is much better than most of the movies that they produce: 
There are tons of variations on the image, and they're all pretty good. After looking at some of the other answers, I have to admit that something like the old Looney Toons logo would probably be more iconic. I also love the Criterion/Janus logos, but do they count as a studio/production company? Focus Features, Icon, and Legendary Pictures also have some well designed logos, but I'll stick with Dark Castle. 4) Celeste Holm or Joan Blondell? As usual, I'm not especially well versed in either actress's filmography, but I'll go with Celeste Holm because of All About Eve. 5) What is the most overrated "classic" film? (Tony Dayoub) It's hard to answer this without just falling back on a "classic" that I don't especially like (even though everyone else does). It's also tough because a lot of movies are considered "classic" because of their context rather than their content. All that being said, one classic I've never really got on board with is Easy Rider. Goddamn hippies. In all seriousness, I just don't get the reputation this movie has. I mean, I understand that it was made during the 60s and was this counter-culture phenomenon, but it's just not that well made and it never really resonated with me. I just found it to be an incoherent mess with no real point. This is probably a decent example of a film not working outside it's context. 6) What movie do you know for sure you saw, but have no memory of seeing? (Patricia Yokoe Cozzalio) I don't really have an answer for this (I mean, how do I know I saw it if I have no memory of seeing it?), but there are probably a bunch of films where I only remember bits and pieces. For instance, I've seen Schindler's List multiple times, but I only remember a few scenes from that movie. I distinctly remember watching it though, both at home and once at school. I haven't seen it in about 15 years, so I remember very little... and it's probably worthy of revisiting. 7) Favorite Hammer Film? I watched a few Hammer Horror movies as part of last year's 6 Weeks of Halloween and came away unimpressed. I suppose my favorite would be Horror of Dracula, but again, it's not exactly a great movie. I think the big issue I have with the Hammer Horror films is that they call to mind the Universal Horror films, which tend to be better (for instance, The Curse of Frankenstein is ok on its own, but it pales in comparison to Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein). 8) Gregory Itzin or Joe Pantoliano? Joey Pants, hands down. Dude's in everything, and he's always good. 9) Create a double feature with two different movies with the same title. No remakes. (Peter Nellhaus) This one's hard. The first one I came up with would work, except that I don't especially like either movie all that much: Crash (1996 - Car crashes are sexy) and Crash (2005 - You're a racist). So searching out alternatives, I found The Unforgiven (1960) and Unforgiven (1992), but I haven't seen both of them and there are slight differences in the title. Then there's Jack Frost (1998 - Heartwarming Holiday picture) and Jack Frost (1997 - Serial Killer Snowman), but once again, we've got two bad movies (even though I kinda enjoy both for what they are). So here's what I'll end with: Black Sunday (1960 - Mario Bava's creepifying tale of a witch's return from the grave) and Black Sunday (1977 - John Frankenheimer's thriller about a terrorist attack at the Super Bowl). I haven't actually seen the Frankenheimer movie, but it seems interesting. And one more answer to this question: The Enforcer (1951 - Bogart, need I say more?) and The Enforcer (1976 - Dirty Harry sequel). 10) Akiko Wakabayashi or Mie Hama? (Ray Young) Yeah, so I don't remember who did what in You Only Live Twice, but I'll go with Mie Hama because her name in that movie was "Kissy Suzuki". I mean, it's no "Pussy Galore" but it's kinda a double entendre, right? 11) Can you think of a (non-porn) movie that informed you of the existence of a sexual act you had not known of prior? (Bob Westal) Honestly no, but for some reason, I distinctly remembered to look up this blog entry from Kevin Smith where he explains: We can learn a lot from those "Omen" flicks. The first time the concept of ass-fucking was introduced to me was via "The Final Conflict" - the under-appreciated third entry in the original "Omen" saga, starring Sam Neill as the now-adult Damien. He hooked up with this reporter lady, and at one point, they're getting down. Suddenly, he flips the chick over and buries it, all evil-like, in her dumper. As an eleven year old without the benefit of an internet connection (or an internet, period), I was confused, to say the least.So I wish I could regale you with such a story, but I can't think of anything. 12) Can you think of a black & white movie that might actually improve if it was in color? (Patrick Robbins) It's a tough call, but I'll go with Sanjuro. It's one of my favorite Kurosawa movies, and it has this great sequence where Sanjuro suggests the use of red flowers dropped into a stream as a signal to attack. Kurosawa had wanted to figure out a way to make the flowers red, but couldn't get it to work (he later managed to get something similar working with the pink smoke in High and Low). There's no question in my mind that the movie would be better if the flowers were red... but if Kurosawa was able to film the whole thing in color? I'm not sure about that. It would be interesting though. 13) Favorite Pedro Almodovar Film? I haven't actually seen an Almodovar movie. I know, I know, something I need to rectify. Filmspotting did a marathon a while back, so I figure that's a good place to start. 14) Kurt Raab or Udo Kier? I'll go with Udo Kier, seeing as though I've seen a lot of movies that he's in and I always like him. 15) Worst main title song (Peter Nellhaus) Over the past two years, I've watched a number of terrible 80s slasher movies, most of which have terrible main title songs. The problem is that they're so bad that I must have repressed the memory of them. In looking at the answers on SLIFR, I see that Patrick gave an exceptional answer to this one though, and I have to agree: No contest - that atrocity "I'm Your Weatherman" during the opening credits of Groundhog Day. The movie's sole flaw.16) Last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD, Blu-ray or other interesting location/format? In the theater, I saw Kick-Ass, which I enjoyed muchly. I'm not sure how well it will age for me though. If the novelty of an 11 year old girl swearing like a sailor and eviscerating her enemies doesn't run out, and if the aggresively juvenile over-the-top violence holds up, I think it might be a top 10 candidate. On Blu-Ray, I saw Extract. It was decent, but nothing special. On DVD, I saw A Colt Is My Passport, part of the Criterion/Eclipse collection of Nikkatsu Noir. A solid, entertaining Japanese gangster picture, though I'm not sure "noir" really qualifies. 17) Favorite movie reference within a Woddy Allen movie? (Larry Aydlette) I don't know, how about the homage to silent era slapstick comedians in Sleeper. 18) Mary Astor or Claudette Colbert? I guess I'll go with Mary Astor, because I've actually seen The Maltese Falcon. 19) Favorite trailer (provide YouTube link if possible)? A tough one, but I'll go with this unused trailer from The Exorcist. I imagine it went unused because it's just so damn freaky. That or the studio was afraid of inducing epilepsy in the audience (there's a strobe-like effect going on here, so be warned): 20) Oddest double bill you either saw or saw listed in a theater Well, I didn't see it, but according to this article, Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro "were produced and screened as a package" in Japan. Talk about your cinematic whiplash. Fireflies is one of the most relentlessly depressing and infuriating movies ever (and I suppose I mean that in a good way, though I never want to watch it again), while Totoro is pure joy and just about the complete opposite of Fireflies. I can't imagine watching them back to back, but I sure hope Totoro followed Fireflies. 21) Favoite Phil Karlson film? I got nothing. 22) Favorite "social problem" picture? I tend to dislike this kind of movie, mostly because I feel like I'm being lectured at, which isn't very convincing or, more importantly, entertaining. That being said, someone in the comments mentioned Lone Star, which I've always found to be effective (if pretentious). 23) Your favourite Harryhausen film/monster? (Ali Arikan) Jason and the Argonauts. Sword fighting skeletons FTW. 24) What was the first movie you saw with your significant other? (Patrick Robbins) Why do you hate single people?! HMMM! I'm talking to you, Patrick Robbins! 25) John Payne or Ronald Reagan? Going to have to take (another) mulligan on this one. 26) Movie you feel a certain pressure or obligation to see that you have not yet actually seen A while ago, I put together a list of the greatest movies I've never seen. Since then, I've seen the grand majority of films on that list, so it's probably worth revisiting in a separate post. The one in my queue for immediate consumption is The Apartment. 27) Favorite “psychedelic” movie (Hey, man, like, define it however you want, man…) I suppose the answers here are more or less interchangeable with the answers to question #2. I tried to find something different though, and came up with a couple interesting ones: Pink Floyd The Wall (in particular, those damn marching hammers) and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. 28) Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden? Thelma Ritter. Not because I know either one well, but because I said so. 29) Favorite iconic shot or image from a film? The way-too-obvious choice is John Wayne in the doorway from The Searchers... but I'll go with something different: The final shot from Sunset Boulevard.  All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up. 30) What is the movie that inspired the most memorable argument you ever had about a movie? The only thing that comes to mind is Taxi Driver. It wasn't exactly a barn burner and it was probably more the result of two clashing personalities rather than differing opinions on the movie. But it's pretty easy to win an argument where your side says that Taxi Driver is a good movie. 31) Raquel Torres or Lupe Velez? Man, I'm doing even worse at these than usual. Pass! 32) Favorite adaptation of Shakespeare to a film? It's funny that I almost immediately thought of Kurosawa and movies like Ran or Throne of Blood rather than direct adaptations. A quick check of the comment thread at SLIFR confirms that I'm not alone on this either. 33) Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (in 3D)-- yes or no? Flesh for Frankenstein has been on my list to watch for a while. If I remember correctly, it was on Netflix watch online last year and I planned on watching it for the 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon, but Netflix lost the rights or something and it wasn't available, so I never got to it. So that's a tentative "yes". 34) Favorite movie rating? I guess I'd say R, but I do want to reference my favorite movie ratings poster, and my favorite there is the NC-17 section:  Click for full poster Ok, so I guess the couple that's all dressed up gets a certain point across. But the rabbit with the sunglasses? What's that supposed to mean? It's an embarrassed rabbit? And then there's the smiling loner who needs to keep his hands in his pockets. Brilliant. 35) Olivia Barash or Joyce Hyser? Who are these people!? Seriously! Is this some sort of elaborate practical joke? 36) What was the movie that convinced you your favorite movie genre was your favorite movie genre? Well, that would imply I have a favorite genre, though I guess Horror would count. And my lifelong fascination with horror movies can be traced back to two films: John Carpenter's Halloween and Don Coscarelli's Phantasm. 37) Favorite Blake Edwards movie? Well, finally, I have an answer for one of these: The Pink Panther (and some of the sequels as well) Phew! That about wraps up this edition. I know I complain about some of these questions and all, but I really do enjoy these things. I'm already anticipating the next one! Posted by Mark on April 18, 2010 at 04:42 PM .:
Comments (6) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Red Letter Media Review of Episode II Hot off the presses, Red Letter Media's review of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. If you haven't seen the absolutely brilliant review of Episode I, watch that first because it is better than this one (though I haven't finished it just yet, so far, it's not quite as good). This isn't to say that this one is bad, just that, uh, it's not as good. I think perhaps one of the things that makes this less funny is that many of the complaints from Episode I are carried over to Episode II. Many of the behind the scenes clips are the same, for instance. Also, in the Episode I review, there were all these strange allusions to the reviewer's ex-wives and how they died "mysteriously" in "unrelated accidents". Some people found them off-putting, but I thought they were fine in the Episode I review. In this review, there's way too much of the serial-killer stuff and it goes on for way too long at times. Still, it's pretty funny stuff and pretty incisive too. I look forward to finishing off this review tonight and also the inevitable Episode III review. I wonder what he'll go into after that? Posted by Mark on April 04, 2010 at 07:44 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Shining In Sunday's post on Remix Culture and Soviet Montage Theory I mentioned in passing that the BSG Sabotage video wasn't an especially great example of "Remix Culture" and that this video would be a much better example: Like the BSG Sabotage video, all of the audio and visual components of the video come from pre-existing works of art. The "creativity" here is in the way the video is edited together. Unlike the BSG Sabotage video, which is entirely reliant on its source material for its entertainment, the Shining video is much more creative in its appropriation. It's a funny video, but there's more to it than that. It's also insightful and even a little subversive. Don't believe me? Want me to ruin the video by pointing out the obvious in an attempt to explain it? Great! Let's take a look at a few different ways a viewer can decode the meaning of the Shining video.
Robert Ryang, 25, a film editor’s assistant in Manhattan, graduated from Columbia three years ago with a double major in film studies and psychology. ... A few weeks back, he said, he entered a contest for editors’ assistants sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors. The challenge? Take any movie and cut a new trailer for it — but in an entirely different genre. Only the sound and dialogue could be modified, not the visuals, he said.Ryang won the contest, and posted the video to a "secret" link that he sent only to 3 of his friends. But you can't stop the signal, and even in the days before the broad adoption of internet video sites like YouTube (which had launched only 6 months or so before this video caught on), the meme spread quickly. Indeed, the video has spawned many imitators, skewering the likes of Mary Poppins (as a horror movie) to Top Gun (as a love story between Maverick and Iceman) to countless Brokeback Mountain parodies. Most of these are cute or funny in their own way, but none seems to quite recapture the brilliance of Shining. But was that only because Shining was the first video of that kind that I'd seen? The big difference between Shining and its predecessors was technology. I can't imagine that the contest Ryang entered was the first of its kind, but Shining was the first one posted to the internet during a time when high bandwidth connections were becoming more and more common. Personally, I think the video is a valuable addition to pop culture, and it's the sort of thing that wouldn't really have been possible 10 years ago. It's also worth noting that Ryang is a professional editor who created the video in an attempt to hone his talents, so there's value there too. I think that's a good thing, even if it has spawned lots of uninspired imitations. Is it the only thing? Or the most important thing? Probably not, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable. I'd be curious to see what Sonny thinks of the video. Posted by Mark on March 17, 2010 at 08:33 PM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Remix Culture and Soviet Montage Theory A video mashup of The Beastie Boys' popular and amusing Sabotage video with scenes from Battlestar Galactica has been making the rounds recently. It's well done, but a little on the disposable side of remix culture. The video lead Sunny Bunch to question "remix culture": It’s quite good. But, ultimately, what’s the point?These are good questions, and I'm not surprised that the BSG Sabotage video prompted them. The implication of Sonny's post is that he thinks it is an unoriginal waste of talent (he may be playing a bit of devil's advocate here, but I'm willing to play along because these are interesting questions and because it will give me a chance to pedantically lecture about film history later in this post!) In the comments, Julian Sanchez makes a good point (based on a video he produced earlier that was referenced by someone else in the comment thread), which will be something I'll expand on later in this post: First, the argument I’m making in that video is precisely that exclusive focus on the originality of the contribution misses the value in the activity itself. The vast majority of individual and collective cultural creation practiced by ordinary people is minimally “original” and unlikely to yield any final product of wide appeal or enduring value. I’m thinking of, e.g., people singing karaoke, playing in a garage band, drawing, building models, making silly YouTube videos, improvising freestyle poetry, whatever. What I’m positing is that there’s an intrinsic value to having a culture where people don’t simply get together to consume professionally produced songs and movies, but also routinely participate in cultural creation. And the value of that kind of cultural practice doesn’t depend on the stuff they create being particularly awe-inspiring.To which Sonny responds: I’m actually entirely with you on the skill that it takes to produce a video like the Brooklyn hipsters did — I have no talent for lighting, camera movements, etc. I know how hard it is to edit together something like that, let alone shoot it in an aesthetically pleasing manner. That’s one of the reasons I find the final product so depressing, however: An impressive amount of skill and talent has gone into creating something that is not just unoriginal but, in a way, anti-original. These are people who are so devoid of originality that they define themselves not only by copying a video that they’ve seen before but by copying the very personalities of characters that they’ve seen before.Another good point, but I think Sonny is missing something here. The talents of the BSG Sabotage editor or the Brooklyn hipsters are certainly admirable, but while we can speculate, we don't necessarily know their motivations. About 10 years ago, a friend and amateur filmmaker showed me a video one of his friends had produced. It took scenes from Star Wars and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and recut them so it looked like the Millennium Falcon was fighting the Enterprise. It would show Han Solo shooting, then cut to the Enterprise being hit. Shatner would exclaim "Fire!" and then it would cut to a blast hitting the Millennium Falcon. And so on. Another video from the same guy took the musical number George Lucas had added to Return of the Jedi in the Special Edition, laid Wu-Tang Clan in as the soundtrack, then re-edited the video elements so everything matched up. These videos sound fun, but not particularly original or even special in this day and age. However, these videos were made ten to fifteen years ago. I was watching them on a VHS(!) and the person making the edits was using analog techniques and equipment. It turns out that these videos were how he honed his craft before he officially got a job as an editor in Hollywood. I'm sure there were tons of other videos, probably much less impressive, that he had created before the ones I'm referencing. Now, I'm not saying that the BSG Sabotage editor or the Brooklyn Hipsters are angling for professional filmmaking jobs, but it's quite possible that they are at least exploring their own possibilities. I would also bet that these people have been making videos like this (though probably much less sophisticated) since they were kids. The only big difference now is that technology has enabled them to make a slicker experience and, more importantly, to distribute it widely. It's also worth noting that this sort of thing is not without historical precedent. Indeed, the history of editing and montage is filled with this sort of thing. In the 1910s and 1920s, Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov conducted a series of famous experiments that helped express the role of editing in films. In these experiments, he would show a man with an expressionless face, then cut to various other shots. In one example, he showed the expressionless face, then cut to a bowl of soup. When prompted, audiences would claim that they found that the man was hungry. Kuleshov then took the exact same footage of the expressionless face and cut to a pretty girl. This time, audiences reported that the man was in love. Another experiment alternated between the expressionless face and a coffin, a juxtaposition that lead audiences to believe that the man was stricken with grief. This phenomenon has become known as the Kuleshov Effect. For the current discussion, one notable aspect of these experiments is that Kuleshov was working entirely from pre-existing material. And this sort of thing was not uncommon, either. At the time, there was a shortage of raw film stock in Russia. Filmmakers had to make due with what they had, and often spent their time re-cutting existing material, which lead to what's now called Soviet Montage Theory. When D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, which used advanced editing techniques (it featured a series of cross cut narratives which eventually converged in the last reel), opened in Russia in 1919, it quickly became very popular. The Russian film community saw this as a validation and popularization of their theories and also as an opportunity. Russian critics and filmmakers were impressed by the film's technical qualities, but dismissed the story as "bourgeois", claiming that it failed to resolve issues of class conflict, and so on. So, not having much raw film stock of their own, they took to playing with Griffith's film, re-editing certain sections of the film to make it more "agitational" and revolutionary. The extent to which this happened is a bit unclear, and certainly public exhibitions were not as dramatically altered as I'm making it out to be. However, there are Soviet versions of the movie that contained small edits and a newly filmed prologue. This was done to "sharpen the class conflict" and "anti-exploitation" aspects of the film, while still attempting to respect the author's original intentions. This was part of a larger trend of adding Soviet propaganda to pre-existing works of art, and given the ideals of socialism, it makes sense. (The preceeding is a simplification of history, of course... see this chapter from Inside the Film Factory for a more detailed discussion of Intolerance and it's impact on Russian cinema.) In the Russian film world, things really began to take off with Sergei Eisenstein and films like Battleship Potemkin. Watch that film today, and you'll be struck by how modern-feeling the editing is, especially during the infamous Odessa Steps sequence (which you'll also recognize if you've ever seen Brian De Palma's "homage" in The Untouchables). Now, I'm not really suggesting that the woman who produced BSG Sabotage is going to be the next Eisenstein, merely that the act of cutting together pre-existing footage is not necessarily a sad waste of talent. I've drastically simplified the history of Soviet Montage Theory above, but there are parallels between Soviet filmmakers then and YouTube videomakers today. Due to limited resources and knowledge, they began experimenting with pre-existing footage. They learned from the experience and went on to grander modifications of larger works of art (Griffith's Intolerance). This eventually culminated in original works of art, like those produced by Eisenstein. Now, YouTube videomakers haven't quite made that expressive leap yet, but it's only been a few years. It's going to take time, and obviously editing and montage are already well established features of film, so innovation won't necessarily come from that direction. But that doesn't mean that nothing of value can emerge from this sort of thing, nor does messing around with videos on YouTube limit these young artists to film. While Roger Ebert's valid criticisms are vaid, more and more, I'm seeing interactivity as the unexplored territory of art. Video games like Heavy Rain are an interesting experience and hint at something along these lines, but they are still severely limited in many ways (in other words, Ebert is probably right when it comes to that game). It will take a lot of experimentation to get to a point where maybe Ebert would be wrong (if it's even possible at all). Learning about the visual medium of film by editing together videos of pre-existing material would be an essential step in the process. Improving the technology with which to do so is also an important step. And so on. To return back to the BSG Sabotage video for a moment, I think that it's worth noting the origins of that video. The video is clearly having fun by juxtaposing different genres and mediums (it is by no means the best or even a great example of this sort of thing, but it's still there. For a better example of something built entirely from pre-existing works, see Shining.). Battlestar Galactica was a popular science fiction series, beloved by many, and this video comments on the series slightly by setting the whole thing to an unconventional music choice (though given the recent Star Trek reboot's use of the same song, I have to wonder what the deal is with SF and Sabotage). Ironically, even the "original" Beastie Boys video was nothing more than a pastiche of 70s cop television shows. While I'm no expert, the music on Ill Communication, in general, has a very 70s feel to it. I suppose you could say that association only exists because of the Sabotage video itself, but even other songs on that album have that feel - for one example, take Sabrosa. Indeed, the Beastie Boys are themselves known for this sort of appropriation of pre-existing work. Their album Paul's Boutique infamously contains literally hundreds of samples and remixes of popular music. I'm not sure how they got away with some of that stuff, but I suppose this happened before getting sued for sampling was common. Nowadays, in order to get away with something like Paul's Boutique, you'll need to have deep pockets, which sorta defeats the purpose of using a sample in the first place. After all, samples are used in the absence of resources, not just because of a lack of originality (though I guess that's part of it). In 2004 Nate Harrison put together this exceptional video explaining how a 6 second drum beat (known as the Amen Break) exploded into its own sub-culture: There is certainly some repetition here, and maybe some lack of originality, but I don't find this sort of thing "sad". To be honest, I've never been a big fan of hip hop music, but I can't deny the impact it's had on our culture and all of our music. As I write this post, I'm listening to Danger Mouse's The Grey Album: It uses an a cappella version of rapper Jay-Z's The Black Album and couples it with instrumentals created from a multitude of unauthorized samples from The Beatles' LP The Beatles (more commonly known as The White Album). The Grey Album gained notoriety due to the response by EMI in attempting to halt its distribution.I'm not familiar with Jay-Z's album and I'm probably less familiar with The White Album than I should be, but I have to admit that this combination and the artistry with which the two seemingly incompatible works are combined into one cohesive whole is impressive. Despite the lack of an official release (that would have made Danger Mouse money), The Grey Album made many best of the year (and best of the decade) lists. I see some parallels between the 1980s and 1990s use of samples, remixes, and mashups, and what was happening in Russian film in the 1910s and 1920s. There is a pattern worth noticing here: New technology enables artists to play with existing art, then apply their learnings to something more original later. Again, I don't think that the BSG Sabotage video is particularly groundbreaking, but that doesn't mean that the entire remix culture is worthless. I'm willing to bet that remix culture will eventually contribute towards something much more original than BSG Sabotage... Incidentally, the director of the original Beastie Boys Sabotage video? Spike Jonze, who would go on to direct movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Where the Wild Things Are. I think we'll see some parallels between the oft-maligned music video directors, who started to emerge in the film world in the 1990s, and YouTube videomakers. At some point in the near future, we're going to see film directors coming from the world of short-form internet videos. Will this be a good thing? I'm sure there are lots of people who hate the music video aesthetic in film, but it's hard to really be that upset that people like David Fincher and Spike Jonze are making movies these days. I doubt YouTubers will have a more popular style, and I don't think they'll be dominant or anything, but I think they will arrive. Or maybe YouTube videomakers will branch out into some other medium or create something entirely new (as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of room for innovation in the interactive realm). In all honesty, I don't really know where remix culture is going, but maybe that's why I like it. I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads. Posted by Mark on March 14, 2010 at 02:18 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Oscar Liveblogging It's become something of a tradition around here to liveblog the Oscars, and this year will be no different. For an idea of how it will go, check out the previous installments: [2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004] Check back for frequent updates (starting around 8 pm EST), and feel free to hang around and leave comments to play along... Anyway, here are my predictions for the major awards:
Update 7:12 pm: I always forget that 8 pm marks the start of the Red Carpet BS, which I don't think I can stomach (even with the drinking), so updating will probably start around 8:30 when the actual ceremony starts. Oh, and Barbara Walters special? Maybe I'll put that on in the background, but I'm so happy she's retiring from that gig. She's a terrible interviewer. Then again, probably better than me (who'd end up producing something like the Chris Farley Show). Update 8:24 pm: First beer of the night, Westmalle Dubbel. Tasty and kinda dry, makes me want to drink more. Could be dangerous. Anyway, show is about to begin. Let's do this thing. Update 8:30 pm: Well, that's a different way to open the ceremony - trot out the best actor/actress nominees and... then just announce their names. This is a kinda dull opening, is it not? Oh wait, NPH! Oh fuck, a musical number. Shit! I thought we got this crap out of our system last year. Where's my beer? Update 8:34 pm: Seriously, what's up with all this musical bullshit? It's not like there are any musicals that were nominated (except Nine, but that one won't be winning or anything), and indeed, it's not exactly a popular genre these days. Why?! Ok, finally, Alec and Steve. Let's hope they're actually funny. Update 8:39 pm: Ok, I laughed a few times. Not bad, Aleve Martwin. It's a bit scripted and stiff, but still fun. Update 8:43 pm: The Avatar bit was funny, but not as funny as this would have been. George Clooney doesn't look like he likes this... but there's no real joke there, so I guess he's fine. Basterds jokes are great. Update 8:48 pm: After a relatively restrained opening act, we've got our first award. They're really stretching out these nominee announcements... Woody Harrelson looks shockingly not high. I was reading a book recently where a young con-girl was stringing along a perverted old man - and the whole time, I was picturing Christopher Plummer (that doesn't mean anything, but still). Best Supporting Actor goes to Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds. And I'm 1 for 1... Update 8:50 pm: Uber-Bingo! Bearded Waltz threw me for a moment, but it fits. He clearly had his speech prepared. Update 8:52 pm: Ryan Reynolds is channeling Rod Serling while reciting the plot of The Blind Side. Seriously, I'm expecting Sandra Bullock to sprout a tiny third arm out of her forehead or something. Hey, I just noticed, not a single montage yet. What's the over/under this year? Let's call it 10. Update 9:00 pm: Aha! Montage #1! Right? Heh, but it's a great use of animation. The best two were even the best two movies (Fantastic Mr. Fox was my favorite though). If crowd clapping was how they judged this, the winner would be Up. And it is, in fact, Up, making me 2 for 2. And a pretty good speech too. Well done. Update 9:05 pm: Ohhhhh, awesome, does this mean I don't have to suffer through live performances of the best song category? Thank God! And Crazy Heart song wins! I'm 3 for 3 (incidentally, having listened to the snippits of all the nominees, this one probably deserved to win too). Speech is just straightforward Thank Yous... and only one of them talked. Weird. Must have been told to keep it short. Update 9:05 pm: Best picture nominee District 9, introduced by Chris Pine from Star Trek. It's kinda amazing that District 9 got nominated at all. Check out John Scalzi's notes on how SF will fare tonight. I pretty much agree with his thoughts... Update 9:16 pm: Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr are doing well here. Good stuff. And Best Original Screenplay goes to... The Hurt Locker? What the fuck? That's the worst written of the nominees. Tarantino has to be pissed, and deservedly so. This is bullshit. Speech is mildly political, and obviously prepared. I'm 3 for 4. This does not bode well for either Inglourious Basterds or Avatar when it comes to best picture. Update 9:18 pm: Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick are still alive? But this is a nice tribute to John Hughes, and let's see if there's a montage. Yep, Montage #2! Score. Update 9:20 pm: Interesting that Hughes gets his own montage instead of just getting shuffled into the annual Dead People Montage. Not saying he doesn't deserve it (and it's not like the other dead people can complain), but it's still interesting. Update 9:24 pm: Jeeze, even the 20 second recap of the first 20 minutes of Up is undeniably effective. Update 9:27 pm: Devin Faraci is also liveblogging over at CHUD. Regarding Samuel L. Jackson's presentation of best picture nominee Up, "Get these muthafuckin' balloons off mah muthafuckin' house!" Classic. Update 9:32 pm: Zoe Saldana looks a lot like a human version of a Na'vi! Oh, wait. Nevermind. Ok, so this Montage (#3) is all about Hollywood trying to convince us regular schlubs that the short films categories are important... and pretty much failing. Some of these do look great though. Logorama apparently has 2500 copyright violations in it's short running time... and hey, it wins! Score. Ohhh, he's French. Huh. "3000 non-official sponsors whose logo appeared in the film." Hehe. Funny. I wonder when they'll get sued. Update 9:43 pm: Awesome, I'm glad someone sacrificed their dignity to make fun of Avatar. Ironically, he's presenting the award for best makeup, which Avatar isn't even nominated (and yep, Ben Stiller just mentioned that fact). And the winner is... Star Trek. Score, I'm 4 for 5. Alas, probably the only award for Trek. Speech is pretty much straight thank yous. Referred to Paramount as "that robot" which will probably get them fired. Hey, it's one of the winners' anniversary. Hope his wife is in the audience. Update 9:45 pm: I feel like A Serious Man is getting better in my mind. Some movies get worse as you get further away from them. A Serious Mind gets better. Of course, I want to rewatch it, but I have this feeling that it will be even better the second time around. Definitely glad it got nominated (and I don't think it would have made the cut in a 5 nominee field)... Update 9:52 pm: Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Precious (I refuse to type the subtitle to this film, and will type even more explaining that I won't than I would if I just typed the subtitle). Well, I suck this year! 4 for 6. Guy seems very heartfelt in his speech - I don't think he expected to win. Good on him, though. Update 9:55 pm: Oh wow, a Bringing Down the House reference. Sweet. And... Montage #4. Hey Roger Corman! Wait, is this some sort of series of lifetime achievement awards? Or are they different. Well, Here comes Roger Corman and Lauren Bacall. Wait, they're not going up to the stage. I don't think anyone understands what's going on. What is going on? Oh shit, Robin Wiliams. Run! Update 10:01 pm: Best supporting actress goes to... Mo'Nique for the movie I won't type out. And I'm 5 for 7. What is she talking about with the reference to "politics"? Another speech that seemed well prepared. Hrm, never saw An Education, ut I probably should at some point. Update 10:08 pm: Sigourney Weaver looks la lot like a human version of a Na'vi! Oh, wait. Nevermind. Art Direction goes to Avatar. Shame I didn't pick this award. I think James Cameron might be more excited about these tech awards than he is for director or best picture. Whoa, heavy acceptance speech. Doctors told him he wouldn't survive, and now he has an oscar. And the third guy doesn't get to say anything. Update 10:12 pm: Now Keanu Reeves. He looks high. And Costumes, another award I don't pick, goes to... some movie I never heard of! Yay! Whoa, "I already have two of these." You stay classy, Sandy Powell. Update 10:15 pm: I didn't see Precious, but I actually do want to at some point. In other news, I've moved on to Allagash Fluxus and have opened a bag of Gibbles, the official thin pretzel of Kaedrin.com. Update 10:19 pm: Sweet. Paranormal Activity parody is hysterical. And they're finally acknowledging that horror is underappreciated by the academy... by showing us a montage (#5). Good stuff though... Update 10:25 pm: Awesome use of Morgan Freeman voiceover. Hehehe. I didn't pick this award though. This intro is surprisingly informative. Again, the Oscars are trying to convince us that the next award is legitimate (but more successfully this time). And the award goes to... The Hurt Locker. It's looking like it will be a sweep for Hurt Locker, which is a shame. I mean, it's a fine film and all, but if it wins all the awards, I'll be a bit disappointed. Update 10:28 pm: How the fuck did Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen get nominated for anything? Well, the award goes to Hurt Locker. Again. These guys just won the other sound award. Huh. Again, bodes well for Hurt Locker's chances later in the night... and wow, Elizabeth Banks looks gorgeous. And of course, she's presenting the nerd sci-tech awards. Nice. Update 10:30 pm: If I had my way, Inglourious Basterds would win every award it was nominated for. I'm still ticked off that Tarantino lost in the original screenplay award. Travesty! Update 10:37 pm: I was a little worried about this Allagash beer I mentioned earlier, but it's great. It says on the label that it's "Ale Brewed with Sweet Potatoes & Black Pepper" which gave me pause. But again, it's awesome. Ahh, Sandra Bullock takes the stage for Cinematography award. And the award goes to... Avatar! Go me, I'm 6 for 8. For a speech that is primarily Thank Yous, it was actually pretty good. I dunno, maybe I'm delirious at this point. Or drunk. These beers are strong, after all. Update 10:39 pm: Yay Dead People (montage #6)! And crap, a live musical performance. Update 10:49 pm: What the hell is going on with Sam Worthington's glasses? By the way, he looks la lot like a human version of a N... yeah, that joke's pretty much played it's course, hasn't it? YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Interpretive dance! Please hold, whilst I drink my beer. Update 10:53 pm: The winner for best score is Up, and I'm 7 for 9. Another speech that feels prepared, but actually pretty cool. Update 10:58 pm: Outstanding visual effects goes to Avatar, and deservedly so. Again, Cameron looks overjoyed. Hey, Jason Bateman! Presenting Up in the Air. Good, solid movie. But not a best picture. Update 11:05 pm: Best documentary goes to The Cove, and I'm 8 for 10. Is it that Fisher Stevens? Yes, it is that Fisher Stevens. Wow. Anyway, I never saw The Cove, but from what I can tell, this was well deserved. Update 11:08 pm: Editing award. Again with the explanation of the award, but again it's actually pretty good. And the award goes to The Hurt Locker. And I'm 8 for 11. I drastically underestimated the Hurt Locker, I guess. Does this bode well for Hurt Locker for the big awards, or are these all consolation awards? Hey, these winners gave thanks to Sam Raimi! Cool... Update 11:10 pm: Keanu Reeves: War is a drug, kinda like the stuff I just did before I came up on stage. Hehehe. Still don't know if Hurt Locker will win the best picture award, but it looks more likely than it did this morning. Ooooh, stay tuned for humorless dick, Sean Penn! I will, Oscars! Update 11:19 pm: Pedro and Quentin, an interesting pair. And I'm pretty sure Tarantino is high too. This really is shocking. I never would have pegged Tarantino and Reeves as looking more high than Harrelson. And best foreign picture goes to... The Secret in Their Eyes. Well, I'm 8 for 12. Ohhh, he makes a Na'vi joke, that falls completely flat, but I like it. And this guy is funny because he's trying to speak English but he clearly is flustered. I don't think he expected to win. Update 11:21 pm: Depending on who you talk to, Avatar is the most profitable movie of all time, or the accounting is so twisted that it didn't make anything. Sorry, but the 3D bump, while important, certainly didn't account for all of the money this film made. The truth is, despite how much it's gotten on my nerves, it did make going to the theater a necessity again, which is more than you can say for most movies. Update 11:34 pm: What the hell is this motley crew of presenters for the best actor award? Really random. Jeff Bridges so knows that he's going to win. Vera Farmiga is awesome. Her dress... not so much. I guess I see where they're going with these presenters. Great anecdote by Tim Robbins (or is it Ted). And a S.W.A.T. reference. Classy. "Good Luck Jeremy" translates to "You're probably not going to Win." Best actor goes to...shit, they'r e announcing the nominees... for the third time. Ok, Jeff Bridges wins, and I'm 9 for 13. Congrats Jeff. And I thin he's high. Yeah, definitely high. The Dude abides. Update 11:37 pm: Jeff Bridges has been married for 33 years, certainly an oddity in Hollywood. Probably because he and his wife were high the majority of the time. Update 11:51 pm: Another random accumulation of presenters for best actress, though like best actor, they are all related to the nominees in some way. Humorless dick Sean Penn presents the winner... Sandra Bullock. And I'm 10 for 14. "Did I really earn this, or did I just wear y'all down?" Heh. It's funny because it's kinda true (I shouldn't say that since I haven't seen the movie, but still). But her acceptance speech is quite classy. Update 11:58 pm: Barbara Streisand has won as many Oscars as Meryl Streep. Just noting that without comment. And best director goes to Kathryn Bigelow. Good on her, well deserved! First female to win best director. She looks sooo appreciative. Don't sell yourself short, the script had nothing to do with your win. And she dedicates the award to the military. Congrats to her, it's a well deserved award. Update 12:03 am: And Hurt Locker wins best picture. That was quick! Not much of a surprise at this point. And I'm 11 for 16. Or maybe not, I apparently missed an award at some point. . Apparently I'm 12 for 17. Must have been drinking too much. Anyway, that works out to around 70%, which isn't my worst ever, but it was close... Update 12:09 am: And that about wraps everything up. An interesting year, but overall, an uninspired ceremony. Which is pretty much the usual...nothing especially memorable about this year, except that Hurt Locker won more than it deserved... On the other hand, I certainly liked Hurt Locker better than Avatar, so what am I complaining about... Update: For those overseas or who haven't seen the ceremony, check out Alex's last-minute overview... Posted by Mark on March 07, 2010 at 11:36 AM .:
Comments (9) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Various and Sundry I must get back to being an inadvertently incompetent FBI agent in Heavy Rain (in fairness, my private eye is doing a stellar job), so just a few short notes:
Posted by Mark on March 03, 2010 at 08:54 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Is Inglourious Basterds Science Fiction? John Scalzi recently tackled the question of whether or not Quentin Tarantino's WWII epic Inglourious Basterds qualifies for science fiction. Unfortunately, I should mention at this point that the rest of this post contains mild spoilers about the movie. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it (also, it was my favorite movie of 2009). In any case, the entire argument hinges around the SF sub-genre of alternate history. In such stories, authors will change some aspect of history in order to explore some sort of narrative idea. This type of story takes all sorts of forms, such as Phillp K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, where Dick speculates about what would have happened if the Axis powers won WWII. There are tons of other examples. I've never read one of his books, but I know Harry Turtledove has made something of a career out of similar alternate history stories. Often, the alternate history comes about due to some form of time travel (such as The End of Eternity) or speculation about the many worlds theory of parallel universes (such as Anathem). A more recent example of the genre is Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Set in the present day, that book's alternate timeline starts that during WW II, when a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Alaska. Chabon uses the premise to explore Jewish social and cultural issues, but never really uses "science" to explain his settings (i.e. there's no time travel or mention of parallel universes, etc...) This is a particularly relevant example because it really does skirt the boundaries of several genres (the book reads more like a noir detective story than a SF tale), yet it's generally considered part of the SF canon. We'll revisit this book later in this post. Without getting into too much detail, let's just say that at a certain point in the movie, Tarantino diverges significantly from history. As Scalzi points out, the movie is still very much a WWII movie, but by the end, it's just not quite the same WWII as what's in the history books. In his post, Scalzi outlines 4 arguments against the interpretation that Basterds is SF. However, I don't find them entirely convincing: 1. It wasn't marketed as science fictionWhile true from a factual standpoint, I don't find this argument at all convincing. It wasn't marketed as SF because the SF elements were meant to be a surprise. Marketing it as an alternate history would be akin to marketing The Sixth Sense as a movie in which Bruce Willis plays a ghost. It's also worth noting that the marketing for a movie isn't always entirely accurate. This is especially true when it comes to cross-genre pieces like Basterds. By necessity, marketing simplifies a given movie to it's basest, most salable features. Indeed, the marketing campaign for Basterds focused almost entirely on Brad Pitt's motley crew of Nazi-hunters and their action packed exploits, yet those characters are not really the focus of the film and indeed, several of the main characters are barely mentioned. So no, it's not surprising that the marketing didn't focus on the SF aspects of the story. That doesn't necessarily make it less of a SF story. 2. The science fictional aspects of the movie are not necessarily essential to itOn this point, I wholeheartedly disagree. Scalzi does admit that changing the SF aspects would make it a different movie, but what he doesn't note is that the movie would be drastically inferior in that case. Without the ending (which is where the SF elements really kick in), the movie might still work, but it wouldn't work nearly as well as it did. That ending is necessary to the success of the movie. It's also worth noting that the movie does start with some premises that could be considered SF. For instance, take the trailer for the movie in which Brad Pitt gives a speech to his men on their upcoming mission. This scene ostensibly takes place before the D-Day invasion of Germany and it assumes a lot of things. For instance, it's revealed that all the members of the squad are Jewish. As present day audiences, we know what this means (and Tarantino is certainly counting on that), but in reality, while the Allies knew of Nazi antisemitism in a general sense, the specifics of the Holocaust were not known until after the invasion when various concentration camps and mass graves were discovered. Now, I'm not going to call this science fiction, but it's clear that Tarantino is counting on audience knowledge of the Holocaust during this scene, and he uses that knowledge to his advantage. This is something that will come up again later in this post. 3. It's kinda more like fantasy than scifi anywayThis is certainly a fair point, but at the same time, a lot of what we consider SF could also be termed "Fantasy". You could probably make a compelling argument that Star Wars is more fantasy than SF. Perhaps this is why SF and fantasy seem to get lumped together in bookstores and whatnot. There is certainly a fantasy element to Basterds though, but I'm just not sure if it outweighs the SF elements. 4. If Inglourious Basterds is science fiction, so are most historical moviesAnother fair point and probably the most compelling among Scalzi's arguments, though I think some important distinctions need to be made here. Movies like Gladiator and Braveheart just contain bad history. For the most part, the people who made those movies were altering history to make for more entertaining narratives, and they knew they could get away with it because 99.9% of the audience doesn't know or care about the real history involved (and in all fairness, such tactics work - both are very good movies). With Inglourious Basterds, something different is happening. Scalzi even mentiones that "Tarantino's messing with history we actually still remember." And that's important because Tarantino is attempting something subversive. Unlike Gladiator and Braveheart, Basterds actually relies on the audience's knowledge of history. This is a movie that wouldn't work nearly as well if you didn't know anything about WWII. In terms of information theory, Tarantino is making masterful use of exformation whereas movies like Gladiator change history with the confidence that the audience won't notice or care. In short, changing history is the whole point of Basterds, whereas it's just used to spice up the narrative in Gladiator and Braveheart. In a very real sense, the primary theme of Basterds is the transformative power of cinema. To achieve this goal, Tarantino employs several techniques. One is the direct role of cinema in the plot. A British film critic and a German actress team up with the Basterds to accomplish a specific goal. At several points, discussions of classic German cinema become integral to the plot. Old nitrate filmstock becomes a key plot element. The final showdown occurs in a movie theater that's run by our heroine. And so on. There's obvious symbolism at work there. But let's return to the idea of exformation, as it's an interesting topic (and one I've mentioned before). In short, exformation refers to communication that is dependent on a shared body of knowledge between the parties involved. Wikipedia has a great anecdotal example: In 1862 the author Victor Hugo wrote to his publisher asking how his most recent book, Les Misérables, was getting on. Hugo just wrote “?” in his message, to which his publisher replied “!”, to indicate it was selling well. This exchange of messages would have no meaning to a third party because the shared context is unique to those taking part in it. The amount of information (a single character) was extremely small, and yet because of exformation a meaning is clearly conveyed.In the case of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino uses exformation masterfully. He knows what the audience knows about WWII and he plays on that. At first, he does so with small things, like the all-Jewish Basterds team (which, at first glance, plays like a Braveheart-style historical inaccuracy, but upon further reflection once the film is over, you can see that Tarnatino is really foreshadowing his subversion of history). A movie like Braveheart diminishes in value when you learn more about the true historical basis for the story. I'm sure there are plenty of historians who get incredibly frustrated when watching a movie like that. But Inglourious Basterds only grows stronger, even as you learn more about the historical basis for that film. For instance, the film does not require you to know all about prewar German cinema, but it certainly could be enhanced by such knowledge. Take the aforementioned symbolic components, add in Tarantino's use of exformation to manipulate audiences, and then look at how the ending cements the whole film (this is another strike against Scalzi's second point). It's not just that Tarantino doesn't follow history in his movie, it's that he explodes history. He's making an audacious and subversive statement about the power of cinema, and he knows he can go over the top with it because we already know about WWII (not because he thinks he can get away with a few historical inaccuracies). However, it is interesting to note how history often plays a role in science fiction literature. Indeed, for a while, it seemed like a lot of science fiction authors were leaving behind their SF roots in favor of historical fiction. For example, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, both known for their dystopic cyberpunk work, went out on a limb and published The Difference Engine. Similarly, Kaedrin favorite Neal Stephenson went from his popular futuristic stories in Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, the semi-historical WWII/present day thriller Cryptonomicon. He then dove even further into the past with the massive Baroque Cycle, a series of books that took place in late 17th, early 18th centuries. It did concern itself with the emergence of modern science and featured notable scientists and organizations like the Royal Society. In an interview with Salon, Stephenson speculated about whether or not the Baroque Cycle was SF: I always make it clear that I consider myself a science fiction writer. Even the "Baroque Cycle" fits under the broader vision of what science fiction is about.And he also mentions SF's relationship with history: There was a review of "Cryptonomicon" with a line in it that struck me as interesting. The guy said, "This is a book for geeks and the history buffs that they turn into." I'm turning into one.Of course, he does note that this fits under a "broader vision" of science fiction, but at the same time, there's more to it than just the subject matter and ideas. Science fiction authors approach the world in a certain way, and that sort of thing tends to come through in their writing, even if what they're writing is not science fiction in the strictest sense. So while The Baroque Cycle is primarily a historical series, it's got some science in it and it reads enough like science fiction that SF fans can appreciate it without any issue. But the difference between Tarantino and Stephenson is that Stephenson fully acknowledges his SF roots, while Tarantino has not. This is why I previously brought up Michael Chabon's novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Like Tarantino, Chabon is not known primarily for science fiction work. Yet he produced this exceptional alternate history novel that ended up winning the Hugo award for best novel. There are a lot of other similarities between Chabon's book and Tarantino's movie. Both are set in an alternate universe, but neither really explores the speculative aspects of their situations. Chabon's novel probably comes closer to doing so and does not rely on the alternate history as a surprise or shock in the way that Basterds does. Both the novel and the movie are cross-genre stories (the novel using elements of noir and the detective story; the movie using war movie tropes). I don't remember any marketing around The Yiddish Policeman's Union, but I remember being surprised that it won the best novel Hugo (this was before I had read the book and known about its alternate history premise), so I'm guessing that neither movie really calls itself SF. Then again, the Hugo website does note: Science Fiction? Fantasy? Horror?And so we finally arrive at the classic classification problem. What is science fiction anyway? It turns out that according to the Hugos, it's whatever they say is SF. Going by Stephenson's broader definition, it makes sense that a book like The Yiddish Policeman's Union could win a Hugo, as it certainly contains its fair share of interesting ideas. Similarly, I think that Inglourious Basterds could easily be considered SF. It contains interesting ideas and is reliant on relatively sophisticated information theory concepts like exformation. Observant readers may notice that the Kaedrin Movie Awards contains a category for best SF or Horror film, and that Inglourious Basterds was absent from the nominations in that category. So it seemed that back then, I didn't consider it SF enough to nominate. And now? I think it certainly could (and it would have won). But I think what it really comes down to is the Hugo test: Do most people consider it SF? And that's where I think my argument that it is SF falters. I think most people do not think of it as a SF movie. This may stem from the nature of the plot, which makes it hard to market the movie as SF (and to Scalzi's point there, blatant categorizations like SF exist for marketing purposes in the first place). Tarantino isn't generally associated with the SF world and isn't calling the movie SF either, which also tends to diminish my argument. But after thinking about it, I still like to think of it as SF. It may not be like any other alternate history story, but just because it's wholly unique in that respect doesn't make it less of a SF movie. Posted by Mark on February 21, 2010 at 07:00 PM .:
Comments (6) |
link
:.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
I want a good DVD/BD version! I was looking at my DVD and Blu Ray collection the other day and began to ponder a few things. First, there are some DVDs in my collection that I like a lot, but which I'm not sure I really needed to own. For example, I own The Way of the Gun on DVD. It's a good movie, and I really like it a lot, but do I really need to own it? Probably not, but I distinctly remember buying it for less than $10 and the disc features a great commentary track (Christopher McQuarrie is a genuinely interesting and engaging guy - if you're interested, check out the Q&A from Creative Screenwriting Magazine for a taste). On the other hand, I also realized that I don't own a single Coen brothers movie. Considering that I love the grand majority of their movies (if I were to put together a top 100 of all time list right now, there would be at least 2 of their movies if not more), I wondered why this was so. Well, it turns out that their movies have generally bad DVD releases. Most don't have much in the way of special features, and only a couple have commentary tracks. Furthermore, now that I have a Blu Ray player, it would be nice to upgrade to a BD. Perhaps I'm blowing things a bit out of proportion. The Fargo BD seems to have more special features than I remembered, so maybe it's time to pony up, but still. I find this happening with a few movies. I'm sure everyone could come up with a big list of movies they'd love to see a good release for, but here are some of the movies or directors I'd like to see better releases of:
Posted by Mark on February 17, 2010 at 08:43 PM .:
Comments (6) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Best Films of 2009 As of right now, I've seen 78 movies that were released in 2009. This is probably less than a lot of critics, but more than most folks. Overall, I had a much better feeling about this year than I had in the past couple years. I had a really difficult time with my 2008 list (which I'm actually pretty happy with now, after a year of reflection), but here in 2009, things came together pretty easily. I had 9 movies right away and the 10th movie came when I finally caught up to a movie I knew I would like. As always, lists like this are inherently subjective and I know that gets on some people's nerves. Both from a you're stupid because you don't like the same movies I do perspective as well as the lists are inherently evil argument. Indeed, due to this year also marking the end of the decade, the multitude of best of the decade lists has also prompted an increase in the typical backlash of anti-list sentiment. This post covers the usual complaints about lists: they're lazy criticism and basically represent filthy linkbait whoring. There's obviously more to it than that (read the full post). He makes some good points and there are certainly a lot of crappy lists out there (hey, here's one!), but on the other hand, who the hell cares what he thinks? I like lists. Apparently Americans Love Lists (and you know who doesn't like lists? Joseph Stalin!) So without further ado: Top 10 Movies of 2009 * In roughly reverse order
* In alphabetical order
But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:
Despite the fact that I've seen 78 movies this year (and that this post features 30+ of my favorites), there were a few that got away... mostly due to limited releases, though a few of the flicks listed below didn't interest me as much when they were released as they did when I heard more about them. Unlike last year, I'm not really expecting any of these to break into the top 10, though I guess there's always a chance. Anyway, in no particular order:
Posted by Mark on February 14, 2010 at 06:26 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Red Letter Media Review of Avatar Remember that insanely detailed and hysterically funny review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace I posted a while back? It's quite brilliant, and apparently a review of Attack of the Clones is in the works, but in the mean time, a new review of Avatar has been posted. It's a lot shorter than his Star Wars or Star Trek reviews and it's probably not his best work, but it's well worth a watch. As usual, it's very funny, but the details betray a genuine love of movies. Good stuff. Posted by Mark on February 03, 2010 at 08:43 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Arbitrary Awards So we're finished with the formal awards, but there are always some other awards that I don't really bother to come up with other nominees for... and there are some movies that have something so uncommon that it's worth bringing up. Interestingly, some of these awards have actually become a yearly thing, despite never really being conceived as such. In any case, here they are:
Posted by Mark on January 31, 2010 at 06:43 PM .:
Comments (6) |
link
:.
Friday, January 29, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best High Concept Film and 2009's 2008 Movie of the Year The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best High Concept Film: Stingray Sam An obscure pick, to be sure, but I had a lot of fun with this eclectic Musical/Comedy/Sci-Fi/Western film. In an homage to old SF serials, the movie is actually constructed as a series of six ten minute shorts, each with their own opening and closing credits as well as faux sponsors. The storylines are beyond absurd, and the music is actually pretty entertaining (this from a guy who doesn't normally like musicals). The official website actually has the first 20 minutes or so available to watch online (the second episode has the most awesome song in the whole movie too). It's a pretty weird movie, but I had fun with it. Other nominees were pretty good as well, but nothing approached the sheer strangeness of this movie. 2009's 2008 Movie of the Year: Tell No One There are always movies that I wanted to see but which I couldn't see until later in the year, so this category is for a discovery made the year after a film was released. Tell No One is a French thriller, and it's actually quite good. It most certainly would have made my top 10 of last year, and if I wasn't lazy, I probably would have updated the top 10. But now it's here, along with several other quality nominees. Still, this was an excellent film. And that about wraps up the formal categories. Stay tuned for more Arbitrary Awards on Sunday. I'm not sure when I'll actually get to the top 10, but it should be within a week or two... Posted by Mark on January 29, 2010 at 12:18 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Action Sequences and Best Plot Twist/Surprise The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best Action Sequences: Chocolate In terms of traditional action set-pieces, the Thai martial arts film Chocolate takes the cake. The film is certainly not perfect, but you can't fault the action sequences, which are well choreographed and a whole lot of fun. Some of the action recalls early Jackie Chan prop-driven stuff, though it doesn't really approach that level either. None of which is to detract from the other nominees. Red Cliff certainly had some excellent action, though it's more of an epic battle variety and the real strength of the film are the strategic/tactical planning, rather than the individual fights. Avatar certainly puts quick-cutting morons like Michael Bay in their place, and while I have my problems with the movie, the action sequences are superbly executed (if only I cared about the outcome). The Hurt Locker had some of the most suspenseful sequences of the year (especially the sniper sequence - ironic considering the bomb defusing focus of the film), but they're more harrowing than exciting. Watchmen had it's moments, as did Taken. Crank: High Voltage is so crazy insane that its action is more for comedic effect, but still worthwhile. In the end, I guess I was just in the mood for some martial arts rather than big explosions this year. Best Plot Twist/Surprise: Inglourious Basterds Naturally, any discussion of this would ruin the whole point. I will say that Inglourious Basterds doesn't feature a traditional twist a la Shyamalan. It's more that the film is just so shockingly audacious in what it's doing. The other nominees had solid twists, but I have to admit that some of them were easy to see coming, and in at least one case, predicting the twist ahead of time nearly sinks the movie. Still, they're all solid films... but I just can't get over Inglourious Basterds. And coming down the homestretch, tomorrow we've got the final categories: Best High Concept Film and 2009's 2008 Movie of the Year Posted by Mark on January 28, 2010 at 12:33 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Sequel & Biggest Disappointment The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best Sequel: Star Trek. Or maybe Crank: High Voltage! Dammit. For a category with only 3 nominees, this is hard. Star Trek is definitely the better of the two. It took an old, crusty franchise and made it fresh and interesting again. This isn't a small feat, especially when considering that I never really cared much for the original series/crew. In fact, the only real series I got into was The Next Generation, so the prospect of a prequel wasn't all that exciting to me. But JJ Abrams seems to be building his movie directing career on resurrecting franchises (like he did with Mission Impossible). Anyway, I've already reviewed Star Trek, so I'd like to talk for a minute about Crank: High Voltage, which is one of the biggest surprises of the year for me. When I first saw the previews my reaction was something like: That movie looks soooo bad... I can't wait to see it! As it turns out, my enthusiasm wasn't entirely misplaced. This really is a giant ball of outlandish fun. Sure, it makes no sense, but I'll be damned if it isn't playful and energetic filmmaking at its best. Of course, it wasn't much of a hit with critics... or audiences, for that matter, but I really enjoyed it. Sue me. Biggest Disappointment: Avatar Earlier this year, I posted a list of 5 Upcoming Movies I Want To See Even Though I Know They'll Suck (at the bottom of that post). At the bottom of the list was Avatar, with the note that "I'm pretty sure this movie won't suck." My expectations were drastically lowered by the previews for the movie, and even then, the film was disappointing. True, the first time I saw it, I was a bit taken by it. Indeed, I've already established that Avatar is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous movie to look at, but for me, the story is the most important part of a movie. Now, Avatar doesn't necessarily have a bad story, after all, it's the same story we've all seen a thousand times. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that, and I think there's something to be said for a really well executed cliched film. Unfortunately, aside from special effects, Avatar was terribly executed. The dialog is among the worst of the year (I think we'll talk more about this when we get to the arbitrary awards). The character development is nonexistent (I've read a lot of reviews that claim otherwise, but after seeing the movie twice, I think what's happening is that people have seen the same story so many times that they can just fill in the blanks with character development from other, better, movies). The Na'vi, while animated through technological brilliance, aren't a particularly interesting race. As portrayed in the movie, they're homogeneous and bland. Their monolithic nature could perhaps be explained away by the genuinely interesting idea that Pandora is basically a giant, living computer or distributed brain... but the entirety of that concept lives in a throwaway line in the middle of the movie. Sigourney says it, then the Burke character ignores it and that’s pretty much that. Incidentally, Sigourney argued that whole thing wrong. She should have said something like “This entire planet is a gigantic biological computer. That’s got to be worth billions to the biological weapons division!” There’s a lot to explore in that concept, but it was mostly wasted in favor of stupid mechas with proportionally sized Bowie knives (seriously? I mean...really?) Speaking of the mechas, I have to wonder how differently that last battle would have played out if the humans were using real tanks (or other mechanized armor). I don't think I'll ever get around to a full review of Avatar, but while I'm ranting, I might as well bring up a few other things. A lot of critics seem to dismiss the bad story stuff by saying something like "yes, it’s James Cameron. You’re not there for stellar dialogue, intricate storytelling, or nuance. And you’re not going to get it." As MGK notes: But this is exactly why Avatar disappoints so on this score: because James Cameron movies traditionally have all of those things.The really depressing thing about Avatar is that it fails so spectacularly at things that Cameron has always been great at. Remember in Aliens, after the Colonial Marines get their ass whooped by the aliens and everyone's arguing about what to do? Ripley immediately cuts through the crap and says "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." This makes so much sense! It's so rare that a character in a movie says something that rational that it's become a modern geek aphorism. Again, Cameron used to be great at this sort of thing. But in Avatar, there are a million questionable plot points. Why use mechas when tanks will do just fine? Why not use jet fighters to deliver the bomb to the tree of souls (No! No! We have to use slow moving helicopters so that the Na'vi will have a chance to fight back!)? Hell, as a race, the humans have mastered interplanetary travel. You mean to tell me the can't figure out orbital bombardment (even just kinetic weapons would do the trick)? And why wouldn't the humans just come back in a few years and obliterate the planet? The list goes on and on and on and on. This award has traditionally been difficult because I have to account for expectations. Often a disappointing film is not truly bad... it just doesn't meet lofty expectations. This was the case with most of the other nominees (except for Terminator: Salvation, which I knew would be bad). But Avatar still wins. There's a lot of potential there, most of which is wasted. On deck: Best Action Sequences and Best Plot Twist/Surprise Posted by Mark on January 27, 2010 at 07:43 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Most Visually Stunning & Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Most Visually Stunning: Avatar For all its faults, you have to admit that Avatar is a gorgeous movie to look at. Amazingly, the Na'vi seem real. James Cameron has somehow vaulted across the uncanny valley and emerged unscathed on the other side. While I don't know that his use of 3D is really all that revolutionary, I appreciate the fact that Cameron doesn't take the opportunity to poke me with stuff (like every other 3D movie). Pandora (though a ham-fisted name for a planet) is a fully realized planet. Well, actually it's not, but visually, it is. The rest of the nominees are pretty good, but none can really match the spectacle of Avatar. Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film: Paranormal Activity This is always a difficult category, probably because I mix two of my favorite genres. Usually there's not enough SF to warrant a full category, but this year there were 3 pretty solid SF films. Of course, only Moon even comes close to a true hard SF story, with the other two (Star Trek and District 9) lacking a little science in their fiction, but even Moon had me nitpicking over plot details. It's definitely worth watching, if only for Sam Rockwell's performance(s), but it didn't quite hit me the way horror films did this year. I had a blast with Drag Me to Hell and 4bia (a lame play on the word phobia) was an early favorite, but no horror film stuck with me the way Paranormal Activity did. It got a bit too hyped, which is never good for scary movies, but it still worked well for me. While the "found footage" premise is hardly unique, they did provide one major innovation for the sub-genre: the tripod. There's still some shaky camera footage, but for the most part, it's sitting on a tripod, and it's more effective because of that. Anyway, my favorite horror movie of the year and it will probably find a spot on my top 10. Coming tomorrow: Best Sequel and Biggest Disappointment Posted by Mark on January 26, 2010 at 08:27 PM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Monday, January 25, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Comedic Performance & Breakthrough Performance The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best Comedic Performance: Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover Truth be told, I'm cheating with this one because the award isn't so much because Galifianakis was the funniest part of the movie, just that the movie was probably the funniest of the year. For some reason, there weren't any really standout comedic performances this year. Sacha Baron Cohen was certainly an option, but after Borat, his shock value seems to have waned for me. Bruno was all about shock value, and once you got accustomed to it, it fell a little flat. I also seriously considered giving this to Michael Peña, but I think his role ended up being a little too small, and while he was fantastic, the movie wasn't really that funny (but it was still a solid movie, just not in a straightforward comedic way). In any case, this was a difficult award and I'm not entirely happy picking a winner... I guess being nominated will have to be award enough... Breakthrough Performance: Tom Hardy in Bronson Another impossible category, except this time there were too many standouts. I would be happy giving the award to any of the nominees, but in looking at the criteria I had laid out for this award, I had to go with Hardy because I had seen him before and totally dismissed him as an actor. Yes, he played the villain from the absolutely terrible Star Trek: Nemisis, and despite looking almost the same, he's a completely different actor in this movie. He's a total force of nature and his performance is really what holds an otherwise uneven movie together. The real competition for the award comes from Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, who I've already established as being fantastic (having won the Best Villain award). I also totally fell in love with Rinko Kikuchi in The Brothers Bloom. I was surprised to learn that her previous high-profile role was a rather serious one in Babel... yet her comedic timing in the underrated Bloom was spot-on. In the end, it comes back to the forceful performance of Tom Hardy. Next up: Most Visually Stunning and Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film Posted by Mark on January 25, 2010 at 08:03 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Villain/Hero/Badass The nominations for the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best Villain/Badass: Colonel Hans Landa, played by Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds In a year of lackluster villainy, Christoph Waltz's scenery chewing performance as Colonel Hans "The Jew Hunter" Landa was without a doubt the best selection here. The other nominees don't even come close. As I've commented before, Waltz plays Landa as a Jew hunting, Nazi version of Columbo. Charismatic and disarming, he draws you in and makes you comfortable before pulling the rug out from beneath you. He plays the character with a slightly effeminate panache and you grow to hate him pretty quickly. Best villain of the year. Best Hero/Badass: Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen This category was a little more difficult as there were lots of good heroic performances this year, but none quite so effective as Jackie Earle Haley's turn as as a morally uncompromising sociopath/superhero. He's the most memorable character in both the comic and the film, and despite his ruthless tactics, you find yourself rooting for the guy. Honorable mention goes to Liam Neeson for his surprisingly badass performance in Taken and also Yanin Vismitananda for her spectacular martial arts skills in Chocolate. Tom Hardy's titular performance in Bronson is also worth a note, but that will come up later in the week. In the end, this is all about Rorschach. I've had him penciled in to this award since March, and no one managed to knock him off... Up next: Best Comedic Performance and Breakthrough Performance. Check back Monday for the winners. Posted by Mark on January 24, 2010 at 03:34 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards As of today, I've seen 74 movies that would be considered 2009 releases. This is on par with the past few years, if not a little bit more than usual. Believe it or not, this is probably a lot less than your typical movie critic, but it's also a whole lot more than your average moviegoer. In any case, this post constitutes the kickoff of my year end movie recap (only a few weeks late!) The categories for this years movie awards are mostly the same as last year (with one notable addition), and will proceed in a similar manner. Nominations will be announced today, and starting next week, I'll announce the winners (new winners announced every day). After that, there might be some miscellaneous awards, followed by a top 10 list. 2009 seems to have been a decent year for movies... better than 2008 and possibly 2007 too. Perhaps we've finally emerged from the black whole of bad writing caused by the writers strike, though I think we're still seeing some of the effects. In any case, the top 10 has come together relatively quickly, though the last couple of spots are still a bit of a challenge to fill. There are a couple of movies I'm still hoping to catch up with before I release my top 10, but there's no reason to delay the awards for that. Besides, one of the points of these awards is that they allow me to give some love to films that I like, but which aren't necessarily great or are otherwise flawed (as such, the categories may seem a bit eclectic). Some of these movies will end up on my top 10, but the grand majority of them will not. The rules for this are the same as last year: Nominated movies must have been released in 2009 (in the US) and I have to have seen the movie (and while I have seen a lot of movies, I don't pretend to have seen a comprehensive selection - don't let that stop you from suggesting something though). Also, I suppose I should mention the requisite disclaimer that these sorts of lists are inherently subjective and personal. But that's all part of the fun, right? Best Villain/Badass It's been a pretty lackluster year for villainy... Some easy choices, but this was a hard category to populate this year. As with previous years, my picks in this category are for individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a group).
It's been a pretty damn good year for heroic badassery. Again limited to individuals and not groups.
Not a particularly strong year when it comes to comedy, but there still seem to be plenty of good performances, even in films I wasn't particularly fond of...
Not a particularly huge year for breakthrough performances either, but definitely several interesting choices. As with previous years, my main criteria for this category was if I watched a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they've done (or where they came from). This sometimes happens for even well established actors/actresses, and this year was no exception.
Sometimes even bad movies can look really great... Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film I'm a total genre hound, despite genres generally receiving very little attention from critics. Interestingly, SF makes a pretty good showing this year, even though I wish there was a little more science in the fiction for most of the nominees. As usual, some solid horror films round out the list well enough... Best Sequel Honestly, I only saw a few sequels this year, so this was a difficult category to populate (as it is every year). Still, there were a few decent options (even if I cheated a little with one of them, which is more prequel/reboot than sequel)... Biggest Disappointment Always a difficult award to figure out, as there are different ways in which a movie can disappoint. Usually, expectations play just as big a part of this as the actual quality of the film, and it's possible that a decent movie can win the award because of astronomical expectations. This year had several obvious choices though. Best Action Sequences This was a decent year for action, though not especially a standout year. This award isn't for individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film. Best Plot Twist/Surprise Not a particularly strong year for the plot twist either, though there are a few standouts. Best High Concept Film This is always a strange category to populate because the concept is a bit nebulous, but nevertheless, there are a few interesting choices... 2009's 2008 Movie of the Year A 2008 movie I didn't get to see until 2009... This is always a problem for the amateur movie lover. Towards the end of the year, 500 movies come out, but they only play in New York or LA for a grand total of like 3 hours (enough for 2 showings at each theater!) Plus, there's always a movie I dismissed and neglected to see which I end up seeing a year later and loving. Last year, I was having so much trouble putting together a top 10 that I even revised the list to include Mad Detective. But there were a couple other interesting 2008 movies that I didn't catch up with until later... Anyone have any suggestions (for either category or nominations)? Comments, complaints and suggestions are welcome, as always. It looks like Ingourious Basterds is leading the way with 5 solid nominations. Following that with a solid 4 nominations is Star Trek. Surprisingly, Avatar was also nominated for 4 awards, but one of those is "Biggest Disappointment" which I think puts it behind Trek. At 3 nominations, we've got Watchmen and Crank: High Voltage, while a whole slew of other films garnered 2 noms, and an even larger amount earned a single nomination. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to give myself a week to think about each of these. I might end up adding to the nominations if I end up seeing something new. Winners will be announced starting next Sunday or Monday. As with the last few years, there will be a small set of Arbitrary Awards after the standard awards are given out, followed by the top 10. Posted by Mark on January 17, 2010 at 08:59 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Noughtie Preconceptions So the other day I was perusing other answers to Dennis' quiz (my answers here), and came across Veronique's blog, where she has an interesting list of Least Favorite Preconceptions of the Decade. It's probably not a comprehensive list or anything, and I have to admit that I haven't been as immersed in the decade-end naughtie lists as some other folks, but I did have some thoughts... 1.) There Will Be Blood = greatest movie of the decade and Daniel Day-Lewis = greatest performer. Do you ever feel like you just saw a completely move than everyone else?Yes, yes I have, and in fact, I've had the same thought with respect to There Will Be Blood. When exiting the theater after watching the movie, I distinctly remember hearing a guy remark to his lady friend that the movie "was like a 2 hour handjob without the happy ending." Well that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? It's a sumptuously photographed movie and Daniel Day Lewis is a force of nature in that movie, but other than that, there's no real reason to put this movie in the top 10 of the decade. This is perhaps not surprising coming from a guy who didn't even put it in his top 10 of 2007. At the time, I remember liking it a lot, but I simply can't get over the fact that for a movie that is ostensibly a character study, it provides no actual insight into the character, leaving you with a feeling of "Why?" when you get to the end. 2. Kate Winslet can do no wrong. Count me one of Winslet's few detractors -- possibly her only one. Choosing highbrow, award-bait material does not a great actress make.I don't really have much to say regarding this one, but I will offer up a half-hearted response that good roles for female actresses these days are somewhat few and far between, so I think it's worth cutting some slack. That said, I can assure you that Kate Winslet is capable of doing wrong... 3. The American public doesn't go to see Iraq /Afghanistan war movies because they are overwhelmed with war coverage already/don't care about politics/just want to see context-free car explosions. I've read many an article with some version of this thesis, and I don't buy it. While it is true that movies like Stop-Loss, Home of the Brave, and In the Valley of Elah haven't been hits, I would point to the films' quality to explain why they bombed.On this one, I think I'm going to have to disagree with Veronique. The reasons why the American public doesn't go see Iraq/Afghanistan war movies are probably more varied than the examples given, but I still don't think that people will go to see one of these movies until there's something genuinely compelling to say about the wars in question, and I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon (not the least of which because we're still mired in the war, and that it's an unusual war in a lot of ways). I agree that the quality of the films released is probably part of the issue, but on the other hand, quality doesn't always translate to poor box office performance (see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). I think another part of the puzzle is that most movies with a really strong political viewpoint in general aren't very good and almost can't be very good. When an artist takes a really strong political position, they almost always lose the ability to see the world through the eyes of everyone, including people who have varying degrees of beliefs on different issues. I suppose the exception to this sort of thing is when such positions are forwarded through metaphor and symbolism. For instance, you could consider The Dark Knight (one of the most successful movies of the past two years) an Iraq war movie that comments on various current events. Perhaps it's something about removing the story from it's immediate context that allows viewers to better internalize the message better (or not, if they're not inclined to do so). It's also easier to insert your own political viewpoint on something that is mediated by metaphor and symbolism than it is for something baldly presented as true (which most Iraq war movies are). The Hurt Locker* is a new and recent exception: a critically-acclaimed Iraq movie actually set in Iraq. And it's been a hit commercially.While The Hurt Locker was a low budget film (supposedly around $11 million) and ultimately eeked out a profit, I don't think this qualifies as a commercial "hit." It made about $12.5 million domestic (a total of $16 million worldwide), but that's not exactly lighting the box office on fire. What's more, its widest release was in 535 theaters - again, hardly a big number. For reference, the aforementioned Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (one of the worst movies of the year) made about $400 million domestic (a total of around $800 million worldwide) and was released in 4,293 theaters. Now, The Hurt Locker is a fine film (and it probably is the best Iraq war movie), but I also don't think it's a very commercially viable film either. It has some great action/suspense sequences, but there's little in the way of a story, and not a whole lot of insight into the whole adrenaline junkie aspect of the story. Add in the fact that we're in the midst of a global economic depression, and movies like this which don't even pretend to offer any sort of escapism aren't going to do so well. 4. Judd Apatow and his merry band of hilarious slacker-imps are the future of Hollywood and romantic comedies made for women are a bunch of treacle and/or slush. I actually think the former opinion has been trumpeted less obnoxiously of late. That's probably due to the fact that Funny People didn't do terribly well at the box office. ... offshoots like I Love You, Man and Role Models, these movies get praised to the high heavens at the same time the reviewer admits they're kind of trashy. However, trashy woman-oriented romantic comedies get the short end of the stick. Yes, some of them are unbearable and sure, the formula could use some loosening up. However, there were plenty of '00s romantic comedies that were both smart and fun to watchI think the Apatow thing is definitely winding down, but it will still limp on for the next few years until something new comes along. I think part of the reason these movies were so well received was that they really were something new and interesting. The genre of Romantic Comedies was once synonymous with chick-flick, but now it's not. Ultimately, this is a good thing, and I'm betting this sort of male-oriented romantic comedy will continue to do well. You can see something similar happening with animation, and in particular Pixar. Traditional Disney fare was always a sorta female dominated affair. Lots of princesses and love stories and yada, yada, yada. There were the occasional male-dominated stories, of course, but overall, animation was female dominated. One of the big things Pixar did to establish itself as something new and different was to focus on boys (which is why people complaining about Pixar's gender problem are kinda missing the point). Back to romantic comedies, I think the reason woman-oriented movies are getting the short end of the stick is that they've been dominant for the past 20-30 years. The formula is stale and you end up seeing a lot of bizarre gimmicks. None of which is to say that there can't be a well executed woman-oriented romantic comedy anymore, and Veronique points to a few good examples. Indeed, one thing I'd like to see more of is a female equivalent of the so called "bromance" movies. There are tons of stories of male bonding and friendships (heck, even the recent Sherlock Holmes movie is mostly notable due to the bromance between Holmes and Watson), but relatively few about female bonding and friendship. Hey, maybe someday we can reach a sort of Hegelian synthesis and produce some romantic comedies that are equally appealing to both sexes. 5. The House Bunnyis a nuanced comedy about gender relations. Well, I do think Anna Faris is funny and comedically gifted. However, out of all the movies from this decade to pick as a great feminist oeuvre, why not Mean Girls?Mental note: see both these movies. Well that about wraps this post up for now. In typical Kaedrin fashion, the 2009 movie recap festivities will begin this weekend (yes, a few weeks after the year ended) with the announcement of the nominees for the 4th annual Kaedrin Movie Awards (previous installments: 2006, 2007, and 2008). The top 10 of 2009 will probably come sometime in February, once I've had the chance to see a few films that have eluded me (notably A Serious Man, Black Dynamite, and The House of the Devil), mostly because of small releases (this is frustrating for me almost every year, and I live in a relatively movie-friendly city). I haven't even really considered best of the decade stuff, but perhaps someday... Posted by Mark on January 13, 2010 at 06:48 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
More on Visual Literacy In response to my post on Visual Literacy and Rembrandt's J'accuse, long-time Kaedrin friend Roy made some interesting comments about director Peter Greenaway's insistence that our ability to analyze visual art forms like paintings is ill-informed and impoverished. It depends on what you mean by visually illiterate, I guess. Because I think that the majority of people are as visually literate as they are textually literate. What you seem to be comparing is the ability to read into a painting with the ability to read words, but that's not just reading, you're talking about analyzing and deconstructing at that point. I mean, most people can watch a movie or look at a picture and do some basic contextualizing. ... It's not for lack of literacy, it's for lack of training. You know how it is... there's reading, and then there's Reading. Most people in the United States know how to read, but that doesn't mean that they know how to Read. Likewise with visual materials--most people know how to view a painting, they just don't know how to View a Painting. I don't think we're visually illiterate morons, I just think we're only superficially trained.I mostly agree with Roy, and I spent most of my post critiquing Greenaway's film for similar reasons. However, I find the subject of visual literacy interesting. First, as Roy mentions, it depends on how you define the phrase. When we hear the term literacy, we usually mean the ability to read and write, but there's also a more general definition of being educated or having knowledge within a particular subject or field (i.e. computer literacy or in our case, visual literacy). Greenaway is clearly emphasizing the more general definition. It's not that he thinks we can't see a painting, it's that we don't know enough about the context of the paintings we are viewing. Roy is correct to point out that most people actually do have relatively sophisticated visual skills: Even when people don't have the vocabulary or training, they still pick up on things, because I think we use symbols and visual language all the time. We read expressions and body language really well, for example. Almost all of our driving rules are encoded first and foremost as symbols, not words--red=stop, green=go, yellow=caution. You don't need "Stop" or "Yield" on the sign to know which it is--the shape of the sign tells you.Those are great examples of visual encoding and conventions, but do they represent literacy? Why does a stop sign represent what it does? There are three main components to the stop sign: 
However, it's worth noting that the clear meaning of a stop sign is also due to the fact that it's a near universal convention used throughout the entire world. Not all traffic signals are as well defined. Case in point, what does a blinking green traffic light represent? Blinking red means to "stop, then proceed with caution" (kinda like a stop sign). Blinking yellow means to "slow down and proceed with caution." So what does a blinking green mean? James Grimmelmann tried to figure it out: It turns out (courtesy of the ODP and rec.travel), perhaps unsurpsingly, that there is no uniform agreement on the meaning of a blinking green light. In a bunch of Canadian provinces, it has the same general meaning that a regular green light does, with the added modifier that you are the undisputed master of all you survey. All other traffic entering the intersection has a stop sign or a red light, and must bow down before your awesome cosmic powers. On the other hand, if you're in Massachusetts or British Columbia and you try a no-look Ontario-style left turn on a blinking green, you're liable to get into a smackup, since the blinking green means only that cross traffic is seeing red, with no guarantees about oncoming traffic.Now, maybe it's just because we're starting to get obscure and complicated here, but the reason traffic signals work is because we've established a set of conventions that are similar most everywhere. But when we mess around with them or get too complicated, it could be a problem. Luckly, we don't do that sort of thing very often (even the blinking green example is probably vanishingly obscure - I've never seen or even heard of that happening until reading James' post). These conventions are learned, usually through simple observation, though we also regulate who can drive and require people to study the rules of driving (including signs and lights) before granting a license. Another example, perhaps surprising because it is something primarily thought of as a textual medium, is newspapers. Take a look at this front page of a newspaper1 : 
Newspapers use numerous techniques (such as prominence, grouping, and nesting) to establish a visual hierarchy, allowing readers to scan the page to find what stories they want to read. In the image above, the size of the headline (Victory!) as well as its placement on the page makes it clear at a glance that this is the most important story. The headline "Miami Police Department Unveils New Pastel Pink and Aqua Uniforms" spans three columns of text, making it obvious that they're all part of the same story. Furthermore, we know the picture of Crockett and Tubbs goes with the same story because both the picture and the text are spanned by the same headline. And so on. Now I know what my younger readers2 are thinking: What the fuck is this "newspaper" thing you're babbling about? Well, it turns out that a lot of the same conventions apply to the web. There are, of course, new conventions on the web (for instance, links are usually represented by different colored text that is also underlined), but many of the same techniques are used to establish a visual hierarchy on the web. What's more interesting about newspapers and the web is that we aren't really trained how to read them, but we figure it out anyway. In his excellent book on usability, Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug writes: At some point in our youth, without ever being taught, we all learned to read a newspaper. Not the words, but the conventions.The tricky part about this is that the learning seems to happen subconsciously. Large type is pretty obvious, but column spanning? Captions? Nesting? Some of this stuff gets pretty subtle, and for the most part, people don't care. They just scan the page, find what they want, and read the story. It's just intuitive. But designing a layout is not quite as intuitive. Many of the lessons we have internalized in reading a newspaper (or a website) aren't really available to us in a situation where we're asked to design a layout. If you want a good example of this, look at web pages designed in the mid-90s. By now, we've got blogs and mini-CMS style systems that automate layouts and take design out of most people's hands. So, does Greenaway have a valid point? Or is Roy right? Obviously, we all process visual information, and visual symbolism is frequently used to encode large amounts of information into a relatively small space. Does that make us visually literate? I guess it all comes down to your definition of literate. Roy seems to take the more specific definition of "able to read or write" while Greenaway seems to be more concerned with "education or knowledge in a specified field." The question then becomes, are we more textually literate than we are visually literate? Greenaway certainly seems to think so. Roy seems to think we're just about equal on both fronts. I think both positions are defensible, especially when you consider that Greenaway is talking specifically about art. Furthermore, his movie is about a classical painting that was created several centuries ago. For most young people today, art is more diffuse. When you think about it, almost anything can be art. I suspect Greenaway would be disgusted by that sort of attitude, which is perhaps another way to view his thoughts on visual literacy. 1 - Yeah, it's the Onion and not a real newspaper per say, but it's fun and it's representative of common newspaper conventions. 2 - Hahaha, as if I have more than 5 readers, let alone any young readers. Posted by Mark on December 30, 2009 at 07:13 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
12DC - Day 10: Santa Slashers Last year I checked out some holiday horror films and found myself enjoying them quite a bit. This year's crop turned out alright as well, though I wasn't able to get to Don't Open Till Christmas (very long wait on Netflix - the same fate that befell Silent Night, Deadly Night last year).
Posted by Mark on December 23, 2009 at 05:42 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
12DC - Day 3: Incidental Christmas Movies I'm a big fan of Christmas movies, but there's another sub-genre that consists of movies that take place during the holidays but aren't about the holidays. I posted a few last year and here's some more:
Posted by Mark on December 16, 2009 at 07:11 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Visual Literacy and Rembrandt's J'accuse Perhaps the most fascinating film I saw at the 18½ Philadelphia Film Festival was Rembrandt's J'accuse. It's a documentary where British director Peter Greenaway deconstructs Rembrandt's most famous painting: Night Watch. It's arguably the 4th most celebrated painting in art history (preceded only by the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...) and Greenaway believes it's also an accusation of murder. The movie plays like a forensic detective story as Greenaway analyzes the painting from top to bottom. It's an interesting topic for a documentary, though I think the film ultimately falters a bit in it's investigation (either that, or Greenaway is trying to do something completely different). (Note, you can click on the images below for a higher resolution image.)  Night Watch Greenaway began his career as a painter and he contends that most people are visually illiterate, which is an interesting point. We really do live in a text-based culture. Our education system encourages textual learning over visuals, from the alphabet to vocabulary and reading skills. The proportion of time spent "reading paintings as they do text" is minute (if it happens at all). As such, our ability to analyze visual art forms like paintings is ill-informed and impoverished. Greenaway even takes the opportunity to rag on the state of modern cinema (which is a whole other discussion, as sometimes even bad movies are visually well constructed, but I digress). In any case, I do think Greenaway has a point here. Our culture is awash in visual information - television, movies, photography, etc... - and yet, we spend very little time questioning the veracity of what we're shown. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, which is really just a way of saying that pictures can easily convey massive amounts of information. Pictures are inherently trustworthy and persuasive, but this can, in itself, cause issues. Malcolm Gladwell examined this in his essay, The Picture Problem: You can build a high-tech camera, capable of taking pictures in the middle of the night, in other words, but the system works only if the camera is pointed in the right place, and even then the pictures are not self-explanatory. They need to be interpreted, and the human task of interpretation is often a bigger obstacle than the technical task of picture-taking. ... pictures promise to clarify but often confuse. ... Is it possible that we place too much faith in pictures?Gladwell is, of course, casting suspicion on images, but he's actually making many of the same points as Greenaway. What Gladwell is really saying is that human beings are visually illiterate. As Greenaway notes towards the beginning of the film, is what we see really what we see? Or do we only see what we want to see? Both Gladwell and Greenaway seem to agree that interpretation is key (though Gladwell might be a bit more pessimistic about the feasibility of doing so). Though this concept is not explicitly referenced later in the film, I do believe it is essential to understanding the film. One of the first clues that Greenaway examines is the public nature of Rembrandt's painting. For the most part, public museums didn't start appearing until the mid 19th century. The Night Watch, by contrast, was on public display from day one (1642). In a time where paintings were private luxuries, usually viewed only by the rich and those who commissioned the paintings, the Night Watch was viewed by all. In a lot of ways, the painting is unusual and prompts questions, most of which don't seem to have any sort of satisfactory answers. This leads to all sorts of speculation and theories about the motives behind the painting and what it really depicts. One way to look at it is to view it as an accusation. An indictment of conspiracy. Greenaway starts with this idea and proceeds to examine 34 interconnected mysteries about the painting. The mysteries all server to illuminate one thing: The content of the painting. What is it about? Who are the players? What is the accusation? I will not go through all 34 mysteries, but as an example, the first mystery is about the Dutch Militia. At the time of the painting, there was a century-long Dutch tradition of the group military portrait. The Dutch had been involved in a long, drawn-out guerrilla war with the Spanish. Local militias were formed all throughout the country to protect their towns from their enemies. These local companies were comprised of regular citizens and volunteers, many of them important local figures, and they liked to have themselves painted, usually in uniform and in a powerful light to inspire solidarity and confidence. As the war wound down, these militias became less about the military and more about politics and power. It was a prestigious thing to be in a militia and they became more of a gentleman's club than a military organization. In the Night Watch, Rembrandt chose to break many of the traditions associated with the common Dutch military portrait. Many of the future mysteries examine these differences in great detail. After seeing the movie I was struck by numerous things. First, for a filmmaker ostensibly crusading against visual illiteracy, I find it strange that Greenaway has chosen to present his argument as a gigantic wall of text. He narrates the entire film. Occasionally, he'll cut to a "reenactment", which are scenes from his previous film, a fictional retelling of Rembrandt's painting, but even those are comprised primarily of characters spouting dialogue (these scenes rarely provide insight, though it's nice to break up the narration with something a little more theatrical). Indeed, the grand majority of the mysteries are concerned with context (i.e. the cultural and historical traditions, the timing of the painting, who commissioned the painting, etc...). There is a concept from communication theory called exformation that I think is relevant here. Effective communication depends on a shared body of knowledge between the persons communicating. In using words, sounds and gestures the speaker has deliberately thrown away a huge body of information, though it remains implied. This shared context is called exformation.Wikipedia also has an excellent anecdotal example of the concept in action: In 1862 the author Victor Hugo wrote to his publisher asking how his most recent book, Les Miserables, was getting on. Hugo just wrote “?” in his message, to which his publisher replied “!”, to indicate it was selling well. This exchange of messages would have no meaning to a third party because the shared context is unique to those taking part in it. The amount of information (a single character) was extremely small, and yet because of exformation a meaning is clearly conveyed.Similarly, when Rembrandt painted the Night Watch and it was put on display, most of the viewers knew the subjects in the painting and the circumstances in which it was painted. As modern viewers, we do not have any of that shared knowledge. In order to understand the visual of The Night Watch, one must first understand the context of the painting, something that is primarily established through text. For example, one of the mysteries of the painting has to do with the lighting. Rembrandt was one of the pioneers of artificial lighting in paintings, and this was the result of improvements to technology of the day. There were apparently big improvements in the use of candles and mirrors, and so Rembrandt enjoyed playing with lighting, making the painting seem almost theatrical. As modern viewers, this sort of playful use of lighting isn't special - it's something we've seen a million times before and in a million other contexts. In Rembrandt's time, it was different. It called attention to itself and caused much speculation. Modern audiences thus need to be informed of this, and again, Greenaway accomplishes this mostly through the use of text. To be sure, there are some interesting visualization techniques that Greenaway employs when talking about specific aspects of the painting. For example, when discussing the aforementioned use of lighting, Greenaway does his own manipulation, exagerating the lighting in the painting to underline his point: 
Unfortunately, these are not used as often as I would have hoped, nor are they always necessary or enlightening, and indeed there are numerous distractions throughout. For instance, the frame is often comprised of several overlapping and moving boxes. Sometimes this is used well, but it often feels visually overwhelming. Indeed, sometimes the audio is sometimes also overwhelming - with Greenaway's narration being overlaid on top of music and sometimes even a woman's voice which is saying the names of famous people who have seen Night Watch (the inclusion of which has always confused me). I'm sure it's challenging to make a movie about a painting without just putting up a static shot of the painting (and that's certainly not desirable), but does the screen need to be so busy? The visual components of the film seem to take a back seat to the textual elements... Interestingly, this is a film that seems to work a lot better on the small screen, as it's not nearly as overwhelming on the small screen as it was in the theater.  Visually Overwhelming Furthermore, the text presented to us is so dense that it can be hard to follow at times. This at least partially due to the massive amount of exformation, unfamiliar European names, different cultural traditions, etc... There are 34 people depicted in the painting (plus a dog!), and it can be tough to keep track of who is who. I suppose I should not be surprised that someone obsessed with visual literacy is not a master writer, but perhaps there is something else going on here... Next, I was struck by the inclusion of Greenaway's face, which is often positioned in a box right in the center of the frame. Why do that? Why is he calling so much attention to himself? My first inclination is that it's a breathtakingly arrogant strategy. Also, the sound of his voice (sometimes overly deliberate pronunciation mixed with stereotypical European accent) lends the impression of arrogance and pretentiousness. I think that may still be part of it, but again, there is more going on here.  Look at me! There are many types of documentary films. The most common form of documentary is referred to as Direct Address (also known as Expositional Mode). In such a documentary, the viewer is directly acknowledged, usually through narration and voice-overs. There is very little ambiguity and it is pretty obvious how you're expected to interpret these types of films. Many television and news programs use this style, to varying degrees of success. Ken Burns' infamous Civil War and Baseball series use this format eloquently, but most traditional propaganda films also fall into this category. The disembodied nature of a voice-over lends an air of authority and even omniscience to a film's subject matter (this type of voice-over is often referred to as "Voice of God" narration). As such, these films are open to abuse through manipulative rhetoric and social propaganda. By contrast, Reflexive Documentaries use many devices to acknowledge the filmmaker's presence, perspective, and selectivity in constructing the film. It is thought that films like this are much more honest about their subjectivity, and thus provide a much greater service to the audience. An excellent example of a Reflexive documentary is Errol Morris' brilliant film, The Thin Blue Line. The film examines the "truth" around the murder of a Dallas policeman. The use of colored lighting throughout the film eventually correlates with who is innocent or guilty, and Morris is also quite manipulative through his use of editing - deconstructing and reconstructing the case to demonstrate just how problematic finding the truth can be. His use of framing calls attention to itself, daring the audience to question the intents of the filmmakers. The use of interviews in conjunction with editing is carefully structured to demonstrate the subjectivity of the film and its subjects. As you watch the movie, it becomes quite clear that Morris is toying with you, the viewer, and that he wants you to be critical of the "truth" he is presenting. Ironically, a documentary becomes more objective when it acknowledges its own biases and agenda. In other words, a documentary becomes more objective when it admits its own subjectivity. Greenaway could easily have employed a direct address narration with this film, but he does not. Instead, he conspicuously inserts himself right into the middle of the frame. Indeed, later in the film, Greenaway appears dressed in a ridiculous getup more suited to appear within the painting than in the movie. It's almost like he's daring us to question this visual choice. Why? Perhaps because of the third thing that struck me - Greenaway is the only narrator in the film. Most documentaries feature many talking heads, experts and historians, and even some contrary opinions, among other expositional techniques. This film does not. Why? Could it be that Greenaway's story is complete bullshit? After all, his story is delivered in textual form. With his visuals, Greenaway is emphasizing his own subjectivity. A cursory glance around the internet (hardly a comprehensive search, but still) reveals that Greenaway appears to be the only one who subscribes to this theory of murder and accusation. So I'm left with something of a dilemma. This movie is an impressive bit of speculation and interpretation, but I have no idea if it's true or not. The visual elements of the film seem to emphasize that it is an emphatically subjective interpretation of the painting, but that this sort of speculation on the visual composition is still important, and that we should do more of this sort of thing (something I would agree with). Or maybe I'm reading way too much into the movie and he employs so much text simply because he thinks we're visually illiterate morons. At this point, I really don't know how to rate this film. I'm having a lot of trouble gauging how much I enjoyed this film. Upon first viewing it, in the theater, I have to say that I didn't like it very much. And yet, it still fascinated me, to the point where I started writing this post and rewatching the film to make sure my interpretation fit. Indeed, as previously mentioned, I found it much more watchable on the small screen. If this post at all interests you, I suggest checking it out. It's actually available on Netflix's Watch Instantly feature (and thus can be viewed through a computer, a PS3 or XBox or any number of other Netflix streaming ready boxes). More screenshots and comments in the extended entry... Update: More on Visual Literacy (in response to comments in this post) This is the title screen of the film, and it's one example of the sensory overload that Greenaway employs. The building in the background is where the Night Watch now resides (the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam). The shot is taken from far away, with many things in the foreground though, including a police car with flashing lights. Given the murder-mystery nature of the film, that part makes symbolic sense. Making less sense is the additional police car inset on the right of the screen (it's harder to see in a static screenshot, but that box is filmed separatel, and apparently during the day, so the lighting is different. In the movie, that box actually scrolls across the screen.). Inset on the right, is a miniature version of the title screen. I have no idea what purpose that serves. And scrolling from right to left across the bottom of the screen is a list of signatures. These names are the aforementioned famous people who have publicly visited the Night Watch, and they are also being read by a female voice (again, I have no real idea why this is being done, as it only serves to really add to the disorienting sensory experience). 
Interwoven within the documentary are scenes from Greenaway's earlier fictional retelling of the same story, Nightwatching. It stars Martin Freeman (who starred in the British Office show and a bunch of other stuff, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). I found these scenes really strange at first. They seemed very out of place, at least until I found out that they were from an earlier Greenaway film. Then it made sense. 
As previously mentioned, Greenaway does employ some visualization efforts to help call out certain features and structures within the painting. Some of the interesting ones are below. The first is one that silhouettes out the main actors in the drama of the painting. Then there's one that numbers all of the participants (you'll have to click on the image to get a good look at that one). There are a few that attempt to visualize the lines of sight of all the characters (only two are looking directly at the audience - this is one of the mysteries that Greenaway explores). 
One of the things that interested me about the film was that many of the "mysteries" are probably things that most people would notice if you asked them to stare at the painting for an hour. They don't have the exformation to read the painting correctly, but they'd easily be able to pick out a lot of the most salient features. For instance, it's easy to question why the girl in the painting is so prominent. It's the brightest part of the painting, and your eyes go there almost immediately upon viewing it. If given some time, you can even see that there's another girl behind the first, and her face is obscured (it turns out that Rembrandt painted it this way because the girl had horrible burns on her face and was thus self-conscious about it). I think the grand majority of the mysteries that Greenaway examines would be found if only someone took the time to really study the painting. Of course, I suspect most people don't actually do that sort of thing, so Greenaway does have a point, but still. 
Below is the aforementioned "ridiculous getup" that Greenaway puts on at one point. Again, I think this is how he is stressing his own subjective involvement in what we're seeing. 
Well, I think that just about wraps up my thoughts on Rembrandt's J'accuse. In closing, I'll give you one of the final shots of the film, which is a sorta reprise of the title screen. It's still cluttered and busy, but somehow not quite as pointless as the title screen. 
It was an intriguing movie, I guess. It would be even more interesting if I could hear what other art historians and experts thought about it... Posted by Mark on December 13, 2009 at 08:04 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Professor Russell Johnson's "My ancestors came over on the Minnow" Thanksgiving/Christmas Movie Quiz Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted yet another movie quiz. Previous installments answering questions from Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... Now, onwards to Professor Johnson's questions: 1) Second-favorite Coen Brothers movie. This is a tough one. It's either Miller's Crossing or Fargo, which are my two favorites. Fargo was a movie that I never really loved... until I watched it again recently, at which point it shot up to near the top of my Coen Brothers rankings. Miller's Crossing has long been at the top of that list, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I revisit that and Fargo at the same time, that Fargo will come out on top... but for now, it's at #2... 2) Movie seen only on home format that you would pay to see on the biggest movie screen possible? (Question submitted by Peter Nellhaus) The movie that first comes to mind is Aliens, but after some considered thought, perhaps The Godfather. Or Ben-Hur. Or The Wizard of Oz. Jeeze, this is hard. I'll stick with Aliens though. Given the number of times I've seen that movie, it's a crime that I haven't seen it on a big screen. 3) Japan or France? (Question submitted by Bob Westal) Without a doubt, Japan. Two words: Akira Kurosawa. Ok, so France has some good stuff too, but I'm generally more into Japanese cinema than French cinema. 4) Favorite moment/line from a western. The first several things that came to mind were from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, most notably the ending Mexican standoff sequence. Then there's also this line: "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk." Heh. 5) Of all the arts the movies draw upon to become what they are, which is the most important, or the one you value most? The most important is obviously photography. As to what I value the most, well, it's probably not the photography, though I certainly love a well photographed movie. Recently, some one asked me what my hobbies were. I started with the typical answers, but then I came to realize that my hobby is consuming stories, whether they be movies, books, history, tv, anime, video games, or even the occasional music album/song. Nothing beats a good storyteller, no matter what medium they're working in... This also explains why some types of movies, the ones that eschew narrative or make no sense (I'm looking at you, David Lynch!), usually fail to grab me. It's not that they can't, just that I find it much harder to swallow a movie without a good story or characters I can relate to... 6) Most misunderstood movie of the 2000s (The Naughties?). It's hard to consider an answer to this question without distorting the premise to be "Movies I like even though no one else does." Because if I like it and you don't, you clearly don't understand the movie, right? But that's usually not true. So I am having a tough time with this one. Some interesting answers I've seen are Unbreakable and Intolerable Cruelty, both of which examine their respective genres from a unique perspective, adding (or perhaps subtracting) twists to familiar tropes. I suspect that Inglourious Basterds will grow into the misunderstood role (especially given the relatively craptastic rating of 69 on metacritic). Oddly, I had no trouble at all coming up with multiple misunderstood examples from the 90s. Go figure. 7) Name a filmmaker/actor/actress/film you once unashamedly loved who has fallen furthest in your esteem. I'm not sure if this qualifies, since I still love the movies early in his career, but John Carpenter hasn't made a good movie in like 15 years, and even that movie was kinda alone in the late 80s and 90s (not to mention that it wasn't anywhere near Carpenter's earlier brilliance). I suppose he did a decent episode of Masters of Horror, but then, he also did one of the worst episodes of the series. I suppose there's a chance for a comeback in 2010, as there are some things on his plate, but I'm not terribly optimistic. Still, nothing beats that period in the late 70s and early 80s, when he just kept hitting homeruns, over and over. But some of the 80s stuff started to get a bit hokey and didn't age well, so there's that too. 8) Herbert Lom or Patrick Magee? I'm not terribly familiar with either, but I'll go with Patrick Magee, due mostly to his involvement in multiple Kubrick productions (Lom was in one, but not one of my favorites). 9) Which is your least favorite David Lynch film (Submitted by Tony Dayoub) Of the films I've seen, I'd say it would have to be Lost Highway, Eraserhead, or Dune. It's a tough call though, because even the worst Lynch is watcheable. But then, I have to be in the right mood, and I'm less willing to put up with Lynch's crap now than I have been in the past. 10) Gordon Willis or Conrad Hall? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom) I'll have to go with Gordon Willis on this one. Not that Hall is bad, but it's hard to go against The Godfather ("...don't ever take sides with anyone against the Family...") 11) Second favorite Don Siegel movie. Well I've only seen two, and Dirty Harry is one of my favorites of all time, so that leaves Invasion of the Body Snatchers... 12) Last movie you saw on DVD/Blu-ray? In theaters? In theaters, I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was excellent. Last week, I opined that I was intrigued to see Wes Anderson tackle something outside his usual "quirky" wheelhouse (which has been getting a bit stale of late). Interestingly, I think this was a near perfect melding of Anderson's quirky aesthetic with a classic children's story. This will most likely find its way onto my top 10 of 2009. On DVD, I saw The Lady Vanishes, which is probably Hitchcock's best British film (of the 7 or 8 that I've seen from his pre-Hollywood days). On BD, I saw Franklyn, which is mostly an interminable bore (and not at all SF).  The Lady Vanishes 13) Which DVD in your private collection screams hardest to be replaced by a Blu-ray? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom) Well, I'll go with 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it's an amazing movie and because I don't want to answer The Godfather for every one of these questions (though it would certainly qualify here). Actually, I don't think I've replaced a single existing DVD with a BD yet. Everything I've bought has been new. 14) Eddie Deezen or Christopher Mintz-Plasse? Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Don't really have anything else to say about it, but Mintz-Plasse seems like he'll be around for a while. 15) Actor/actress who you feel automatically elevates whatever project they are in, or whom you would watch in virtually anything. I tend to be much more of a director person, meaning that I rarely go to see a movie for acting. That being said, there are some actors that fit the question's description, I guess. Some that come immediately to mind: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, Ellen Page, and probably about a dozen others. Again, it's rare that an actor alone gets me to see a movie, but there are some folks who can do a lot with just a little... 16) Fight Club -- yes or no? Yes! I haven't watched it in a while, so perhaps it doesn't age that well, but I still think of it as a great movie. 17) Teresa Wright or Olivia De Havilland? I got nothing. 18) Favorite moment/line from a film noir. The opening scene from The Killers. Two sketchy men walk down a street and enter a diner. Simple, but quintessentially noir.  The Killers 19) Best (or worst) death scene involving an obvious dummy substituting for a human or any other unsuccessful special effect(s)—see the wonderful blog Destructible Man for inspiration. I had a surprisingly hard time thinking of a scene involving an obvious dummy. Strange, when you consider how many bad horror movies I've seen. Anyway, while I wouldn't exactly call it unsuccessful, I'd say the exploding head from Dawn of the Dead fits the bill. It happens very quickly, so it works, and in any case it's kinda awesome, but still, slow it down and look at it closely, and yeah, it's an obvious dummy.  Dawn of the Dead 20) What's the least you've spent on a film and still regretted it? (Submitted by Lucas McNelly) Does free count? I've totally seen lots of bad movies on TV. Also, I used to work at the campus movie theater in college, so I saw free movies all the time. Including some pretty bad ones (Wild Wild West anyone?) 21) Van Johnson or Van Heflin? I guess Van Heflin, since I've actually seen some of his movies. Then again, Van Johnson was in a movie called Killer Crocodile, which sounds kinda awesome. 22) Favorite Alan Rudolph film. Well, the only movies I've seen on his IMDB page are actually Robert Altman movies, but I don't think those are what you're looking for. 23) Name a documentary that you believe more people should see. The first two that came to mind were recent documentaries. First is Playing Columbine, a movie that has only really played on the festival circuit, but which I really enjoyed (anyone who likes video games should watch the movie). Unfortunately, it does not appear to be available on DVD yet. Second was Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which is kinda like a real life Spinal Tap. Finally, for a broader perspective or to show what the medium is capable of, perhaps something like The Thin Blue Line would be appropriate. 24) In deference to this quiz’s professor, name a favorite film which revolves around someone becoming stranded. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "stranded", but I'll go with Planet of the Apes. 25) Is there a moment when your knowledge of film, or lack thereof, caused you an unusual degree of embarrassment and/or humiliation? If so, please share. The most embarrassed I get is when I'm filling out your quizes and I get to one of the questions where you ask me to choose between two people I've never heard of. I'm not very embarrassed by that though, as evidenced by the fact that I keep filling the damn things out. Speaking of this: 26) Ann Sheridan or Geraldine Fitzgerald? (Submitted by Larry Aydlette) *sigh* 27) Do you or any of your family members physically resemble movie actors or other notable figures in the film world? If so, who? Honestly, no. I can't think of anything for this. 28) Is there a movie you have purposely avoided seeing? If so, why? In general, I tend to avoid bad movies or movies I know I won't like. So there's no specific movie I'm avoiding, and for the most part, I'll watch even a bad movie if someone else wants to... 29) Movie with the most palpable or otherwise effective wintry atmosphere or ambience. There are a couple of obvious choices here, but I'm using those movies for other answers in this quiz and don't want to repeat myself too much. So I'll go with A Christmas Story, which perfectly captures winter through the eyes of children. Another quick non-obvious choice: Groundhog Day. 30) Gerrit Graham or Jeffrey Jones? Jeffrey Jones, hands down. I mean, I've seen a lot of his movies and I know who he is, which is something I can't say for Gerrit Graham (though maybe if you pointed him out, I'd know). Even beyond that, I generally like Jeffrey Jones as an actor, so there. 31) The best cinematic antidote to a cultural stereotype (sexual, political, regional, whatever). This is tough, because movies tend to establish stereotypes more than explode them. That said, any movie that realistically portrays a character as a human being rather than as a label (i.e. their sex, political agenda, regional affiliation, etc...) would be good. Specific examples are difficult, though I find it interesting that the thread at SLIFR featured multiple examples of movies that demonstrated "that not all Christians are arrogant, selfish, sanctimonious hypocrites." However, it's a tough line to hug. How do you do this without establishing a counter-stereotype? Wouldn't that be just as bad? Again, the best you could hope for is to see someone as an individual, rather than a member of a race, political party, sex, etc... and even that would probably be subjective. Ironically, movies that set out to address this kind of thing probably don't succeed often because they're too direct and confrontational. 32) Second favorite John Wayne movie. I haven't seen a ton of movies from his catalog, but I'll just go with Rio Bravo. 33) Favorite movie car chase. This is quite difficult to narrow down. I have to admit that the first movie that leapt to mind was Ronin. That's obviously a movie that relies on past car chases (particularly To Live and Die in L.A.) for inspiration, but Ronin has several great car chases, and they are just about perfectly executed. They take place in Europe, so all the cars are revving high and the streets are narrow, which really does make things more interesting. The other recent movie that came to mind was Death Proof, which obviously also owes a lot to older films like Vanishing Point. Honorable mentions go to Mad Max and The Road Warrior (those Aussies really know how to film them a car chase).  Mad Max Also The Blues Brothers. The Bourne movies all have decent car chases. The freeway sequence in The Matrix Reloaded is actually quite good. A random nostalgic choice from the 80s that I actually kinda like: Running Scared. Ok, fine, since I'm listing them all out, I might as well also mention the obvious Bullitt and The French Connection. So there, I gave you like 20 answers. For car race fans, the Fury Road episode of The Hollywood Saloon is pretty cool. 34) In the spirit of His Girl Friday, propose a gender-switched remake of a classic or not-so-classic film. (Submitted by Patrick Robbins) This is an excellent question, but one which is probably doomed. The only thing I could think of is a remake of the Evil Dead movies. The reason I say it's doomed is that Bruce Campbell's performance in those movies is so perfect that anyone else, male or female, is bound to pale in comparison. A woman in that sorta role could shine, though. I have no idea who could fill this kinda role, but I feel like it would be an interesting fit. In fact, I can't think of any sorta female physical comedy experts. Hurm. Maybe this would be a good idea. 35) Barbara Rhoades or Barbara Feldon? I have no idea. Completely unrelated, but damn, this quiz is long. I feel like it's a lot longer than other previous quizes. 36) Favorite Andre De Toth movie. I guess House of Wax, by default (i.e. I haven't seen any of his other films). Also of note, his IMDB picture qualifies him for a future question, but he won't win... 37) If you could take one filmmaker's entire body of work and erase it from all time and memory, as if it had never happened, whose oeuvre would it be? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen) This type of question has come up a couple of times before, and I really can't bring myself to destroy films, even horrible films I hate. I guess I'm just not the censoring type. 38) Name a film you actively hated when you first encountered it, only to see it again later in life and fall in love with it. I can't believe this is what I came up with, but here goes: This is probably the opposite of what you're looking for and, well, a little embarrassing, but I hated Road House when it came out, and even later when it became a sorta so-bad-it's-good movie in the 90s. It wasn't until a few years ago that I came to recognize the genius of that film. 39) Max Ophuls or Marcel Ophuls? (Submitted by Tom Sutpen) He said who in the what now? 40) In which club would you most want an active membership, the Delta Tau Chi fraternity, the Cutters or the Warriors? And which member would you most resemble, either physically or in personality? I guess Delta Tau Chi because I hate bicyclists and am not violent enough to make it in a gang. The Deltas seem like a fun-loving bunch, but then, I probably wouldn't cut it there either. I guess I'm just not cut out for groups. 41) Your favorite movie cliche. There are a million of these, but I love how every time a computer is shown on screen, it has some sort of newfangled GUI that can render 3D simulations within minutes. Even better, whenever our heroes are attempting to "clean up" some photographic evidence, and end up with nearly perfect images. Heh. 42) Vincente Minnelli or Stanley Donen? (Submitted by Bob Westal) Difficult choice. I've seen more of Donen (and really, how do you beat Singin' in the Rain (and this from a guy who normally hates musicals)), but I want to see more of Minnelli. For now, it's Donen, but it seems like Minnelli has a broader, more well rounded filmography. 43) Favorite Christmas-themed horror movie or sequence. I never saw this until last year, but Black Christmas is a fantastic movie that any fan of the horror genre (especially slasher fans) absolutely must watch. This movie set the tone for all that came after it (incidentally, the film is directed by Bob Clarke, who also did the polar opposite A Christmas Story, which is probably a better movie, but still.)  Black Christmas 44) Favorite moment of self- or selfless sacrifice in a movie. The obvious choice is the end of Casablanca, but I have to embrace my nerdy nature and go with Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. 45) If you were the cinematic Spanish Inquisition, which movie cult (or cult movie) would you decimate? (Submitted by Bob Westal) Again with the censorship! Honestly, the world is big enough to contain movies I don't like (even cult movies with annoying followers). 46) Caroline Munro or Veronica Carlson? Definitely Caroline Munro. I mean, she's a Bond girl, and she's got some nice slashers under her belt too. Apparently she was in the Dr. Phibes movies too, though I can't picture her in those. Veronica Carlson appears to be in a bunch of Hammer horror films, but none that I've seen (and I have to say that I was disappointed by the Hammer horror films I did see...). 47) Favorite eye-patch wearing director. (Submitted by Patty Cozzalio) Raoul Walsh. He looks like a Bond villain. Interestingly, this makes the third straight quiz where I've talked about Raoul Walsh. Pretty good considering I've only ever seen one of his films. 
48) Favorite ambiguous movie ending. (Original somewhat ambiguous submission---“Something about ambiguous movie endings!”-- by Jim Emerson, who may have some inspiration of his own to offer you.) The Thing (the Carpenter remake) has an awesome ambiguous ending. I'll just leave it at that. 49) In giving thanks for the movies this year, what are you most thankful for? I won't go into specific movies (that's what January is for, what with the awards and the top 10s, etc...), but I'll just say that I'm thankful for the accessibility of watching movies, whether that be through DVD/BR, Netflix (and their online streaming service which now actually works on my PS3), the theaters (Philadelphia isn't New York or LA or even Chicago or Austin, but as near as I can tell, it's still a pretty good movie town), or cable television. I've never watched so many movies in my life. This is also probably also thanks to great movie podcasts, most of which are now defunct, but still. 50) George Kennedy or Alan North? (Submitted by Peet Gelderblom) George Kennedy. No contest really, even when comparing the two as Captain Ed Hocken:p Posted by Mark on December 06, 2009 at 10:06 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Recent Podcast Listening Podcasts are strange beasts in that most of my favorites usually end up closing down (often right after I discover them!) This isn't really surprising. By all accounts, putting out a well produced podcast with regularity has got to be very time consuming. When you consider that most podcasters are doing it as a hobby, it's pretty easy to see that it would take a toll. I'm still amazed at Filmspotting's longevity, though they at least have some income and professional output (I believe their show airs on Chicago Public Radio). Anyway, some interesting stuff lately:
Posted by Mark on December 02, 2009 at 09:29 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The 2009 Holiday Movie Season I've noticed lately that people are starting to put out best of the decade lists. Me, I have a hard enough time putting out a best of the year lists, and this year is no exception. It's been a decent year; better than last year, but then, that's not saying much. 2009 still suffered from the tail end of the writers' strike, though that should be out of our system by now. And now we're beginning to approach the time of year when Hollywood tones down the explosions and starts putting out their prestige fare in the hopes of garnering an Oscar (with at least one notable exception)... but I have to say, i was much more intrigued by the movies being dumped off in August than most of those being released in December. That being said, there are still a few movies I'm interested in seeing:
Posted by Mark on November 29, 2009 at 07:42 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
6WH: Postscript So I finished up my yearly horror movie marathon on Halloween last week, and it seems that while most bloggers didn't partake in an entire 6 weeks of horror movie watching, many did fire up their DVD players on Halloween weekend... their posts have been hitting all this week, including people who watched many of my favrorite series. Here's a few links:
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=03f9fa82-bd8f-46be-a23c-628810f34d68) Posted by Mark on November 08, 2009 at 08:07 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
18½ Philadelphia Film Festival Recap On Saturday, October 17 I made the trek into the city to watch four films from the 18½ Philadelphia Film Festival. Alas, that comprised the whole of my viewing experience for this festival, but it was a very good day. Here's a quick recap of three of the films:
All in all, it was a very good day and a much better experience than the last few movies I'd seen at the Philly Film Fest... Not sure if that's because it was all in one day or if it was because the films were just better, but whatever the case, I had a lot of fun. Update: I've written a rather long and involved post about the aforementioned Rembrandt's J'accuse... Posted by Mark on November 01, 2009 at 12:53 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Halloween 2009 So this year's Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon concludes with the best Halloween movie of all time. Also, in the extended entry, some of my favorite title screens from recently watched films... 
Again, more title screens in the extended entry... Have a great Halloween! Also, while I realize this isn't especially in the spirit of the marathon, Go Phillies! 
Posted by Mark on October 31, 2009 at 04:23 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
6WH: Week 6.5 - Speed Round! Only a few days away from Halloween, so I figured it's time to cover some movies that I've seen recently, but that haven't been discussed in the Six Weeks of Halloween marathon so far. Some of them just didn't fit with a given week's theme, and for others I only made it two movies into the theme. So here goes:
Posted by Mark on October 28, 2009 at 07:14 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
6WH: Week 6 It's hard to believe we're in the last week before Halloween, but here we are, coming down the homestretch. This is another week without a real theme, but they're all films I've wanted to see since last year's 6WH marathon.
Posted by Mark on October 25, 2009 at 12:43 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
6WH: Week 5.5 - Vincent Price It has recently come to my attention that I am woefully deficient in my knowledge of Vincent Price and his filmography. So I set about rectifying that, and so I've watched (or rewatched) four of his movies in the past couple of weeks.
In other news, Kernunrex is still going strong, putting me to shame with almost daily updates. Countdown to Halloween features numerous sites also blogging about horror this month. Dennis Cozzalio has a big post about Halloween reads and L.A. Repertory Cinema. Apparently there's an Italian Horror blog-a-thon getting underway over at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies as well. Too many movies, too little time... Posted by Mark on October 21, 2009 at 08:53 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
6WH: Week 5 - No Discernible Theme Week I was hoping to have some sort of theme this week, but the Philly Film Fest got in the way and so I didn't watch much this weekend. So here are a few mostly unrelated movies I've seen in the past week or two:
Posted by Mark on October 18, 2009 at 12:07 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
6WH: Slaughter High We're coming down the homestretch of the Six Weeks of Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, so it's going to be all horror all the time here until we reach the glorious day of costumes and candy. Tonight, I'm playing along with the Final Girl film club and their selection of the cheesetastic 80s slasher, Slaughter High. Meet Marty Rantzen, the uber-nerd of Doddsville High School. The resident jocks and hot chicks don't seem to like him very much and are always playing jokes on him. Thanks to a horrible April Fool's joke gone wrong, Rantzen is badly burned and scarred in a chemistry lab accident. Cut to 5 years later, when our unsuspecting jocks and hot chicks are invited to a class reunion at the now condemned school building. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to get them all there and has set up one hell of a party filled with booze, drugs, and DEATH!  Marty the Nerd I don't want to get carried away with picking apart the unrealities of the plot setup, but there are a lot of things that defy logic. I mean, wouldn't it seem odd when only 10 people showed up for a class reunion? And if you show up for your class reunion and the building is dilapidated and all locked up, would you stick around for like 5 hours before trying to get in (or, you know, leaving)? And walking around the school, the whole thing is in pretty bad shape... except for one room which is pretty lamely decorated... and this setup doesn't set off any alarms for people? Another strange plot point is how the characters deduce that Marty is attempting to kill them all on April Fool's day - the anniversary of his accident. But for some reason, they decide that April Fool's day ends at noon? What? (Update: According to BC at Horror Movie a Day: "IN EUROPE that’s how April Fool’s Day works. Here in the real world of America, we celebrate that shit all day!") But that's all missing the point, isn't it? It takes a little while to get started, but it's fun once it does. Again, the progression of the plot (such as there is one) doesn't make much sense, but I appreciated the touch of Slasher Marty using chemistry-related means to kill off a few of the guests. I must also admit that the use of the creepy old woman jester mask thingy is pretty damn awesome (gratuitous shadow/silhouette shots of the hat, along with the auditory jingle are reasonably effective). Some of the kills strain credibility (to say the least), and because of the setup, we don't really care about... any of the characters, really. Even Marty isn't particularly likeable. He didn't deserve to be burned up in a chemical fire, of course, but that doesn't really make him a guy I want to spend a lot of time with. But the kills are at least somewhat creative at times, if not as gory as they could have been.  Marty lurks in the shadows! I've got a mixed mind about the music by Harry Manfredini (of the Friday the 13th movie series fame). There are really two modes in evidence here: First, you've got a so-bad-it's-funny 80s synth-rock song that gets repeated ad nauseam throughout the movie. Second, you've got the typical F13/Psycho rip-off, with the shriek violins and whatnot. It's so obvious and overdone that it actually kinda works. The film is obviously not going for any sort of emotional resonance, it's just hoping to revel in the gory fun of your typical slasher film, and in that respect, the music works. The ending of the film is rather bizarre, for a couple of reasons. First, it happens during the day, which is odd in itself. Second, well, I don't want to ruin the ending, but it's an amazingly bizarre, almost nonsensical sequence of events (which might, in some ways, answer some of the plot-related questions above - but then, it also opens up a whole new can of crazy worms). In the end, what you've got here is a thoroughly 80s slasher film. It follows the conventions reasonably well and it has a few interesting touches, but it's not very good in any sort of objective sense. In fact, it's pretty bad, but it's a reasonably fun and entertaining bad that's well worth a watch if you're a fan of 80s culture and slashers. ** More screenshots and comments in the extended entry... Update: Stacie has posted her review, along with all the other Film Club reviews. She also points out one of my favorite things about the sex scene that I forgot to mention. Check it out.  April Fool's Day! As previously mentioned, this movie is pretty firmly part of the Slasher Calendar, taking place on April Fool's Day.  This is a teenager? This is the drop dead gorgeous Caroline Munro. I suppose she's what passes for the heroine of this film, but while she is incredibly hot, there's no way she really passes for a teenager... or for that matter, someone who is 22 years old. She was easily in her mid thirties here, and to be honest, most of the rest of the cast is in the same boat (but the rest of the cast is nowhere near as nice to look at). 
I believe this is what's referred to as "foreshadowing." 
I love how the movie handles the physics of a bottle of liquid dropping on the table. Apparently it shoots a jet of acid directly at your face. The funny part is that they show the bottle crashing into the table, and the liquid doesn't splash much, then it cuts to his face and you get the above screen. Heh. 
So after breaking into the building, they wander around the dilapidated building until they stumble onto this room, which is cleaned up and decorated in a decidedly craptacular manner. Again, no warning bells for these characters here? This is perhaps why it's not so bad watching them die horribly. 
In one of the most hilariously typical scenes in the film, this guy takes a long drag on the joint, then while trying not to exhale too much, he says "That's good shit, man..." as he passes it on to the next in line. You really need to see this moment to get how perfect and hilarious it is. Classic. 
At one point during the party, this douchebag shotguns a beer. I double-checked, and yes, he's drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. 
The implication is that Marty used his chemistry superpowers to poison the beer so that drinking it will cause your intestines to burst out of your stomach, but those of us familiar with Pabst Blue Ribbon aren't fooled. 
Again, I'm pretty sure that Pabst Blue Ribbon does this anyway. 
Another in a long line of silhouette shots... 
One of the odder kills happens when two characters, who know that they're locked in this building with a homicidal maniac, decide to take a time out and fuck. Oh, and she's actually cheating on her boyfriend (who I believe was attempting to fix up a riding lawnmower in an attempt to escape - don't ask). Marty electrocutes them both. 
Again, the conclusion of the film happens in broad daylight, giving you your first really good look at the killer... It's a pretty cool costume for a killer. 
Look, it's the hulk! This is from the aforementioned crazy, almost nonsensical ending in which all the people who were killed come back as quasi-zombies or something. Well, that wraps it up for this movie. I can see why it's become something of a cult hit, but it's not one of my favorites... Posted by Mark on October 14, 2009 at 07:57 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
6WH: Week 4 - Slasher Part Twos Continuing the Six Weeks of Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, this week I take a look at sequels to slasher films...
Posted by Mark on October 11, 2009 at 08:31 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
18½ Philadelphia Film Festival I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Philly is having another festival in the fall. Traditionally, the festival is held in the Spring (and I've attended for the past few years), so I'm not sure if this fall festival will be a permanent change or simply an addendum to the existing festival. Either way, it's an interesting idea and would allow Philadelphia to play films that premiered at other, larger festivals like Cannes, Toronto, and Venice. This year's fall festival is relatively small: 5 days, 37 films. That being said, a number of them caught my eye (alas, only a couple probably qualify as horror movies and are thus suitable for my 6 weeks of Halloween marathon). Amazingly enough, four of my choices fall on one day and are not conflicting, so I'll probably end up seeing more of these fall films than I did in the Spring festival. Here's my schedule:
Posted by Mark on October 07, 2009 at 06:57 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
6WH: Week 3 - Now Playing For the last couple of years, I've strangely not seen very many horror movies in the theater. Part of the issue is that most of them don't come out in the Halloween corridor, which makes it somewhat pointless. It seems that the Saw franchise has cornered the market on the Halloween season and studios don't want to risk challenging it for some reason. That being said, I've seen several horror films in the theater lately, and I've really enjoyed a couple of them...
Posted by Mark on October 04, 2009 at 03:48 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Shocktober Now that we've entered October proper, it seems that some other folks are jumping on the Halloween season bandwagon with those of us who started out a few weeks early (which consists of, uh, me and Kernunrex). Here's a few other folks celebrating the season:
Posted by Mark on October 01, 2009 at 11:08 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
6WH: Week 2 - The Slasher Calendar As part of last year's marathon, I watched a documentary called Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film... As a result, when I drew up my list for this year, a lot of slashers sneaked onto the list (enough for several weeks). I won't get through them all, but there will be at least 6-9 slasher films in this year's marathon. One of the conventions of slasher films is a holiday themed setting. This trend was arguably started by Bob Clarke's influential 1974 film Black Christmas, but it really kicked into gear (along with Slashers in general) in 1978 with John Carpenter's Halloween. After Halloween's success, slasher films were flooding the market, many of which attempted to copy Halloween by focusing on different holidays. Indeed, at this point, there's a pretty full calendar of slasher films that you can watch, if you're so inclined... and in case you can't tell, I am so inclined. I think this trend overlaps a bit with the convention of having some sort of historical element to the story (i.e. a tragedy of the past revisited in the present), but on the other hand, lots of slashers aren't calendar oriented either. Still, it's a common enough trope that I watched a bunch recently:
As usual, Kernunrex is doing it up at his site, and he's making lots of headway. He's even playing Castlevania (in an experience similar to mine with Metroid, he was able to beat the game using save states) and other horror related video games. It's always funny when we have overlap too. He watched The Deaths of Ian Stone this week - a movie I watched last year (our thoughts are very similar). Other than that, not much overlap... though I can see some convergences coming later. Posted by Mark on September 27, 2009 at 11:37 AM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Six Weeks of Halloween 2009: Week 1 - Universal Horror It's that time of year again. Halloween is my favorite time of the year, and it provides a convenient excuse to explore one of my favorite genres of film (as I have done for the past couple of years). In preparation for this year's six week celebration of Halloween, I pretty quickly drew up a list that could easily take me through ten weeks... I doubt I'll get through them all, but I'm going to have fun trying. Highlights include this week's look at classic Universal Horror films, a sampling of the later Monster revival with Hammer Horror, perhaps some Vincent Price, and of course, some slashers and miscellaneous horrors to round out the pack (including the much anticipated Trick 'r Treat, amongst others). If you can't get enough Halloween madness here, be sure to visit Kernunrex, who's been doing this whole Six Weeks of Halloween thing a lot longer than I have... (Someday I'll redesign Kaedrin so as to allow for an easy switch to Halloween colors like he does... that day is probably not coming anytime soon, but still.)  Its the nicest weather Earth has ever had!* As previously mentioned, this year's marathon kicks off with a look at Universal Studios' classic monster films. I've seen two of the following films before, but not since I was very young, so I figured it would be worth revisiting (as a result, I now want to revisit the original novels upon which the following films were based, which if my current queue is any indication, means I'll get to them sometime in the 2020s). Here goes:
It's also interesting to note that the characters of Dracula and Frankenstein are two of the most frequently utilized fictional characters in the history of film. Dracula has 200+ appearances, while Frankenstein has only had a mere 80+ roles. And I think both will continue to rack up the appearances. Interestingly, I think there are several more recent horror icons that could give the classics a run for their money... Jason Vorhees, Mike Myers, and Freddy Kreuger have established themselves pretty firmly in modern film culture, but I'm not sure they will ever be as prolific as the old Universal classic monsters. Why? Devin Faraci has speculated on this: There is one major obstacle that's stopping Freddy and Jason and Mike Myers and Leatherface from really getting to that position of being among the truly eternal monsters of filmland: copyright. While the versions of the Universal Monsters we love are copyrighted in terms of their appearance (although a zillion manufacturers of Halloween ephemera have skirted the edges of that legality), the characters themselves are in the public domain. This is what has allowed them to become such prominent forces in film, keeping them going in permutation after permutation. If Universal outright owned the characters then Hammer, for instance, would never have been able to reinvent them in the 50s and 60s (my colleague Ryan Rotten very astutely notes that what Platinum Dunes is doing with the characters of Jason, Freddy and Leatherface, and what Rob Zombie is doing with Michael Myers, is very similar to what Hammer did with the Universal Monsters, recasting them and re-presenting them for a new generation with new tastes). In fact, the copyright on the Gill-Man from The Creature from the Black Lagoon may be one of the things keeping him from really ascending and going places as a character. Being tightly controlled by Universal keeps him from escaping into the pop culture world at large.Perhaps audiences will still be squirming in their seats in fear of Jason, Mike, and Freddy a century from now, but maybe not. One thing is for sure though: Audiences will still be entertained by updates on Frankenstein and Dracula... * With apologies to the MST3K Movie for that joke, though it works even better on the newer variations on the logo... Posted by Mark on September 20, 2009 at 12:00 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Inglourious Basterds Since 1994's Pulp Fiction, whenever a new Tarantino film is announced, I read about it and find myself thinking about how stupid the film sounds. Usually watching the first trailers does little to assuage that feeling. But every time (every time) I actually see the movie, I end up loving it. Tarantino's latest film, Inglourious Basterds, is no exception to this rule. It sounds lame: "... a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as 'The Basterds' are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis." But it is a truly exceptional film, Tarantino's best since Pulp Fiction and the best film of the year so far. In truth, the short description above is only a small portion of the movie, and it's the one that we've all seen in the trailers for the film. It concerns Lt. Aldo Raine (played with campy glee by Brad Pitt) and his small group of Basterds who hunt down and brutally murder Nazis. The other main plot thread deals with a young Jewish refugee named Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) who narrowly escapes from the famed "Jew Hunter" Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, in an award-winning performance). The rest of her family is not so lucky. She now runs a movie theater in Paris, and the premiere of a German propaganda film at her theater has attracted the entire German military leadership, up to and including Hitler. As you might imagine, this premiere interests both the Basterds and Shosanna for obvious reasons... This is a thouroughly Tarantino film. If you like his style, you will love this film. It features many of his common tropes, including massive chunks of dialogue, the use of violence as a comedic element, and some interesting, offbeat casting. He also fits in his usual foot fetish, as a plot element no less. There is some winking at the audience, especially when it comes to the various asides (narrated by Sam Jackson), and Tarantino's camera moves fluidly and frames the action well. As with all of Tarantino's films, this one is a referential dream. The film is played as an homage to Spaghetti Westerns, 40s Noir and of course the WWII drama/action film, with tons of other filmic references thrown in for good measure (including the Tarantino staples of B-Movie, Grindhouse, and Exploitation). In particular, films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Cinema Paradiso are all practically direct references. All of Tarantino's films have this obsession with movies, but in this case, the obsession becomes a literal plot element. The climax of the film takes place in a movie theater. A British soldier is chosen for his assignment because he was a movie critic as a civilian. And so on. It doesn't take a genius to see the developing theme here. Like James Berardinelli, I was also reminded of two somewhat recent WWII films: Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, two films which explore similar themes ideas but which pale in comparison to Basterds. Black Book will retain a good reputation and it's heroine shares a certain kinship with the heroine of Basterds. Valkyrie will not fare so well, perhaps playing Fail-Safe to the Basterds' Dr. Strangelove (i.e. a straight movie completely outclassed and overshadowed by a comedic take on the same material)... I already mentioned the dialogue, but it is worth further examination. There is a lot of dialogue in the movie and those who do not like Tarantino's tendency to rely on such speachifying will probably not like this movie. That said, this is his best work since Pulp Fiction, and it is not nearly as indulgent as his script for Death Proof (which grated on a lot of people, even though I think that was the intended effect). This isn't just Tarantino wanking with words, he uses them to wratchet up the tension to almost unbearable levels before releasing it all with fast, brutal action. There are several notable sequences, but the opening scene and a later scene in a bar stand out. I'm sure Tarantino will get dinged for making such a violent movie, but when you look at it closely, there really isn't that much actual violence. To be sure, what is there is quite graphic and disturbing, but the dialogue-driven buildup to these events seems to increase the suggestive and sometimes even humorous nature of the violence. It reminded me a bit of how I felt watching Kill Bill: Do you remember the scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent blows Marvin's head off by accident? Somehow, Tarantino is able to make that scene, and the ensuing events, funny. Not ha-ha funny, it's still black comedy, but funny nonetheless. You don't really know why you are laughing, but you are. And that is what this movie is like. It's like two hours of that one scene in Pulp Fiction.Basterds isn't quite as heavy on the black comedic violence as Kill Bill, but Tarantino definitely employs that same style for the violence here. Of course, there's plenty of other humor in evidence here as well, to the point where it's tempting to call this movie an action/comedy. The setting of the film doesn't exactly lend itself to humor, but Tarantino does a deft job making the proceedings fun. The violence and dialogue are not simply an ends unto themselves, they actually serve the story. And it is quite an audactious story at that. It is so unabashedly American (and at times, British) that I have to wonder how it will play in the rest of the world... Indeed, it's not surprising that the film did not screen well at Cannes (I'm interested to see what Alex thinks of it, considering we are honor bound to compare notes - his initial reaction seems positive). In any case, the film's plot and especially its ending are bold and adventurous (I don't want to ruin anything, so I'll leave it at that), and all the characters you meet along the way are fun and well drawn. Brad Pitt is clearly enjoying himself while hamming it up (which is appropriate) as Lt. Aldo Raine. It's easy to forget how good he can be in movies like this, and this is his best role in years. He gets a good portion of the funny lines and stories from the set about Pitt walking around in character indicate that Pitt really liked playing this character. Christoph Waltz's turn as Colonel Hans Landa is brilliant and twisted. The character plays out like a Jew hunting, Nazi version of Columbo. Charismatic and disarming, he draws you in and makes you comfortable before pulling the rug out from beneath you. He plays the character with a slightly effeminate panache and you grow to hate him pretty quickly. Surely one of the best villains of the year. Melanie Laurent has what is probably the lead role in the film, though, and her performance as the strong-willed Shosanna Dreyfus is quite good, though not as showy as Waltz or Pitt. The smaller, supporting roles in the film are equally well casted and performed. I was a bit worried about the casting of Eli Roth as one of the Basterds (he's not known for his acting abilities - Roth is most famous for being the director of the Hostel films), but he turned out fine and the Basterds wind up taking a backseat to the rest of the film, so his presence is somewhat limited. Martin Wuttke plays Hitler as a caricature, an interesting take that will no doubt be the basis for a second wave of Hitler Gets Banned style parodies. I didn't recognize Mike Myers at first, but his 5 minute appearance as a British General is quite funny, and it's a nice bit of quasi-referential casting there (i.e. hearing Mike Myers do a British accent, you can't help but think of Austin Powers, even though the scene he appears in is played straight). Michael Fassbender has a nice supporting role as well, and I could probably keep going on and on about the casting and performances in this movie. I always hate it when reviewers say this sort of thing, but I honestly didn't realize that the film clocked in at a rather long 153 minutes. It feels exactly as long as it needed to be and it's paced very well. In the end, Tarantino has crafted a great film, the best I've seen in a long time and the first one I'm giving 4 stars to since The Dark Knight (and one of only 3 in the past few years). If you really hate Tarantino, you probably won't like it. If you don't mind some of his typical eccentricities (i.e. dialogue, violence, uh, feet? etc...), you're in for a treat. I'm amazed that after all these years, Tarantino is still able to surprise and thrill me. **** (4 out of 4 stars) Posted by Mark on August 23, 2009 at 12:24 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The August Movie Season? August is typically the dumping ground for movies that the studios know can't compete with the blockbuster fare of early summer. There's usually a movie or two that manage to pick up some good numbers (think The Sixth Sense or Superbad), but movie fare in August is usually pretty thin. So looking ahead at the next few weeks, I'm surprised to see so many movies that I actually want to see, ranging from typical Hollywood fare to obscure foreign films. Here's what I'm looking forward to:
Update: Apparently Mystery Team isn't opening wide until October... Posted by Mark on August 12, 2009 at 09:45 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Friday the 13th Marathon Awards I've been somewhat disorganized during this marathon and I realized that I never really finished off with awards the way I have for some previous marathons. The Filmspotting guys like to give their awards fancy names (i.e. for the SF marathon, they called the awards the "damn dirty apes"), so I guess the Golden Machetes would fit for this, right? Anyway, since this marathon technically started a couple of years ago, I figure a quick recap is in order:
Posted by Mark on August 02, 2009 at 05:33 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Professor Severus Snape's Sorcerer-tastic, Muggalicious Midsummer Movie Quiz Every so often, Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog posts a long movie quiz filled with tough questions. I've been playing along for a few installments now, and he even included several of my answers for the last quiz in a series of recap posts earlier this week. Amusingly, he often chose to include the answers where I whined about having to choose between two actors/actresses I didn't know. I'm not sure if he did that because he was amused or if I should be embarrassed or something, but whatever. I really enjoy these quizzes, so now that there's a new one up, I'm going to post my answers here: 1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film. I'm terrible at picking favorites, so it figures that for a filmmaker where I actually do have a clear favorite (2001), you'd ask for a second-favorite. However, I am able to narrow it down to two: Dr. Strangelove and The Shining. 
2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil. The obvious answer and the thing that came immediately to mind was franchise reboots and remakes (this seems to be happening in the horror genre the most, but it is certainly not limited to that). But when i started thinking about this more, I realized that remakes and franchise reboots aren't all that new... So instead of that, I think one of the biggest changes has been the ascendance of the home theater. The past decade has seen the rather quick adoption of the DVD format, and along with it, steadily increasing quality of home theaters, from surround sound to larger screens, flat screens and HD. Blu-ray has had some setbacks, but it seems to be moving forward well enough these days. With any luck, we'll soon have huge HD on-demand archives available for viewing within the next ten years. 3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)? For this quiz, it appears that Mr. Snape is not satisfied with simply forcing me to choose between two actors, he'll limit it to two specific movies, further decreasing the chances that I'll be able to answer with any authority. Thanks a lot. As such, while I wouldn't call Bronco Billy one of Eastwood's better films, I will go with Eastwood anyway because I tend to like his films better than Newman (which isn't to bag on Newman at all, as he has plenty of great films to his credit). 4) Best Film of 1949. The last quiz had a question about choosing a favorite Raoul Walsh movie, and I mentioned that I had not seen any, but that I put White Heat in my Netflix queue. I managed to watch it between then and now and it turns out that movie was made in 1949, so I'll put that as my answer, because I enjoyed it quite a bit (even though I think I might prefer The Third Man, a common answer to this question). 
5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)? *sigh* I'll go with Jack Benny on this one, I guess. 6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliche? It's hard to say, though I do think it is overused and thus some of its potency has been lost. It's worth noting that there are several directors who are still producing excellent work in this style and I don't think it will ever really go away, but at the same time it's not as impactful today as it was, say, 10 years ago. Also, it seems to be a technique that is easy to screw up or abuse, and many films suffer from the choice to use this style. One frustrating trend I'm seeing is to use such shots along with quick-cuts in order to hide the fact that what happened onscreen isn't really possible or is highly unlikely (I'm looking at you, V for Vendetta). 7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw? Well, it's impossible to pinpoint, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was either La Femme Nikita or The Killer when I was in my early teens. 8) Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) or Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre)? Peter Lorre's Mr. Moto, though I should really see more of both franchises... 9) Favorite World War II drama (1950-1970). Most of my real favorites fall outside of that date range, but Patton qualifies and would probably be my favorite. On the other hand, I do have a soft spot for Where Eagles Dare. It's a little unevenly paced and perhaps a bit too long, but I love the convoluted espionage twists and turns. 
10) Favorite animal movie star. Does Chewbacca count? I'm trying to think of other movies I love that feature animals in a prominent role, but I'm drawing a blank. Chewbacca it is. 11) Who or whatever is to blame, name an irresponsible moment in cinema. I have a hard time condemning actual content in films (or art in general), even films that say things I detest or that trivialize things I find important. I guess I'm just not the censoring type, so the answer to this question would have to do with something irresponsible in the making of a film. The film that immediately comes to mind is Cannibal Holocaust, which is infamous for actual, on-screen killings of animals. Seven animals were killed, apparently only in the name of sensationalism and controversy. I'm sure there are lots of other, similar moments of irresponsible moments in cinema history (another two that come to mind: the helicopter accident that took the life of 3 people in Twilight Zone: The Movie and the untimely death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow). 12) Best Film of 1969. Well, not especially one of my favorite years for movies, but it has both The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, each of which is a pretty great film. 13) Name the last movie you saw theatrically, and also on DVD or Blu-ray. I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the theater last night. Enjoyable, but not as good as the book. On Blu-Ray, I saw Push, which had an interesting premise and was for the most part entertaining, though I don't think the ending was very satisfying. And on DVD, I saw Le doulos, a good crime film by director Jean-Pierre Melville. 
14) Second-favorite Robert Altman film. I have not seen a ton of Altman films (I know, I know, something I need to rectify), but the ones I have seen have all be at about the same level. In the interest of convenience, let's just say The Player. 15) What is your favorite independent outlet for reading about movies, either online or in print? James Berardinelli's Reelviews is a site I visit quite frequently, and he is often the first reviewer I check out after having seen a film (often before even Ebert). Berardinelli has been seeing and reviewing tons of films every year for the past 15-20 years (this despite a day job and a rather lengthy commute to various theaters). The fact is that his archive of movie reviews is probably more complete than most professional film critics, which is an amazing accomplishment. He's a pioneer of online reviewers, and one of my favorite reads. 16) Who wins? Angela Mao or Meiko Kaji? (Thanks, Peter!) I can't say as though I'm all that familiar with their filmmographies, but I'll say that Angela Mao wins, due to her appearance in Enter the Dragon. The only movies I recognize in Meiko Kaji's filmography are a couple of Kinji Fukasaku Yakuza flicks... 17) Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) or Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly)? I'll go with Mona Lisa Vito. Tilly has been an actress that has always grated on me. 18) Favorite movie that features a carnival setting or sequence. The obvious (and apparently popular) answer is Strangers on a Train. In particular, the first murder scene at the carnival (which you see reflected in a pair of sunglasses). However, in the interest of variety, I'll go with Tod Browning's cult classic Freaks. 19) Best use of high-definition video on the big screen to date. I'm not sure if Zodiac counts, as I know he filmed some sequences with film, but the pickings are somewhat slim when it comes to this category - it's also hard to find a good, definitive list of films that used HD Video cameras. 20) Favorite movie that is equal parts genre film and a deconstruction or consideration of that same genre. The movie that immediately comes to mind is Scream. It's a movie that parodies and comments on the slasher genre, then subverts everything about said films. In an unusual twist, this movie seemed to reignite interest in the slasher film, which had been out of style for several years at that point. 21) Best Film of 1979. I'll go with Alien, which is one of my all time favorites. Another, more inexpicable favorite of mine from 1979 is the cheesy but still effective and creepy Phantasm. 22) Most realistic and/or sincere depiction of small-town life in the movies. I don't know about realistic, but both It's a Wonderful Life and To Kill a Mockingbird seem like ideal answers to this one. It's a hard choice, as there are tons of movies that take place in small towns, but aren't necessarily about that. More recent favorites include Groundhog Day and State and Main (both of which show small-town life through the lense of city folk). 23) Best horror movie creature (non-giant division). So this one wound up being very difficult for me. The question itself throws out giant creatures of the Godzilla variety, but I also didn't want to choose something that was primarily human (i.e. vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc...), but that might have been too limiting. In any case, what I ended up choosing was the creature from John Carpenter's 1982 remake of The Thing. Sure, it takes the form of a human for a portion of the film, but there are several sequences where it transforms into bizarre lovecraftian monstrosities. In particular, the sequence when it is discovered in the dog cage: 
24) Second-favorite Francis Ford Coppola film. I'm surprised at how easy it was to narrow it down to The Godfather: Part II (with the first installment being my favorite). I also quite like The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, but neither really approaches those first two Godfather movies... 25) Name a one-off movie that could have produced a franchise you would have wanted to see. This is a difficult one because sequels are often so bad that it's hard to want one for a movie I love. For example, Blade Runner seems ripe for a series (prequel, perhaps), but I don't actually want to see that. Does Serenity count? Because I'd totally be up for more of that. Some interesting choices from other commenters include Zero Effect (a great choice), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (which would make sense given that there are a series of books to pull from), and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (of course!) 26) Favorite sequence from a Brian De Palma film. My first thought was the CIA computer heist sequence from Mission: Impossible, an interesting homage to (if not outright theft of) Jules Dassin's classic heist films Rififi and Topkapi. For the best sequence from a terrible De Palma film, I'd go with the opening long shot from Snake Eyes... alas, it was all downhill (and fast) from there. 27) Favorite moment in three-strip Technicolor. The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy first opens the door to Oz and the film transitions from black and white to color (and Pink Floyd starts playing Money). 28) Favorite Alan Smithee film. (Thanks, Peter!) I have a distinct memory of going out of my way to see Hellraiser: Bloodline in the theater when it came out. There were about 4 people in the theater on the opening weekend (including me and a friend of mine). The movie was, of course, horrible, but I have a soft spot for Clive Barker mythology and the Hellraiser series does have some interesting ideas, so I found myself enjoying some of the non-standard horror moments. The film took place in three main time periods - the past, the present and the future - following several generations of puzzle makers and architects. It was an interesting idea, but the film got bogged down in pedestrian horror sequences that were more boring than scary. 29) Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)? Hey, two movies I've seen and two actors I'm familiar with! As far as the characters go, I'll go with Morris Buttermaker, because everyone loves an underdog. 30) Best post-Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen film. Do I really have to? I'm not a big fan of Woody Allen to start with, and limiting it to this time period is rough. I guess Bullets Over Broadway. 31) Best Film of 1999. Back in the day, I had The Insider and Fight Club at the top of my list, and while my opinion of some of the other films on the list has changed some, I still like those movies the best. Oh who am I kidding? The best movie of 1999 is unquestionably Varsity Blues. I don't want... your life. 32) Favorite movie tag line. This is a no brainer: "In space, no one can hear you scream." from Alien. 
33) Favorite B-movie western. I think I'm going to have to take a mulligan on this one, unless spaghetti westerns count (and I'm pretty sure they don't). 34) Overall, the author best served by movie adaptations of her or his work. This is a really challenging question, as I can't think of any author that has unanimously great movies adapated from their work, but there are several interesting candidates. Elmore Leonard has done well at the cinema (Out of Sight, Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and 3:10 to Yuma spring to mind, though there have certainly been some misfires). Stephen King has a lot of awful adaptations, but several good to great films too (Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Stand By Me, Christine, Carrie, The Dead Zone, etc...). Phillip K Dick seems to be one of the more popular SF authors in Hollywood, with several successful adaptations (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly). Somehow I doubt I'd know the names Mario Puzo or Peter Benchley if it weren't for adaptations of their novels into superior movies, but at the same time, they've only ever really had one or two movies that did so. 35) Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) or Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard)? Tough one, but I guess I'll go with Susan Vance/Hepburn. 36) Favorite musical cameo in a non-musical movie. The Dan Band in Old School, a brilliant moment in cinema history. I also thought of Otis Day and the Knights in Animal House, who are great in both scenes. 
37) Bruno (the character, if you haven’t seen the movie, or the film, if you have): subversive satire or purveyor of stereotyping? Neither. Or maybe both. Both satire and stereotyping take a back seat to the need to provide shock value, which Bruno does with reckless abandon and limited success. Alas, once the shock wears off, there is little else to say about it. 38) Five film folks, living or deceased, you would love to meet. (Thanks, Rick!) I had a hard time with this, as I'm not really sure how much I'd really want to meet these folks. I'd probably be reduced to the Chris Farley show style conversation. Kubrick and Hitchcock come immediately to mind, after that it gets a little hazy. Joel and Ethan Coen seem like they'd be awesome to hang out with. And Rosario Dawson, because she sounds awesome (and for more obvious reasons). Posted by Mark on July 19, 2009 at 11:32 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Changes to the Academy Awards A few weeks ago Ganis announced some changes to the Academy Awards cerimony. The most notable change is the expansion of the Best Picture category from 5 to 10 films. Some other, smaller changes were announced as well, including moving "honorary" awards to a separate ceremony in November. I found the announcement a bit surprising and am tentatively excited to see how it works out. The change is almost certainly a reaction to last year's batch of Best Picture nominees, which was notable for the absense of two films: The Dark Knight and Wall-E. Both are excellent films and both were amazingly popular with audiences, and their absense from the Best Picture category was probably felt. Ratings for the Oscars have been falling for years... last year had a small bump over the previous year, but it's still relatively low compared to most recent years... including a little over 10 years ago, when the enormously popular Titanic won Best Picture and 57 million people tuned in (compared to last year's 36 million). Even before last year, the disconnect between nominees and what people actually watched was pretty wide. A frequent lament heard during Oscar season is how people haven't even heard of half the nominated movies, let alone seen them. So will doubling the nominees help? In theory, sure... but I keep wondering about that. This could certainly backfire. Everyone is assuming that the extra slots will be filled with commercially popular films, but that's not a certainty. How annoying would the Oscars be if you haven't seen or heard of any of the 10 nominees? That's probably unlikely, but you never know. On the opposite end of the spectrum, what would happen if the extra 5 nominees contain subpar movies? That could end up devaluing the Oscars even further. The Academy has been mentioning that this increase to 10 nominees is not unprecedented. Apparently the Oscars had 10 nominees regularly in the 1930s and early 40s. Of course, Hollywood's output back then far outstips our current output. During that era, a major studio would put out at least 50 films a year. These days, 20 films in a year would be about as high as it gets. On the other hand, there were about 300 eligible films last year, and picking 10 of those seems reasonable enough. The other issue is that some of the smaller categories like Best Animated Film and Best Foreign film still exist, which means that while such films might get a Best Picture nod, they'll almost certainly lose (because they'll be winning their other award). If the Academy truly wanted to get a diverse set of movies and give then an equal chance to win, they would get rid of these other categories. All of that nitpicking aside, I think it will be a positive thing. I'm an unabashed fan of genre films (horror, sci-fi, etc...), and the Academy is infamous for avoiding such films, especially in the Best Picture category. The Academy is also infamous for avoiding Comedies. The last Comedy to win Best Picture was Annie Hall. And how did that manage to win? It's main competition was a Science Fiction film. So I'm hoping that this change means we'll get more than your standard drama, historical drama, or drama films that usually get nominated. Maybe a horror movie, SF movie, or even a comedy will make it on the list. So there's a short term benefit here in that more films people like watching might actually be nominated. Of course, being nominated doesn't guarantee anything about the winner... but if a genre movie has a chance of being nominated, perhaps studios and talented filmmakers will be encouraged to embrace such genres instead of constantly chasing after the Academy's idiosyncratic notion of a "good" film. Removing that stigma would be a good thing overall. Also, as the economy shrinks, major studios have become more risk-averse and are spending less money on independent films (indeed, most stuidos have closed or severely cut their independent divisions). If more independent films could become more successful, we might see an increase in quantity and quality. So the potential for long-term benefit is also there. The strange thing about this change is that it probably should have been made last year, when the most successful movies at the box office were also among the best movies (i.e. the aforementioned Dark Knight and Wall-E). This year (so far, at least) sees less of a convergence between box office and quality. Can you imagine Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen being nominated? Not that it will, but still. What movies stand to benefit this year? Up will almost certainly garner a nomination thanks to this change. After that, things get less certain. Other children's fare, such as Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are might even benefit. I'm betting The Hurt Locker will be nominated (but that might have made it anyway). Other indie possibilities include Moon and The Brothers Bloom. More mainstream fare like Star Trek might even make it. As for the rest of the year, I'm not sure. This change might bode well for Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Scorsese's Shutter Island, and James Cameron's Avatar, all of which are genre films that the Academy doesn't typically reward. More traditional Oscar fare like Eastwood's Invictus and Soderbergh's The Informant!, among many others I'm sure I'm forgetting, will certainly garner attention. All of this assumes these movies are good, but one can hope. It will almost certainly make my annual liveblogging less of a chore. Posted by Mark on July 15, 2009 at 08:06 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror This month's pick for the Final Girl Film Club is an Italian zombie flick called Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (aka Zombie 3). Those Italians sure do love their zombies, but I have to admit that it's a subgenre I've never really gotten into... Unfortunately, this film does little to change my mind. It's pretty much your standard zombie fare - a group of people gather at some Professor's mansion in the country (not sure how a professor could afford such a swanky place to live, but hey, it's a zombie movie, why get bogged down in details), only to find that the professor has accidentally awoken the dead, who proceed to shuffle slowly towards our heroes in the typical zombie fashion. This being a bad horror movie, many characters go wandering off on their own so that they can succumb to the undead masses. I suppose I should mention that there are some minor spoilers in the below, but that really doesn't matter that much in a movie like this, does it? 
The movie is pretty craptacular, but the filmmakers also knew where their bread was buttered and hit the zombie movie sweet spots well enough. Instead of spending what little money they had on things like actors and story, they appear to have blown everything on their special effects and makeup, to reasonably good effect. Aside from similar clothing, these zombies don't all look the same or have the same makup - each one has a somewhat distinct look, varying in stages of decomposition. Being a zombie flick, there is no personality to any of them, only to the mob. There's some pretty effective gore here, but by the third or fourth time you see a group of zombies squishing around some unlucky character's entrails, it gets to be a bit boring. The acting is horrible, of course, and we never really get to know most of the characters, but we do get to know the female characters' bodies pretty well (not good actresses, but they look pretty good onscreen). Again, pretty standard fare for a zombie flick. At first, I was a little confused at how this movie had achieved such a high cult-film status. Then this little fella struts onscreen: 
The character of "young" Michael is best thing in the movie, and he is definitely why this movie has attained cult status. You see, the character is supposed to be a 12 year old boy with a serious Oedipal complex. Apparently, Italian law prohibited actual children from being in schlock-fests like this, so the filmmakers had to try and find an adult who looked like a child. Somehow, they settled on 26 year old Peter Bark, who is quite small, but looks a lot older than 26 (let alone 12). Strangely, even the voice actor they got to do the dubbing on the English version sounds like a grown man imitating a child. Anyway, this character steals the show. He's actually not onscreen for a good portion of the movie, but when he is, he's awesome. And the climactic payoff of his bizarre Oedipal complex is indeed disgusting and depraved and surely the reason this film has any following at all today. I suppose a groan-inducing "I can't believe they went there" ending is better than many zombie movies manage, but still... Aside from the unintentional comedy such a film offers, it didn't really do much for me. Zombie fanatics will surely love the experience, but I left the film with a resounding "meh." The whole Oedipal subplot certainly sets this movie apart from the shuffling mob of other zombie movies, but I don't find that particularly impressive either... Some nice gore, nudity, and unintentional comedy, but otherwise nothing special. ** Lots more screenshots and comments in the extended entry... 
This is the aforementioned professor who invites the group of people to his swanky mansion just before heading over to the burial ground (how convenient that this professor is living in a mansion that is a quick walk away from some gigantic tomb). Here, he is reeling back in shock at seeing a zombie. Strangly, he also drops the little pickaxe, leaving himself defenseless (of course, he's also the one who tries to reason with the zombies, explaining that "I'm your friend!" right before he gets eaten). 
Here's another of the film's zombies that showcases the standard green-mumu and neckerchief uniform of the zombies (the neckerchief was presumably used to hide the edges of the zombie masks, which I admit are pretty cool). 
One would think that the pitcfork would make a reasonable weapon against the undead, but not the way this guy wields it. I don't think he even gets to use it... the first zombie that (slowly) approaches him manages to (slowly) grab the end of it and (slowly) wrest it from him. Perhaps the zombies posess super strength. 
There are only ever about 5-10 zombies onscreen at any given time, but the film does give a pretty good implication that there are tons of zombies with shots like this, where you only see a few zombies, but you get the impression of a giant zombie horde... 
One of the other strange things about the zombies in this movie are that they have enough intelligence to use rudimentary tools and set traps for our unwitting protagonists. And they can apparently throw giant spikes with remarkable accuracy, pinning victims to a wall so that they can (slowly) use a scythe to cut off their head. 
One of the many times a character wanders off on their own so that they can become victims. It's actually a nice shot. 
This is one of my favorite Michael moments. He's exporing the basement with his mother and her friend (boyfriend? Not really sure what the deal is with Michael's father - perhaps he was conceived by midi-chlorians) when Michael finds this patch on the floor and sniffs it. Then he runs over and says "Mother... This cloth smells of death." and his mother just laughs it off, completely ignoring the creepy factor (which is only enhanced by the already creepy look of Michael). Unintentionally hilarious. 
These shots are actually our first introduction to Michael. His mother opens the door to check on him and he is sound asleep. Then the camera zooms in on his disembodied head as he opens his eyes wide. 
This is actually the closing screen of the film. Things are looking pretty bleak for the final surviving character when suddenly there's a freeze frame and these words appear on the screen. I have no idea what the hell this Black Spider is, or why it's making a "Profecy" or why it can't spell trivial words like "Prophecy" or "nights". Is this supposed to mean something to the audience? Or is it supposed to be lending a sorta faux-creepy credibility to the proceedings (er, preceedings?) Either way, it certainly contributes to the film's unintentional humor quotient, so I actually kinda liked it. Well, there you have it! Near as I can tell, this isn't really at the top of the Italian Zombie sub-subgenre, but I guess it kept my interest long enough... For once, I'm actually ahead of the game and posted this several weeks early - but there will be lots more posted at Stacy's site in early July. Posted by Mark on June 14, 2009 at 08:22 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday the 13th Marathon (Crossover and Reboot) So the last couple of installments of the Friday series left nowhere for the series to go. I mean, what do you do after shoot Jason into Space? Theoretically, you could have devised another SF style sequel that takes place on Earth 2 (which was sorta hinted at the end of Jason X), but that's a bit of a stretch (not that the series is beyond stretching). So they were finally able to do the crossover they teased at the end of part 9, and then they went on to reboot the series just a few months ago. Results, as always in this series, are mixed.
Posted by Mark on May 31, 2009 at 08:46 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Friday the 13th Marathon (parts IX & X) Coming down the homestretch, the next two Fridays feature what could charitably be described as high concept plots.
This comes from the previously mentioned opening sequence of part IX, where Jason is blown up by the FBI. It's a great opening that film never actually recovers from... 
Oh irony, thy name is Kane Hodder. He's the one on the right there, and believe it or not, he's the actor who has portrayed Jason since part VII. The irony here is that he's also playing one of the swat team guys who took down Jason... and his swat character ends up being killed by Jason later on. Heh. 
The aforementioned Steven Culp, striking the hard hitting journalist pose. 
This is pretty damn funny. After Jason is blown up, a local diner has a burger sale to celebrate. The burgers look like hockey masks. 
Look familiar? That's right, this is the Necronomicon from the The Evil Dead films. It turns out that Army of Darkness was being filmed in the same area, so they were able to borrow the Necronomicon and use it as decorations at the Voorhees mansion (did I mention the Voorhees mansion? No? You're probably better off not knowing...) 
Yes, the ending of this film implies that there will be a Freddy/Jason crossover. It was apparently done as a lark, but then some people thought it would be a good idea. Ten years later, it became reality (it will be covered in my next post). 
Yes, one of the all-time great kills in the series. Jason grabs the teenage scientist who is studying his "dead" body, thrusts her head into liquid nitrogen, pulls it out and slams it on the table, smashing her face into itty, bitty pieces. 
So it turns out that the spaceship Jason is on features a robot. Who dresses up in Matrix-like gear and blasts the crap out of Jason. Notice in the second screenshot that approximately half of the bullets she's shooting are hitting the walls around Jason, and not Jason himself. Of course, all the damage she deals out means nothing since Jason is rebuilt by nanobots, after which his first order of business is to absent-mindedly knock off the robot's head (her head survives). 
The ship Jason is on features a holodeck-like room, so our heroes program a scenario to distract Jason, with hilarious results. In the scenario, two teenage girls appear in a crystal lake setting and tell Jason that they love alcohol, marijuana, and premarital sex before both cliimbing into their sleeping bags. In a reprise of the sleeping bag kill from part VI, Jason beats them to death with each other. So that wraps up this installment. Stay tuned for the last two films in the series and maybe some more posts, because I know you all love these movies as much as I do, right? RIGHT? Posted by Mark on May 20, 2009 at 07:00 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Subterranean Filmsick Blues To celebrate a significant milestone in his life, Alonso Moseley (best fake blogger name evar) of Acrentropy has posted a new filmic compilation and made a contest out of it: On May 17th, between 7pm and 8pm EST, I will post my newest clipshow to YouTube. The first person to email me (alonzomosleyfbi@yahoo.com) the complete and correct list of 88 titles will win a DVD prize pack. There's no fee to enter, but only one entry per person, please.So I figure I'll take a shot. I doubt I'll be able to get all 88 films, but these things are fun anyway (for reference, this is the same guy who did 100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers and 100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers: The Centennial Edition). Here's the video: And here are my guesses (the * denotes when I'm not positive, but still reasonably sure):
So I'm reasonably sure of about 68 out of 88. Of those, there are a few I'm not positive about (again, marked with an *), but I think I did alright considering how hard some of those were... Of the ones I don't know, I made a couple guesses, but I'm pretty sure they're wrong. Can you help fill in any of the gaps? PS - Sorry, the next Friday the 13th Marathon post will have to wait a bit - this was too fun to pass up (and in a rare bit of convergence, it aligns with my posting schedule too)... Update 5/18/09: Several of the unknowns have been provided by friends and a helpful commenter. The new ones have been added above... Update 5/21/09: It appears that the answers were announced yesterday. Looks like we did pretty good, but there were a handful of ones we didn't get (I'm kicking myself on a couple of them, but for the most part I haven't seen the ones that were missing from my answers.) Posted by Mark on May 17, 2009 at 07:05 PM .:
Comments (7) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Friday the 13th Marathon (parts VII & VIII) The marathon continues with the last two Paramount Fridays, which are both pretty horrible and feature what I shall term "Soggy Jason" since he spends a significant amount of time underwater between and during both films.
The best kill in part VII is when Jason finds a girl in a sleeping bag, drags her along, picks her up by the sleeping bag and slams her against a tree, killing her. This was hard to catch with screenshots (it's very dark), but it's a great moment and it's referenced again later in the series in Jason X (we'll cover that in the next entry). 
So in part VII, this psychiatrist pictured above brings the final girl back to a cabin on Crystal Lake where she accidentally used her psychic powers to drown her father. He's hoping that the powerful emotions will trigger her psychic powers because he's a douchebag and wants to get credit for the research or something. Anyway, he's one of the better victims in the series because you're rooting for him to die so horribly... alas, his kill isn't that impressive (though it may be a lot better uncut). 
Jason finds his way into a toolshed in this movie and thus becomes a big fan of using gardening and landscaping implements to kill people. 
Psychic girl does some psyonic damage to Jason that causes his mask to come flying off and this is what we see. I have to give the makeup guys credit - this is a pretty cool look for Jason. 
I forgot about another moment I liked in part VIII. Our heroes escape from the cruise ship on a lifeboat and eventually make it to Manhattan. Jason, of course, was swimming along side them and also makes it to New York. As soon as he gets out of the water, he looks up and sees this hockey sign. It's a funny moment, which brings part VIII's acceptable runtime up to about 1 minute, 10 seconds. 
This is the aforementioned waitress who says "Welcome to New York" when told that the final girl is being chased by a homicidal maniac. 
I'm pretty sure the guy on the left is Francis Ford Coppola, engaging in an uncredited cameo (from the same coffee shop with the waitress above). Well, that wraps up parts VII and VIII. Next up is the body-hopping part 9 and the spacetacular X. Stay tuned. Posted by Mark on May 10, 2009 at 03:22 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Cinematography and Art A topic that has been coming up recently is how many video game makers seem to eschew the label of artist when talking about their work. The "are video games art?" discussion has gotten old and tiresome for many people even as the debate continues on in many forms. Part of the reason this is interesting to me is that it was never even really a question in my mind - video games were as legitimate an art form as any other. Perhaps this comes from growing up with games, but whatever the case, I'm interested in the subject, particularly because it seems like many of the most influential video game creators aren't keen on describing themselves as artists. One of the things that is often brought up in these discussions is the similarities and differences between video games and movies. It's often said that movies were considered "artistically legitimate" right off the bat, and that may very well be the case, but I was watching a documentary called Visions of Light this weekend that touched on something relevant to this discussion. The doc follows the history of cinematography in movies and features many prominent cinematographers. I uploaded a short clip to youtube in which Stephen Burum (who worked on The Untouchables, among many other films) talks about how many of the classic DPs characterized their work: Interestingly, it seems that many of the pioneers of cinematography didn't consider themselves much of an artist. I think there's also a similarity between a cinematographer and a video game designer (or coder, or artist, or any of the hundred other jobs it takes to make a modern game) in that they can both describe what they do as craftsmanlike. In the video above, the cinematographers didn't admit to making art, instead referring to stuff as an "interesting effect," which is a phrase I bet a lot of video game makers use. I don't think this really settles anything, but it is perhaps more evidence of the fact that art is in the eye of the beholder. In the comments to my last post on the subject, my friend Dave posed the question "can something still be art if its creators don't consider it art?" I think the answer is yes. Posted by Mark on May 06, 2009 at 08:46 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Professor Peabody's Hysterical Historical Wayback Spring Break Film Quiz Every so often, Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog posts a long movie quiz filled with tough questions. I did one of these a little while ago and now there's a new one, so here are my answers: 1) Favorite Biopic Well, I don't especially care for biopics in general, so it's kinda tough to pick a favorite. There are a lot of biopics that I like, but don't love. Goodfellas (if I were forced to pick one, this might be it), Lawrence of Arabia (excellent filmmaking, but the person at the heart of the story remains a bit impenetrable), and Amadeus (which is great because it gets at Mozart through Salieri, an approach I wish more biopics would take) are pretty darn good. 2) Dyan Cannon or Tuesday Weld? And so we come to the first question where Dennis gives a choice between two people I've never heard of and I pretend to care which one I choose. Well, let's see. Dyan Cannon did some groundbreaking work in Kangaroo Jack, but Tuesday Weld was in Once Upon a Time in America and Thief, so I'll have to go with Tuesday. 3) Best example of science fiction futurism rendered silly by the event of time catching up to the prediction This is tougher than it sounds, because, well, pretty much any SF movie made before 1970 qualifies, and most after that as well. Also, much of SF isn't really about predicting the future. For example, a common answer to this question is Escape from New York... but do you really think that John Carpenter was predicting that New York would become a futuristic prison? I don't think so. Anyways, let's just go with The Day After Tomorrow, because that really set the bar for verisimilitude. 4) Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon or Troy Donahue & Sandra Dee? Oh man, I really don't care. By the end of this quiz, I'll probably start replacing these choices with my own. You've been warned. 5) Favorite Raoul Walsh movie? Well, I haven't seen any of his movies. However, this quiz has inspired me to put White Heat at the top of my Netflix queue. 6) Sophomore film which represents greatest improvement over the director’s debut A great question. Several answers come immediately to mind, including some of my favorite movies of all time. The Terminator was James Cameron's second film (after Piranha Part Two: The Spawning) and Alien was Ridley Scott's second film (and perhaps his best) coming on the heels of The Duellists (a so-so film). Both had done at least one short film or TV beforehand, but as features go, those are some pretty big leaps.  The Terminator 7) Ice Cube or Mos Def? I'm mildly surprised to be familiar with each actor's oeuvre. I'll go with Mos Def because he seems to be more consistently good (though he has his debacles), while Ice Cube started off with a bang and has been moving steadily downhill ever since. 8) Favorite movie about the music industry The most obvious choice is This Is Spinal Tap which is certainly deserving of the title. For a less obvious choice, let's go with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, if only for that scene when the band is playing and Robocop stops the music, mid-song, because he hears someone crying in the audience. Brilliant. 9) Favorite Looney Tunes short (provide link if possible) Without a doubt Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, though I do quite enjoy all the Road Runner cartoons as well... 10) Director most deserving of respect or upwardly mobile critical reassessment This is a tough one because it's hard to gauge how much respect a given director really has these days, especially on the internet. I'm going to go with Johnny To. When it comes to Hong Kong action movies, directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam get all the praise, but To has been nothing short of fantastic and is definitely the best director working in Hong Kong today (for example, take a look at Triangle, where To completely outclasses Hark and Lam). He got some critical praise recently with his Triad Election films, but for the most part, his movies don't get much of a release in the US. Last year's Mad Detective had its widest release at 1 theater, but it's a fantastic film (it made my top 10 of 2008 once I finally got my hands on a copy). For a modern director, he's quite prolific too. Anyway, for a more conventional pick, I might go with Michael Curtiz. Casablanca is certainly a classic, but Curtiz doesn't seem to have quite the following that you'd expect. 
11) Ruth Gordon or Margaret Hamilton? I guess Ruth Gordon, because of Harold and Maude and Rosemary's Baby. Of course, those are the only two movies I've seen from either Actress, but at least they're good ones... 12) Best filmed adaptation of a play The one that immediately comes to mind is Glengarry Glen Ross. A couple of other interesting choices I found were 12 Angry Men and A Few Good Men (didn't even realize that was a play.) 13) Buddy Ebsen or Edgar Buchanan? *sigh* I guess Buddy Ebsen, because, you know, Jed Clampett. 14) Favorite Jean Renoir movie? Well, I've only seen two of them, but I guess I'll go with La grande illusion. I watched it for a film class in college (one of my two electives). It's not exactly a thrilling film, but it was a good film to watch in an academic setting. 15) Favorite one-word movie title, and why Jaws, because it it describes the movie and evokes tension without really giving anything away (incidentally, Jaws might even qualify as a "Sophomore film which represents greatest improvement over the director's debut" though it depends on how you consider Spielberg's TV work, particularly Duel) 16) Ernest Thesiger or Basil Rathbone? I don't know, Basil Rathbone? It's a cool name and he was apparently Sherlock Holmes or something. 17) Summer movies—your highest and lowest expectations Well, my highest expectations would probably go to Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino movies never seem like they'll be very good, but then I get to the theater and am usually blown away in one way or another. Some of the casting choices give me pause though (in particular, Eli Roth and maybe even Brad Pitt, though I don't mind either as much as some people...) And for low expecations, I'll go with the 80s toy franchise duo of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. For a full list of upcoming movies I want to see even though I know they'll suck, check out the bottom of this post... (incidentally, I was very wrong on at least one of those picks, probably more). 18) Whether or not you’re a parent, what would be your ideal pick as first movie to see with your own child (or niece/nephew)? Why? That's a tough one. It'd probably one of the old classic Disney movies, perhaps a Pixar movie or even some Miyazaki (for a young child, I think My Neighbor Totoro would probably work best). If my child is particularly brilliant, perhaps I'll start them on Star Wars. But I just know it will be something like Dora The Explorer: The Movie. 19) L.Q. Jones or Strother Martin Once again, I've never heard of either of these. However, I'll go with L.Q. Jones, not because he was in The Wild Bunch, but because he was in Lone Wolf McQuade and he steals every scene he's in...  L.Q. Jones in Lone Wolf McQuade 20) Movie most recently seen in theaters? On DVD/Blu-ray? In theaters, I saw a sneak preview of Star Trek (and liked it a lot). On DVD, I watched Freddy vs. Jason, ending my recent Friday the 13th Marathon, even though the movie ended up being more of a Freddy movie than a Jason movie (and yes, it's bad, like all those movies). On Blu-Ray, I saw Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter which was fine, I guess, but lacks context. The disc also had a fake documentary about Behind the Hood which was pretty good. Ultimately, rereading the book was more worthwhile. 21) Do you see more movies theatrically or at home? Why? At home. Mostly because there are more movies available outside of theaters than inside theaters. Thanks to Netflix and Hulu and other stuff, there's just more to see and it's also more convenient and cheaper. 22) Name an award-worthy comic performance that was completely ignored by Oscar and his pals. Weird Science was just on tv and I was reminded of Dylan Kidd's inspired choice for best female comedic performance of all time on an episode of Filmspotting: Kelly LeBrock as the fantasy girl, Lisa. She is indeed brilliant in that film and of course, she was not nominated. It's a choice I probably never would have thought of, but it's spot on. It's a shame that she never went on to do much else. I blame Steven Seagal. 23) Zac Efron & Vanessa Hudgens or Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Is this a joke? I suppose Kristen Stewart shows some promise (I thought she was good in Adventureland) 24) Name a great (or merely very good) movie that is too painful to watch a second time (Thanks to The Onion A.V. Club) Repeating myself: Grave of the Fireflies, for reasons belabored in that post. I still find it odd that most people find this film so sad... I found it infuriating. But then, both of those traits make it difficult to watch. It is an exceptional film though, and it's one of those films that you could pull out to traumatize people who think that you can't tell real stories with animation. Incidentally, it's kinda cruel to point to that AV Club article, as it's a pretty comprehensive list... Most of the stuff I considered shows up there. 25) Beyonce Knowles or Jennifer Hudson? I never saw Dreamgirls... and don't really want to, but Beyonce. 26) Favorite Robert Mitchum movie? Out of the Past, though it's not like I've seen a ton of Mitchum movies and I'm not particularly in love with that one... 27) Favorite movie featuring a ‘60s musical group that is not either the Beatles or the Monkees I got nothing here. 28) Ok, I warned you. I'm overriding Dennis' question and replacing it with my own. The funny thing is that I don't really have a good answer. Kane Hodder, I guess. Though Derek Mears has potential. This is one that needs to be revisited after the next few movies come out. 29) Favorite Vincent Price movie? I am woefully deficient in my Vincent Price knowledge. I've only seen a couple. For now, I'll say The Abominable Dr. Phibes because I saw it recently and was struck by how much some recent films seem to take from it (notably Se7en and Saw). I've already placed a number of Vincent Price movies in my Netflix queue, basing some of my choices on the selections of Dennis' readers. 30) Name a movie currently flying under the radar that is deserving of rabid cult status. Once again, it's sometimes difficult to tell when something is flying under the radar, especially on the internet where there can be a dedicated following to even the most obscure of movies, but I figure my top 10s are a good place to start (incidentally, there's no way to narrow this down to 1 movie). From 2008, we've got Teeth, The Bank Job, Mad Detective, Timecrimes, Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón, The Promotion, and Spiral. A good pick from 2007 that's making the rounds on cable right now is Stardust and a good pick from 2006 would be James Gunn's excellent Slither. There are some movies I've heard of that still haven't been released but that sound awesome, notably Trick 'r Treat. I could probably list off a dozen others from the past few years, but I'll leave it at that. 31) Irene Ryan or Lucille Benson (or Bea Benaderet)? More people I haven't heard of, though at the risk of making myself out to be more of a fan of The Beverly Hillbillies than I actually am, I'll have to go with Granny. 32) Single line from a movie that never fails to make your laugh or otherwise cheer you up. (This may be obvious, but the line does not have to come from a comedy.) This is one of those questions that is so broad that almost anything could qualify, to the point where I'm having trouble coming up with a single example. 33) Elliot Gould or Donald Sutherland? Finally, a choice between two people where I've seen a couple movies featuring each. I'll have to go with Donald Sutherland for this one, because he did some fine work when he was younger and as a reader at Dennis' site notes, "he's made an excellent transition into elder statesman, whereas Gould is really off my radar." 34) Best performance by a director in an acting role Another tough one because there are a lot to choose from. The obvious choice is Orson Welles in Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil (or even in a movie he didn't direct, like The Third Man), but if Clint Eastwood counts, I'd say he was damn good in Unforgiven. 35) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck movie? Double Indemnity, though that may be the only movie of hers that I've seen... 36) Outside of reading film criticism or other literature about the movies, what subject do you enjoy reading about or studying which you would say best enriches or illuminates your understanding and appreciation of life, a life that includes the movies? I don't know that there's a single answer for this one, but history is an obvious choice, even if I don't read that much of it. I do read a lot about technology and the like, which I find interesting and illuminating. And lately, I've been reading a lot about video games, if that counts. Posted by Mark on May 03, 2009 at 08:38 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Star Trek (Advance Review) Thanks to the much appreciated kindness of a coworker, I was able to attend an advance screening of the new Star Trek movie tonight. I will try my best to keep my remarks spoiler free. To make a long story short, I liked it. A lot. A couple of years ago I went to see Mission: Impossible III with pretty low expectations. I liked the first movie, but the second movie was rather terrible (and has not held up well at all), so all I really wanted out of the third film was some nice explosions, maybe a pretty girl or two, and some nice explosions (did I mention explosions? Good.) The director of MI:III was one J.J. Abrams, who had at that point only directed television shows (most of which I did not watch), so my expectations were low. These low expectations might have been why I enjoyed MI:III as much as I did. So when I learned of Abrams involvement in the Star Trek reboot, my interest was piqued. If he could resurrect the outlandish MI series, why not Star Trek? I should mention at this juncture that I never particularly cared for the original Star Trek series. I came on board with The Next Generation, which is one of my favorite TV series. I suppose I liked the even numbered movies featuring the original crew, but for the most part I never really connected with them. So I wasn't particularly interested in the reboot itself so much as I was in what Abrams would do with it. Considering that he was working with material that I never particularly cared for, it would be an uphill battle. Furthermore, the story that needs to be told here essentially amounts to an origin story, which is something I'm conflicted about. Origin stories are necessary and interesting in their own right, but they can provide a lot of challenges and are often somewhat anticlimatic. I don't think it's an accident that a lot of superhero movie series really come into their own during the second installment (not that their first installment was bad or anything). Put simply, Abrams succeeded. I'm also pretty sure that my status as someone who never got into the original series worked significantly in Abrams' favor here. Someone who loves the original series may have different feelings about the film. I'm not an expert on the Star Trek cannon and don't know a lot of the history of star fleet, but from what I can gather, there are things here that might not jive well with people who are in love with the original series. There is an explanation built into the story for this and I was fine with it for a number of reasons, but to go into that more would be delving into spoiler territory. I will say that what Abrams did was gutsy and maybe even needed to be done, which I can respect, but I'm sure there are some who will bristle at what he's done.  Mr. Sulu, set a course for White Castle. Engage! In terms of the story, it works well and the origin story aspect of it is well integrated into the larger arc. I will say that the main villain of this film (played by Eric Bana) is not the most memorable in the series, but he is well drawn enough to get the job done (villains are often an issue in origin stories and this isn't really an exception, but it's not bad either). I was, however, much more impressed with the cast than expected. When the names were first announced, there were several choices that worried me due to associated with their other work. For instance, the thought of Sylar (Zachary Quinto) as Spock did not thrill me. I wasn't sure about Harold (John Cho) as Sulu, Shaun (Simon Pegg) as Scotty, nor Eomer (Karl Urban) as Bones. It's not that I don't like any of those actors (I Iike them a lot), it's that I couldn't picture them as the Star Trek characters. However, for the most part, they all work splendidly. I was pleasantly surprised at how well each character was introduced and given something to do - and this includes the ones I haven't mentioned, like Chekov, Uhura, and of course, Captain Kirk himself. Movies with ensemble casts often suffer from a lack of focus, but this movie had a good balance. A lot of people were skeptical of actor Chris Pine when it was announced that he'd be playing Kirk, but I think he did a good job. Again, I'm interested to see how true blue trekkies will receive the film. While there are some things that might not go over so well, there are certainly plenty of in-jokes, catch phrases and references that are made for the enthusiasts. For instances, you get a nice Kobayashi Maru reference and there's a pretty memorable red-shirt moment that you just know was done purposefully. I'd also be interested in how well this movie would play with newcomers. I suspect someone who has no exposure to Star Trek would still enjoy this movie quite a bit. The other thing that surprised me about the movie was just how funny it was. I was laughing out loud quite frequently and often found myself smirking at the screen when a nice bit of snappy dialogue passed by, or when some reference was made and a character spouted off a catchphrase ("Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a theoretical physicist!"). Even though I never really caught on to the original series, there was an element of nostalgia and familiarity that the movie captured well (though again, I don't think a newcomer would be put off by this). There could have been a little more science in the fiction and there was perhaps more emphasis on action than in other Trek stories, but for the most part, it was quite a fun experience. It's not a perfect movie, but in the end, it's a highly enjoyable, action packed, crowd-pleasing popcorn film. I think this is about as good as I could have hoped for the film and Abrams seems to have successfully revitalized the Star Trek universe. For the first time since TNG ended, I'm intrigued to see where they take this series. Here's to hopeing they don't pull a Quantum of Solace on me in the next outing. *** (out of 4 stars) Posted by Mark on April 29, 2009 at 12:16 AM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Art vs Entertainment This may be somewhat repetitive considering some of my recent posts, but I have once again run accross a popular video game designer who bristles at the thought of video games as art. At GDC, there was apparently a "Rants" panel where various guests ranted about one aspect of the industry or another. Some of the rants include concerns about the way people write about games, metacritic scores, character diversity in games, and the uselessness of the old "hardcore" and "casual" labels. However, the most controversial and most-discussed rant was made by Heather Chaplin: She argued that games' age is not the correct source of blame for the often insultingly juvenile nature of games, the tiresome prevalence of space marines, bikini girls and typified young male power fantasies. Her point: Games aren't adolescent. It's game developers who are a bunch of, in her words, "fucking adolescents."Obviously, this raised some eyebrows (to put it nicely) in the audience. Game designer David Jaffe (perhaps best known for his work on God of War) wrote a long response on his blog and among many points, he included this (emphasis mine): I think a mistake folks make- in any medium- is assuming we all want to be artistically relevant and important in the eyes of the intelligencia (sp?) of the world. I have to tell you: I think THAT desire is adolescent and spews from a place of need and want and lack of faith in ones own creative powers. And- most important- it gets in the way of creating truly great work (be it film, games, or books).This is the third time I've come on this blog and pointed to a renowned video game designer who has basically said that the games they create are not "art". What's going on here? One of the things each of these guys has mentioned is that their true goal is to make games that entertain people. The struggle seems to be that for whatever reason, art is not equated with entertainment... indeed, it seems like most video game designers are worried about art ruining the entertainment value of their games. This is an interesting conjecture. When it comes to the Are Video Games Art? debate, movies are often brought up as a comparison point (perhaps due to the visual and auditory nature of both mediums). And in the movie business today, there also seems to be something of a schism between "art films" and "popular films". I'm not sure when this happened (perhaps I'm only now coming to this conclusion after a lifetime of watching film and seeking out new and different material, including foreign and so-called art films), but it seems to be very pronounced today, particularly in the independent movie world. A lot of mainsteam Hollywood fare is focus-grouped to death and neutered to a point where no one can be offended by the result (I don't think the degree to which this happens is as large as most though, and think there are plenty of examples to the contrary). You end up with something bland that is made to appeal to everyone, and as such, it appeals to no one in particular. On the other end of the spectrum, you have your typical independent or artistic film which often seems to revel in the freedom to be provocative and controversial (these are often studio pictures too). These are films that revel in self-loathing and "challenge the popular paradigm of dominant culture" or something along those lines. As such, a lot of these films come off as being pretentious, self-indulgent, boring crap. Yes, yes, you're exploring non-traditional narrative structure whilst deconstructing the nature of capitalism and the suburbs, but your film is boring. In other words, I don't think it's an accident that Jaffe used "REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: THE GAME" as his example. What I just described as mainstream and independent or artistic films are basically stereotypes. Most films probably don't fit much into either category, but I think the stereotype does hold a place in current public perception of the film world. I find this interesting, because video games are similar in a lot of ways. There is an indie movement in video games, and they are roughly analogous to the indie film movement. So perhaps it's not surprising that mainstream designers like Jaffe don't want to be called "artists". For whatever reason, "art" has been equated with pretentious, self-indulgent, boring crap. Who wants to be that? The comparison of video games to film also brings the usual questions, most famously, where is the video game equivalent to Citizen Kane? In a recent article, Leigh Alexander wonders if that's really what video games need. There's nothing wrong with craving watershed moments for video games, of course. But problem with the Citizen Kane question, as with other similar demands, is that it's begun to reverberate wildly without any practical follow-through on what the answer might look like.I think Bogost has hit the nail on the head here. Back when movies began appearing, "art" hadn't been deconstructed to death, so it wasn't really a question. But since video games were invented after people started challenging the nature of art (and painting stuff like Campbell's Soup Cans and calling it art, to pick an entirely arbitrary example), they're held up to extra scrutiny. It's also interesting to consider that Citizen Kane is not very entertaining by itself. For film enthusiasts, it's an extremely important and fascinating film because it gathered a bunch of existing techniques, invented some new ones, and mashed it all together to tell a story in a new and exciting way. However, if you're not a film history buff, you'd be bored to tears. What made Citizen Kane great has been appropriated, improved upon and contextualized over the years to a point where most people won't see anything new and exciting in the film. For example, audiences at the time were wowed by Orson Welles' use of flashbacks and deep focus. Today, you won't even notice it because those things are a part of the standard movemaking toolkit. You've seen it a thousand times. So to me, Citizen Kane is an important movie because of the techniques it used, not the story it told. To truly enjoy Citizen Kane, you have to really be invested in the cultural and historical context in which it was produced. Video games have most probably had a series of Kane-like innovations over the years. Perhaps they were spread out over a multitude of games, but when you consider the evolution of games, well, we've come a long way. I'm probably not knowledgeable enough about video games to say for sure, but stuff like Wolfenstein and Doom (popularizing the FPS format) and GTA III (with its open-ended sandbox world) could very well represent Kane-like leaps. Honestly, I still don't understand the people who question the legitimacy of games as art, and I think all that questioning has driven a wedge between art and entertainment. To be sure, those are two different things, but to me, the best art is entertaining too (and vice versa). The problem is that when you equate art with pretentious, self-indulgent, boring crap (as many people apparently do), it drives designers who are interested in entertaining people to eschew art. The question I'm left with is this: If there was no question that games were art, would game designers be producing better games? Posted by Mark on April 26, 2009 at 08:04 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Friday the 13th Marathon (parts V & VI) For the past couple of years, I've watched a whole lot of horror movies in anticipation of Halloween. It seems that this year, I never really stopped watching horror movies, and one of the things I started a couple years ago was revisiting the Friday the 13th series of films. I realized at some point that if I continued at the same pace, I wouldn't be able to finish revisiting the films in the series until 2011, so I sped things up a bit. I still have a few movies left, but I figured it's time to start talking about the films. For some unfathomable reason, I like these movies. I fully recognize how bad these films are on an objective level and, quite honestly, on a subjective level as well. There's a definite element of nostalgia here - I've seen most of these films when I was younger, but often in bits and pieces and usually covering my eyes during the "scary" parts. At this point, I can't help but wonder what on earth I was so scared of (perhaps the absurdly bad acting? the lack of continuity?), but I still have a fascination with the movies. During the last 6 weeks of Halloween marathon, I covered parts II through IV (ironically titled "The Final Chapter" even though we're really only 1/3 of the way through the series), so we'll pick up right where we left off with part V (followed by some shorts, a quick review of part VI, and lots of screenshots.) Incidentally, Major Spoilers all throughout this post, but why do you really care?
As previously mentioned, the James Bond title sequence is sheer genius. I think Devin Faraci (also a big fan of the series) said it best in his review: The mood is almost perfectly set, and then McLaughlin goes and makes it utterly perfect: we zoom into Jason's eyeball and all of a sudden his iris is taking up the screen, and Jason walks in from stage right - yes, it's a Jason Voorhees version of the famous James Bond gun barrel sequence. Jason turns to the camera, swipes his machete, blood pours from the wound in reality and the titles happen. It's a glorious moment; one part tongue in cheek, one part homage, one part acknowledgment that, like James Bond, Jason Voorhees will keep showing up in movies for decades to come (that confidence was a little premature, I think). 
So once Jason is brought back to life, he starts roaming the countryside and eventually stumbles on this car with two camp counselors trying to make their way to Crystal Lake. The woman in the car actually says something to the effect of "I've seen enough horror movies to know when to turn around," but of course, it was not to be, and Jason impales her boyfriend. She tries to get away but falls in a puddle and then actually attempts to bribe Jason with her American Express card (Don't leave home without it!) Jason is not amused. 
For some inexpicable reason, a company is conducting a team building exercise in the woods near Crystal Lake by playing games of paintball. Jason neatly dispatches three of the paintballers with one swift stroke of his trusted machete. Another employee shoots Jason with a paintball, so jason grabs him by the arm and throws him at a tree, where his blood stains the happy face. Oh, and by the way, Jason never let go of the arm. The way Jason lifts the arm and cocks his head is hilarious. It's never quite explained why this company apparently only has 4 employees and yet needs to participate in team building exercises, but little inconsistencies like that are endearing in a movie like this. 
As previously mentioned, this movie actually features children put in harms way. I found this particular shot amusing. How many 10 year old kids do you know that read Jean Paul Sartre? It's the attention to detail in shots like this that puts this film above others in the series. 
So after his initial encounter with Jason, our hero, Tommy Jarvis heads to the book store to figure out what to do. He buys several books, among them 30 Years of the Dead, The Dead are Alive, and A Manual of Occultism. Presumably he did this so he could know how to defeat Jason, which is amusing since the method Tommy eventually uses is pretty stupid. 
There's nothing like seeing the results of an offscreen murder to chill your soul. Or at least, cool it off a little. Like air conditioning. Ok, moving on. 
This is how Jason is defeated in this movie. It's a breathtakingly stupid ending, for a number of reasons. Oh sure, they show a boat propeller cutting into his face at one point, but still. Jason's taken way more damage than that and lived, so what's the deal? I guess it's that Jason originally died in a drowning accident, so maybe he just goes comotose in the water or something. Yes, this film is reaching for that sort of thematic depth. And realism too. Because if you tie a chain around someone's neck, their body would float like that. Why? Because apparently only Jason's head has buoyancy. Well now that I'm starting to complain about realism in a Friday the 13th movie, I figure that's my signal to stop. Posted by Mark on April 22, 2009 at 08:11 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Here Comes The Cavalry MGK wants to know: What’s the best “rescue” moment in an action movie? The moment when the hero is absolutely fucked, completely about to get killed/ass-kicked/etc. by the villains in violent manner, and then suddenly his friend/ally shows up, fighting ensues, and the hero is (for the moment) saved?Yeah, I know, that was a little over two weeks ago, but for us here at Kaedrin (and by "us", I mean "me"), this is about as good as it gets. Now MGK's answer is from The Crow, and that's certainly a good pick. It fits his definition well, it's a decent movie, but it's also not an obvious choice. Some of his commenters do a good job pointing out some of the more obvious examples, like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Return of the King, Jurassic Park, and a television example of Battlestar Galactica, among a lot of other choices. However, the first one the came to mind for me was not suggested by anyone. And when I looked around a bit and found the inevitable TV Tropes entry, I didn't even find it there. So my pick is from The Hunt for Red October. Spoilers to follow! At the end of the movie there's a standoff between three submarines - the Red October (a Soviet sub featuring a nearly silent propulsion system and a Captain who wants to defect), the USS Dallas (a US sub featuring a crazy CIA agent and the world's greatest Sonar man), and the Konovalov (another Soviet sub that has been ordered to sink the Red October). In the film, the Red October makes contact with the Dallas, and they're attempting to proceed with the defection when the Konovalov shows up and attempts to literally torpedo the effort. Due to some fancy maneuvering, the Red October is able to avoid the first torpedo by exploiting the torpedo's safety features. Recognizing this, the captain of the Konovalov removes the safety features from the next torpedo and fires. The Red October is too big and too slow to evade the torpedo! Whatever shall they do? USS Dallas to the rescue! The Dallas passes between the Red October and the torpedo (causing one American officer to memorably exclaim, "Way to go Dallas!"). Sensing a new target, the torpedo acquires the Dallas, which continues its turn, changing the course of the torpedo. The Dallas releases some counter-measures which momentarily blind the torpedo and immediately surfaces, causing the torpedo to search for a new target. Because of the Dallas' fancy maneuvering, the closest target ends up being the Konovalov. Recognizing the situation, a Soviet officer scolds the Konovalov's captain, "You arrogant ass. You've killed us!" It's a fantastic sequence, for several reasons:
Update: Heh, I forgot that Beverly Crusher is Jack Ryan's wife, even though she's only in the movie for about 1 minute. Another Update: It seems that for all my bloviating about the plot, I had neglected a few of the specifics of that final battle... but the general concept was still correct. Incidentally, what the heck happened to John McTiernan? In a period of 3 years or so, he made 3 great action/adventure movies: Predator, Die Hard and the aforementioned The Hunt for Red October. Then about 5-10 mostly bad movies and silence since 2003 (though IMDB reports a few movies currently in production). Posted by Mark on April 15, 2009 at 08:56 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Philadelphia Film Festival: Playing Columbine A few years ago, student filmmaker Danny Ledonne discovered a computer program called RPG Maker (which provides an easy way to create a video game without having to learn programming) and decided to make a game that would explore issues important to him. As a high school student in Colorado at the time of the Columbine shooting, he found that event to be particularly important in his life. He recognized himself in the shooters and wanted to make a game that explored that concept as well as the idea that video games were themselves responsible for the tragedy. So he made a game called Super Columbine Massacre RPG! where you play Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and act out the massacre, following events on the day of the shootings and continuing after their suicide into hell (where they fight creatures from the video game Doom). In 2005 he (anonymously) made the game available for free on the internet. He didn't do much in the way of promotion for the game, but it almost immediately started garnering attention due to its controversial subject matter. Many people condemned the game and its creator, but it eventually started to pick up some supporters who mounted a defense. As a way of explaining his actions, Ledonne made a documentary called Playing Columbine in 2007 that covers why and how he created the game, and then springboards to broader discussions on the role of serious video games and art in our society.The film has been making its way through the festival circuit since then, including a the showing I saw yesterday at the PFF. While I wouldn't say that Ledonne is anywhere close to Errol Morris territory, I do think he has crafted an effective exploration of an intensely personal subject. Without knowing much about the game or the movie going in, I suspected that there might be something of a conflict of interests for Ledonne. Was this going to just be an exercise in self-serving defensiveness and bias, or would it be a legitimate exploration of video games, art, and culture? I'm happy to say that Ledonne has succeeded in making a movie that is more than just a defense of his simple game. Of course, the film starts by detailing the controversy surrounding the game and the response to the game. However, the movie wisely strays from the game at almost every opportunity in order to explore broader and more interesting concepts such as the demonization of video games in the media, the value of video games as an artistic medium, censorship, responsibility and the nature of violence and school violence. There is a somewhat cyclical structure to the film, as each segment uses the Super Columbine Massacre RPG! game as a springboard to discuss different ideas and controversies surrounding video games in general. For instance, one segment covers an incident where the game was pulled from the Slamdance Film Festival's Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition by festival director Peter Baxter. As a result, half of the other game developers withdrew their games from consideration and USC pulled its sponsorship of the competition. The details of this particular story are interesting by themselves, but the movie uses this as a jumping-off point to discuss broader ideas of censorship and art. The film is comprised primarily of talking head interviews intersperced with video game and movie clips, but Ledonne has done a great job assembling an appropriate and noteworthy cast of game developers, university professors, media experts, school shooting survivors and even game critics. Some notable names include Ian Bogost (video game professor and designer), Hal Halpin (founder of video game trade organization), Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (designers of Kaedrin favorite, Flower), Jack Thompson (attorney and anti-video game activist), and Andrew Lanza (NY State Senator and video game critic). There are lots of other worthy contributers as well, and they mostly have interesting and thought provoking things to say. By necessity, Ledonne himself also appears throughout the film (for example, there are excerpts of interviews and lectures he has done), but you see him as one of many video game designers and experts throughout the film, not as the director (unlike, say, Bowling for Columbine). The movie obviously has its own bias, and the amount of time given to critics is dwarved by proponents, but the film does a good overall job of letting you know that fact. Perhaps it's just my current obsession with video games and art, but I did thoroughly enjoy this film. Unfortunately, I it may be difficult to actually see the film, as there doesn't appear to be any DVD release scheduled and I suspect there are a lot of clearance issues that would need to be worked out. Still, if you get a chance to watch it, I would recommend it. Even if you're not interested in a Columbine game, the movie goes much deeper, exploring interesting and broader topics like censorship and violence in the media. Speaking of which, I'm reminded of this exchange from the Acts of Gord: "We would like a quote for the front page of the newspaper talking about videogame violence, and it's possible impact on society."Heh. I'm still not sure I'll ever play the game, but that isn't because I think there's something wrong about its very existance or anything. Anyway, because of the game, we get a good, thought-provoking movie, which is good enough for me. *** Posted by Mark on April 05, 2009 at 02:48 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Link Dump: Who Watched The Watchmen Edition A few links about and reactions to Watchmen.
Posted by Mark on March 08, 2009 at 09:53 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Watchmen: Initial Thoughts The long awaited movie adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic graphic novel Watchmen has finally arrived. It has certainly been a long time coming - my first post on the subject was over 7 years ago, and at that point, the movie had already been stuck in development hell for 15 years, with no realistic prospects... The project went from director to director (including the likes of Paul Greengrass and Darren Aronofsky) until 2007, shortly after the surprisingly profitable premiere of another graphic novel adaptation, 300, when Warner Brothers tapped director Zack Snyder to direct the forthcoming Watchmen. There was some apprehension to the selection of Snyder for this, and he certainly hadn't demonstrated the sort of heft that Watchmen would require, but I was glad the movie was being made. I just got home from the theater, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. What follows may turn out to be a rambling mess and I'm sure that my feelings about the film will solidify as time goes on, but for now, I'd like to write my initial impressions. I'll try to be mostly spoiler free, though I'm going to write some stuff in the extended entry that will contain spoilers. The writer of the original comic book is Alan Moore, and he has repeatedly disavowed any of the attempts to adapt his work. I think this quote from an EW interview is the key to how I feel about the Watchmen movie: There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can't.Indeed, many have claimed Watchmen was an unfilmable work, citing the long history of failed productions as evidence. Throughout the years, several strategies were considered. Terry Gilliam wanted to create a monsterous 12 hour epic. Paul Greengrass wanted to update the story to directly address the war on terror (as opposed to the graphic novel's Cold War), a direction I'm convinced would have been disasterous. Ultimately, the man who was chosen to direct had a pretty simple strategy: remain religiously faithful to the original work. I think it's an admirable strategy, but there are some things that just don't work (like when he changed the story). In particular, some of the dialogue in the film isn't so great. Ironically, many of these are direct quotes from the novel... but what works on the page doesn't necessarily translate well to the screen. There is a melodramatic tone that fits the comic perfectly, while it just sorta floats off the screen and hangs there in a film. On the other hand, some of the dialogue works well. For instance, when Rorschach growls his "You're trapped in here with me." line (one of my favorites from the novel - and while I'm talking about him, Jackie Earle Haley's Rorshach is fantastic, better than I expected and perhaps the standout of the film), the theater erupted into something that was a mixture between a cheer and nervous laughter (which was perfect). Most of Dr. Manhattan's dialogue was suitably incongruous, and the Comedian worked well too. But when the Dreiberg Night Owl whines "What happened to the American dream?" or when a news anchor says "The superman exists and he's American," it just doesn't work. In the end, I'm not sure anyone could do much better in adapting this comic book into a movie... Snyder got more right than I thought he was capable of... and I'm not sure a better adaptation would be possible. I reread most of the graphic novel this past week, and one of the things that struck me was how many parallel threads Moore and Gibbons were working with, and the techniques they used to illustrate those parallel tracks. For instance, the Tales of the Black Freighter comic-within-a-comic is a microcosm of the whole story, and Moore and Gibbons cross cut between that and the events of the story to great effect. That almost certainly would not have worked in movie form, so I'm glad that Snyder didn't include it (though apparently he did do something that will be released separately). That was one of two big changes in the adaptation, and I think the movie is better for that change. But Snyder does make effective use of cross cutting in several cases (aligning with the cross cutting used in the novel), and the editing in the Dr. Manhattan origin story was much better than I was expecting. Which brings me to the other major change - the ending. I don't understand why so many adaptations opt to change the ending, especially adaptations that are really attempting to be faithful to the source material. The new ending is basically an attempt to replicate the same outcome of the book without using the same catalyst. The result is the same, but the method is different. I think it just barely works, but I still don't see the need for it (a more spoiler-laden discussion of this will be in the extended entry). I think it was an unnecessary change and while I was willing to accept it and go with it, I'm positive that many fans of the comic will dislike the new ending. So I think the movie is good, maybe even great, but not perfect and not a classic. It gets a lot of things right - more than I would have thought possible... and while that's actually quite impressive, it's perhaps not enough. It's cliche to say that the book is better than the movie, but that's only because it's mostly true, and this adaptation is no different. My initial take on it is that it's a solid *** (three out of 4 stars) movie. I look forward to the extended cut of the film, but ultimately, I don't see that changing my overall feelings. Update: Alex didn't think the ending worked at all and MGK thought the whole thing sucked. And this is everywhere, but Saturday Morning Watchmen is brilliant. Update 3.10.09: Nerdquest comments. We have similar overall views, though we differ on some of the details. He doesn't seem to like the music, which I admit could be a bit much... Here be the spoilers: So, the ending. In the comic, a Giant Squid is dropped on New York, instantly killing millions with some sort of psychic ability. The event is made to look like an alien attack, which results in America and the Soviets uniting against a new enemy. Ozymandias/Veidt orchestrated the whole thing, and has to live with what he did, even if he believes it was for the best. This is a drastic simplification of what happens, but it's the basic idea. Before I move on to the ending of the film, I want to backtrack a bit and talk about one of the scripts not used in this new adaptation. It was one of the first scripts produced. Written by Sam Hamm and dated 1989, the script was pretty faithful right up until the ending. Ozymandias/Veidt figures out time travel and parallel universes, and after examination, he realizes that the only timelines where the human race survives are the ones where Dr. Manhattan never existed. So he attempts to change the past by assassinating Osterman before he becomes Dr. Manhattan. I did not like this ending at all, as it pretty much undermines the rest of the story. Now, the new movie's ending attempts to retain the spirit of the original comic, but it also sorta has elements of the Hamm ending (I doubt anyone was intentionally trying to use the Hamm ending, but there are similarities). In the original comic, there is a subplot about how Dr. Manhattan and Veidt collaborated to create widespread and cheap electric cars. It's not a tremendously important development in the book, but the new movie tries to elevate that portion of the story (perhaps in an effort to make the movie more relevant to our present day situation). Dr. Manhattan and Veidt haven't completed anything - they're working on a general power source. "Free power" that will rid us of our dependance on oil. However, Veidt had an ulterior motive for this new energy source. He creates several generators, and then uses them to detonate nuclear explosions in several American cities. Because the technology is based on Dr. Manhattan, the conclusion that officials come to is that Dr. Manhattan blew up the cities. So America and the Soviets unite against a new enemy, and the Cold War crisis is averted. Manhattan leaves for another galaxy, just like in the comic. Does this work? I guess (barely), but I find it uncessesary and there are probably more plot holes that I'm not thinking of at the moment. It's much better than the Hamm ending, at least, but I don't understand the desire to besmirch Dr. Manhattan's name. I find the irony in the "free energy" angle interesting. All the talk about creating free energy and ridding ourselves of our dependency on fossil fuels was just a way to fool everyone. I suppose the one main argument for not doing the giant squid ending is that, you know, it's a giant freakin squid. It might look stupid. I haven't reread the last couple chapters of Watchmen yet, but I just scanned through it. Most of what you see are mounds of dead, bloody bodies along with a tentacle. The main portion of the squid is shown in one full page panel and I think it's also shown in a painting or a TV monitor at one point. I think it could have worked fine, but that's just me. Posted by Mark on March 06, 2009 at 11:09 PM .:
Comments (7) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Danger After Dark The schedule for the Philly Film Festival was announced recently. As with previous years, my favorite part of the festival is sure to be the Danger After Dark series, which is generally filled with all sorts of genre films. However, in flipping through the program guide, it seems that the PFF is significantly reducing the size of the Danger After Dark series. Last year, there were 19 films in the DAD series. This year? 11. I was talking to someone at a screening last year who said that the guy that used to run the series was great, but that he left and the new guy wasn't as good. I guess new guy is still there. Particularly noticeable is a lack of Asian gangster films. Just about everything listed is a horror film. All of that said, looking through the rest of the program, I think I'll be able to find some other films to pick up the slack. Here are the films I'm most looking forward to:
Posted by Mark on March 04, 2009 at 07:59 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Oscar Liveblogging In accordance with tradition, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars tonight. If you're interested, here are previous installments: [2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004] Check back for frequent updates (starting around 8:30 pm EST), and feel free to hang around and leave comments to play along... Anyway, here are my predictions for the major awards:
Update 7:58 pm: I doubt I'll be up to watching the red carpet crap, but in the mean time here are a few pre-Oscar links for your enjoyment:
Update 8:08 pm: In an attempt to avoid this red carpet nonsense, I'm going to do some speculating. There are two supposedly odd things about this year's ceremony. The first is that Hugh Jackman is hosting, which marks the first occasion that a non-comedian is hosting. By all accounts, he's not going to be doing much comedy either. Here's to hoping that he doesn't do a bunch of song-and-dance numbers. It would totally ruin the joy I have that only 3 songs were nominated this year (and thus my suffering at their live performances will be minimized - also, I kinda liked that Slumdog closing song and they'll probably do something fun with that). I suppose I should start drinking now. The other thing that's supposed to be surprising is that the presenters for each award are being kept a secret. OMG! That's so exciting! Seriously, how is that going to be fun? Who the heck cares? Unless they go completely crazy and allow random nutjobs to take the stage and improvise or something. And presenting the award for Best Actor, please welcome Hulk Hogan and Carl Weathers! Do they qualify as nutjobs? Probably not, but they were the most random people that came to mind. Update 8:19 pm: Dammit, the ceremony hasn't even started yet and they're showing montages already. This one is about accountants. ACCOUNTANTS! Update 8:22 pm: I'm usually driven to drink by Oscar music performances, but I might have to start so that I can endure this red carpet junk. By the way, Meryl Streep's daughter is gorgeous. Update 8:26 pm: Beer of the night, Ommegang Rare Vos, drunk ironically out of a Hennepin glass. Update 8:30 pm: Are they ushering Hugh Jackman onstage with Lawrence of Arabia music? Update 8:33 pm: Ah, he's doing comedy. That Australian line was funny. So was the New Zealand one. Crap, despite budgetary limitations, he's doing a musical number. Shit. Update 8:36 pm: So Jackman is talented and the Anne Hathaway thing was cute, but I'm still hoping this is the last musical number. Please. It's almost certainly not though. Update 8:37 pm: I hope Jackman has an uncontrollable giggle-fit. It might happen. He apparently hasn't seen The Reader, just like everyone else. Update 8:39 pm: And he ended with a Wolverine plug. You stay classy, Hugh Jackman. Update 8:45 pm: First official montage! OMG the presenters are such a surprise, I'm so glad I tuned in for this shocking development. Past Supporting Actress winners are giving away the award. Shocking! In other news, someone at CHUD wonders "So will Mickey Rourke's dog be on this year's death montage or the next one?" They apparently aren't showing clips for the nominees, but instead talking about the performances. Much more exciting! Christ, are they trying to ruin the show? Update 8:46 pm: Oh wow is this announcing of the nominees thing boring and stupid. And a half hour later, they announce that the Oscar goes to Penelope Cruz. I'm 1 for 1. Accents are funny. It's sad, but I kinda wish someone would faint on stage. Or at least fall down. She's gorgeous and she's giving us her life story. Great. Is she drunk? She's speaking spanish now, and probably cursing at us. Update 8:58 pm: Steve Marin and Tina Fey are mildly funny. Ok, they're funny. How is Happy Go Lucky nominated - they improvised most of that right? Not that improvisation isn't impressive, it's just not good screenwriting. In Bruges should probably win this... if it weren't for that ending. And Milk wins original screenplay and I'm 2 for 2. Score. Oh good, he's going to tell off Hollywood for prop 8. Wait for it, wait for it, and crap, FAIL. Update 9:00 pm: And adapted screenplay goes to Slumdog Millionaire and I'm 3 for 3. I'm guessing this is the first of many for Slumdog. They don't seem to be ushering people off the stage anymore. Interesting. I guess we'll be here until 3 am or so. Update 9:04 pm: Hehehe, Jack Black made a funny. BTW, Pixar is a pretty good bet for Best Animated Film. Ahhhh, WALL-E is cheating. Did they just show Space Chimps? Was that nominated? What's going on here? Oh, I get it, montage #2. Update 9:07 pm: And WALL-E wins and I'm 4 for 4. Pixar is a "cinematic haven" eh? Why do they give awards for the short films? I mean, I'm sure they're great and it's nice to honor the people who spent a lot of time and effort creating them, but no one has seen them... Update 9:10 pm: Accents are funny. Sank you. Domo oregato, mr roboto! Ha! Nice work, Japanese guy! Update 9:18 pm: Ah production design, one of the awards I "forgot" to pick. Oscar goes to Ben Button, which will clean up on the technical awards and get nothing in the major awards. Ah, and they usher the nerds off the stage with music. Interesting. Update 9:20 pm: I bet these presentations would go quicker if they didn't announce the nominees twice. And The Dutchess wins costume design. Shocking - a period drama wins costume design. That's never happened before, right? Update 9:22 pm: Wouldn't it be great if someone won an award and took the opportunity to scream Bobba Booey, Bobba Booey or something? Update 9:24 pm: Makeup goes to Ben Button and I'm 5 for 5. Score. Jeeze, this guy is talking fast. Brad Pitt looks bemused. Update 9:25 pm: OMG, a vampire, run! Update 9:28 pm: Montage #3. What's the over/under this year? I'll put it at 12. I think Montages are a blatant attempt to make the Oscars somewhat relevant by showing clips from movies people actually saw. Update 9:32 pm: Natalie Portman and Joaquin Phoenix... er, I mean Ben Stiller. Hehehe. Funny. Oh crap, is he going to rap. Please, no. Please. Ok good, looks like we averted that disaster. Heheh, his name is Fister. Well, Cinematography goes to Slumdog Millionaire and I'm 5 for 6. Crap. And he thanked the Academy twice. Nice. Update 9:40 pm: Sci-tech thingymajigs? Jessica Beal is incredibly gorgeous, but her dress stinks. Whoa, that was like a 1 minute segment between commercials. Strange. Update 9:41 pm: Is this the Judd Apatow short film? Aka, a Montage! Number 4. Wait a sec, why wasn't James Franco nominated for best supporting actor? I didn't like the movie much, but he was fantastic. Oh nice, he's watching his own gay kiss. Ok, for a montage, that was pretty cool. Update 9:48 pm: The Janusz Kaminski bit is great. Of course, he's presenting the short film award, so bleh. Update 9:49 pm: A once in a lifetime live performance? I smell musical number. Perhaps the Slumdog one. I'm grabbing my third beer. Update 9:52 pm: CHUDcom: "George Romero is presenting Supporting Actor." Oh man, that's so cruelly funny. Update 9:53 pm: Shit, I was right: musical number. This is a once in a lifetime live performance because no one will ever want to see anything like this ever again. Update 9:55 pm: No Lady Marmalade performance should ever happen without Christina Aguilera's whore costume. Update 9:57 pm: Another CHUD comment: "I never thought I would be nostalgic for interpretive dance:" Update 10.06 pm: Montage #5! Former Best Supporting Actors take the stage (no George Romero though). I didn't think that Josh Brolin was very good in Milk, but what do I know. And the Supporting Actor Oscar goes to Heath Ledger. I'm 6 for 7. The Ledger family takes the stage in Heath's stead and cut to the crowd, where everyone is pretending to cry (moreso than Heath's family, even). Update 10.16 pm: I'd love to see Herzog win just to see what he'd say, but he won't win. Wow, Maher really hates religion, huh? And the documentary Oscar goes to Man on Wire, and I'm 7 for 8. Score. Hey, Felipe! He should be walking on a high wire! And a great speech from him too! Nice. Update 10.18 pm: I'm not even going to comment on the documentary short subject award. Crap, I just commented on it. Anyway, I'm glad that this year's documentaries aren't ALL about Iraq like last year. Update 10.22 pm: Great Jimmy Kimmel commercial with Tom Cruise. Oh boy, Montage #6, featuring movies that people saw. Update 10.26 pm: Will Smith made a funny. And the visual effects oscar goes to Ben Button and I'm 8 for 9. Ironically, for a segment about action movies, the award goes to the non-action-movie. Heh. Update 10.29 pm: Sound editing, an award no one cares about, goes to The Dark Knight. Good, I'm glad TDK is taking home something other than just supporting actor. Oh boy, Sound Mixing award. I'm getting another beer. Update 10.33 pm: Editing goes to Slumdog Millionaire and I'm 9 for 10. Slumdog is unstoppable. Update 10.41 pm: Eddie Murphy is still alive? Update 10.45 pm: Jerry Lewis wins some sort of humanitarian award. Good on him, I guess. Let's hope he does a prat fall or something. The Oscars need something. Update 10.46 pm: I guess they were saving all the good awards for last. Update 10.49 pm: Chud: "Jerry Lewis let everybody down by not being racist, sexist or homophobic. He's not representing his generation well." Update 10.54 pm: Ah, the Musical Score award. Is it me, or do they all sound the same? Must be the way they flow from one nominee to the other. Wait, why are they announcing the nominees again? They keep doing this. Stop it. The winner is Slumdog Millionaire, and I'm 10 for 11. Update 10.57 pm: Oh damn, are they going to do the entire song? For all three nominees? Gah! Chud: "Danny Boyle rebelled against his created. Danny Boyle evolved. And he has a plan." Hehehe. Update 11:02 pm: I'm always hard on the best song nominees, but I have to admit, I miss Antonio Banderas. And the Falling Slowly song from Once last year was great. This year, not so much. Winner goes to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, and I'm 11 for 12. I'm doing well... but what that really means is that this year's awards are really boring. And man, this guy is awful. I hate him. Stop it. I now dislike Jai Ho. Update 11:03 pm: Have you ever seen Scanners? I think the best we can hope for in the remainder of the ceremony is that Danny Boyle's head will explode when he wins Best Picture/Director. Update 11:04 pm: Or zombies. This show could use some zombies. Fast ones, like from Boyle's 28 Days Later. And I don't even like zombies that much. Update 11:07 pm: Will Liam Neeson be nominated next year for Taken? Somehow I doubt it, but he will certainly be nominated for Best Hero/Badass in the 2009 Kaedrin Movie Awards. Best foreign picture goes to Departures? Oooooookaaaaaay. It's an upset! Finally! In a category where no one cares. I'm 11 for 13. Oh awesome, Engrish, I love it. This guy has a great delivery. Update 11:11 pm: Yay dead people! Update 11:12 pm: Oh God why is Queen Latifah singing? She's soiling the memory of the dead. Update 11:14 pm: This has been bothering me for the whole show: Why can't they put these montages in full screen? Gah. Update 11:15 pm: Soylent Green is people! Update 11:18 pm: Wow, no speech from the Academy chairman guy. Outstanding! OOooo, Best Director award! Make sure that camera is on Boyle's head so that we can see it explode. From multiple angles. It'll probably happen even if he doesn't win. Update 11:20 pm: Heh, you can so totally tell that Fincher knows he's not going to win. And Boyle wins. And he does a tigger dance. Not quite an exploding head, but good enough. Hmm, he thanked a rival studio. Classy. And he's apologizing for leaving someone off the credits. Also classy. He even thanked people who didn't help him make the film! Update 11:23 pm: Chud: "jesus, Danny's head... i think the Predator has a new trophy to get" Hehehehe. Nice. Update 11:26 pm: Wait, there's only three remaining awards right? This show is somewhat on schedule. Oh, best actress montage (#8, I think). Why isn't Meryl Streep up there? Oh, right, she was nominated. Like every year. I think Anne Hathaway is going to cry, even though she's not going to win. Update 11:28 pm: Hmmm, Kate Winslet looks like she'll cry too. Wow, look at Angelina Jolie's ring. She's going to vaporise the winner with a laser beam eminating from that ring. Oscar goes to Kate Winslet, and I'm 13 for 15. Winslet is hyperventilating. She might very well pass out. She sounds like she just finished running a marathon. A decent speech though, and I'm happy she's finally gotten an Oscar. I suppose I should actually watch that movie. Update 11:41 pm: No Roberto Benigni in the actor montage? Did I miss him? And this is one of the only awards I think is still a bit of a mystery. Hehe, De Niro is great. The Oscar goes to... Bruce Campbell for Evil Dead II! Or not. Of course, of course Mickey Rourke is wearing sunglasses. The real winner is Sean Penn. I guess Hollywood doesn't hate gay people afterall. Update 11:44 pm: Yay gay people. Yay Obama. Yay Rourke. I'm 13 for 16. Update 11:51 pm: Montage #9? Or is it 10? I don't remember. And best picture goes to Slumdog Millionaire. Not a surprise and not entirely undeserved (at least, among the other nominees, it's definitely not). By the way, I'm obligated to mention that The Dark Knight should have at least been nominated here. What the hell. Update 11:55 pm: And a montage to end the show? We ended up just a bit below my over/under of 12. Overall, this show was not great. Probably one of the worst. But I'm biased against song and dance numbers, so take that with a grain of salt, I guess. I can't wait to see Pulic Enemies. 2009 is looking like a pretty good year for movies. At least, better than 2008, which isn't exactly saying much. So I ended up 14 for 17, which is around 82%, my highest percentage evar. Yay me. Update 12:00 am: Why is it that whenever Captain Mal Reynolds shows up in another show, I want to watche it, even if I know it will stink? Anwyay, have a good night folks, I'm packing it in. It's been real. Posted by Mark on February 22, 2009 at 02:45 PM .:
Comments (17) |
link
:.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Mad Detective When I posted my top 10 movies of 2008 last week, I noted that it wasn't a particularly great year for movies and that I had a really hard time compiling the list. I also noted that some of my "Should Have Seen" movies had the potential to unseat my number 10 movie. Indeed, I even mentioned one I had ordered already: Mad Detective. It was delivered earlier than expected and I watched it last night. I'm now in the awkward position of having to amend my top 10 list. This is something I didn't want to do, which is why I waited so long to post my list in the first place, but what's a guy to do? So I'm updating my top 10. At first glance, Mad Detective seems like your typical police procedural with a Hong Kong twist. But it quickly becomes apparent that there is more going on here, even among typical Hong Kong cinema conventions. The story follows Bun. Once a master profiler who consistently solved impossible mysteries by reenacting the crime from both the perpetrator and the victim's perspective, he has since become something of a nutcase. He's kicked off the police force when he cuts off his ear and presents it to his police commissioner as a retirement present. It seems Bun's talents have taken a toll on his sanity. Five years later, a young cop named Ho enlists the retired Bun's help in solving a series of murders committed with a police gun. As the film proceeds, you learn more about his talents and his madness. Bun claims that he can see people's "inner personalities." Directors Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai do not explain Bun's powers through a lot of exposition, relying instead on subjective shots from Bun's point of view. They effortlessly mix these subjective shots with objective shots from the young detective Ho's point of view. So when Ho sees a man walking down the street, Bun sees seven people (one for each personality within the man) walking down the street. Once this dynamic is established, things proceed at a fast pace, alternating between objective and subjective views of the investigation. Bun's madness isn't explored deeply, but you can figure it out from the visual cues. For instance, there is an interesting dynamic between Bun and his wife that is explored but not explained except through visual means. This may sound like an annoying gimmick and I'm not usually a fan of movies that play confusion for depth, but I have to say it worked really well here. Perhaps it was the pace of the film or the central mystery, but there is a certain giddy wackiness that strangly grounds the film. The directors are clearly enjoying themselves, and the film ends up being quite entertaining. The film employs all manner of wide angle shots and as you might expect, some excellent editing (which is necessary given the nature of the story being told). There were times when I wasn't sure what was going on, but I was just along for the ride and trusted that To and Wai would end things right. The climactic confrontation is among the best set pieces I've seen all year. It takes place in a warehouse filled with mirrors, allowing the directors to show the inner personalities in reflections. Johnny To is a master of such set pieces and shootouts, and the final standoff is superbly executed and the films closing shots are haunting (I don't want to spoil the ending, but it's chilling and thought provoking). The film was released on Eureka's Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray series (Eureka is supposedly the UK's answer to the Criterion Collection). The picture is fantastic, but the extras are somewhat lacking. Still, you do get an excellent French Q&A session with Johnny To, and he answers questions about several films from his prolific career. You get some interesting info out of this, like the fact that Kaedrin favorite The Mission was shot in just 18 days and was largely improvised (The Mission was on my top 10 for 2000). Johnny To has become one of my favorite directors and he's clearly the best director working in Hong Kong today. Nowhere was this more evident than in the recent film Triangle, in which To shared directing duties with Hong Kong legends Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam. I saw Triangle during the 2008 Philly Film Festival. To's segment at the end of the film is great and completely blows away Hark and Lam's segments... In this movie he's working with frequent collaborator Ka-Fai Wai, who I'm much less familiar with, but who seems to mix well with To. It's certainly not for everyone, but it hit all the right notes for me and it definitely belongs on my Top 10 of 2008. Unfortunately, it's not available on Netflix yet, though it is listed and should be coming at some point. If you get a chance to see it and if the ludicrousness of the premise doesn't bother you, it's well worth a watch. ***1/2 Posted by Mark on February 21, 2009 at 12:30 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Best Films of 2008 I saw somewhere on the order of 70 movies that were released in 2008. Most critics see more than that, but your average moviegoer probably sees far less than that. I have to say, I've been really disappointed with 2008. It's been a rough year for movies and I had a really hard time cobbling together a top 10 (Hence the extreme lateness of this post). The 6-10 of my list is somewhat weak and probably wouldn't have made the list in either 2006 or 2007. On the other hand, the films near the top of the list are great, and would compete with the films of the last two years. Of course, making a top 10 list is an inherently subjective exercise. I've noted before that these lists tend to tell you more about those who are compiling the list rather than the movies on the list. The hosts of the Filmcouch podcast were recently talking about how these sorts of lists are an autobiographical exercise and invited listeners to send in their top 5 lists, at which point they would psychoanalyze the list and try to come up with a picture of who the list's owner was. I submitted my list, and they tried to figure me out by the movies I listed. Before I go through their results, I should probably let you see my full list, so here goes: Top 10 Movies of 2008 * In roughly reverse order
I found their comments interesting, and it did make me wonder about why I really did choose the movies that I did. I think there is some truth in what they say, but I wouldn't say that I am the person they describe. There are some things that I'm fascinated by that aren't things I'd actually do. For instance, I've written before about vigilantes, and despite what the hosts of Filmcouch may think, I'm not a vigilante, and don't really have a desire to do so. What fascinates me about vigilante stories, though, is consequences. This is something that The Dark Knight did in spades, and it also features prominently in a lot of the other movies on the list. I wouldn't say that I particularly like the idea of "two wrongs make a right" but I am fascinated by situations in which the only possible alternatives are wrong. What do you do when no available option is right? How do you counter someone like the Joker? What are the consequences of time travel? What happens if you become a vampire when you're 12 years old? Do you help the Nazis destabilize the Allied economy, or do you protect your fellow concentration camp prisoners? I'm also the type of person who thinks the devil is in the details, and so I like movies that show that sort of thing. Again, Batman is a good example of this sort of thing. Everyone agrees that fighting crime is an honorable thing, but when you get down to the details of such an endeavor, things become a lot more complicated. Sure, Batman could spend all his time taking down the criminals on the streets - but then he's not getting at the root of the problem. But taking on the root of the problem has consequences. And so on. So I supposed their "shades of gray" thing might be somewhat accurate as well. But the point remains, while I may be fascinated by vigilantes in film, that doesn't mean that I want to be a vigilante, nor does it mean that I would tolerate a vigilante in my community. Something similar could be probably be said for other people prominently featured in my list (i.e. vampires, bank robbers, etc...) I'm fascinated by them, but it's not like I want to be them. Perhaps there's a cathartic value in these movies as well. They mentioned that I might be someone who likes to operate outside the system, but in fact, I do no such thing in my life. I'm pretty firmly ensconced within the system. But I suspect that makes people who operate outside the system fascinating... So anyway, that's what Filmcouch thinks. Not a bad job, but perhaps you can't truly read someone's soul through a list of 5 movies:p Honorable Mention * In alphabetical order
Perhaps as evidence of how bad a year this is, I am listing out my 5 least favorite movies. Typically, I'd have a tough time with this list, because I generally try to avoid bad movies and am usually somewhat successful in that. This year, I was not.
There are a couple of these that might even have potential for unseating my number 10 movie, but I couldn't get to them for whatever reason (usually that it wasn't playing near me or otherwise available). For instance, I ordered Mad Detective (co-directed by Kaedrin favorite Johnny To) on blu-ray on January 21, but according to Amazon, the delivery estimate is sometime in early March!?
Update 2.21.09: Well that didn't take long. I saw Mad Detective last night and decided that it needed to be on the top 10. This knocks Spiral off the list and into the Honorable Mentions. Also worth noting are the comments to this post where I have an interesting discussion Adam from Filmcouch. And finally, the Filmcouch podcast mentioned my comments on this week's podcast as well. Thanks guys! Posted by Mark on February 15, 2009 at 09:25 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Nerdy I've always considered myself something of a nerd, even back when being nerdy wasn't cool. Nowadays, everyone thinks they're a nerd. MGK recently noticed this: Recently, I was surfing the net looking for lols, and came across a personal ad on Craigslist. The ad was not in and of itself hilarious, but one thing struck me. The writer described herself as “nerdy,” and as an example of her nerdiness, explained that she loved to watch Desperate Housewives.To address this situation, he has devised "a handy guide for people to define their own nerdiness, based on a number of nerdistic passions." I'm a little surprised at how poorly I did in some of these categories.
Posted by Mark on February 04, 2009 at 10:45 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Link Dump: Top 10s and Some Nitpicking Time is short, so here are a few links to end of the year movie lists and the like. Still not sure when I'll get to my top 10, but it probably won't be this week.
Posted by Mark on January 28, 2009 at 08:30 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Wrestler When I was in high school, I joined the wrestling team. Now, amateur wrestling of the sort I was participating in is not the same thing you see on TV. That wrestling is usually called "professional" wrestling. Both sports have some things in common, but amateur wrestling is much closer to other martial arts while the professional variety is closer to the theatrical arts. Thus professional wrestling is usually referred to as "fake" wrestling... and no one was more guilty of that than us "real" wrestlers. Of course, in some ways, our griping was justified, but on the other hand, we were also rather ignorant of the realities of professional wrestling. There is still quite a bit of physicality involved in the sport, and over time, it can certainly take quite a toll. Bill Simmons gives an excellent description of this in his review: Pro wrestling chews up and spits out its athletes with grueling schedules, brutal physical punishment and a tacit understanding that performance enhancers are okay—as are greenies, sleeping pills and painkillers. These guys destroy their bodies, then their hearts give out and they die. Google the phrase "dead wrestlers," and your computer will start to smoke like an overtaxed car engine.From the first shots of The Wrestler, you see just how much of a toll it takes. The scene is simple - it just features our main character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, sitting in a chair preparing for a match. It's instructive that you don't need to see his face or hear him talk about it to know just how broken down and battered The Ram is (even before the match). You can see it in his posture and you can hear it in his breathing. This represents most of what The Wrestler has gotten right, which is Mickey Rourke's performance (which is as excellent as everyone says and yes, the parallels between Randy and Mickey Rourke himself are eerie. I won't belabor the point any more than that becaues it's been covered so extensively by everyone else...) and the inside look at the professional wrestling world that drives everything. In the 1980s heyday of wrestling, Randy the Ram was at the top of his game, performing at venues like Madison Square Garden in front of sold out crowds. 20 years later, he's battered and broken, playing tiny venues, signing autographs at small, local conventions, and working part-time at a grocery store. He dreams of reclaiming past glory, but hits a roadblock when he has the inevitable heart attack after a match that exemplifies the physical nature of "fake" wrestling. The doctor is clear: if he keeps wrestling, he'll die. This forces Randy to take stock of his life, and he attempts to restablish a relationship with his daughter while expanding his existing friendship with a stripper. The stripper, played by Marisa Tomei, parallel's Randy's story. Like Randy, she has chosen a career with a shelf life, and she's nearing the point where she will no longer be able to rely on her body to make money. She seems better prepared to face this fact than Randy though, and has done a reasonable job separating her personal life from her professional life. Randy is not so lucky. How these relationships play out comprise the rest of the story. As previously hinted at, the wrestling bits in the movie are fantastic. Despite my high school activities, I never knew much about professional wrestling, but this movie feels right. It hits all the notes of authenticity, from the aformentioned brutality to the backstage banter and wrestling jargon. Unfortunately, the two main relationships described earlier in this review are less successful. Of course, reuniting with an abandoned daughter and a relationship with a stripper represent a mine field of potential cliche, so it's somewhat impressive that screenwriter Robert Siegel is able to navigate with reasonable success. He doesn't emerge unscathed, particularly with respect to the relationship with the daughter (not that stripper subplot is perfect), but he managed to avoid the most troubling cliches. The movie's themes come through loud and clear. It ends on the perfect note, and I'm hard pressed to think of a better ending shot this year, if not this decade. I loved director Darren Aronofsky's first film, the creepy, paranoid math-based thriller Pi, and was duly impressed by his manic drug addiction tale Requiem for a Dream. I was less impressed by his last effort, 2006's gorgeous looking The Fountain, a movie best described as an "interesting failure." In The Wrestler, Aronofsky has toned down the manic style that impressed so many, but in doing so he has lost none of his visual potency. Instead of the quick cuts and spastic style of his previous efforts, he takes a much simpler, almost verite aproach. The camera follows Randy the Ram in long unbroken takes, often from behind, giving you his view of the world almost as if we're watching a documentary. I can't say it's always fun, but it's usually compelling. In the end, it's not Aronofsky's best movie and it's not perfect, but it's an improvement over The Fountain and one of the better movies of this year. The simple story basically amounts to a small, character based drama, and at a high level, it proceeds mostly as you'd expect, but it's definitely worth a watch (even if it's just for Rourke's performance). I haven't watched profession wrestling in probably over 20 years, but that doesn't matter - the movie is compelling for other reasons, and can be interpreted in several ways. Posted by Mark on January 14, 2009 at 09:02 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
2008 Kaedrin Movie Awards As of today, I've seen 62 movies that would be considered 2008 releases. This is on par with my 2007 viewing and perhaps a bit less than 2006. So I'm not your typical movie critic, but I've probably seen more than your average moviegoer. As such, this constitutes the kickoff of my year end movie recap. The categories for this years movie awards are the same as last year, and will proceed in a similar manner. Nominations will be announced today, and starting next week, I'll announce the winners (new winners announced every day). After that, there might be some miscellaneous awards, followed by a top 10 list. As I've mentioned before, 2008 has been a weak year for movies. Not sure if this was because of the writers strike, some other shift in studio strategy (the independent arms of many studios seem to be closing up shop, for instance), or that my taste has become more discriminating, but whatever the case, I've had trouble compiling my top 10. Indeed, I'm still not sure I've got a good list yet and am still scrambling to catch up with some of the lesser-known films of the year (many of which had minimal releases and are not out on DVD just yet). This is why these awards and my top 10 are a little later than last year. However, one of the things I like about doing these awards is that they allow me to give some love to films that I like, but which aren't necessarily great or are otherwise flawed (as such, the categories may seem a bit eclectic). Some of these movies will end up on my top 10, but the grand majority of them will not. The rules for this are the same as last year: Nominated movies must have been released in 2008 and I have to have seen the movie (and while I have seen a lot of movies, I don't pretend to have seen a comprehensive selection - don't let that stop you from suggesting something though). Also, I suppose I should mention the requisite disclaimer that these sorts of lists are inherently subjective and personal. But that's all part of the fun, right? Best Villain/Badass It's been a pretty good year for villainy! At least on par with last year, if not better. As with the past two years, my picks in this category are for individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a group).
Best Hero/Badass A distinct step down in terms of heroic badassery this year, but it's not a terrible year either. Again limited to individuals and not groups.
Best Comedic Performance Not a particularly strong year when it comes to comedy, but there still seem to be plenty of good performances, even in films I thought were lackluster...
Breakthrough Performance Not a particularly huge year for breakthrough performances either, but definitely several interesting choices. As with previous years, my main criteria for this category was if I watched a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they've done (or where they came from). This sometimes happens for even well established actors/actresses, and this year was no exception.
Most Visually Stunning
Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film I'm a total genre hound, despite genres generally receiving very little attention from critics. As usual, there was a dearth of quality SF this year, especially because I don't consider Iron Man or The Dark Knight SF. However, a strong showing from the horror genre rounds out the nominations well. Plus, disappointed by the poor showing of SF, I cheated by nominating a 2007 SF film... I can't even fudge the release dates the way I can with some independent or foreign flicks - by every measurement I can think of, it's a 2007 film. But it was such a small film that flew under just about everyone's radar (including mine!) that I'm going to include it, just to give it some attention, because I really did enjoy it. Winner Announced! Best Sequel Honestly, I only saw 4 or 5 sequels all year, so this was a difficult category to populate (as it is every year). Still, there were at least two really great sequels this year... Winner Announced! Biggest Disappointment Always a difficult award to figure out, as there are different ways in which a movie can disappoint. Usually, expectations play just as big a part of this as the actual quality of the film, and it's possible that a decent movie can win the award because of astronomical expectations. This year had several obvious choices though. Usually I manage to avoid the real stinkers, but this year I saw two genuinely awful movies... in the theater!
Best Action Sequences This is a kinda by-the-numbers year for action sequences. Nothing particularly groundbreaking or incredible, but there were some well executed, straightforward action movies this year. These aren't really individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film. Winner Announced! Best Plot Twist/Surprise Not a particularly strong year for the plot twist either. Winner Announced! Best High Concept Film This was a new category last year, and like last year, I had a little difficulty coming up with this list, but overall, not bad. Winner Announced! Anyone have any suggestions (for either category or nominations)? Comments, complaints and suggestions are welcome, as always. It looks like The Dark Knight is leading the way with an impressive 6 nominations (rivaled only by the 8 nominations earned by Grindhouse last year... with the caveat that Grindhouse is technically 2 movies in one). Not far behind is Hellboy II with a respectable 5 nominations. Surprisingly, both Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Signal earned 3 nominations, while a whole slew of other films garnered 2 noms, and an even larger amount earned a single nomination. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to give myself a week to think about each of these. I might end up adding to the nominations if I end up seeing something new. Winners will be announced starting next Sunday or Monday. As with the last two years, there will be a small set of Arbitrary Awards after the standard awards are given out, followed by the top 10. Update: Added a new plot twist nominee (Spiral), because I just watched it and it deserves it! Update 1.25.09: Arbitrary Awards announced! Update 2.15.09: Top 10 of 2008 has finally been posted! Posted by Mark on January 11, 2009 at 11:46 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Link Dump For obvious reasons, time is a little short these days, so here are a few links I've found interesting lately:
Posted by Mark on January 07, 2009 at 08:56 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The PS3, Revisiting Predictions & Other Odds & Ends The PS3 came yesterday, so I've spent most of the time since then in a Blu-Ray and Video Game induced haze. I was lured out by my brother this afternoon to watch the Eagles playoff game (we won!) and maybe feed myself too. While I'm out, I figure I should at least make some pretense at updating the blog with something...
Posted by Mark on January 04, 2009 at 08:33 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The PS3 is Mine Despite my misgivings and Sony's steady campaign against their own system, I finally broke down and bought a PS3. The clincher was a $150 credit if you apply for their credit card and purchase the PS3 with it (looks like this deal is available until 12/31/08). Of course, it's a credit at the Sony store and I probably won't get it for a gazillion weeks or however long it takes them to process it, but still, that credit puts it in an affordable neighborhood (pretty much the same as what I paid for the Wii). I'm immediately placing an order for The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray (which is a no brainer for me, despite a dearth of special features) and will need to figure out what games to get. If anyone has any advice for good PS3 games, I'm all ears. On the shortlist right now is Fallout 3 (which is getting good reviews and has been endorsed by someone I trust... though I should note that I haven't played either of the first two games), Dead Space, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Resistance 2 (and/or the first Resistance, both of which just look fun to me), and a bunch of games I've already played a bit of and know I like (like Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and one of them Guitar Hero or Rock Band incarnations). Or maybe I should hit up the bargain basement games like MotorStorm. Too many games, too little time. And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to spend the next couple of days constantly refreshing my order status at Sony... (Order Status: Processing, Damn! *press F5* Damn! What the hell is taking so long!? *press F5* Damn!) Update: Just placed an order for The Dark Knight, Resistance, and Call of Duty 4. Hopefully all will have arrived by next weekend, but that's probably not likely... In other news, order status is still "Processing." Damn! Posted by Mark on December 28, 2008 at 05:08 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
12DC: Day 11 - The Night Before Christmas Today, we kick it old school with The Night Before Christmas, a 1905 silent film (loosely) based on the classic poem by Clement Moore. Only the big day remains! See you tomorrow... Posted by Mark on December 24, 2008 at 08:26 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Monday, December 22, 2008
12DC: Day 9 - One of these is not like the other... Seen while Christmas shopping: 
Apparently T2 has entered the ranks of Christmas Classic. That endoskeleton skull fits right in on that shelf, doesn't it? Posted by Mark on December 22, 2008 at 04:06 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
12DC: Day 8 - Holiday Horror It seems that even after the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, I couldn't really stop. It doesn't help that there are plenty of Christmas themed horror films... though I must admit that I wasn't able to get to the infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night (very long wait on Netflix). Oh well, there's always next year. In the mean time, here's a trio of other Christmas horror films...
Posted by Mark on December 21, 2008 at 01:10 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Friday, December 19, 2008
12DC: Day 6 - The Spirit of Christmas During my freshman year of college, a friend called me into his room to show me this video he downloaded from the internet (Dude, it was 50 megabytes! That's huge!) The video featured crudely animated kids with hilarious potty mouths chearing on a fight between Jesus and Santa Claus. This was probably among the first internet video memes out there, and it's fully deserving... A few years later, the creators of this short got their own TV show, which became South Park. This original video still holds up though, even after all these years... More tomorrow! Posted by Mark on December 19, 2008 at 10:23 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
12DC: Day 5 - It's an MST3k Christmas There are lots of great Christmas movies, but of course, there are lots of really bad ones too. This is why these Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes are so great - they make bad Christmas movies into great experiences. Without further ado, here are the full length episodes of both Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (with Joel Hodgson and including the infamous Patrick Swayze Christmas carol) and Santa Claus (with Mike Nelson). Santa Claus: Over 3 hours of brilliant stuff going on there... enjoy! Posted by Mark on December 18, 2008 at 09:14 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Monday, December 15, 2008
12DC: Day 2 - The Lost Ending of It's a Wonderful Life A few years ago, the lost ending to the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life was found. It's brilliant. Tomorrow, we'll handle christmas trees... sorta. Posted by Mark on December 15, 2008 at 06:40 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
12 Days of Christmas: Day 1 - Incidental Christmas Movies In keeping with the tradition of seasonal posts (i.e. 6 Weeks of Halloween), today marks the first of twelve holiday themed posts (not all will be about movies, I promise!) We start off with what I'm calling Incidental Christmas Movies, meaning movies that take place during the holidays but aren't about the holidays.
Posted by Mark on December 14, 2008 at 07:19 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Movie Podcasts Revisited I recently posted several short reviews of movie podcasts that I listen to... and since then, I've come across a few other good movie podcasts.
Posted by Mark on December 10, 2008 at 09:19 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Screenshots of the Recently Viewed I'm about to head out, so I'm just going to post a few screenshots from recently viewed movies. This isn't a continuation of the screenshot game, but I'll leave the titles off in case you want to guess... The answers are in the extended entry. (Hints in the alt tag and you can click on the images for larger versions...) 
Again, answers and quick comments in the extended entry... And the answers are:
Posted by Mark on November 30, 2008 at 10:32 AM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Geekout: Alien vs. Predator A while ago, I ran accross this McSweeney's article that pit Alien vs. Predator in a series of unlikely events like Macramé and Lincoln-Douglas Debating. Long time readers will know that I am a fan of the Alien vs. Predator concept, though the recent films have been awful (Alien, Aliens, and Predator are some of my favorites movies though, and the original AvP comic book was fantastic). In any case, I couldn't resist discussing and debating some of the events listed out, and the result was a pretty amusing (and incredibly geeky) conversation. The first event under question was Breakdancing. I had picked the Alien for this and thought it was the obvious choice. My friend Roy disagreed, noting: I think you've failed to take into account the unique physiology of the alien. Those tubes on his back? The tail? Those are going to make dancing very difficult. No backspins for him. I think that the Predator's upper body strength will help him to pull of some awesome moves. And, he doesn't have big pipes or tubes coming up out of his back.I have to admit that he had a point about the tubes on the Alien's back, but I still felt the Alien was the superior breakdancer. My response: Point taken, but I still see the Alien having much more agility, thus giving them the ability to move more gracefully than the Predator while break dancing. While their backspins might be problematic, they do have that giant head which would enable them to perform some rather spectacular headstands and headspins. And while the tail could get in the way of a back-spin, it would also give them a valuable 5th pivot with which they could pull off all sorts of crazy moves. Back spins are an important part of break dancing, but there are no shortages of upper body, frontal, side, or sliding moves, and indeed, there seem to be more of those than back maneuvers. When you add in the Alien's unique physiology, you get something that would allow for all sorts of variations and indeed, even totally new moves. Really, I think the Alien would revolutionize the break dancing scene. The predator's upper-body streght would allow for some amazing handstand style moves, but in almost every other way they are less limber and agile than the alien or even most human break-dance experts. Indeed, the alien does not seem to have an absense of upper body strength, so it's not like that gives the Predator a decisive advantage (the way the alien's tail does). I suppose it's possible that not all Predators are as bulked up as the ones in the films, but there is no real evidence of that.Personally, I still believe I'm right on that one. The next event that came into question was Competitive Hot-Dog Eating. My initial pick was Predator, mostly because of his larger mouth and mandibles (when you look closely, the Alien's mouth is actually quite small). Anyway, Roy had some comments about this pick as well: Totally goes to alien. Aliens are always hungry. They do nothing but eat and kill. We don't even actually know that Predator's eat meat. They're probably a bunch of annoying vegans. ;POnce again, I think Roy makes a fair point here, but it's ultimately unpersuasive. My response: This makes more sense to me, though I do maintain that the Alien's multi-tiered mouth is still significantly smaller and thus represents a bottleneck during any sort of competitive eating contest. Yes, their activities are generally limited to eating, killing, building those crazy hives and reproducing, but I see that as just a further example of why they would not be good at competitive eating. Since that's all they do, they do not have to eat fast. It's hard to tell because the alien and it's motivations are so... alien... and unexplored. The Predators, on the other hand, clearly have some sort of civilization with technological capabilities well beyond our own. It stands to reason that they would have less time dedicated to eating, and thus would need to scarf down more in less time... which means they would be better suited towards competitive eating. Your point about vegan Predators is also taken, but what we know of their culture is that it is based primarily on hunting. While I'm sure there are vegan Predators, I think it's fair to speculate that a race of hunters values and prizes meat.I thought that was pretty good, but someone else stepped in at this point to defend Roy, noting that: We know they hunt, yes, but in the hunts we've seen they take trophies, not food. I have yet to see a predator field-dress an alien. I mean, hell, how much meat could be on something like that anyway? It's all chitin and sinew, not really a meal at all, and that's before we think about the effects upon the stomach lining of that acid blood (ulcers like you wouldn't believe!!). No, it's not fair to speculate on their eating habits by looking at their hunts. Their hunts are trophy kills, rites of passage, not a means for survival. Everything we've seen of their society, we haven't been given clue one about their eating habits.This is certainly an interesting take on the matter. My response: Interesting point, but I think it's reasonable to make some extrapolations based on their hunting culture. It's reasonable to assume that their hunts as portrayed in the movies are indeed trophy hunts and not a matter of survival or food. This makes sense on an additional level because they're hunting alien species and alien physiology may not react well with their digestive systems (as you mention, the alien would be particularly bad in that respect). However, it's also reasonable to assume that the reason for their hunting tradition is that they were required to do so in the evolution of their species. Yes, I'm extrapolating from human experiences here, but there are humans today who hunt purely for trophies. It's reasonable to assume that the reason the Predator race is so focused on hunting is that they were forced to do so on their home planet. Indeed, in such a case, the act of hunting could take on a more meaningful aspect because of symbolic or perhaps even spiritual reasons. The act of hunting clearly goes beyond survival for them, but it's reasonable to assume that it began as a simple survival technique on their home planet, and grew into a more meaningful practice as the race became more advanced.This thread went on for a few more posts and ultimately resulted in a stalemate, as we really don't know enough about either culture to say for sure. I still think it's reasonable to say that the hunting culture of the Predators implies a history of hunting and meat-eating. The next topic under debate was the Wet T-Shirt Contest, which I had originally given a tie. After all, for the most part, we see both the Alien and the Predator without their shirts on, so what's the point of a Wet T-Shirt Contest? However, someone interjected a brilliant point that totally convinced me that I was wrong; the Alien would undoubtedly win this event. Wet T-shirt: Alien. Preddy has been noted on several occasions to be "one ugly motherfucker."There is simply no arguing with that one. Posted by Mark on November 26, 2008 at 11:32 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
SF and Real Life Space Exploration This summer, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin criticized fantastical Science Fiction TV shows and movies, claiming that they are responsible for a lack of interest in real space exploration. "I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today," Aldrin said in an interview during an ice cream party held by the National Geographic Channel at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., this week. "All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It's not realistic."This caused a bit of a stir this summer and just recently, SF Signal posted a series of responses by popular SF authors. Several responses are worthy of note. First, let's get John Scalzi's response out of the way: Absolutely. This also explains why the unrealistic science in CSI has completely killed interest in forensic pathology. And why the upcoming show Buzz, The Cranky Old Astronaut What Shakes His Fist at the Kids These Days will ruin the joy of illicitly playing on Aldrin's lawn for generations to come.Heh. Ok, so most of them take a more serious approach to the material. Ultimately, most of the responses boil down to "He kinda has a point, but not really." But there are some good points made in the process. First, Jack McDevitt actually agrees with Aldrin... but then he also claims that without SF, we'd never have had interest in the first place (and presumably, Aldrin thus wouldn't have had the chance to go gallavanting around the moon). J. Michael Straczynski makes the obvious point: The only thing wrong with Buzz Aldrin's statement is that it's not true.Mike Brotherton makes some excellent points and also has a few good suggestions: Real space exploration has been slow, expensive, and dangerous, a far cry from rugged, unintellectual heroes and their droids popping into hyperspace, or taking a quick excursion to blow up an Earth-destined asteroid the size of Texas.Personally, my first thought was that Aldrin was nuts. Then I realized that he only really mentioned TV and movies... and when I really thought about it, it began to make a little more sense. I don't believe for a second that fantastical TV shows like Star Trek actively discourage people because they feature FTL drives and transporters, but at the same time I can't think of many SF shows or movies that really do focus on the realities of space travel. In general, true hard science fiction is poorly represented in TV and film. In books, it's a different story. They tend to also contain McGuffins like FTL drives, but they try to minimize that in favor of scientific rigor. But books seem to work better at that than visual mediums. As Mike Brotherton noted above, space travel is slow, expensive, and dangerous. The "dangerous" part would probably make for good TV, but the tedious, slow and expensive parts probably don't. The fact is that realistic space travel isn't anywhere near as glamorous as it sounds at first... a fact that is completely antithetical to TV and movies. That doesn't mean that great stories can't be told in a realistic and engaging fashion, and I would gladly watch a show like that if it were aired, but I'm not holding my breath. Would such a show really spark that much interest in the space program? I'm not sure. In general, I tend to believe that art reflects the culture it was created in... and that this hypothetical hard SF show we're talking about would only really become popular in a society that was already interested in space travel. Fortunately, I don't think it's that hard of a sell. It may not be as glamorous as it seems at first, but that's a problem all technological fields face... and technological advances don't seem to be slowing either... Posted by Mark on November 19, 2008 at 06:36 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Holiday Movie Season I know this tends to be an annual refrain for some people, but this year is not shaping up to be a particularly good year for movies. By this time in 2006 or 2007, I had already seen the grand majority of the films that would show up in my top 10 movies for both years. This year, I've seen two movies that are definites. There are a few other borderline picks as well, but few films that could compete with the past two years (and I thought 2007 was a distinct step down from 2006). We're also coming up on the time of the year when Hollywood eschews the traditional big-budget blockbuster and starts putting out their prestige fare in the hopes of garnering an Oscar... but this year is not looking especially strong in that respect either. I'm not sure what the issue is here. Perhaps we're still seeing the effects of the writers strike earlier this year. Or maybe the independent arms of the big studios are in a bit of a crunch. Whatever the reason, the upcoming holiday movie season seems lacking. Will there be enough to round out my top 10, or will I need to reduce the list to a top 5? Regardless, here are some films I'm looking forward to:
Posted by Mark on November 16, 2008 at 03:34 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Blu-Ray At ZDNet, Robin Harris makes a mildly persuasive argument that Blu-Ray is dying and will end up becoming a videophile niche format like laserdisc. When Toshiba threw in the towel and gave up on HD-DVD about 8 months ago, it looked like a major victory for Sony on multiple fronts. First, they were the uncontested heir to the HD movie market and second, fence sitters in the next-gen gaming console market had a reason to plunk down a little extra for a PS3. But 8 months later, things haven't changed a whole lot. Standalone BR players have come down in price and will be reaching affordable levels shortly. PS3 sales received a bump, overtaking the XBox sporadically during this year, but it looks like Microsoft's price cut has reestablished PS3 as the loser of the next-gen gaming market (of course, both are being clobbered by Nintendo). Sony is betting on the release of several highly anticipated games for the PS3 this holiday season, which should sell consoles and thus increase BR market penetration. There are lots of things to consider here:
Posted by Mark on November 02, 2008 at 01:02 PM .:
Comments (11) |
link
:.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween And the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon (See Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 6.5) concludes with the best Halloween movie of all time: 
Happy Halloween! Posted by Mark on October 31, 2008 at 12:38 AM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
6WH: Week 6.5: Speed Round! Just a few days away from Halloween and I figured I'd do a bunch of short reviews for movies that I've seen recently, but that haven't been covered in the Six Weeks of Halloween marathon so far (See Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6). Some of them just didn't fit with a given week's theme and some were just awful and I didn't want to spend too much time on them. So here goes:
Posted by Mark on October 29, 2008 at 08:07 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
6WH: Week 6: Japanese Horror The final week of the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon (See Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5) kicks off with a two Japanese horror films, one disc of an Anime series, and the usual smattering of shorts and trailers.
Posted by Mark on October 26, 2008 at 09:32 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Gabriel Over The White House The latest episode of the FilmCouch podcast features an in-depth look at an astounding movie called Gabriel Over the White House. The film was made in 1933 (in the heart of the Great Depression) and it tells the story of a newly elected President of the US, Judson Hammond. He's not exactly a great leader. It's implied that he's somewhat corrupt, and he doesn't seem to assert himself at all, instead just acting as a figurehead for the party (for example, he signs everything that comes across his desk without question). He seems to spend most of his time messing around with his secretary and giving nicknames to his subordinates. But then he has a sorta religious experience and becomes inspired to institute real change... and this is where things get really nutty. I don't really want to get into too much detail, but the movie is completely and totally absurd from this point on... and it's stunning to watch. President Hammond essentially fires his entire cabinet because they disagree with his decisions, then institutes martial law, effectively making himself a dictator (how he manages this, I don't know, but who the hell cares in a movie like this). He does all this so that he can implement a series of reforms that are eerily prophetic. He talks about stuff like repealing prohibition and nationalizing the business, forcing the nation's unemployed back to work, and subsidizing farmers -- all things that would happen in the following decades if not sooner (much of what he talks about prefigures the New Deal). Indeed, the film is surprisingly relevant even today, as he suggests things like putting a freeze on home foreclosures and injecting money into banks. Because this is a movie, we get some wonderful conflicts with a fictional gangster who, unhappy with the lift of prohibition, orders a drive-by shooting of the white house! The President's response to the attack is equally crazy. And there's lots of even nuttier stuff in the movie that I'm barely touching on... For a film released in 1933, it's surprisingly well made. The acting is great, particularly Walter Huston's turn as the President. The movie rests on his shoulders as he spends most of the movie essentially speechifying and engaging in "straight talk." There are a few unexpected visual effects that were actually convincing (something of a rarity for that era) as well. I'm honestly kinda flabbergasted by this movie. It's this unbelievable liberal authoritarian fantasy, apparently the brainchild of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst who basically took the opportunity to go off on an insane political rant against political corruption and red tape. And as near as I can tell, the film is not a satire... it seems to actually take itself seriously. It's tacky, arrogant, obnoxious and utterly riveting. I suppose I could have spent some time deconstructing the film, but I'm so dumbfounded by it that I don't really know where to start. It clearly resonates with current events, but it just doesn't compute. Really, it has to be seen to be believed. Despite its notoriety, it wasn't very popular at the time of it's release, and it hasn't played much on TV since then. It experienced a brief resurgence on video, but quickly went out of print and isn't even available on DVD. However, some enterprising film nerd has placed the entire film on YouTube, in a series of 9 parts (strangely, it's subtitled in Spanish). If you don't feel like sitting through the whole film, it's definitely worth listening to the FilmCouch episode, as the guys spend a good amount of time humorously discussing the film and how it relates to history and current events (they also talk about W. and in a completely unrelated topic, there's some discussion of the Watchmen movie too). Posted by Mark on October 22, 2008 at 12:53 AM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
6WH: Week 5: The Quasi-French Connection Coming down the homestretch of the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon (See Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4), we've got yet another trio of films with the usual comedic shorts and spooky trailers. I haven't had much in the way of foreign horror films in the marathon so far, and to be honest, there's only 1 (French) horror film in this entry... but one of the films is directed by a Frenchman and the other is connected to that film. We shall start with the the latter...
Posted by Mark on October 19, 2008 at 06:40 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Season 7 of Firefly One of the greatest SF television series of recent years was Firefly. Of course, it never made it past 14 episodes (actually, only 11 were aired). This is what makes this mock-review of the first episode of Season 7 of Firefly hilarious. The end is nigh. The last season of Firefly started last night and if the season premiere is any indication, it comes a season too late. ...There's lot's more, but I can't help but think how uninspired the show sounds in its 7th season. The 14 episodes of the show that were produced were great, and so it's natural to lament that we'll never get closure to a lot of the plot threads... but at this point, I'm almost glad it didn't go much beyond those 14 episodes. I enjoyed Serenity a lot, but there was something off about it. It was too rushed, too compressed. Whedon is on record as saying that the events of the movie correspond roughly to his plan for the entire second season. When I saw Serenity, I found some pieces of it lacking... the government conspiracy that drives the plot is cliched, some of the characters don't get much to do, and other characters are given the prize of an arbitrary and unceremonious death. As an movie that is independent of the series, it's great, and it's one I rewatch relatively often. Would it have worked if the story had been spread out across a season? That is the assumption most seem to make, but honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that I don't have to worry about it anymore, and that might actually be a good thing. It's a tragedy that the series was torpedoed by Fox, who did a lot to sabotage the series, but at the same time, I'm a little relieved that it didn't live long enough for Whedon to torpedo it himself. Thanks to Jonathan Last for the link, and he correctly notes that the comments, where people take the gag and run with it, are hilarious as well. For instance, this one: The third season kicked a@@! (They won three Emmys, for frak's sake! And I STILL say Joss was screwed over - Abrams is good, but "Lost" was [and STILL IS] just a 'gimmick' show!) But I thought Mal being on the other size of the law let them explore some "gray zones" of morality - the REAL cause of Bowden's Malady (with the great Gregg Henry reprising his role as Sheriff Bourne) - And Badger revealed as a paid snitch for Blue Sun - Or what about the two-parter where the crew finally gets their (legal!) revenge on Niska? And who didn't shed a tear over Zoe's pregnancy? Okay, Wash going undercover with the carnival was just a rip-off of "The Trouble With Tribbles" -except with baby geese - but it WAS funny! And speaking of funny, what about the episode with Jayne's mother and four sisters get quarantined aboard Serenity for a month? I usually don't care for Melanie Griffith, but I thought she was perfectly cast here...I could go on, but I urge everybody to go back and take another look at Season #3!!Heh. Posted by Mark on October 15, 2008 at 08:35 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
6WH: Week 4 - 80s Slasher Week The Six Weeks of Horror continues (See Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3) with some 80s slasher fun (sort of an extension of week 1's Friday the 13th marathon).
Posted by Mark on October 12, 2008 at 02:58 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Dr. Smith's Lost in the Space at the End of Summer Movie Quiz Well, I'm over a month late to the party here, but here are my answers to Dennis Cozzalio's movie quiz: 1) Your favorite musical moment in a movie So it doesn't take long for me to find a question where I can't pick an answer because there are too many great ones to choose from. So here's a few: The Ride Of The Valkyries in Apocalypse Now, Also sprach Zarathustra in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and on a lighter note Total eclipse of the heart from Old School, the Raw-Hide scene in The Blues Brothers (actually, all the musical sequences in that movie are pretty good), and just about every song from the South Park movie. In more recent movies, the Falling Slowly scene in Once is pretty amazing and I liked the Jackson Five dance sequence in Clerks II too... 2) Ray Milland or Dana Andrews And it also doesn't take long for me to prove just how little I know about older movies. Alas, this will be a recurring theme throughout this quiz. I barely know who these guys are... 3) Favorite Sidney Lumet movie 12 Angry Men. There are a few other notable choices, but I do love this movie. 4) Biggest surprise of the just-past summer movie season Typically this sort of thing is supposed to be movies that you didn't expect to be good that actually were... but I don't watch many movies I think are going to be bad. However, I didn't think The Dark Knight would be as good as it was, and I didn't think The X Files: I Want to Believe would be as bad as it was. Neither was all that surprising, but it was a pretty vanilla summer. 5) Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth Rita Hayworth, though again, I don't know that era of film as well as I should... 6) What’s the last movie you saw on DVD? In theaters? Last movie on DVD was Sleepaway Camp (part of my ongoing 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon), which I actually enjoyed a lot more than I expected. Plus, that ending. Amazing. Last movie in the theater was Appaloosa, which was a pretty standard modern western film. But there's something to be said for well executed Genre pieces, and I'm a fan. I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Sleepaway Camp 7) Irwin Allen’s finest hour? The Swarm! Maybe it's just because I'm watching a lot of horror movies, but movies like this are fun. 8) What were the films where you would rather see the movie promised by the poster than the one that was actually made? This sounds like a great question, but I'm totally drawing a blank. To be honest, it's not often that a poster really sways me one way or the other. The only thing I could think of was the poster for Star Wars: Episode I, featuring Jake Lloyd throwing the shadow of Darth Vader on the wall behind him. I don't hate the prequels, but at the time, that poster promised a lot more than we ended up getting... 
9) Chow Yun-Fat or Tony Leung Leung is probably the better dramatic actor, but I really have to go with Chow Yun-Fat. Back in college a friend of mine and I would head into the city and cruise around Chinatown looking for imported HK action movies (which were not readily available in mainstream stores like they are today), mostly featuring Chow Yun-Fat. All we needed to see was his name, and we bought it. Of course, directors like John Woo and Ringo Lam were probably more responsible for the overall experience, but Chow Yun-Fat was a huge part of the fun, so I have to pick him for this question... 10) Most pretentious movie ever This is a rough one, because I typically try to avoid these types of movies. The first one that came to mind was Richard Linklater's Waking Life, which is comprised soley of incredibly pretentious dialogue that really goes nowhere. Great animation technique and all, but the movie just squanders it on faux-philosophic banter. Another movie I thought of for this was The Holy Mountain. However, all of Alejandro Jodorowsky's movies are pretentious, and they're also incredibly freaky and weird. In general, you know what you're going to get with a Jodorowsky movie - a lot of pretentious babble mixed with freaky/disgusting visuals. But with Linklater, I was expecting something more, which is why I'd say Waking Life is more pretentious. 11) Favorite Russ Meyer movie I have embarrassingly not seen a Russ Meyer movie. This is a total mystery when you consider that he's got a lot of boobs in his movies and, uh, I like boobs. Seems like a natural fit. Not sure what happened there. I'll have to remedy this at some point in the future. 12) Name the movie that you feel best reflects yourself, a movie you would recommend to an acquaintance that most accurately says, “This is me.” This one is impossible. Perhaps someday I'll put together my top 100 films of all time, at which point you'll probably be able to get a good picture of who I am, but even then, I'm not sure. Plus, I have to actually compile that list, which I haven't done yet. 13) Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo I plead the Fifth. 14) Best movie snack? Most vile movie snack? I could be totally wrong about this, but movie popcorn when I was a kid was spectacular. If I remember correctly, sometime in the 1990s, someone noticed that a small bag of popcorn with butter was the caloric equivalent of like 3 Big Macs or something insane like that. So movie theaters stumbled all over themselves to make their popcorn healthier. It's still good today, but not as good as I remember it. Of course, I'm going completely from memory here, so I could be making this all up. In terms of vile snacks... I can't really think of one, though I suppose I'd be pretty scared of a movie theater hot dog. Sno Caps are pretty disappointing if you like real non-parels, but I wouldn't call them vile. 15) Current movie star who would be most comfortable in the classic Hollywood studio system I really don't know what kind of person would fit, but my intuition says George Clooney, so there. Maybe Tom Hanks. Interestingly, I don't know that current movie stars are really stars in the way the old Hollywood stars were. Do we have movie stars anymore?James Berardinelli recently wrote about this... but I'm not really sure either way. 16) Fitzcarraldo—yes or no? Yes, I would like to watch that movie someday. No, it doesn't seem like it would be a movie I'd really connect with, which is why I haven't seen it yet. But I have seen some other Herzog, and I might be wrong, so I want to watch it. 17) Your assignment is to book the ultimate triple bill to inaugurate your own revival theater. What three movies will we see on opening night? The Godfather (the newly restored print, which is apparently "sensational"), The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. These are three of my favorite movies of all time, they are movies that would do well on the big screen and I've never seen them on the big screen. Also, since I am a business owner, these are three very popular movies as well, and sure to draw in big crowds (the only one that might not work in that respect would be 2001, but I think it'd draw enough people in). 18) What’s the name of your theater? (The all-time greatest answer to this question was once provided by Larry Aydlette, whose repertory cinema, the Demarest, is, I hope, still packing them in...) I have no idea. Probably something uninspired like The Movie House. If I were really opening my own theater, I think I'd really just need to get a lot of suggestions from people before naming it. 19) Favorite Leo McCarey movie I have not seen any of his movies, but I do have Duck Soup in my Netflix queue. Of course, it's in position 92 and hasn't really movied up much in the past year that's been in there... but it is there! 20) Most impressive debut performance by an actor/actress. My First thought was Orson Welles in Citizen Kane, but that's also something of an obvious choice. Unfortunately, I can't seem to think of any others. 21) Biggest disappointment of the just-past summer movie season The aforementioned The X Files: I Want to Believe, was pretty disappointing. The Happening was a trainwreck... but I genuinely liked Shyamalan's last two movies which were also universally panned by critics, so I was actually a little surprised by just how bad this movie was... Pineapple Express was also disappointing. 22) Michelle Yeoh or Maggie Cheung Michelle Yeoh, though I'm not an expert on either of these... 23) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Overrated Without a doubt, this goes to Iron Man. It's not that it's a bad movie... it's just that some people talk about it like it's one of the best Superhero movies ever, and it's really not even close. 24) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Underrated To be honest, I'm having trouble with this one. For me, this has been a bit of a lackluster year. It's October and I only really have 2 solid candidates for my annual top 10. One of those is The Dark Knight, which is emphatically not underrated. The other is Timecrimes, a quirky, Spanish time-travel thriller (and my favorite from the 2008 PFF). I don't know that I would call it "underrated" but considering that it's a foreign film that hasn't really had a theatrical release in the US, I'd say this could qualify. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how available this movie will be because Hollywood is apparently going to remake it, and with that comes the asanine practice of suppressing the original film until after the remake comes out.  The mysterious bandaged man from Timecrimes 25) Fritz the Cat—yes or no? I have not seen it, but it sounds like a Yes to me. 26) Trevor Howard or Richard Todd *Sigh* 27) Antonioni once said, “I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.” What filmmaker working today most fruitfully ignores the rules? What does ignoring the rules of cinema mean in 2008? This question implies that there are actually rules of cinema these days. For the sake of argument, I suppose the obvious answer would be David Lynch, but I don't generally like the results he produces (and thus that's not a "fruitful" ignorance of rules for me). Perhaps the Coen brothers? They consistently seem to defy expectations and almost never take the easy, mainstream path to moviemaking. Even their Oscar winning No Country for Old Men is pretty hostile towards traditional storytelling. And they always seem to follow up their most popular and successful movies with a confounding movie, like The Big Lebowski or even Burn After Reading. 28) Favorite William Castle movie I haven't seen enough to really say, but I did enjoy House on Haunted Hill. If Rosemary's Baby counts, there's that too. 29) Favorite ethnographically oriented movie I'm going to cheat on this one because what immediately comes to mind is The Wire. So it's not technically a movie, but really, watching a season of the wire is like watching a 13 hour movie. Actually, the whole series is like a brilliant 60 hour movie. And while I'm no expert on inner city Baltimore, I don't think I've ever seen a movie portray the ethnographic background of the drug trade the way The Wire has... Update: I thought of two good, non-cheating ethnographically oriented movies: The look at Rio de Janeiro in City of God is compelling and Zhang Yimou's brilliant portrait of the upheavals in China, To Live. 30) What’s the movie coming up in 2008 you’re most looking forward to? Why? The obvious answer is Quantum of Solace, but I'm also a bit wary of that one. A more unconventional pick would be Let the Right One In, a Swedish movie about a 12 year old boy and his Vampire neighbor. I'm mostly going on the mad ravings of Devin from CHUD on this one, but the movie is coming out in limited release near me on November 14, so why not check it out? 
31) What deceased director would you want to resurrect in order that she/he might make one more film? Stanley Kubrick (duh). (Update: Spencer notes in the comments another "Duh" selection: Alfred Hitchcock) 32) What director would you like to see, if not literally entombed, then at least go silent creatively? This is a tough one because I don't generally wish ill will upon people who make art I don't like. I seem to have the ability to easily ignore them, so they don't bother me much. Sure, I guess I got a little miffed when Brett Ratner came on for X3, but that's not entirely his fault either. So I don't know. Maybe Uwe Boll? 33) Your first movie star crush This is a very tough one. I can't seem to remember really crushing on any of the big names from when I was younger and it feels dumb to say someone I'm crushing on now:p And so there you have it. That was really, really long, but I had fun. Posted by Mark on October 08, 2008 at 08:33 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
6WH: Week 3 - No Discernable Theme Week As we reach the halfway point of the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon (See Week 1 | Week 2), it seems I've run out of thematically similar movies and have moved into more of a hodgepodge. But nevertheless, this week's lineup is pretty darn good. I seem to have gotten a bit ahead of schedule here, so a couple of these were actually watched a couple weeks ago:
In other news, Kernunrex continues his 6WH, which includes several mentions of Kaedrin favorite Phantasm (including a comic book I've never heard of but now want to read and the DVD commentary track). Kaedrin compatriot Roy posted his tentative schedule as well. NeedCoffee has started their 32 days of Halloween (it's kicked off by none other than Bugs Bunny!). Quint over at AiCN has been doing a movie a day, and for the month of October, he's doing a horror movie a day, starting with The Dunwich Horror (I didn't even know they made a movie out of that excellent H.P. Lovecraft story). Some other folks doing the marathon thing: The Metal Misfit, Random Acts of Geekery, Cal's Media of the Month and I'm sure lots of others. And of course, there's also Horror Movie a Day, who eschews the whole Halloween thing and just does horror all year round. Is anyone else doing a horror marathon? Posted by Mark on October 05, 2008 at 07:56 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
John Dies at the End: The Movie Not sure how I missed this, but the movie rights for David Wong's horror comedy novel John Dies at the End have been purchased by Kaedrin favorite Don Coscarelli (of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-tep fame). Wong used to write at a website called Pointless Waste of Time, but he has since been hired to edit Cracked.com, and all his articles are there now (including the particularly brilliant Ultimate War Simulation Game article). He originally published John Dies at the End online (unfortunately no longer available), but it got picked up by an indie horror publisher (unfortunately, that edition is now sold out) and is now set to be re-released sometime in 2009. IMDB doesn't have it listed yet, but Coscarelli seems excited: The story follows two goofballs who get caught up in a freaky fight against (deep breath...) mutated victims of a strange drug that allows them to drift across time and dimensions and the horrific invasion that may be taking place on Earth because of them. Coscarelli compares JOHN DIES to his previous popular adaptation: “My feelings for JOHN are similar to how they were for Joe R. Lansdale's BUBBA HO-TEP,” he says. “Prior to filming that movie, I’d reread the Lansdale novella and absolutely knew it would make a terrific movie. I feel the same way about JOHN. David Wong is a terrific new talent. He effortlessly blends genres and creates genuine dread. I’m thrilled to be working on a project that’s firmly planted in the genre, yet different and highly original.”AICN has some more info: "I was greatly impressed by David Wong's crazed originality and impressive imagination," revealed Coscarelli. "He's like a mash-up of Douglass Adams and Stephen King, both smart and goofy, scary and funny -- it really spoke to me. JDatE is as addictive as the 'Soy Sauce' street drug that kicks the plot into gear."I have no idea how long this will take to make it to the screen, but I imagine it would be a while (this is what sucks about keeping track of movies in production - you always find out about the movies years before they're made). In any case, I'm really looking forward to this. Coscarelli is a great director and would be a good match for Wong's style. After all, this is the director who made a movie about an aging Elvis (with a black JFK sidekick) battling a mummy in a Texas old folks home. It's a perfect match. Posted by Mark on October 01, 2008 at 09:26 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
6WH: Week 2 - The Lycanthropic Edition The Six Weeks of Halloween continues this week with a trio of movies featuring Werewolves, along with the usual spat of movie trailers and comedic shorts. Enjoy:
In an effort to further steal from kernunrex, I picked up a pack of Halloween Jones Soda this week... I chose the not-so-adventurous Blood Orange flavor, which I really liked a lot (though it's a pretty standard orange soda style flavor, it's still tasty). Up next will be the Candy Corn flavor. Posted by Mark on September 28, 2008 at 12:15 PM .:
Comments (7) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Six Weeks of Halloween: Week 1 - The Friday the 13th Edition I stumbled upon Kernunrex's annual six weeks of Halloween posts a bit late last year, so I only did four weeks myself. This year, I'm prepared. This is my favorite time of the year, and like Kernunrex, I think it's a great excuse to explore one of my favorite genres. When else can you impersonate another person all day and not be arrested? On what other day would it be socially acceptable to decorate your yard with imitation corpses? Only during Halloween do hollow, burning fruit look good on your porch. Most of all, Halloween somehow makes most everyone in the country a fan of my favorite genre. One day just isn't enough for this type of fun; I make it six weeks.Excellent. To start things off, I watched some Friday the 13th movies. I've seen most of them before, but mostly only in pieces. Last year, I revisted the original, this year, I've revisted the next three installments. 
Also, since we're pretty early in the season, feel free to leave some recommendations in the comments. I have a bunch of movies in my queue, but nothing I consider very essential, so recommendations are welcome. Posted by Mark on September 21, 2008 at 07:22 PM .:
Comments (5) |
link
:.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Clone Wars & Context Not too long ago, I mentioned that George Lucas' involvement in a project usually does not bode well for that project. I admit to a certain amount of bandwagon-jumping there, but at the same time, I think it's justified. Jeff Jenson at EW thinks otherwise: But the haters got it wrong — about The Clone Wars, about Lucas (''Sellout''? What does that even mean these days?), and about the current state of Star Wars in general. Missing from much of the overheated bashing of The Clone Wars was the crucial point that it was made for kids, not the grown-ups for whom the original trilogy remains (ridiculously) sacred. Several reviews simply revisited and rehashed the bitter disdain many adult Star Wars fans have for the prequel trilogy. I get that bitterness. But my young Star Wars-loving children don't, nor do the kids who were raised on the prequels and (heresy!) actually liked them.Now, I was one of the few who plunked down their $10 to see the latest Clone Wars movie, and I do think that hyperbolic response of movie critics was unjustified. The movie is nothing special, but it does not deserve to be among the worst movies of the year. For all its failings, it's still well made and it contains a coherent story (albeit, not much of one). So why the disproportionate response? I think the answer is context. First, everyone heard the story behind the release of this film. Namely that Lucasfilm was putting together a TV series for Cartoon Network, and that after producing the Pilot episode, they decided to put it in the theaters to see if they could rake in some more cash from mopes like myself. Jenson wonders in his article what "sellout" even means these days, and it's a fair point I guess, but it's pretty obvious that this is a pure money grab on Lucasfilms' part. I'm reminded once again of David Foster Wallace's1 brilliant essay, F/X Porn, where he discusses some of the business decisions that drove the plot of T2: The studio backing for "T2'''s wildly sophisticated and digital F/X therefore depends on Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreeing to reprise his Terminator role. Now the ironies start to stack, though, because it turns out that Schwarzenegger -- or perhaps more accurately "Schwarzenegger, Inc.," or "Ahnodyne" -- has decided that playing any more malevolent cyborgs would compromise the Leading Man image his elite and bankable record of ROI entails. He will do the film only if "T2"'s script is somehow engineered to make the Terminator the Good Guy. Not only is this vain and stupid and shockingly ungrateful [12], it is also common popular knowledge, duly reported in both the trade and the popular entertainment media before "T2" even goes into production. There's consequently a weird postmodern tension to the way we watch the film; we're aware of what the bankable star's demands were, and we're also aware of how much the movie cost and how important bankable stars are to a big-budget movie; and so one of the few things that keeps us on the edge of our seats during the movie is our suspense about whether James Cameron can possibly weave a plausible, non-cheesy narrative that meets Schwarzenegger's career needs without betraying "T1"'s precedent.(emphasis mine) Like T2, the production and financial situation of The Clone Wars was duly reported and common knowledge among the public before the film's release. We know what we're watching is simply an episode in a TV series, which automatically knocks it down a peg due to the negative connotations of TV. Add on the perceived greed of releasing it in theaters and marketing it to the traditional Star Wars fanbase (while it may certainly be more suitable for children, as Jenson notes, I don't remember it being marketed that way), and it goes down another peg or two. Second, the stakes of the film are rather low. This is most likely the result of its TV heritage, as it would have been fine as a pilot episode for a series that will most likely continue to develop the various strands that were introduced in the movie. But when you put it in the theaters, you're begging to compare it to the other 6 films. While the prequels tend to be a bit muddled in terms of plot, the stakes are clearly high. And the original trilogy has even higher stakes. Furthermore, the movie can't even approach the stakes of the first Clone Wars series (more on this later). Third, the tension is non-existent because the film takes place between Episode II and Episode III. In addition, the grand majority of the characters in the movie are also in Episode III, so, for instance, we know that the duel between Anakin and Count Dooku will result in a draw. Ah, but how can I say that when I also like the original Clone Wars series? It's easy. That series came out before Episode III. Furthermore, while that series featured many of the same characters as the movies, it also featured a whole slew of Jedi who were not main characters in the movies. So when these normally peripheral Jedi are placed in the spotlight and cornered by General Grievous, there is a genuine feeling of suspense (incidentally, Grievous was a great, menacing character in the series - making him a total letdown in Episode III, where he turned out to be an incompetent, cowardly weenie). Yes, many of these complaints have very little to do with the craft or skill that went into the movie, but context matters. Whether it's expectations, innovation or the crowd you saw a film with, it's clear that context makes a big difference. For a movie that takes place in a beloved SF universe with a grand tradition, context matters even more, which is why I think you can see a lot of exaggerated complaints in reviews. To be sure, it's not a great film, but it's not one of the year's worst either. 1 - Surprisingly, it seems that David Foster Wallace was found dead recently. I guess I should dust off my unread copy of Infinite Jest and give it a read sometime. Perhaps after I finish Anathem. Posted by Mark on September 14, 2008 at 08:40 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Thing Goes Zombie I generally try to avoid just posting a video, but this is awesome: Amazing stuff. Has stop-motion animation always been this prevalent? From mainstream (Robot Chicken) to amateur (the vid above, and maybe the Marvel vs. DC stuff), it seems like I'm seing more and more stop-motion these days. [Thanks to Roy for posting the vid on 4k] Posted by Mark on August 27, 2008 at 08:55 AM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Lucas Wars James Berardinelli's recent blog post is interesting: It's becoming increasingly difficult to defend George Lucas. It's hard to reconcile the greedy corporate fat cat at the top of Lucasfilm's empire with the hungry filmmaker who transformed cinema and enthralled millions in 1977. Fans who once worshipped Lucas now revile his name. Lucas the god has become Lucas the devil. For those willing to defend Lucas, the release of The Clone Wars may be their undoing.While I don't think I've ever gone so far as to say that Lucas "raped" my childhood, I have to admit that Lucas' involvement in a project is not a good thing in my book. The gratuitous double-dipping on Star Wars VHS tapes and DVDs aside (it's not like he's that much different than any other studio there), I can't think of anything Lucas has worked on in the past 15 years that's really been good. The Star Wars Special Editions weren't very special, and indeed some of the changes were mildly annoying (they were also part of the excuse for double-dipping DVD releases). The Star Wars prequels were entertaining, but severely flawed. Lucas can write a fine story, but his scripts (and especially his dialogue) aren't so great. His direction and ability to pull a good performance out of an actor doesn't seem very impressive either. And unlike the original Star Wars trilogy, he kept the prequels to himself (I think a large part of why we love the original trilogy so much is that other, better writers and directors, were allowed to work on them). The recent Indiana Jones movie was a bit of a mess too, and I tend to blame most of that on Lucas. Is that fair? Spielberg surely deserves some of the blame, but it seemed like all I heard about was how Lucas held up the production for this or that reason, including the rejection of Frank Darabont's script, which was apparently loved by everyone involved in the production except Lucas. Instead of Darabont, we got what appears to be a mixture of about 10 different scripts, and it shows. I think there's probably a lot of wild, hyperbolic speculation about Lucas and his motives, but it's hard not to engage in that sort of thing. A cursory glance at everything he's done in the past 15 years shows a man in love with special effects... to the detriment of everything else. This even hurt the recent Indiana Jones movie. How could Lucas get back in people's good graces? Perhaps if he worked on something new instead of constantly revisiting Star Wars and Indy, we might get back on his side. Instead, it seems like he's just run out of ideas. From what Berardinelli says in his post, it seems the new Clone Wars movie is nothing special. This is a shame, because I really loved the original Clone Wars cartoons (I guess that's one recent thing Lucas worked on that was good). Indeed, I think I enjoyed them just as much if not more than the prequels. I'll probably end up seeing The Clone Wars this weekend, but I don't know how much I'll get out of it. Posted by Mark on August 13, 2008 at 09:59 PM .:
Comments (4) |
link
:.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Movie Podcasts I watch a lot of movies, and so it follows that I also listen to a lot of movie podcasts. It's an interesting "genre" of podcast in that many of them feature similar segments (i.e. top 5, listener feedback, director spotlight, etc...), and most of them have to walk that fine line between art house and mainstream, obscure and popular. So here's a list of my favorite podcasts... alas, some are now defunct, but are still worth checking out anyway.
Update 8.13.08 - Celluloid Geekazoid has taken podcast reviewing to the next level with his multifaceted, weighted ratings. I should try that. He covers a bunch of podcasts I haven't reviewed. I've listened to most of them though and never really cared for them. The only one on his list that's a real discovery for me is the excellent Left Field Cinema. I'm a little different than CG in that I prefer a longer show, but LFC seems to be a good length for what it is. Posted by Mark on August 03, 2008 at 07:07 PM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Dark Knight I saw The Dark Knight this weekend, and to be honest, I'm still working my way through it. There's a lot to chew on in the movie, and that alone raises it above most films (not just "Superhero" movies). Rather than do a standard review of the film, which I'm sure anyone reading this blog has already read, I'll be discussing a few topics related to the film and to recent posts on this blog. As such, the following post is about as spoiler free as possible. James Berardinelli gave the film 4 stars, which is notable since this is the first film that has earned that honor in nearly 2 years. He explains his position in his blog: Some reviewers hand out four-star ratings like candy. Such is their right. It's their rating and their system. I have always felt that, for a four-star citation to mean anything, it must be handed out on only the rarest of occasions to the most deserving of films. When I dole out a four-star rating, I'm making a statement about the quality of the movie. I'm saying that, for anyone with similar movie tastes to mine, this is a "must-see." For a production to get four stars, it not only has to impact me as I'm watching it, but it has to stay with me afterward, as I drive home at night, as I do my evening exercises, as I get ready for bed, as I shower the next morning, and as I compose the review in my head while cutting the grass… Four-star movies aren't easily forgotten or shrugged off. They demand attention. They are rare. In 2007, there were none.Steven notes the addicting grail-like quest reviewers put themself through in order to find 4 star entertainment. I don't post star ratings for most of the movies I see, but I count myself among the addiction grail-seekers. It has been over two years since I've seen a new film I would consider 4 stars (That film was United 93). That doesn't mean I haven't seen any 4 star movies in that time, just not newly-released ones. Most recently I discovered Zhang Yimou's brilliant Raise the Red Lantern, a movie that instantly shot into 4 star range for me. That is actually even more of a rarity though. It normally takes a while for a movie to sink in, and as Berardinelli notes, a 4 star movie stays with you long after viewing it. My question after seeing The Dark Knight is, how long is long enough? It will unquestionably be on my best of the year list, but is it really worth the 4 stars? Perhaps this is why I don't post star ratings for every movie I see. I've always been a bit stingy with extreme ratings; I rarely rate something 1 star or 4 stars. Again, I'm being necessarily vague here because I really don't keep a list, but my most common rating is probably 2.5 stars. The process of compiling top 10 lists (which I've done for 2006 and 2007) has made me even more stingy with 4 star ratings. Nevertheless, I'm still considering The Dark Knight for the honor. It's that good. Last week, I wrote about the difficulties of discussing genre films, and as if to prove my point, The Dark Knight is an amazing departure from its genre roots. Most superhero movies at least acknowledge their cartoonish nature, but The Dark Knight tries its best to play down those aspects. All that's left are the costumes and the occasional line of action-movie banter. Otherwise, this movie feels like a crime drama that happens to feature a guy who dresses up like a bat and another that dresses up like a (demented) clown. Oh, it still retains a healthy respect for the character and it's clearly a comic book movie, but I couldn't help but think of sweeping, epic, ensemble crime dramas like The Godfather: Part II and especially Heat. Apparently, Alexandra DuPont also noticed those parallels: It's an ensemble crime drama, and the parallels to "Heat" are blatant: A master criminal and a master detective (the latter with a troubled personal life) embark on a collision course. As in "Heat," detective and criminal even sit down at a table and chat midway through the film. And as in "Heat," the characters surrounding and supporting the two leads get more screen time than you'd expect.DuPont also notes just how different this movie is to it's immediate predecessor (which was made by the same creative team). Gone are the ninjas, gone are the ancient secret societies and their dopey conspiracies. What you're left with is unnervingly real, with few moments of comic-book-like fantasy. One other thing you don't see in most comic book movies (or crime dramas for that matter) is the laser-tight focus on consequences. This was something I was getting at in my post on Vigilantes, but was never really able to articulate. Vigilante stories, of which Batman is a prime example, are about a fantasy of justice, but often don't shy away from the consequences. With The Dark Knight, the consequences of a vigilante's actions far outweigh the fantasy of justice. Perhaps this is why the movie, which does feature a few outlandish (but exciting!) set-pieces, still retains a realistic feel. Again, it's still a comic book movie, but it's unlike what has preceded it and it's likely to influence what follows. It seems pretty clear to me that the comic book movie genre has changed and will continue to grow. Interestingly, this trend looks likely to continue... as demonstrated by a preview for Watchmen shown before the Batman movie. I've been following the production of Watchmen for years, and I think part of the reason it's had so much trouble getting made is that it tells a bleak story... one that I think will resonate more deeply now that The Dark Knight has laid the groundwork. To be sure, I'm not talking about realism here, just the willingness to embrace the darker nature of superheroes. The consequences of a world with superheroes. In any case, most of the things you're hearing are true. It's a great film that has lived up to the hype (well, so far - I have a feeling the hype is going to go through the stratosphere after this weekend). Heath Ledger's performance is indeed a brilliant and memorable one that could potentially earn him a posthumous Oscar, putting the tragedy of his death in further relief. Indeed, at this point, I can't imagine anyone ever donning the Joker makeup again and probably the worst thing about this movie is that it will be damn near impossible to follow up. My comic-loving friend tells me the filmmakers were hoping to do a Hannibal Lecter type thing with the Joker in the sequels; having him be in Arkham Asylum, but still pulling strings in Gotham City. Alas, such will not be possible. Going into the movie, I thought I saw the villain for the next film pretty clearly, but that turned out not to be the case (this is actually one of the things that I'm still working through). There are only a handful of films I've seen multiple times in the theater, and the grand majority of those was more for social reasons than because of the film itself. Nevertheless, I think I will be rewatching The Dark Knight in the theater (probably an IMAX theater; apparently portions of the film were optimized for IMAX and I wanted to see it there, but all the IMAX showings for this past weekend sold out a week ago). Update: My site's host was experiencing issues all night Sunday and thus this post isn't showing up until Monday morning. Sorry! Posted by Mark on July 20, 2008 at 03:52 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
70s SF Marathon Awards: The Damn Dirty Apes Filmspotting finished up their 70s Sci-Fi Movie Marathon by handing out awards, titled The Damn Dirty Apes (in honor of Charlton Heston's contribution to the marathon). I followed along with their marathon, so I figured I might as well give out the awards as well...
Posted by Mark on June 22, 2008 at 01:39 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
70s SF Marathon: The Man Who Fell To Earth A couple of weeks ago I reviewed most of the movies from Filmspotting's 70s Sci-Fi Movie Marathon. The one movie from their marathon that I had not yet seen at the time was The Man Who Fell to Earth. I had actually caught parts of this movie before, and to be honest I was not particularly impressed. After watching the whole movie, I can say that my thoughts about it have changed very little. There are two things I really like about this movie. Unfortunately, they're overshadowed by the rest of the movie. I love the premise: An alien travels to earth to get water for his dying planet. To fund the return trip to his planet, he patents several pieces of his own technology on Earth. He starts a company that quickly grows into one of the largest technology providers on the planet. However, he doesn't account for things like love, television, alcohol or excessively ruthless business competition. Alas, director Nicholas Roeg doesn't seem too interested in the SF portions of the film, instead attempting to delve deeper into the critique of human excesses by portraying the downward spiral of an alien who eventually succumbs to the various pressures of human life. As such, the plot ends up being razor thin and filled with holes. SF stories almost always boil down to basic human dramas, so I don't blame Roeg for being more interested in telling that part of the story, but the movie is quite sloppy with its science (the film is based on a novel, so I'm actually not sure all the blame lies with Roeg). I think Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review with this line: "...there's nothing more frustrating than asking logical questions about a movie that insists on being visionary." 
The other thing that really works well in the film is the casting of David Bowie as the alien visitor. His gaunt, androgynous appearance is an eerily perfect fit. His subdued performance is good as well, though as Ebert notes, he "flirts with the catatonic." Supporting roles are somewhat interesting. Candy Clark plays a naive hotel worker who falls for Bowie. This odd relationship starts out very interesting, but progresses awkwardly and doesn't end well. Rip Torn plays a scientist who works for Bowie and eventually figures out what Bowie really is. Buck Henry has an interesting part as the lawyer who runs Bowie's company. His character also appears to be in a gay relationship, but this is only hinted at. Come to think of it, the entire film is really a series of interesting ideas that are only hinted at - a perfect example of playing obscurity for depth. Some films can get away with this because they require you to piece the story together for yourself, but that didn't work so well for this movie. Roeg tries his best to stylize the movie, and there are indeed a lot of interesting visual shots in the film. He uses cross cutting a lot, though I'd say the editing of the film in general isn't very well done. There is a lot going on in the movie, but none of it seems to fit together very well. In the end, it's an interesting movie with some good ideas, but I found the execution lacking. Most critics seem to love it even though many acknowledge the complaints I mention above. On the other hand, Kaedrin commenters noted that the film was "BORING" and "extremely tedious," so it's nice to know that I'm not alone. Filmspotting will be handing out their marathon awards on Friday, at which point I'll probably post my own... ** (out of 4) Posted by Mark on June 18, 2008 at 10:48 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Rewatching Movies One of the cable channels was playing Ocean's Eleven all weekend, and that's one of those movies I always find myself watching when it comes on (this time, I even went to the shelf and fired up the DVD, so as to avoid commercials). Of course, there are tons of new, never-seen-before things I want to watch. My Netflix queue currently has around 140 movies in it (and this seems to be growing with time, despite the rate at which I go through my rentals). I've got a DVD set of Banner of the Stars that I'm only about 1/3 of the way through. My DVR has a couple episodes of the few TV shows I follow queued up for me. Yet I find myself watching Ocean's Eleven for the umpteenth time. And loving every second of it. In actuality, I've noticed myself doing this sort of thing less and less over the years. When I was younger, I would watch and rewatch certain movies almost daily. There are several movies that have probably moved up into triple digit rewatches (for the curious, the films in this list include The Terminator, Aliens, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Phantasm). Others I've only rewatched dozens of times. As time goes on, I find myself less and less likely to rewatch things. I think Netflix has become a big part of that, because I want to get my money's worth from the service, and the only way to do that is to continually watch new movies. In recent years, I've also come to realize that even though I've seen way more movies than the average person, there are still a lot of holes in my film knowledge. I do find myself limited by time these days, so when it comes down to rewatching an old favorite or potentially discovering a new one, I tend to favor the new films these days. But I still relapse (focusing on novelty has its own challenges), and I do find myself rewatching movies on a regular basis. 
Why is that? There are some people who never rewatch movies, but even with my declining repeat viewings, I don't count myself among them. Some films almost demand you to watch them again. For instance, I recently watched Andrei Tarkovsky's thoughtful, if difficult, SF film Solaris. This is a film that seems designed to reveal itself only upon multiple viewings. Tarkovsky is somewhat infamous for this sort of thing, and there are a lot of movies out there that are like that. Upon repeated viewings, these films take on added dimensions. You start to notice things. Correlations, strange relationships, and references become more apparent. Other films, however, are just a lot of fun to rewatch. This raises a lot of interesting questions. Why is a movie fun even when we know the ending? Indeed, why do some reviewers even include a rating for rewatchability? In some cases we just like spending time with certain characters or settings and don't mind that we already know the outcome. I've made a distinction between these films and the ones that demand multiple viewings, but many of the same benefits of repeat viewings are mutual between the two types of movies. Rewatching a film can be a richer, deeper experience and you start to notice things you didn't upon first viewing. Indeed, one interesting thing about rewatching movies is that while the movie is the same, you are not. Context matters. Every time we rewatch something, we bring our knowledge and experience (which is always changing) to the table. Sometimes this can be trivial (like noticing a reference or homage you didn't know about), but I've always heard about movies that become more poignant to people after they have children or as they grow older. Similarly, rewatching a movie can transport us back to the context in which we first saw the movie. I still remember the excitement and the spectacle of going to see Batman or Terminator 2 on opening day. Those were fun experiences from my childhood, even if I don't particularly love either movie. Heck, just the thought of how often I used to rewatch some movies is a fun memory that gets brought up whenever I think about those movies today... 
There are also a lot of fascinating psychological implications to rewatching movies. As I mentioned before, we sometimes rewatch movies to revisit characters we consider friends or situations we find satisfying. In the case of comedies, we want to laugh. In the case of horror films, we want to scare ourselves or feel suspense. And strangely, even though we know the outcomes of these movies, they still seem to be able to elicit these various emotions as we rewatch them. For movies that depict true stories, they can feature suspense or fear even when we know how the story will turn out. Two recent, high-profile examples of this are United 93 and Zodiac. Both of those films were immersive enough upon first viewing that I felt suspense at various parts of the story, even though I knew on an intellectual level where both films were heading. David Bordwell has explored this concept thoroughly and references several interesting theories as to why rewatching movies remains powerful: Normally we say that suspense demands an uncertainty about how things will turn out. Watching Hitchcock’s Notorious for the first time, you feel suspense at certain points-when the champagne is running out during the cocktail party, or when Devlin escorts the drugged Alicia out of Sebastian’s house. That’s because, we usually say, you don’t know if the spying couple will succeed in their mission.Here's one theory he covers: ...in general, when we reread a novel or rewatch a film, our cognitive system doesn’t apply its prior knowledge of what will happen. Why? Because our minds evolved to deal with the real world, and there you never know exactly what will happen next. Every situation is unique, and no course of events is literally identical to an earlier one. “Our moment-by-moment processes evolved in response to the brute fact of nonrepetition” (Experiencing Narrative Worlds, 171). Somehow, this assumption that every act is unique became our default for understanding events, even fictional ones we’ve encountered before.He goes into a lot more detail about this theory and others in his post. Several of the theories he covers touch on what I find most interesting about the subject, which is that our brain seems to have compartamentalized the processing of various data. I'm going to simplify drastically for effect here, but I think the general idea is right (I'm not a nuerologist though, so take it with a grain of salt). When processing visual and audio data, there is a part of the brain that is, for lack of a better term, stateless. It picks up a stimulus, immediately renders it (into a visual or audio representation) then shuttles it off to another part of the brain which interprets the output. This interpretation seems to be where our brain slows down. The initial processing is involuntary and unconscious and it doesn't take other data (like memories) into account. We don't have to consciously think about it, it just happens. Something similar happens when we first begin to interpret data. Our brain seems to be unconsciously and continually forming different interpretations and then rejecting most of them. The rejected thoughts are displaced by new alternatives which incorporate more of our knowledge and experience (and perhaps this part happens in a more conscious fashion). We've all had the experience of thinking something that almost immediately disturbed us because we wonder where that thought came from. Bordwell gives a common example (I've read about this exact example at least three times from different people): Standing at a viewing station on a mountaintop, safe behind the railing, I can look down and feel fear. I don’t really believe I’ll fall. If I did, I would back away fast. I imagine I’m going to fall; perhaps I even picture myself plunging into the void and, a la Björk, slamming against the rocks at the bottom. Just the thought of it makes my palms clammy on the rail.So perhaps one reason it doesn't matter that we know how a movie will turn out is that there is a part of us that is blindly processing data without incorporating what we already know. Another reason we still feel emotions like suspense during a movie we've seen before is because we can imagine what would happen if it didn't turn out the way we know it will. In both cases, there is a conscious intellectual response which can negate our instinctual thoughts, but such responses seem to happen after the fact (at which point, you've already experienced the emotion in question and can't just take it back). One of the most beautiful things about laughter is that it happens involuntarily. We don't (always) have to think about it, we just do it. Dennis Miller once wrote about this: The truth is the human sense of humor tends to be barbaric and it has been that way all along. I'm sure on the eve of the nativity when the tall Magi smacked his forehead on the crossbeam while entering the stable, Joseph took a second away from pondering who impregnated his wife and laughed his little carpenter ass off. A sense of humor is exactly that: a sense. Not a fact, not etched in stone, not an empirical math equation but just what the word intones: a sense of what you find funny. And obviously, everybody has a different sense of what's funny. If you need confirmation on that I would remind you that Saved by the Bell recently celebrated the taping of their 100th episode. Oh well, one man's Molier is another man's Screech and you know something thats the way it should be.Indeed, humor generally disappates when you try to explain it. You either get it or you don't. I could probably go on and on about this, but Bordwell has done an excellent job in his post (there's an interesting bit about mirror neurons, for instance), and unlike me, he's got lots of references. I do find the subject fascinating though, and I began wondering about the impact of people rewatching movies so often. After all, this is a somewhat recent trend we're talking about (not that people didn't rewatch movies before the advent of the VCR and DVD, but that technology has obviously increased the amount of rewatching). We're living in an on-demand era right now, meaning that we can choose what we want to watch whenever we want (well, we're not quite there yet, but we're moving quickly in that direction). If I want to rewatch Solaris a hundred times and analyze it like the Zapruder film, I'm free to do so (and it might even be a rewarding effort). In the past, things weren't necessarily like that though. James Berardinelli recently wrote about rewatching movies, and he provides some interesting historical context: 30 years ago, if you loved a movie, re-watching it involved patience and hard work. A big Hollywood picture might show up in prime time (ABC regularly aired the James Bond movies on Sunday nights) but smaller/older films were relegated to late night or weekend afternoon showings. Lovers of High Noon (for example) might have to wait a couple of years and religiously check TV listings before being rewarded by its appearance on "The Million Dollar Movie" at 12:30 am some night.Again, this trend has continued, and the degree to which you can program your viewing schedule is ever increasing. Even during the 1980s when I was growing up, I found myself beholden to the broadcast schedules more often than not. Sure I could tape things with a VCR, but I usually found myself browsing the channels looking for something to watch. There was a certain serendipity to discovering movies in those days. I distinctly remember the first time I saw a Spaghetti Western (For a Few Dollars More), getting hooked, and watching a bunch of others (Cinemax was running a series of them that month). The last time I remember something like that happening was about 5-6 years ago when I caught an Italian horror marathon on some cable movie channel. And the only reason I watched that was because I had seen Suspiria before and wanted to watch it again. It was followed by several Mario Bava films that were very interesting. Today, I look back on some of the films I watched in my childhood, even ones I cherished, and I wonder why I ever bothered to watch it in the first place. It was probably becaues nothing else was on. The advent of digital cable has changed things as well because digital cable doesn't encourage blind television surfing. There's a program guide built right in, so you can browse that to find what you want. Unfortunately, that means you could skip right over something you would otherwise like (and that may have caught your eye if you saw a glimpse of it). There's also a lot more to choose from (perhaps leading to a paradox of choice situation). Of course, there are other ways for film lovers to discover new films they wouldn't otherwise have watched. On a personal level, listening to various film podcasts, especially Filmspotting and All Movie Talk (which is sadly now defunct, though still worth listening to if you love movies), has been incredibly helpful in finding and exploring various genres or eras of film that I had not been acquainted with. One effective technique that Filmspotting has employed is the use of marathons, in which they watch 5-6 movies from a genre or filmmaker they are not particularly familiar with. Of course, this, too, is subject to the whims of listeners - many (including myself) will avoid films that don't have an immediate appeal. Still, I've found myself playing along with several of their marathons and watching movies I don't think I would ever watch on my own. One interesting film experiment is currently being conducted by a blogger named Matthew Dessem. He wanted to learn more about foreign films and found that the Criterion Collection was an interesting place to start. It contains a good mix of the old, new, foreign, and independent, and it goes in a somewhat random order. He started writing a review for each movie at his blog, The Criterion Contraption. He's about 80 or so movies into the collection, and his reviews are exceptionally good (apparently the product of about 15 hours of work each). In an interview, Dessem explains his reasoning for watching the collection in order and why he writes reviews for each one: I began writing about the films simply as a way of keeping myself intellectually honest: thinking about how each movie was supposed to work, paying attention to what was effective and what was not. Given the chance to not engage with a difficult film, I'll usually take it, unless I have to come up with something coherent to say about it.Later in the interview, he expands on why he watches the films in the order Criterion put them out: Mostly, it keeps me honest. If I had the choice to watch the films in any order, I would quickly jump to all the films I most want to see, and never get around to the ones that seem less interesting. That means I'd miss out on a lot of discoveries, which was one of my main goals to begin with. But jumping around from country to country and decade to decade has its own rewards: like any good 21st century citizen, I have a pretty good case of apophenia, so I'll often see connections that don't exist between films.I can definitely see where he's coming from. Looking through the catalog of Criterion, I see a lot of movies that I'd probably skip if I didn't require myself to watch them in order (as it is now, I've seen somewhere around 10% of the movies, and there's no particular order I've gone in - I sorta fell into the trap where I "quickly jump to all the films I most want to see, and never get around to the ones that seem less interesting". Except, of course, I haven't decided to watch all the Criterion Collection movies.) Indeed some of the movies I have seen, I probably wouldn't recommend except in certain circumstances (for example, I wouldn't recommend Equinox to anyone but die-hard horror fans). However, while there are ways for us film lovers to seek out and expand our knowledge of film, I do wonder about the casual moviegoers. Is the recent trend of remakes (or reimaginings or whatever they call them these days) partially the result of this phenomenon? I wonder how many of the younger generation saw Rob Zombie's limp remake of Halloween and then sought out the brilliant original? That is perhaps too high-profile of an example. How about the original Ocean's Eleven? As it turns out, I have not seen that movie, despite loving the remake. I've added it to my Netflix queue. It rests at position 116 right now, which means I'll probably get to it sometime within the next five years. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rewatch The Empire Strikes Back. It is my destiny. 
Update: Added some screenshots from movies I've watched a bazillion times. Also just want to note that while I spent most of my time talking about movies here, the same goes for books and music. I don't tend to reread books much (perhaps due to the time commitment reading a book takes), but on the other hand, music gets better with multiple listenings (so much so that no one even questions the practice of listening to music multiple times). Posted by Mark on June 15, 2008 at 08:21 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Screenshots of the Recently Viewed I'm back from my trip to Vegas, but I'm still a bit out of it, so here are a few screenshots and quick comments from recently viewed movies. I'll leave the titles off if you want to guess, though this isn't really a screenshot game like I've done in the past. The answers are below the fold in the extended entry... 
Again, answers and quick comments in the extended entry... Here are the answers:
Posted by Mark on June 11, 2008 at 08:18 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
'70s SF Movie Marathon I've been following along with Filmspotting's '70s Science Fiction Marathon. I've followed along with several of their marathons before, and other marathons I've been pretty familiar with before they did their thing, and as marathons go, this one has actually been somewhat disappointing. There's still one movie left in the marathon, but from what I've seen of it, I don't think my opinion will change much. Still, there were some surprises and bright spots here too, and I took the opportunity to check out some other 70s SF movies I'd been wanting to see. Here's the marathon so far:
Posted by Mark on June 01, 2008 at 09:25 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Science Fiction Movies I've lamented the lack of quality science fiction movies a couple of times last year. There are a lot of quasi-SF movies out there. Something like I Am Legend could be termed science fiction, but when compared to more rigorous examples of the genre, like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Contact, I'm not sure it really qualifies. A lot of big budget SF ends up being like that, so the really good SF movies of today tend to be lower budget. So what does a SF movie need to do and how can it do it on a lower budget? John Scalzi took a crack at it recently and came up with three ways to cut costs. His first one is dead on: 1. Ditch the StarsOr approximately $28 million more than it took to make all of Primer (which cost $7,000). Now, I'll grant that Primer isn't the most visually spectacular movie, nor is its complex plotting very clear upon first inspection, but it is still very interesting and engaging (at least as much if not more than I, Robot). Scalzi's next point is to avoid making it in Hollywood. A pretty good suggestion. It partially amounts to the same thing as his first suggestion (since one of the things a big studio will do is insist on a big name star), but it also means they'll suggest more special effects and cliched plot elements. Why? Because Hollywood has lots of money, and they want to spend it. David Foster Wallace once wrote about this sort of thing in an essay called F/X Porn. In it, he formulates what's call the Inverse Cost and Quality Law: ...it states very simply that the larger a movie's budget is, the shittier that movie is going to be. The case of "T2" shows that much of the ICQL's force derives from simple financial logic. A film that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make is going to get financial backing if and only if its investors can be maximally -- _maximally_ -- sure that at the very least they will get their hundreds of millions of dollars back [11] -- i.e. a megabudget movie must not fail (and "failure" here means anything less than a runaway box-office hit) and must thus adhere to certain reliable formulae that have been shown by precedent to maximally ensure a runaway hit. One of the most reliable of these formulae involves casting a superstar who is "bankable" (i.e. whose recent track record of films shows a high ROI). The studio backing for "T2'''s wildly sophisticated and digital F/X therefore depends on Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreeing to reprise his Terminator role. Now the ironies start to stack, though, because it turns out that Schwarzenegger -- or perhaps more accurately "Schwarzenegger, Inc.," or "Ahnodyne" -- has decided that playing any more malevolent cyborgs would compromise the Leading Man image his elite and bankable record of ROI entails. He will do the film only if "T2"'s script is somehow engineered to make the Terminator the Good Guy. Not only is this vain and stupid and shockingly ungrateful [12], it is also common popular knowledge, duly reported in both the trade and the popular entertainment media before "T2" even goes into production. There's consequently a weird postmodern tension to the way we watch the film; we're aware of what the bankable star's demands were, and we're also aware of how much the movie cost and how important bankable stars are to a big-budget movie; and so one of the few things that keeps us on the edge of our seats during the movie is our suspense about whether James Cameron can possibly weave a plausible, non-cheesy narrative that meets Schwarzenegger's career needs without betraying "T1"'s precedent.So I think Scalzi's second point holds pretty well, even though he didn't quite ram it home by savaging a popular but not so great film like Wallace does with T2 (his essay is worth reading in its entirety) And Scalzi's final point is also probably his most controversial and I'm not sure I buy it: 3. Hire the Screenwriter to DirectI certainly buy his reasoning, but I'm not sure that's going to matter. Being good at putting together a script says nothing of your abilities behind the camera. If you're going to spend your money on something, it might as well be the director. Directors typically make 5-7% of a film's budget, and since we're talking about a low budget movie, that won't account for all that much. Plus, a good director generally has more of a tangible outcome on the success of a film than a popular, A-List actor (note that I didn't say "good" actor, though I think a director probably still wields more influence even in that case). Scalzi doesn't really expand on this one that much, but he does give an interesting caveat and example: Warning, however: This is highly contingent on the two other factors. Case in point: David Twohy. When all Twohy had was $23 million, no big stars and a distribution deal with mini-studio USA Films, he made Pitch Black. When he had $120 million, big stars and Universal Studios backing him, he made The Chronicles of Riddick. Lesson: There's something to be said about keeping your screenwriter/director pinching pennies.Indeed there is, and that's a point Wallace drives home in his essay with a corollary to his Inverse Cost and Quality Law: (ICQL (b)) There is no quicker or more efficient way to kill what is interesting and original about an interesting, original young director than to give that director a huge budget and lavish F/X resources.Of course, despite focusing on T2 (a science fiction movie), Wallace isn't specifically talking about SF movies, and a lot of the advice in this post could probably stand for most movies. I guess the good news is that low budget SF movies are getting made. The previously mentioned Cloverfield is an interesting example of a movie that looks great, but was made for only $25 million dollars. It's not a great film, but it does something interesting and new to the moster movie genre (though I guess it's only marginally SF). Another great example I saw this year was at the Philly Film Festival - a Spanish time-travel thriller called Timecrimes. It's a fantastic example of how a SF movie can look great and entertain, even on a small budget (though I'm sure significantly higher than Primer). A few more like this and we'll be in decent shape. Posted by Mark on May 28, 2008 at 08:08 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Nazi Parody As a fan of referential humor, I'm surprised I never caught on to this before. Indeed, I've even praised Rob Zombie's fake trailer in Grindhouse (for Werewolf Women of the S.S.) on several occassions without even realizing how closely he was parodying the genre. Then, while perusing some random list (on lists of bests), I found out about Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Wow. Talk about your similarities. Of course, Ilsa is not actually a werewolf (the "She Wolf" of the title appears to be metaphorical), but still. I guess I had a vague idea that Nazi exploitation films existed and that that is what Zombie was parodying, I just didn't realize that there were some that were so closely related to Zombie's trailer (which is still great, by the way - all the trailers in Grindhouse owe a great debt to the films they parody). I've added Ilsa to my Netflix queue, but I doubt I'll ever get to it. Some things are perhaps best left unexplored. (In typical Kaedrin fashion, now that I've said I won't, I'll probably run a series of Nazi Exploitation posts next month detailing my descent into grindhouse glory.) Posted by Mark on May 21, 2008 at 10:35 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Link Dump: Space! Time is short, so just a few space themed links for you:
Posted by Mark on May 11, 2008 at 09:57 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Netflix Activity The recent bout with myTV on DVD addiction necessitated an increase in Netflix usage, which made me curious. How well have I really taken advantage of the Netflix service, and is it worth the monthly expense? If I were to rent a movie at a local video store like Blockbuster, each rental would cost somewhere around $4 (this is an extremely charitable estimate, as I'm sure it's probably closer to $5 at this point), plus the expense in time and effort (I mean, come on, I'd have to drive about a mile out of my way to go to one of these places!) Netflix costs me $15.99 a month for the 3-disc-at-a-time plan (this plan was $17.99 when I signed up, but decreased in price two times during around two years of membership), so it takes about 4-5 Netflix rentals to recoup my costs and bring the price of an average rental down below $4. I've been a member for one year and ten months... how did I do (click for a larger version)? 
A few notes on the data:
This has been an interesting exercise, because I feel like I'm a little more consistent than the data actually shows. I'm really surprised that there are several months where my rentals went down to 6... I could have sworn I watched at least 2-3 discs a week, with the occasional exception. Still, an average of 9 movies a month is nothing to sneeze about, I guess. I've heard horror stories of where Netflix will start throttling you and take longer to deliver discs if you go above a certain amount of rentals per month (at a certain point, the cost of processing your rentals becomes more than you're paying, which I guess is what prompts Netflix to start throttling you), but I haven't had a problem yet. If I keep up my recent viewing habits though, this could change... Posted by Mark on April 27, 2008 at 11:09 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Top 5 Anticipated Summer Movies The first few months of 2008 has been a real movie wasteland. A couple of interesting releases, but nothing all that great. As summer approaches, things are looking up a little. The guys at Filmspotting will be doing a top 5 anticipated summer movies on Friday, so in an effort to beat them to the punch, here's my top 5:
Posted by Mark on April 23, 2008 at 09:44 PM .:
Comments (7) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Episodes I've been watching a lot of TV on DVD (or Netflix Watch Online) lately. It can be quite an addictive experience, as the shows don't have commercials and many episodes end with something interesting (not necessarily a cliffhanger, but enough to make you want to see what happens next). I usually end up watching a bunch of episodes at once. In the past few months I've watched a bunch of shows in this fashion, including Dexter (seasons 1 and 2), Battlestar Galactica (season 3), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (seasons 1 and 2), Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and The Wire (seasons 1 and 2). It helps that all of these shows are pretty good, but I began to wonder about the impact of watching shows on DVD versus broadcast television. I also started to wonder what the ideal length of a TV episode should be and why most Anime series, even dramatic ones, tend to be only a half-hour, while the best American drama series tend to be an hour per episode... A few weeks ago, I finished up BSG season three and in my post on the subject, I said: I'll be able to watch season 4 as it happens. This presents an interesting contrast though, as I've watched the first three seasons on DVD. I've been wondering lately what impact this sort of schedule has on the perception of a series. It's certainly fun to watch. Addicting, actually. Will watching only a single episode a week (as opposed to 4 commercial-free episodes at a time) have a positive impact on my perception of the show? It's obviously a highly subjective question, but I guess I'm going to find out.So we're a few episodes into season 4 of BSG, and I have to say that I'm not enjoying it as much as when I was watching it on DVD (though the latest episode was pretty good). It's hard to tell if it's the notion of having to wait a week between episodes, or if it's just that the quality of the episodes is bothering me, and there's no real way to accurately test this, though I suppose if I do it more often (i.e. watch a series on DVD and catch up to the broadcast) I could get a better idea of how this impacts a show. Season 3 of Dexter is supposed to start up sometime this summer, so I guess that's my next chance... I'm particularly interested in this when it comes to Anime episodes, because most of us Westerners pick up DVD sets and watch multiple episodes at a time. Perhaps it's the typical half-hour duration that Anime uses (more on this later), but I wonder if a series would get frustrating if I had to wait a week between episodes. For GitS:SAC, there are some episodes that fit well into the series when watching it all at once, but that I think i'd find frustrating if I had to wait a week to see the next episode. For instance, the entirety of episode 9 takes place in a chat room where a bunch of people talk about the Laughing Man (a cyber-terrrorist whos is being chased throughout the series). I guess some interesting stuff comes to light in that episode, but if I was watching that series as it aired, I might have been a little more underwhelmed. I love Haibane Renmei, but I have to admit that it's probably not something I'd have stuck with if I had to wait a week between each episode (at least, not until DVD). And so on. I think part of that is that the duration for the grand majority of Anime seems to be a half-hour (with commercials, OPs, and EDs, it works out to around 22-23 minutes an episode), and I'm not sure that's the ideal length for some of the stories that are being told through Anime. Of course, lumping all Anime together is foolish, as it's extremely broad and some series work fine. So what is the ideal length of a TV episode? Let's take a look at the typical lengths (emphasis is on American series, as that's what I'm most familiar with, but I'll also go a little into Anime):
These days there are too many long-form TV shows to list. A big part of this is that people have broken away from broadcast television and consume their media in different ways (DVRs, torrents, even waiting for a DVD set), so they don't really have to worry about missing an episode and losing track of what's happening in the story. There's also a notion that television series have gotten much more complex and referential to be more cognitively engaging for the audience (Steven Johnson makes a compelling case for this sort of thing in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You). It's much easier to develop a multi-threaded story comprised of a complex network of relationships in 12-24 hours than it is in one or two hours. Interestingly, television used to be the domain of the short form narrative, where a story was crammed into a 23 or 46 minute timeframe. Movies told more of a long form story that took 90 minutes to 3 or even 4 hours to develop. However, as time goes on and our ability to time-shift television programming gets better, television and film have become inverted. Television now tells the long form stories, and because they have even more time than movies, their stories can be that much richer and more complex. Of course, this all depends on how well done the television show is. The Wire would certainly hold its own with most movies, but it's also a bit of an outlier. Most shows are not done at the same quality level as The Wire. Given the above, I have to wonder why there aren't more Anime series that have a one hour format. I think hour long episodes tend to be better for telling a complete narrative (or contributing a more meaningful chunk of an overall story arc) than a half hour episode, so I think it would be interesting to see an Anime series take on that sort of format. For instance, I think GitS:SAC would benefit greatly from a little more time to flesh out the characters and their universe (which, as I've noted before, can sometimes be a little confusing - though I should note that SAC is better at this than the feature films, which have even less time to spare). Instead, I get a rushed feeling from some episodes (and I had a similar reaction to some episodes of of Vandread and Cowboy Bebop too). In many cases, Anime series are already telling a long form story, so it would be interesting to see if an hour long format would make that long form story better (or worse?) Posted by Mark on April 20, 2008 at 03:53 PM .:
Comments (6) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Philadelphia Film Festival: Recap I had meant to write reviews as I went, but things didn't work out that way, so here's a recap of all the films I've seen this week. Star ratings are out of 4 stars.
Update: Made some edits, specifically to the Storm review... Also removed the The Last House in the Woods entry, as I didn't end up seeing that film... Posted by Mark on April 13, 2008 at 04:08 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Philadelphia Film Festival: Confession of Pain One of the more successful Hong Kong films of recent years is Infernal Affairs, a story of an undercover cop and a police department mole. It was remade in the U.S. as The Departed and it netted Scorcese's first oscars (among others). The symmetrical plot of Infernal Affairs is cliever and complex, but the real strength of the film is the psychological struggle of people who've been undercover for so long they're not sure who they are anymore. Confession of Pain is from the same writers and directors as Infernal Affairs. The plot doesn't feature the clever symmetry of Infernal Affairs and the psychological aspects aren't as deep, but the stakes are still high and the story is still complex and interesting. After his girlfriend commits suicide, Detective Yau Kin Bong quits the force and becomes a private investigator. He also becomes an alcoholic. His former partner and friend Lau Ching Hei keeps tabs on him, and when someone murders Hei's father-in-law, Hei's wife hires Bong to investigate the suspicious circumstances of the murder. It sounds like a pretty standard plot, but the filmmakers manage to wring a lot of complexity out of it by employing a lot of noir story elements and maybe some of the Infernal Affairs-like symmetry. It ends up being a story of betrayal and revenge, and there are numerous surprises along the way. The lead performances by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro are great, and the visuals are sleeker and more cinematic than Infernal Affairs. It moves a little slowly and there are some confusing hiccups along the way (perhaps a lost in translation sorta thing), but in the end, it's a very well executed noir-like mysery/thriller. Apparently, a U.S. remake of this film is also in the works, though I'm not sure this one will go over as well... *** (out of 4 stars) Posted by Mark on April 09, 2008 at 03:24 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Battlestar Galactica I've spent the better part of this past week catching up with the third season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD (in preparation for the start of the 4th season later this week) and I realized that it's not something I've discussed on the blog, so here are a few thoughts (Spoilers are called out at the start of a bullet).
Posted by Mark on March 30, 2008 at 09:21 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Vigilantes I recently finished watching both seasons of Dexter. The series has a fascinating premise: the titular hero, Dexter Morgan, is a forensic analyst (he's a "blood spatter expert") for the Miami police by day, but a serial killer by night. He operates by a "code," only murdering other murderers (usually ones who've beaten the system). The most interesting thing about Dexter's code is the implication that he does not follow the code out of some sort of dedication to morality or justice. He knows what he does is evil, but he follows his code because it's the most constructive way to channel his aggression. Of course, the code is not perfect, and a big part of the series is how the code shapes him and how he, in turn, shapes it. To be honest, watching the series is a little odd and disturbing when you realize that you're essentially rooting for a serial killer (an affable and charming one, to be sure, but that's part of why it's disturbing). I started to think about this a bit, and several other examples of similar characters came to mind. There's a lot more to the series, but I don't want to ruin it with a spoiler-laden discussion here. Instead, I want to talk about vigilantes. Despite the lack of concern for justice (or perhaps because of that), Dexter is essentially a vigilante... someone who takes the law into his own hands. There is, of course, a long history of vigilantism, in both real life and art. Indeed, many classic instances happened long before the word vigilante was coined - for example, Robin Hood. He stole from the rich to give to the poor, and was immortalized as a folk hero whose tales are still told to this day. I think there is a certain cultural fascination with vigilantes, especially vigilantes in art. Take superheroes, most of whom are technically vigilantes. Sure, many stand for all that is good in the world and often cite truth and justice as motivation, but the evolution of comic books shows something interesting. I haven't read a whole lot of comic books (especially of the superhero kind), but the impression I get is that when the craze started in the 1930s, it was all about heroics and people serving the common good. There was also a darker edge to some of them, and that edge has grown as time progressed. Batman is probably the most relevant to this discussion, as he shares a complicated relationship with the police and a certain above-the-law attitude towards solving crimes. Interestingly, the Batman of the 1930s was probably a darker, more violent superhero than he was in the 1940s, when one editor issued a decree that the character could no longer kill or use a gun. As such, the postwar Batman became more of an upstanding citizen, and the stories took on a lighter tone (definitely an understandable direction, considering what the world had been through). I'm sure I'm butchering the Batman chronology here, but the next sigificant touchstone for Batman came in 1986, with the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Written and drawn by Frank Miller, the series reintroduced Batman as a dark, brooding character with complex psychological issues. A huge success, this series ushered in a new era of "grim and gritty" superheros that still holds today. In general, our superheroes have become much more conflicted. Many (like Batman) tackle the vigilante aspect head on, and if you look at something like Watchmen (or The Incredibles, if you want a lighter version), you can see a shift in the way such stories are told. I'm sure there are literally hundreds of other examples in the comic book world, but I want to shift gears for a moment and examine another cultural icon that Dexter reminded me of: Dirty Harry. Inspector Harry Callahan is an incredibly popular character, but apparently not with critics: Critics have rarely cracked the whip harder than on the Dirty Harry film series, which follows the exploits of a trigger-happy San Francisco cop named Harry Callahan and his junior partners, usually not long for this world. On its release in 1971, Dirty Harry was trounced as 'fascist medievalism' by the potentate of the haut monde critic set, Pauline Kael, as well as aspiring Kaels like young Roger Ebert. Especially irksome to the criterati was a key moment in the film when Inspector Callahan, on the trail of an elusive serial sniper, is reprimanded by his superiors for not taking into account the suspect's Miranda rights. Callahan replies, through clenched teeth, "Well, I'm all broken up about that man's rights." Take that, Miranda.I should say that critics often give the film (at least, the first one) generally good overall marks, praising its "suspense craftsmanship" or calling it "a very good example of the cops-and-killers genre." But I'm fascinated by all the talk of fascism. Despite working within the system, Dirty Harry indeed does take the law into his own hands, and in doing so he ignores many of our treasured Constitutional freedoms. And yet we all cheer him on, just as we cheer Batman and Dexter. Why are these characters so popular? Why do we cheer such characters on even when we know what they're doing is ultimately wrong? I think it comes down to desire. We all desire justice. We want to see wrongs being made right, yet every day we can turn on the TV and watch non-stop failures of our system, whether it be rampant crime or a criminal going free or any other number of indignities. Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't think our society today is much worse off than it was, say, a hundred years ago (In fact, I think we're significantly better off, but that's another discussion). The big difference is that information is disseminated more widely and quickly, and dramatic failures of the system are attention grabbing, so that's what we get. What's more, these stories tend to focus on the most dramatic, most obscene examples. It's natural for people to feel helpless in the face of such news, and I think that's why everyone tends to embrace vigilante stories (note that people don't generally embrace actual real-life vigilantes - that's important, and we'll get to that later). Such stories serve many purposes. They allow us to cope with life's tragedies, internalize them and in some way comfort us, but as a deeper message, they also emphasize that the world is not perfect, and that we'll probably never solve the problem of crime. In some ways, they act as a critique of our system, pointing out it's imperfections and thereby making sure we don't become complacent in the ever-changing fight against crime. Of course, there is a danger to this way of thinking, which is why critics like Pauline Kael get all huffy when they watch something like Dirty Harry. We don't want to live in a police state, and to be honest, a real cop who acted like Dirty Harry would probably be an awful cop. Films like that deal in extremes because they're trying to make a point, and it's easy to misinterpret such films. I doubt people would really accept a cop like Dirty Harry. Sure, some folks might applaud his handling of the Scorpio case that the film documents (audiences certainly did!), but police officers don't handle a single case in the course of their career, and most cases aren't that black and white either. Dirty Harry would probably be fired out here in the real world. Ultimately, while we revel in such entertainment, we don't actually want real life to imitate art in this case. However, that doesn't mean we enjoy hearing about a vicious drug dealer going free because the rules of evidence were not followed to the letter. I think deep down, people understand that concepts like the rules of evidence are important, but they can also be extremely frustrating. This is why we have conflicting emotions when we watch the last scene in Dirty Harry, in which he takes off his police badge and throws it into the river. I think this is a large part of why vigilante stories have evolved. Comic book heroes like Batman have become more conflicted, and newer comic books often deal with the repercussions of vigilatism. The Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force, was apparently made as a direct answer to the critics of Dirty Harry who thought that film was openly advocating law-sanctioned vigilantism. In Magnum Force, the villains are vigilante cops. Then you have modern day vigilantes like Dexter, which pumps audiences full of conflicting emotions. I like this guy, but he's a serial killer. He's stopping other killers, but he's doing so in such a disturbing way. Are vigilante stories fascist fantasies? Perhaps, but fantasies aren't real. They're used to illustrate something, and in the case of vigilante fantasies, they illustrate a desire for justice. The existence of a show like Dexter will repulse some people and that's certainly an understandable reaction. In fact, I think that's exactly what the show's creators want to do. They're walking the line between satisfying the desire for justice while continually noting that Dexter is not a good person. Ironically, what would repulse me more would be the complete absence of stories like Dexter, because the only way such a thing could happen would be if everyone thought our society was perfect. Perhaps someday concepts like justice and crime will be irrelevant, but that day ain't coming soon, and until it does, we'll need such stories, if only to remind us that we don't live in a perfect world. Posted by Mark on March 23, 2008 at 07:16 PM .:
Comments (3) |
link
:.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Hey Internet, Stop Being Such Cynical Effing Douchebags Blog-a-Thon So in the movie blogging world (and probably others), there's something called a "blog-a-thon" in which someone proposes a topic and then lots of folks write a post on that topic (this is similar to what's called a "carnival" in other areas of the internet). I've never actually participated in one of these blog-a-thons, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Stacie Ponder recently threw up a challenge: I'm not afraid to get excited about movies. When did looking forward to something or having an unabashed I cannot fucking wait to see that attitude become passe? These are movies, people...they're entertainment. I pay money to be entertained, and I want my fucking face rocked off. I want to circle a release date on my calendar and be the first in line when the date arrives. ...Well then, what shall I write about? She's not picky about it - I can choose a movie or a scene or just about anything I want. There's actually a pretty easy answer for this, one which I've been looking forward to for a long, long time. I got a taste about 2 years ago and had an opportunity to revisite about a year ago, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I could not participate. So another year has passed, and this time I'm ready. I've circled my calendar and I've even taken time off work so that I can partake in the filmic goodness that is the 2008 Phildelphia Film Festival. To be more specific, I'm filled with "complete and total unbridled fucking retarded JOY" for the Danger After Dark series, which is filled with all sorts of horror and gangster films. I've never even heard of most of them, but I think that's a big part of the appeal (and it's part of what made my experience in 2006 so fun). Yeah, sure, the PFF isn't a world renowned festival like Sundance, Toronto, or Cannes, but it's my damn festival, and I love that there's a whole slew of genre films that I'll probably never get a chance to see otherwise. Sure, there are some other festival darlings I'll probably check out (Son of Rambow comes to mind), but what I'm really looking forward to is the unbridled joy of genre filmmaking. In 2006, I saw a bunch of Danger After Dark films, and absolutely loved every minute of it. The only thing missing from this year's festivities is another Adult Swim For Your Lives event. Timecrimes Just a few movies that are currently on my list:
 Pistoleros And then there's to the totally off the wall stuff, like Bad Biology (from the makers of Frankenhooker!) or Dead Fury (raunchy, gory, animated fun directed by someone who's actually known as FSudol). No, it's not a prestigious festival, but I like it, and I can't wait. Update: The Blog-a-thon is up over at Final Girl. Posted by Mark on March 18, 2008 at 12:18 AM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Trailer Park It's been a while since I've kept up with what movies are in production. I used to totally geek-out on various movie news sites and forums. For instance, I remember seeing behind the scenes footage of the first Lord of the Rings film somewhere around 1999 (two years before the film came out). Since then, I've tended to let that sort of thing go (with an occasional exception), for a few reasons. First, it's really annoying to follow a production over the course of years and realize that you still have to wait two more years before you'll finally get to see it (the aformentioned LotR being a good example). Second, following every detail of a production tends to build up expectations that are too lofty... it's rare that a film will truly impress when you've spent years building up expectations (LotR is a good example of that, but again, that's the outlier. A film you've been following for years is more likely to be like The Phantom Menace.) And finally, following a movie production from beginning to end without learning spoilers is near impossible. Even movie trailers these days are often filled with spoilers (plus, they have a tendency to be overedited, repetitive and boring, but we'll get to that in a second.) Trailers are an interesting art form. Since the advent of DVD, I've had the opportunity to watch a lot of older trailers, and boy are they awful! There are some exceptions, of course, but sometimes I'm really in awe of how bad movie trailers used to be. Now, I'm no expert, but I think the zenith of movie trailers was probably the 1990s. I remember going to the movies then and almost looking forward to the trailers as much as the movie I was seeing. Perhaps I've just matured to a point where the tricks of the trade just don't work on me anymore, but I remember enjoying trailers for movies that ended up being terrible. These days, I'm usually able to pick up on that sort of thing right away. Of course, the mid-90s were also a time where people were still in awe of what could be done with the latest special effects... something I imagine people have become bored with. Many of the things that used to make trailers interesting are now simply cliched tropes (i.e. frenetic editing, pulse-pounding music, movie guy voiceover, etc...) I think we're starting to see a trend for more interesting trailers, even though the typical stuff is still dominant. So let's take a look at some recent trailers for big new movies and see if I should start paying more attention:
Update: Fledge comments, and answers the unspoken question: Why is it called a "trailer" if it's shown before the film? Posted by Mark on March 16, 2008 at 07:33 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Oscar Liveblogging As is traditional, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars tonight. If you're interested, here are previous installments: 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004. Check back for frequent updates (starting around 8:30 pm EST), and feel free to hang around and leave comments to play along... Anyway, here are my picks for the major awards:
Oh, and Alex has posted his picks (we only really disagree on Best Supporting Acress... he picked the one person I didn't even consider), and he may be liveblogging (though I think the Aussie broadcast is behind the U.S. broadcast... so he'll be delayed). Update 4:00 pm: The fine folks at Greencine will also be liveblogging... Update 7:39 pm: I'm sorry, but does Barbara Walters actually not realize who Ridley Scott is? And she's got this job why? Update 8:03 pm: I'm sorry, I can't take this pre-Oscar, red carpet crap. I'll be back at 8:30, when the updates will come more frequently. Update 8:27 pm: Regis just called Javier Bardem "Xavier" Bardem, and the best part about it was that you could tell that Regis knew he was saying it wrong, but he went ahead anyway like nothing was wrong. Well played Regis. Well played. Update 8:32 pm: And the show begins with a montage thingy. You know, I wonder how the show would have been if the WGA strike was still going strong. There was apparently some super secret plan that was in the works, but obviously didn't see the light of day. And John Stewart is hosting again? Huh, I didn't think anyone would want to host multiple times. Not bad so far. Update 8:36 pm: "Too often, the Academy ignores movies that aren't good" Heh. Oh, and again with the sunglasses, Jack Nicholson? Again? Update 8:42 pm: Oh boy, the costumes award! Let's just say there's a reason I didn't pick one above. And what a shock, the most absurd, showy costumes get the win. Holy crap, I blinked and she was done her speech. Well done, woman I've never heard of! Update 8:50 pm: "Hi, I'm George Clooney, I'm going to mention a bunch of things you wish would happen at this Oscars, like a streaker running across the stage." Depending on how you classify the opening, this is Montage #2. We're only 20 minutes into the broadcast. What's the over under for montages? I'm going to say 18. Place your bets! Update 8:53 pm: Good presentation by Steve Carell, and best Animated Film goes to Ratatouille! I'm one for one so far, and Brad Bird gives a mildly amusing speech, followed by the typical thank yous and the music ushering him off stage. Update 8:56 pm: Were there really so few movies to nominate for Best Makeup? And holy crap, my shot in the dark guess is correct - I'm two for two! Update 8:59 pm: As is traditional, the first best song nominee performance warrants a break so that I can start drinking alcohol. I do like Amy Adams a lot though... Update 9:03 pm: First music performance down, and I'm still alive (mmm, beer). A good sign. I actually am kinda looking forward to "Falling Slowly" from Once. In case you can't tell, musicals ain't my thing, but I kinda enjoyed Once and I think it deserves this award. Update 9:08 pm: Can you smellllll what the Rock is cooking? It's apparently the visual effects award. Again, I have to wonder why there are so few nominees. What the - The Golden Compass wins the award? Huh. I could have sworn Transformers was a shoe-in. I actually never saw The Golden Compass... And I'm 2 for 3 so far. Update 9:12 pm: Art Direction award goes to Sweeney Todd (another movie I haven't seen, but given Tim Burton's work, I'm not surprised this won for Art Direction). I guess we're getting all the "small" awards out of the way first, eh? Heh, people with accents are funny. Almost makes the traditional "Thank You" speech bearable. Update 9:17 pm: Montage #3! Though at least we're getting to a good award early. Best Supporting Actor goes to ("Call it, friendo") Javier Bardem. Shocking! I love it when people speak a foreign language in their acceptance speech. I think they bleeped him too. I'm 3 for 4. Update 9:22 pm: Javier Bardem's speech was not a classic Oscar moment. It could have been, if his entire speech was in Spanish. That would have been awesome. Are you kidding me? Montage #4. For binoculars and periscopes. Seriously? I guess it was a joke, but still. #4. And wow, #5. Bad dreams, an Oscar salute. Making fun of montages with more montages still counts as a montage, right? Update 9:26 pm: Music performance #2, and I'm on beer #2. This does not bode well for me. You'll be lucky if I'm conscious by the end of the Oscars, let alone able to piece together coherent sentences. Update 9:30 pm: Are the short film awards really necessary? Not to belittle the films themselves, but it's not like the grand majority of the audience has ever even heard of these things. And Seinfeld is still pimping his Bee Movie stuff? With another montage (#6)! Update 9:38 pm: Yet another montage (#7). I'm beginning to think that the "super secret Oscar plan" for if the WGA strike was still going was just to show non-stop montages. And best supporting actress goes to Tilda Swinton. Yes! In your face Alex! I'm 4 for 5. And a decent speech too. Update 9:41 pm: The little asides before commercials where former winners comment on their award has also got to be part of the "super secret Oscar plan" for if the WGA strike was still going. Update 9:44 pm: I Watch Stuff is also liveblogging: "Tilda Swindon wins, dressed as half a wizard. Or possibly as an art piece: 'Woman Emerging From Satin.'" Update 9:48 pm: Jack Nicholson "I'm going to have you killed, Josh Brolin." And best adapted screenplay goes to No Country for Old Men. Er, interesting speech? Keep it simple, Ethan. I like it. Incidentally, this does not bode ill for No Country, but it doesn't necessarily bode well either. Best screenplay awards tend to go to movies that are too cool to win the best picture awards. But I still think No Country will win. Update 9:54 pm: Ahhhh, another song. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Antonio Banderas. (For those who don't know or remember, Banderas performed one of the best song nominees in 2005 in what has become one of the better unintentionally funny Oscar moments). Update 9:58 pm: It's been like, 20 minutes, since the last montage. I'm going through withdrawal pains. Update 10:06 pm: Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill are awesome, imitating Dame Judi Dench and Halle Berre (that would make sense if you were watching - incidentally, how does one become a "Dame"?). And best editing goes to The Bourne Ultimatum. Darn, I'm 4 for 6. This also does not bode so well for No Country though at least There Will Be Blood didn't win, which would be a really bad sign for No Country. And Sound Editing (an award I didn't pick) also goes to The Bourne Ultimatum. Perhaps this isn't too surprising. Lots of people like that movie (including me - it's in my top 10 movies of 2007), so it makes sense that it would be given these smaller awards. Update 10:08 pm: Montage #8! I feel better now. Update 10:14 pm: Cate Blanchett is scared of herself, I think. Or maybe she's just thinking, "I can't believe I got nominated for being in a film no one saw or liked." And best actress goes to... Marion Cotillard? Huh? Ok, I guess. I wasn't expecting that, but then, I didn't see most of the films in this category. Foreign people are funny. I'm 4 for 7. Update 10:20 pm: Fourth nominated song. So close. Oh, and this is the one I actually like. And it's performed by the actual people in the movie. Seriously though, the song loses something without context. But I'm still rooting for this one. Update 10:20 pm: Jack Nicholson, what the hell? You've replaced your lame sunglasses with trendy ones? Montage #9! Best pictures of the past. Update 10:29 pm: I'm a moron. Apparently the earlier award for editing was actually "Sound Editing." But The Bourne Ultimatum wins this one too, so my thoughts then remain. Also, I remain at 4 for 7. Heh, John Stewart: "Someone just took the lead in their Oscar pool with a guess." Hehehe. Update 10:32 pm: Who the hell is Robert Boyle? I bet a montage will tell me why this guy is getting an Honorary Oscar. Yep, montage #10. Score. Update 10:34 pm: Some other livebloggers:
Update 10:50 pm: The crowd is clearly with "Falling Slowly" for best song. It better win. And it does! I actually like the best song winner. Shocking! Make Art, Make Art! Awwww, she didn't get to say anything. Poor girl... I'm 6 for 9. Update 10:54 pm: Montages I'm looking forward to:
Update 11:00 pm: Hehehe, blondes are dumb and can't pronounce cinematography. And the award goes to There Will Be Blood. I'm 7 for 10. Oh my, Paul Thomas Anderson looks absolutely diabolical. Update 11:02 pm: Yay dead people! Montage #11. Update 11:09 pm: And best score goes to Atonement and it's stinkin' typewriters. I'm 8 for 11 though. Who is that sitting next to James McAvoy (on the left)? She looks like a zombie. Update 11:15 pm: All of the nominees for documentary, short subject are about Iraq. Several of the full documentary nominees are about Iraq as well. Yay Iraq! Update 11:20 pm: Just a callout for The King of Kong and My Kid Could Paint That, two documentaries that could be nominated if we didn't demand that documentaries be controversial or about Iraq. And the Oscar goes to... Taxi to the Dark Side. Huh, it looks like we'll get our political statement of the night... and not much of one. Apparently I suck at picking this award. I'm 8 for 12 so far. Update 11:28 pm: Original Screenplay goes to Juno, which pretty much means it won't win best picture. Still, it's a worthy win, and I'm glad. I didn't expect someone named Diablo to cry, but good on her. It was her first script, after all, and it was pretty darned good. I'm 9 for 13. Update 11:35 pm: Montage #12! Oh, they chose to show a bad scene for Daniel Day Lewis, but he's going to win anyway. Look at Johnny Depp grinning maniacly like he knows he's going to win. Whoa, look at Viggo's beard. And best actor goes to, big surprise, Daniel Day Lewis. I'm 10 for 14. Update 11:37 pm: I'm sorry, did he say his grandfather was Michael Bolton? It can't be! Ok, I just rewound, and it sounds more like Michael Bolkin or something. Phew. I thought we had a time travelling no talent ass clown on our hands. Update 11:40 pm: Montage #13! And the best director oscar goes to Joel and Ethan Coen! Great reprise Ethan! Oh wow, I want to see Henry Kissenger, Man on the Go. Well done guys, you deserve it. Update 11:45 pm: And best picture goes to No Country for Old Men. A complete surprise? Yeah right! Update 11:50 pm: Only 3.5 million hours. Not bad. I came in at 13 for 17 (I think I lost count somewhere in there), which is 76%. Not too shabby, and about average for my picks the last few years. All in all, a decent show this year, though nothing too special seemed to happen. Oh well, there's always next year. And they're ending the show with the Mission Impossible theme song? What the heck? Well, that's my cue, have a good night folks. Update 2/27/08: Alex has posted his thoughts on the awards, and he's got a new theme on his website too. Posted by Mark on February 24, 2008 at 12:30 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday is List Day: Oscars Edition The Oscars are this weekend, so here's a few lists for your enjoyment including some movie related ones. Oh, and of course, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars (as I did last year, and even a few years before that). Feel free to stop by and play along! Random Ten
Everyone does Oscar Blunders lists, but there are some that I've always thought were being a little too harsh. Were the below wins really a "blunder"? Probably, but I think it's worth considering that the films that won...
Posted by Mark on February 22, 2008 at 08:27 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Adaptation Via Author, I found this question posed by Iwa ni Hana: Why would fans want to experience / creators want to tell more or less the same story with more or less the same characters in different formats, be it manga, TVA, OVA, feature film, CD drama, novel, live action movie or live-action TV series?The structure of the question pretty much demands a two part answer (one for fans and one for creators), and I'll tack on some tangents while I'm at it. I imagine that the creators question has the easier answer, though there are really several possible reasons why a creator would want to adapt their work to other mediums. Perhaps the creator always wanted to make a movie, but lacked the resources and expertise to create one, so they started with a comic book/manga/web comic instead (Author notes this in his post - "formats form a vague hierarchy of expense, with cheaper works (such as manga) forming the base and being adopted into more expensive arts."). Another big reason could be because the creator wants their story to reach a wider audience. A corollary to that would be that the creator would assent to an adaptation because they were paid well, and if the adaptation is successful, they may be able to achieve a higher degree of independence or creative freedom in their future work. Note that these aren't necessarily good things, but high-cost mediums like film require creators to make a name for themselves before studios will sign off on the budget for a dream project. This probably isn't that common a scenario, but it's definitely possible, and the history of film shows great filmmakers "slumming it" before they go on to make their classics. Take Stanley Kubrick. He got his start as a photographer for Look magazine. He once did a photo-essay on a boxer named Walter Cartier, which he later adapted into an independently financed short-subject documentary called Day of the Fight. He parlayed that minor success into a few more short documentaries and then into narrative fiction films, doing kinda standard noir thrillers like Killer's Kiss and The Killing. These are fine films, and better than most of their contemporaries, but Kubrick was also paying his dues in the film industry, which is something he continued to do up until Spartacus, after which his career really took off. He had proven himself a bankable commodity. A filmmaker popular with the critics and with audiences (a rarity, to be sure). Again, this probably isn't that true of all artists who do (or allow) adaptations of their own work, but it seems likely that at least some creators would pursue other mediums so that they can tell the stories they want to tell. The fan's perspective is a little more complicated. Why would you want to watch what basically amounts to the same story you just read? I'm honestly not sure. Personally, there are definitely cases where a book is adapted into a movie and I dread watching the movie (said dread is often justified). But there are a few reasons this could happen. First, it could be a way to introduce a friend to one of your favorite authors or books without nagging them to read the books. Second, there is often a chance, however slim, that the adaptation will add something new and interesting to the source material. Most adaptations are, by necessity, not the exact same story. In the rare instances where they are, they generally turn out a little bland (I actually enjoyed the first two Harry Potter films, but they're also bland and a little boring if you've read the books). Indeed, many of the best adaptations are significantly different than their source material. Not to keep using Kubrick as an example, but The Shining is a wonderful example of a movie that only bears a superficial resemblance to the book, and yet is quite entertaining. It's also one of the few examples of an adaptation that has carved out it's own reputation without affecting the reputation of the source material. In my mind, both the book and movie are classics, but for different reasons. This actually makes sense, as different mediums use different "language" (for lack of a better term) for telling a story. I think this is part of why authors who write the screenplays for movie adaptations of their work often produce disappointing results. For example, take any number of Stephen King adaptations where he's written the script, including even The Shining mini-series, which pales in comparison to Kubrick's film. This brings up an interesting question about movies that end up being better than their source material. Of course, most often, it's the other way around, but in some instances, lightning strikes. Unfortunately, I haven't read many of the typical examples, but from what I can see, both Jaws and The Godfather took rather conventional source material and elevated them into classics. One I have read that's a better movie is The Bourne Identity. It's not an utterly brilliant movie, but I thought the book was poorly written (though I think I like the story better). Other books I've read that have at least comparable or debatably good adapatations are Fight Club and The Exorcist. All of which makes me wonder why people don't adapt (or remake) bad stories that have a neat idea. The All Movie Talk podcast had an interesting list of movies that should be remade, and I think it's an interesting concept. But I digress. Another reason fans might want to see an adaptation is that they're just so enamored with the characters or the story that they revel in any chance to revisit them. As Author notes, other mediums may add something of value to the original work, even if the adaptation is not as good as the original. So to recap, there are lots of reasons! Personally, I find the most compelling to be spreading the story around to a wider audience, though I do have a soft spot for wanting something new and exciting from an adaptation. Then, of course, you also get totally off the wall stuff like the movie Adaptation, which is based on an oddly recursive story: The screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, was hired to write an adaptation of Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief, but he found the task to be quite difficult and could not seem to make any progress. So instead of actually writing the adaptation, he writes a script about how he is having trouble writing the adaptation. (A quick tangent: Ironically, the one story that Stephen King has sworn not to sell the film rights for is the Dark Tower series, in which King basically pulls the Adaptation trick.) In the end, I think adaptations are good things, even if many of them are of dubious quality. Posted by Mark on February 06, 2008 at 07:50 PM .:
link
:.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence As I made a last minute rush to watch 2007 movies for the recent awards, my netflix queue was whittled down a bit (I'm at a manageable 109 DVDs) and without paying attention to my queue, I ended up getting Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence in the mail last week. I enjoyed the first film a lot, and after watching the sequel, I ended up with pretty much the same feeling as the first. It's not perfect, but it is an excellent animated film and it brings up many thought provoking subjects. Minor Spoilers below... The first Ghost in the Shell film has a cult following and is rightly proclaimed as one of the essential Anime films that anyone interested in the form needs to see. It was one of the first to be released in theaters in the U.S., though it has been more successful on DVD than in the theaters. It's weighty themes and confusing plot turned off some people, but struck me as being fascinating, and it has also captured the imagination of U.S. filmmakers (you can't watch the lobby gunfight in The Matrix without being reminded a little of the first GitS film, and even the Wachowski brothers have acknowledged the influece of the Anime in their work). 9 years after the first film, this sequel was made. The story takes place in 2032, and it follows the special officers of Section 9 as they investigate a series of grisly murders committed by gynoids (basically female robots used for, well, take a guess). Many characters from the first film return, including the main protagonist of this feature, Batou. Other members of Section 9, such as Chief Aramaki and Togusa also make appearances. After the disappearance of Major Kusanagi in the first film, Togusa becomes Batou's new partner (Togusa clearly knows he has big shoes to fill, but he works well with Batou, and as Alex notes, one of the joys of this film is the camaraderie they share) and they trace the murders back to a specific model of gynoid, made by a cyborg company called Locus Solus. It appears they're doing something strange to their gynoids which makes them more desirable than other models, but also appears to drive them crazy. As Batou and Togusa get closer to the truth, help arrives in the form of an old friend. 
Like the first film, the plot can be a little obtuse at times, and would probably take a few viewings to fully decipher. I get the impression that this whole series loses something in translation, though I obviously can't be sure. This film is not quite as difficult as its predecessor, but there are still lots of plot twists and complex shifts of perspective. In general, it covers most of the same thematic ground as the first film, but from different angles. The first film was about cyborgs - human beings that were becoming more and more machine - and the philosophical implications of that. I talk about this a little in my review of the first film: It's a dense story, and the technological advances pose a ton of intriguing questions about the nature of identity. The Major, whose physical body is almost all machine, is understandably a little paranoid about her identity. Is she really who she thinks she is? Is anyone really who they think they are? What makes me what I am? If my consciousness is transferred into an artificial brain, am I still me? This is the sort of thing that will stay with you long after the film has ended.The first movie was all about how replacing or augmenting humanity with technology changed the nature of identity. In Ghost in the Shell 2, many of the same ideas are covered, but from the perspective of robots that take on characteristics of humanity (instead of the the other way around). There are a lot of thought provoking ideas here, and once again, I found myself asking lots of interesting questions. At what point does a machine become sentient? What's the difference between an artificial intelligence and a human intelligence? Are the two compatible? Can you transfer a human consciousness into an artificial construct? And so on. You'll note a marked similarity between these questions and the ones from the first film, and for the most part, there isn't much that's really new here. That said, it's certainly a subject worth further exploration, and I think this film does a good job of it, making a good complement to the first film. Major Kusanagi (the protagonist from the first film) makes an appearance in this film, though in an unusual way. Kusanagi and Batou have an interesting relationship. In the first film, it's clear Batou has a sorta cyber-crush on Kusanagi, but they were both full cyborgs. They retained some of their humanity, I suppose, which is why you can see some chemistry (for lack of a better term) between them, but being cyborgs owned by Section 9 had taken its toll. In the second film, Kusanagi no longer exists within a human form, instead opting to take up residence in a global computer network, but she's able to download portions of her consciousness to the physical world in some situations, and Batou refers to her as his "guardian angel." It's clear that even in their respective forms, one a full-replacement cyborg, the other a disembodied consciousness living in a global network, they retain some sort of attraction. Romantic isn't the right word for whatever it is, but neither really is platonic (though it could be argued). It's something new, something different. While the film explores such weighty topics, it's all done in the form of an entertaining pot-boileresque thriller with plenty of opportunities for action. It's maybe a little more fun that the first movie, though both employ this technique. There are some elements of neo-noir, and a lot of references or familiar influences. Asimov's laws are clearly in evidence, but the most obvious influence is, of course, Blade Runner, and Manhola Dargis makes some interesting comments in the NY Times review of the film: A study in earth tones and gum-shoe rectitude, Batou is a self-conscious cross between the detective played by Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner" and the runaway android played by Rutger Hauer. Drawn along the same solid lines as Mr. Hauer, Bateau comes clad in the classic world-weariness worn by Mr. Ford, one difference being that Mr. Oshii's tough guy keeps a basset hound. A floppy bundle of love and slobber, the dog is a link to the ghost (human identity) in Batou's machinery and, perhaps, as the hagiographic images of the hound suggest, something else. 
From a technical perspective, the film has made some improvements over the original. It's much more visually spectacular than the first film (see screenshots in the extended entry for more). This is probably due to the striking mixture of traditional 2D animation for the characters and newfangled computer generated 3D animation for backgrounds (which are breathtakingly complex and textured). In some cases, the illusion of depth was noticeably prevalent (I'm sure there are lots of animated films like that, but there's something different here that struck me). The film is filled with epic vistas depicting a mix of industrial and classical architecture, and it sometimes feels like you're watching a painting. The action sequences are more elaborate and entertaining, and the settings are great. The movements of the robots are awkward and creepy, which actually works well. Kenji Kawai did the score for both films, and helps imbue both films with a similar atmosphere. My one real complaint was that the DVD I got was strangely set up: instead of subtitles, it only had an option for closed captioning and thus it includes descriptions of sounds or actions like "Helicopter approaches..." etc... (There was apparently a big controversy when this was first released, as the DVD didn't include a dubbing either. This has supposedly been fixed in newer versions, but the one I got from Netflix was the closed caption one.) 
What you end up with is a very well made, intriguing motion picture. It's not as original as it's predecessor (obviously... it is a sequel), but it's still thought provoking and it makes for an interesting companion to the original, further exploring the same themes from different perspectives. If you liked the first film, chances are, you'll like this too. And if you're like me, you'll find yourself asking a lot of interesting questions... *** (three stars out of four) As usual, more screenshots and comments (and more specific spoilers) below the fold... Batou is a badass in this film, much moreso than in the previous film. Here he has just fought his way through a throng of killer androids when he encounters Kusanagi, who has downloaded herself into one of the killer androids (incidentally, Kusanagi is still a badass as she demonstrates in the scenes immediately following this one). 
The cars in this movie are inexplicably retro. Of course, the interiors are futuristic (there's an elaborate "Pursuit Vehicle Checking System" that runs every time they park the car), so perhaps it's just a future fad or something. 
As I mentioned earlier, I got the impression of depth much more than I typically do for animation, and this was one of the first examples. It's a little hard to tell on a still image, but when Batou is walking down this grimy deserted alley, the feeling of motion and depth is downright palpable (as the NY Times article notes, it's a "photo-realist alley so authentically derelict that it's a surprise you can't smell it"). 
At one point, Batou and Togusa head up north to investigate Locus Solus. There are a whole bunch of gorgeous shots as they fly above the industrial city, followed by a startling sequence depicting a Chinese festival set to Kawai Kenji’s moody score. These are gorgeous landscapes, and there's a lot more than I'm showing here... 
Again, there's a lot to chew on here, so I could probably go on and on, but this just about wraps it up. Posted by Mark on February 04, 2008 at 05:35 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Link to Someone New It's that time again. I had planned to do a big review of an Anime movie I saw, but time is short, so I figured it's time to send some traffic (all 7 readers) towards some new corners of the internets (at least, they were new for me!). Enjoy.
Posted by Mark on January 30, 2008 at 10:35 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Best Films of 2007 I saw somewhere on the order of 60 movies that were released in 2007. This is somewhat lower than most critics, but higher than your average moviegoer. Also unlike most critics, I don't consider this to be a spectacular year for film. For instance, I left several films off my 2006 list that would have been shoe-ins this year. If I were to take a more objective stance, limiting my picks to the movies with the best technical qualities, the list would be somewhat easier. But that's a boring way to assemble a list and absolute objectivitiy is not possible in any case. Movies that really caught my attention and interested me were somewhat fewer this year. Don't get me wrong, I love movies and there were a lot of good ones this year, but there were few movies that really clicked with me. As such, a lot of the top 10 could easily be exchanged with a movie from the Honorable Mention section. So without further ado: Top 10 Movies of 2007 * In roughly reverse order
As I mentioned above, a lot of these honorable mentions would probably do fine for the bottom half of the top 10 (the top half is pretty strong, actually). In some cases, I really struggled with a lot of the below picks. If my mood were different, I bet some things would change. These are all good movies and worth watching too.
Posted by Mark on January 27, 2008 at 08:18 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Arbitrary Awards So the formally announced 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards came to an end on Friday (No clear leader emerged, but No Country For Old Men and The Bourne Ultimatum each brought home two awards), but here's a few additional awards that don't really have any other nominees:
Update: Added Daniel Day Lewis to the scenery chewers. Heh. Posted by Mark on January 20, 2008 at 11:49 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, January 18, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Most Unusual/High Concept Film The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This post marks the end of the formally nominated awards, but I've still got another wrapup post with some miscellaneous awards and finally my top 10 films of 2007. Most Unusual/High Concept Film: Fido 
From left to right: Mother, Son, Fido. When I was making the nominations, I didn't want to say high concept film, but then after I finished, I realized that they really are high concept films. The winner, a strange but fun Canadian zombie film done like a Lassie story, but with zombies in place of dogs. The setting is a sorta retro-futuristic 1950s, filled with vibrant colors and, well, zombies. It's a lot of fun. Grindhouse is an awesome throwback to 1970s grindhouse film. Stardust is arguably not that unusual or high concept, but then the film's director describes it as The Princess Bride meets Midnight Run. It's probably not as good as either of those films, but that doesn't make it bad (actually, in this mediocre year, it stood out for me, despite the fact that it did so poorly in theaters.) Next up is a buch of miscellaneous awards, followed by my top 10 of 2007. Both may be posted this weekend, but the top 10 might take a little longer. Posted by Mark on January 18, 2008 at 12:18 AM .:
link
:.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Action Sequences & Best Plot Twist/Surprise The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Here are the awards for Best Action Sequences & Best Plot Twist/Surprise: Best Action Sequences: The Bourne Ultimatum It almost seems like the filmmakers went out of their way to devise the most complex action scenes possible. The train station sequence was nothing short of brilliant. The foot race and fight in tangiers was less unique, but extremely well executed (great stunt work). And a car chase in New York can't be an easy thing to film. Greengrass and his crew nailed every scene. Most of the other nominees were also quite good. I wanted to mention Live Free or Die Hard because it was actually pretty entertaining, certainly much moreso than I was expecting (which is to say, I wasn't expecting much), and the action sequences were well done. 300 had a lot of good action, but by the end, it had become repetitive (I still enjoyed it). Best Plot Twist/Surprise: The Mist Minor Spoilers! It's a controversial ending, to be sure. Apparently the book was much more open ended than the movie. But no matter what you think of the film's ending, you have to admit, it was a gutsy move. I mean, it's a movie that wants you to wonder which is worse - humans or the monsters in the mist. It takes a pretty bleak view of humanity... but then, the ending emphasises the price of hopelessness. The other nominees had some good twists as well, particularly The Orphanage and Eastern Promises. A lot of times, twists in movies are ruined by the knowledge that they're coming. If you know something's coming, it's much less difficult to be surprised by it. So the best twists are the ones you don't see coming. All three of the films I mentioned are kinda like that. Sure, I had an inkling for all of them, but it's not like I was watching a M. Night Shyamalan movie. And coming down the homestretch, tomorrow we've got the final category: Most Unusual Film (and now that I think about it, Best High Concept Film would probably still work for this category) Posted by Mark on January 17, 2008 at 07:43 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Sequel & Biggest Disappointment The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Here are the awards for Best Sequel and Biggest Disappointment: Best Sequel: The Bourne Ultimatum This wasn't a particularly difficult decision. After all, most sequels aren't all that great, and this year was no exception. The Bourne movies are indeed quite good, and director Paul Greengrass has managed to make two very good sequels to the original. His fast cuts and shaky camera may annoy some, but Greengrass does a good job of it. It's easy to dismiss such filmmaking until you see a film that attempts the same style and utterly fails (*cough, cough* Transformers *cough*). Anyway, it's not like there was much in the way of competition this year. Biggest Disappointment: Spider-Man 3 This is the only "negative" category, and it's actually a difficult one. Last year, I chose a movie I actually kinda liked, but which didn't live up to lofty expectations. There are a couple of nominees like that this year, but the winner is more of a bad film that didn't live up to expectations. The first two Spider-Man movies were brilliant, and far exceeded my expectations. The third installment fell flat, succumbing to the typical superhero trap of introducing far too many characters (notably villains, though the character count is way up overall). Then there's also the bizzarre central portion where Peter Parker becomes a tool and does a dance number or something. The first two movies had moments like that, but they were only moments, and they actually helped serve the story. This movie is just a mess. On deck: Best Action Sequences and Best Plot Twist/Surprise Posted by Mark on January 16, 2008 at 07:52 PM .:
link
:.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Most Visually Stunning & Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Here are the awards for Most Visually Stunning film and Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film: Most Visually Stunning: Sunshine This was a really difficult category this year, as there weren't any huge standouts for me. I ended up on Sunshine, mostly because it's a good film that gets no props and it's gorgeous too. Some of the other films on the list (like No Country or There Will be Blood) probably have more technically sound cinematography and photography (and they're pretty), but they're also relatively straightforward in their craft. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not as visually arresting as epic space-themed sequences that take place near the sun... I should probably also mentione Ratatouille, as it really is quite impressive, but animation is almost like cheating in this category! Still, it's worth recognizing. Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film: The Orphanage Yep, a last minute entry into the category ends up winning the whole thing. I just saw this movie this past weekend, and I absolutely loved it. By far the best horror movie of the year. It focuses more on a psychological horror, though there are some stingers (aka Boo! moments). Really, though, it's not filled with those moments, which is why it works so well. It's the anticipation that really kills you. The ending is quite odd, but I think it works really well. The other nominees are all pretty good, but my second place would have to go to Sunshine. It's got all the standard space exploration cliches (unfortunately, that means it's got both good and bad ones), but I actually liked it, even the ending (which turned a lot of people off). It's a shame that there really weren't many other SF films this year (or last year, or the year before...) Unfortunately, it seems like this trend will continue. Even longstanding series like Star Trek seem stagnant (a key indicator of stagnation is moving the story backwards to fill in the past of the universe, as Trek has done with their last series, Enterprise, and with the new JJ Abrams movie). For that matter, why isn't there anything new going on in the genre? All the most popular SF going on right now (Trek, Aliens, Predator, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, etc...) is based on the nostalgic love of movies/series that were made 20-40 years ago. And a lot of that is crap. AVPR was mildly entertaining, the new Terminator series is horrible. Only Battlestar Galactica seems to be doing anything fun, and that's based on a crappy 25+ year old TV series. What was the biggest SF event of this past year? You could argue that it's the 5 disc DVD set of Blade Runner, a 25 year old movie based on a 40 year old story. What we really need is a genre-smashing film or TV series made by a talented filmmaker. I thought perhaps the "untitled Darren Aronofsky sci-fi project" might do something, but that turned out to be The Fountain, which barely qualifies as SF, if at all. We need a new Kubrick-like talent to shake up the genre the way 2001 did... Ok, so I've babbled on about SF enough for now. Coming tomorrow: Best Sequel and Biggest Disappointment Posted by Mark on January 15, 2008 at 09:18 PM .:
link
:.
Monday, January 14, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Comedic Performance & Breakthrough Performance The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Here comes the Best Comedic Performance and Breakthrough Performance awards: Best Comedic Performance: (tie) Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad A bit of a cheat, sure, but this comic duo works perfectly together, and Superbad was the movie that made me laugh the most this year. A big part of those laughs was Hill's exuberance and, to offset that, Cera's straight-man act was perfect. I do want to mention two of the other nominees though. Simon Pegg's performance in Hot Fuzz was spot on and featured a number of extremely subtle in-jokes and references (for example, when he runs, he looks like the T-1000 from T2 and when he yells, he does so like Swartzenegger from the end of Predator (i.e. the "Ruuun! Get to da chappah!")). I'd imagine that some people are confused by my nomination of Kristen Wiig in Knocked Up. After all, she's only on screen for what? 2, maybe 3 minutes? Well, she steals every second, and IMHO she's the funniest part of the movie. Breakthrough Performance: Josh Brolin in Grindhouse and No Country for Old Men Ok, nominating Ellen Page again was a bit of a cheat, but I wanted to recognize her again because she gave another exellent performance and she didn't win last year. But she wasn't really a breakthrough to me. Her performance was excellent, but I expected that. The other person in the running for this was Michael Cera who put in two good performances this year. In the end, though, Brolin was the real surprise. Where did this guy come from? Oh yeah, The Goonies! But that was over 20 years ago. It's interesting, I suppose, how someone's career can change so quickly, as Brolin went from B-level to A-list seemingly at the drop of a hat. He was excellent in both Grindhouse and No Country, and he turned up in American Gangster and In the Valley of Elah as well. He seems to be busy... Next up: Most Visually Stunning and Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film Posted by Mark on January 14, 2008 at 07:44 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Best Villain/Hero/Badass The nominations for the 2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. This week, I'll be announcing two winners every day, culminating in a post with my top 10 movies of the year and possibly some other wrap-up posts. Best Villain/Badass: Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men This was a more difficult decision than I originally thought. The diabolical Chigurh was the first villain that came to mind for this category, but a couple of other villains really deserved some consideration. I didn't really consider Ben Foster for the win, but I did want to recognize his twisted turn as Charlie Prince in 3:10 to Yuma (he turned out to be a much more compelling villain than Russell Crowe's Ben Wade). I did seriously consider Stuntman Mike from Grindhouse, but while he does make for a great villain, he doesn't turn out to be that much of a badass... Billy Mitchell, a man who made a name for himself by playing video games, might not seem like your typical villain, but I actually did seriously consider him for this award. Just about every time he opens his mouth, I wanted to punch him in the face. I think he's definitely the runner up, which is really saying something, as he's in a documentary film about Donkey Kong (i.e. not a source of villainy you'd expect). In the end, no one could really compare to the chilling, unstoppable killer played brilliantly by Javier Bardem. He's a shoe-in for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (assuming the Oscars happen this year). Best Hero/Badass: Nikolai, played by Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises A much better year for heroic badasses (even if a few are borderline "heroes"), this was a really hard category. King Leonidas and Jason Bourne were on the shortlist, but I ended up going with Viggo Mortensen's Russian gangster, mostly because of that one spectacular no-holds-barred fight sequence in which Mortensen's character takes on two armed attackers and wins... despite being naked for the whole fight. There are other moments of badassery in the movie, but that one scene says everything you need to know about Mortensen's character. The movie is overall flawed, but this character is what makes it watchable. Up next: Best Comedic Performance and Breakthrough Performance. Check back Monday for the winners. Posted by Mark on January 13, 2008 at 01:37 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
2008 Predictions I've never done this before, but let's give it a shot. Here are some predictions for 2008:
Posted by Mark on January 09, 2008 at 12:28 AM .:
link
:.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
2007 Kaedrin Movie Awards I saw somewhere on the order of 60 movies that were released in 2007. Believe it or not, this is somewhat down from 2006, mostly due to an otherwise busy year. In any case, this is also somewhat more than what most moviegoers see, so I wanted to do a roundup similar to last year. The categories for this years movie awards are mostly the same as last year, and I think we'll proceed in a similar manner. Nominations will be announced today, and starting next week, I'll announce the winners (new winners announced every day). After that, there might be some miscellaneous awards, followed by a 2007 top 10 films list. To me, 2007 has been an unusual year for movies. A lot of critics, including Roger Ebert, seem to be saying that 2007 is one of the best years for movies in a long time, but I don't see that. I agree more with James Berardinelli (my other favorite critic) in that 2007 seems to be a weaker year. In comparison to 2006, I find myself struggling much more to compile a top 10 list this year. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of good films in 2007, but most of them are flawed in one way or another. When it comes to flawed movies, there are almost always cases where I am so in love with a film that I overlook its flaws (or its flaws become somehow endearing to me). For some reason, this didn't happen as often in 2007. I don't know if I'm just getting pickier in my old age or if it's a genuine lack of good films. All I can say is that several films I left off of my 2006 top 10 would beat out several films that will probably make my 2007 list. I'm not sure what to expect from 2008, especially when you consider the WGA strike... but I'm getting ahead of myself. The rules for this are the same as last year: Nominated movies must have been released in 2007 and I have to have seen the movie (and while I have seen a lot of movies, I don't pretend to have seen a comprehensive selection - don't let that stop you from suggesting something though). Also, I suppose I should mention the requisite disclaimer that these sorts of lists are inherently subjective and personal. Part of the reason I'm doing this is just to give some love to films that I like, but which aren't necessarily great or are otherwise flawed (as such, the categories may seem a bit eclectic). Some of these movies will end up on my top 10, but the grand majority of them will not. Best Villain/Badass Despite my overall feelings, it seems that 2007 was a much better year for baddasses and villainy. As with last year, my picks in this category are for individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a group)
Best Hero/Badass Again limited to individuals and not groups, and again, a much stronger year in terms of badassery.
Best Comedic Performance The great thing about laughter is that it's involuntary, but some of the below performances are great because you do need to think about them or recognize something subtle about their performance.
Breakthrough Performance Last year, my main criteria for this category was watching a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they've done (or where they came from). This sometimes happens for even well established actors/actresses, so last year's list was quite personal. This year, there are a few personal picks, but it also works as a sort of mainstream breakthrough list.
Most Visually Stunning Sometimes even bad films look great, but this year's lineup actually is actually pretty good. On the other hand, none are as visually stunning as some of the 2006 nominees. Winner Announced! Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film Genre films get no love, especially from critics, but I'm a total genre hound. I love these genres, so it's unfortunate that there aren't that many to choose from. Still, a pretty good showing for horror this year, though scifi continues struggle (the one genuinely good entry this year turns out to be an homage to philosophical scifi like 2001 or Solaris). Scifi seems to be going the way of the Western or the Musical (both of which have struggled in the past, but which have also been making a somwhat recent comback). Winner Announced! Best Sequel There were a lot of sequels this year, with emphasis on threequels. As one would expect, most sequels didn't fare so well. Still, there were a couple that I enjoyed. Winner Announced! Biggest Disappointment This is a really difficult category this year because I found a lot of movies disappointing this year. In a lot of cases, they were minor disappointments. These tended to be good films overall, but for whatever reason, I was expecting more (in a bunch of cases, I was looking forward to a new film from a director I liked who didn't quite live up to expectations - this was certainly the case with last year's "winner"). The most eggregious are below, but if I included all disappointments, it would be a really long list. Winner Announced! Best Action Sequences These aren't really individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film. Winner Announced! Best Plot Twist/Surprise This was a mildly weak year for plot twists, but some decent ones are below. Winner Announced! Most Unusual Film A new category! Alas, I had trouble coming up with nominees. This was originally the "Best High Concept Film" but the below movies aren't really high concept, so I scrapped that. I suppose there can be high concept elements to them, but they're more unusual than anything else. Winner Announced! Anyone have any suggestions (for either category or nominations)? Comments, complaints and suggestions are welcome, as always. It looks like Grindhouse is leading the way with an unprecedented 8 nominations, while No Country for Old Men takes in a very respectable 4 nominations. The Bourne Ultimatum, Superbad, and Fido rack up a respectable 3 nominations while a whole bunch of films manage to pull down 2 nominations. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to give myself a week to think about each of these. I might end up adding to the nominations if I end up seeing something new, or I could add a new category ("Best Tracking Shots" comes to mind, but I haven't seen Atonement yet, and that seems to get all the press when it comes to long takes and tracking shots, so I should probably see that first...) There are a few other high profile films that I still haven't seen yet, (There Will Be Blood and The Orphanage come to mind) but hopefully I'll see those before I get to my top 10. Winners will be announced starting next Sunday or Monday. Update: A few last minute additions: There Will Be Blood (I also wanted to add Daniel Day Lewis' Daniel Plainview to one of the "Badass" categories, but, uh, which one does he really belong in? He's not a villain, nor is he really a hero. He wouldn't win anyway, but I should note that his performance is incredibly intense, yet he manages (for 2/3 of the film, at least) to embody a conflicted and complex character. I don't think he'd win anyway, so I'll leave him off both categories) picks up one for Most Visually Stunning, as does Ratatouille (a film I inexplicably forgot to include in this category). The Orphanage makes its way into the already crowded Best Scifi/Horror Film category as well as the Best Plot Twist/Surprise category. Again Update: Arbitrary Awards have been posted. Also see the Top 10 Movies of 2007 list. Posted by Mark on January 06, 2008 at 12:44 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Link Dump: The Lost Edition Not lost as in the TV show, but lost as in, where am I?
Posted by Mark on January 02, 2008 at 09:51 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Aliens vs. Predator It's actually a clever concept. Setting aside the atrocious movie made a couple years ago, there have actually been a few genuinely good AvP stories. The original Dark Horse comic tops it all, of course, and it deserves most of the credit for the clever concept of the series. Basically, the Predators are a race of hunters who like to hunt challenging and dangerous game. Now, the Alien is indeed a challenging opponent, so the ever-resourceful Predators actually manage to capture an Alien queen. They lock it up and restrain it, but the also force it to lay eggs. Each egg is inspected, and if the egg contains another Alien queen, that egg is destroyed. Regular alien eggs are then put onto small spaceship probes which are then sent out to habitable planets - sorta like they're stocking the planets with game (and since there's no queens, there's finite number of prey). Predator hunting expeditions then go out to the stocked planet and hunt the Aliens. Again, the Aliens are dangerous, so it's not unheard of for a Predator to lose it's life in the process - but usually the group of Predators still emerge victorious. Now, the comic books up the ante a little. The Alien queen isn't completely helpless, it seems, and manages to trick the automated Predator machinery into allowing an Alien queen egg to be sent out. Of course, those eggs are sent to a planet that also contains... humans! The series goes into some detail on the social habits of Predators, and even manage to establish an individual Predator (who has a chipped mandible) character that we can relate to (he's an honorable guy) and some humans that we care about as well. In the end, the story worked really well, and lots of other projects were kicked off. The original comic book series was followed by a slew of other Predator crossovers: Batman versus Predator, Superman vs. Predator, and Aliens vs. Predator vs. The Terminator (of course!) are just a few examples. Naturally, none of those series captured the imagination of audiences quite as much as the original. The clever thing about AvP was that the Alien just fits much better into the role of prey, and the writers were able to play around with that concept in new and interesting ways. I've only read the Batman vs. Predator series (which was mildly lame), but it seems like all the other Predator spinoffs were basically reliant on the same premise: Predator wants to hunt something challenging, and Superman/Batman/Judge Dredd/whoever is much deadlier than your average human. There was a series of video games based on the AvP universe. I've only ever played Aliens versus Predator 2, but it was a great first person shooter - among the tensest games I've played, it constantly had me on the edge of my seet or jumping as an Alien pounces. You also get to play the game as a human, Predator, or Alien, and the game's story (which isn't anything special, but not actively bad either, and playing from different perspectives is actually pretty cool, because you get to fill in some of the blanks). The video games capture the feel of the AvP universe and create a wonderful sense of atmosphere (when you're the Colonial Marine, for instance, you've got the motion tracker pinging away at you, which can be just excruciating at times). The games are quite effective. A pretty good movie script which basically adapts the AvP comic series was written, but apparently shelved in favor of this crap. This really baffled me at the time (and I guess it still does). I know, I know, what was I expecting? "Versus" movies don't exactly have a high quality ratio and so most people expected dumb action (which the movie barely manages to deliver). Indeed, when I recently saw the Hitman movie, I had appropriately low expectations for the film and was thus not dissapointed (incidentally, that movie was much better than the first AvP movie, which, granted, isn't saying much, but still). However, the Hitman movie was based off a series of video games that had no real plot (you play a hitman who must, you know, kill people), so it would make sense for the movie to be complete crap. AvP, on the other hand, had compelling source material with a proven track record. Not only that, but comic books are notably easier to adapt than literature or video games. The biggest issue with adapting a comic book is knowing which story arc to pick, but AvP was a 4 issue series (i.e. it's not like Spider Man, which has been churning out story after story for decades) so that problem is non-existant. So, to recap, you've got compelling source material with a proven track record that will be really easy to adapt (heck, the comic books are basically a set of storyboards!). I suppose you could be worried that the comic book audience would be bored by a simple rehashing of the original story (which I don't agree with), but you've got to realize that the audience for a new Aliens or Predator movie is much larger than the audience of the comic book ever could be. So whatever, the filmmakers decide to go another route. Fine. So what do they do? The change the setting to be the polar ice caps of Earth, put a Predator pyramid under all the ice, and put the whole Alien queen contraption in that pyramid. They somehow feel the need to tie this movie in with the Alien series by employing the services of Lance Henriksen (who is not playing an android, but rather the human that the android is based on), but then they get crap talent for everything else. It's just an awful, awful movie. I've already rambled enough, so I won't bore you with all the things this movie gets wrong, but I do want to call out one thing: the Predators are absolute wimps in this movie. In the comic, the Aliens get the better of most of the Predator hunting party, but only because of sheer numbers (because there was an Alien queen on the planet, there were way more Aliens running around than expected). And even then, you've got Broken Tusk (the good guy Predator), who's just an absolute badass and manages just fine despite the numerical disadvantage (with a little help from a human). I dunno, maybe people like the Aliens enough that they want to see them win all the time, but personally, I can relate much more to the Predators. They at least have some concept of honor and personality, and I enjoyed seeing them team up with the humans in the AvP comic books. I mean, they've got the technology, the smarts, and they've obviously been hunting Aliens for a very long time, so why does the movie consistently portray the Predator as being a helpless weenie when faced with even just a single Alien? I really don't get it. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem just came out yesterday, and from initial reports, it seems that the new movie is just as bad as if not worse than the original. How this is possible, I do not know. Do I have the guts to actually find out? I'm not sure. I'm usually up for bad movies like this, but I just don't know if I can take another round of this crap. Posted by Mark on December 26, 2007 at 09:54 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Two Days of Christmas I suppose I could have done a 12 days of Christmas post in the vein of the 4 weeks of Halloween posts, but there's obviously no time left. So here are a few things I've watched, read, or listened to recently in preparation for Christmas.
Posted by Mark on December 23, 2007 at 09:25 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Some Quick Movie Notes Just a few notes:
Posted by Mark on December 19, 2007 at 09:51 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Critics and Introspection As we near the end of 2007, some top 10 lists are beginning to appear. By January, most movie critics will have published their top 10, and most regular folks will scratch their head for at least half of the movies on an average top 10 list. When Oscar season rolls around and the best film nominations are announced, more head scratching occurs as people realize they haven't seen any of the nominated films. Part of this has to do with distribution - of the lists I've seen so far, several movies haven't even come out yet (even in limited release) and many never got much of a theatrical bow. I live near a pretty good city for movies, but due to a hectic schedule, I didn't get much of a chance to make the trek into the city to see several of the leading favorite films. Even if I did, though, I'd bet that I still wouldn't have seen a significant number of the critics' best films of the year. Why is it that the critics seem to be so different than audiences? I've always thought it had something to do with the amount of movies watched. After all, if you want most of the films released in a year, the typical Hollywood formulas probably start to become predictable and boring. When you only head out to the theater once a month, that doesn't happen. Perhaps there's also a feeling of smug superiority that a critic gets when they pick a non-mainstram or foreign movie. In a lot of cases, the movies picked are very somber affairs. Not the sort of thing you'd want to rewatch. I'm sure a lot of people see movies as a form of escapist entertainment, and those folks obviously don't want to waste their time on something that will put them through a ringer. A professional critic has no qualms about seeing such a movie, while your average Joe might wonder why it's worth the expense to see a pretentious, depressing movie. This is all just speculation, of course, and I should note that I'm not immune to any of the things I mentioned above. While I don't hold the typical Hollywood formula movies in as much disdain as the critics, I also don't tend to see those films as being "great" either. If I ever get around to compiling a top 10 list, I'm probably going to include at least some non-mainstraim or foreign picks. And I watch enough movies that weighty stuff doesn't scare me away. I was thinking about this recently, and I remembered an anecdote from a Malcolm Gladwell talk a while ago. I listened to that talk when it came out, so my memory of it was a little hazy - it didn't quite fit exactly into my thoughts on movie critics the way I thought, but it's still relevant. Asking people to think about what they want causes them to change their opinion of what they want. In fact, it screws up their ability to recognize what they want. This problem in Psychology is called the Peril of Introspection Problem - a lot of the research has been done by a guy named Tim Wilson at UVA and he once did this very simple experiment called, the Poster Test. And the poster test is that you've got a bunch of posters in the room and you bring some college students in and you say "pick any poster you want, take it home." They do that. The second group is brought in and you say, "pick any poster you want, tell me why you want it, and then go home"Now, I remembered this incorrectly. I thought that the people who were required to explain their choices chose the impressionist paintings. If that was the case, the parallels with movie critics are obvious - their job is to explain what they're seeing, so it would make sense that they chose more complex films, and it would be interesting to see if they'd like the movies they chose six months later. However, it was the other way around - the people who had to explain themselves picked the least sophisticated choice. What this would seem to imply is that most people would prefer the arty films, but gravitate towards the more mainstream fare because they have to explain themselves (since most people see movies in groups, they need to convince others to see it, and thus that changes the dynamic). I would suspect that people who go to the movies alone would be less likely to see mainstream stuff and more likely to watch stuff off the beaten path. But wait, if explaining why you like a movie or why you want to see a movie makes you want to see more conservative, less sophisticated movies, why do critics often go in the opposite direction? The answer is in Gladwell's book, Blink. In short, the reason is that critics are experts, and experts aren't a susceptible to this sort of thing. Gladwell references a study regarding jam. A bunch of experts ranked 44 different brands of strawberry jam according to very specific measures of taste and texture. A psychologst then took 5 divergent jams (the ones ranked 1, 11, 24, 32, and 44) and gave them to a group of college students. It turns out that the students' ratings were rather close to the experts' ratings. The correllation was 0.55, which is apparently very high for this sort of study. What this says, in other words, is that our jam reactions are quite good: even those of us who aren't jam experts know good jam when we taste it.When the students were asked to explain their preferences, they ranked the #1 jam second to last. Why do we do this? It's that we simply don't have any way of explaining our feelings about jam. We know unconsciously what good jam is: it's Knott's Berry Farm. But suddenly, we're asked to stipulate, according to a list of terms, why we think that, and the terms are meaningless to us. Texture, for instance. What does that mean? We may never have thought about the texture of any jam before, and we certainly don't understand what texture means, and texture may be something that we actually, on a deep level, don't particularly care much about. But now the iea of texture has been planted in our mind, and we think about it and decide that, well, the texture does seem a little strange, and in fact maybe we don't like this jam after all. ... what happens is that we come up with a plausible-sounding reason for why we might like or dislike something, and then we adjust our true preference to be in line with that plausible-sounding reason.I'd love to see a study on this subject that actually tackled movies. Is viewing a movie more or less subjective than tasting jam? Who knows? There is certainly a very specific vocabularly about film, and critics are generally well versed in this. I wouldn't be surprised if you got similar results on a study that focused on film. I'd also be really interested to see how writing reviews impacts a critic's feelings on a film. Gladwell's book suggests that a critic wouldn't be as affected by this as a regular fella, but he's also talking about jam experts. Movies have a specific vocabulary, but perhaps not a explicit as that of jam (Gladwell goes into excruciating detail in the book). When I started this post, I thought it was a little simpler than it actually turned out to be. I think the above does help explain why critics' choices are generally different than the mainstream, but there is still something missing. Other factors should probably also be considered. For instance, there are lots of great movies that are poorly made. Such movies are usually saved by storytelling. The filmmakers tell a story that connects on some level with the audience. If you're a critic who is steeped in the technical details of filmmaking, your vocabulary requires to to say that such movies aren't that great (and conversely, it probably inflates your evaluation of a technically brilliant film that doesn't tell a good story). There are a lot of other things that probably factor into movies (that don't affect Jam or posters). For instance, I've often talked about how expectations color your reaction to a film. Marketing no doubt plays a big role in how successful a movie is at the box office, but not how much people really like the movie. For instance, one of the highest rated movies on IMDB is The Shawshank Redemption. This movie barely made $25 million at the box office and was considered a failure at the time of it's release. But it built up a huge following on video and DVD. Everyone I know who has seen the movie has loved it. I'm sure there are lots of other factors too, like novelty or sentimentality. In the end, I don't have a specific answer to why critics diverge so much from the mainstream, but I think the above probably has something to do with it... Posted by Mark on December 16, 2007 at 02:17 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Requiem for a Meme In July of this year, I attempted to start a Movie Screenshot Meme. The idea was simple and (I thought) neat. I would post a screenshot, and visitors would guess what movie it was from. The person who guessed correctly would continue the game by either posting the next round on their blog, or if they didn't have a blog, they could send me a screenshot or just ask me to post another round. Things went reasonably well at first, and the game experienced some modest success. However, the game eventually morphed into the Mark, Alex, and Roy show, as the rounds kept cycling through each of our blogs. The last round was posted in September and despite a winning entry, the game has not continued. The challenge of starting this meme was apparent from the start, but there were some other things that hindered the game a bit. Here are some assorted thoughts about the game, what held it back, and what could be done to improve the chances of adoption.
(click image for a larger version) I'd say this is difficult except that it's blatantly obvious who that is in the screenshot. It shouldn't be that hard to pick out the movie even if you haven't seen it. What the heck, the winner of this round can pick 5 blogs they'd like to see post a screenshot and post a screenshot on their blog if they desire. As I mentioned above, I'm hesitant to annoy people with this sort of thing, but hey, why not? Let's give this meme some legs. Posted by Mark on November 25, 2007 at 03:04 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Hitman! A few months ago, I wrote about a list of movies that I wanted to see even though I know they'll suck. The first movie listed there, and the one that inspired the list was a little film called Hitman. Movies based on video games don't exactly have a good track record though, and sure enough, it's scored a whopping 11% on the Tomatometer. Somehow, this makes me want to see it more. As such, I'll be heading out momentarily to witness the alleged trainwreck that is the Hitman movie. More to come. Update: Metacritic has it pegged at 34 out of 100. Upgrade! Again Update: Look, it's not a great movie. There's nothing particularly innovative or new about it, and it certainly doesn't pass the refrigerator test, but for crying out loud, it's a Hitman movie! What the hell were you expecting? Looking at that 11% and knowing it was based on a video game, I was expecting a disjointed, incoherent mess. What I got was a decent spy thriller and an enjoyable experience. I'm with Ebert on this one. Best line from his review "I think he may be a virgin trained to make war, not love." Come to think of it, maybe there is something new and different about this film... In any case, this just goes to show you the power of expectations (Ebert apparently felt the same way). Posted by Mark on November 21, 2007 at 06:48 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Halloween I don't have a lot of time, as I've spent the night watching movies, giving away candy, and destroying my friend in Halo 3 (and getting my arse handed to me online). So here's a quick recap of recent horror moviage. Happy Halloween! This has been fun, and I'll have to do the same thing next year... though I'll hopefully have time to write about more than just movie posts. Anyway, here goes. As you might expect, I've saved my favorites for last:
Posted by Mark on October 31, 2007 at 10:13 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
4 Weeks of Halloween: Week 4 Coming down the homestretch, this week's lineup:
Posted by Mark on October 28, 2007 at 02:07 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Bride of Friday is List Day It's been months since I've posted one of these, and even Roy isn't doing this anymore, but I figure, why not? Random Ten
Posted by Mark on October 26, 2007 at 11:11 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A Funny Recommendation My friend Roy and I were chatting about horror movies on some message boards we frequent, and he listed out some of his favorites, including a movie called A Tale of Two Sisters. What he said intrigued me, so I went to add it to my Netflix queue. A quick search yielded two results. The first was a 2004 Korean horror film that was obviously what he was talking about (and it had a pretty good rating too). The other one was a 1989 film described thusly: Narrated by Charlie Sheen, Tale of Two Sisters is a dreamlike, seductive vision based on Sheen's poetry.Say no more. This film sounds much more horrific than anything I've been watching recently. Posted by Mark on October 24, 2007 at 10:19 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
4 Weeks of Halloween: Week 3 And the horror movie marathon continues (Week 1 | Week 2). This week's program:
Posted by Mark on October 21, 2007 at 04:05 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
4 Weeks of Halloween: Week 2 This week's lineup features all British made horror:
Posted by Mark on October 14, 2007 at 08:19 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
4 Weeks of Halloween: Week 1 Blatantly stealing this concept from Kernunrex's Six Weeks of Halloween, here's my week 1 schedule:
Posted by Mark on October 07, 2007 at 04:01 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Halloweeny Links Kaedrin's own monkey research squad strikes again, with a pseduo-horror/Halloween theme. Enjoy:
Posted by Mark on September 30, 2007 at 10:15 PM .:
link
:.
Monday, September 24, 2007
We Could Be Heroes Just for one day though. Apologies for the missing entry yesterday and the lame entry today. Time is still tight, so I'll just throw out a link to 5 Questions Season Two of Heroes Had Better F#@king Answer. Unlike a certain show about people stranded on a mysterious island that we won't name, by the end of its first season NBC's hit series Heroes had managed to neatly wrap up the vast majority of its plot threads and running storylines. The cheerleader was saved; the sword was retrieved; and the exploding man was stopped. We didn't watch the finale of the mystery island show that we're not naming, but we wouldn't be surprised if Locke was left speechless by the sight of Patrick Duffy in the shower. Had it all been a dream?Some questions I have: Will they finally just get rid of Ali Larter's dumbass subplot? Which lame, cliched plot element will they get me to fall for anyway? Update: The answer to my second question: Amnesia. Posted by Mark on September 24, 2007 at 11:43 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Goblin Bloggin' Since time is even shorter than usual, the Green Goblin is filling in with a video blog. Enjoy. Posted by Mark on September 19, 2007 at 11:10 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wii, guess what I get to do? So I've been working a lot lately, which means no exercise. How to correct this? That's right, I bought a Nintendo Wii using the feeble excuse that it will at least provide some measure of activity other than sitting at a desk and typing. Plus, you know, it's fun. In any case, I'm not writing much tonight, so I'll just point to a few things, including the latest "hubristic" round of the Movie Screenshot Game, in which I posted 5 screenshots and requested that the winner has to get them all right. As it turns out, that was perhaps a little too hard, so I've posted some hints in the comments. If no one gets them tomorrow, I'll post even more obvious hints, and if no one still has it by Friday, I'll have stumped the internet. Or, uh, the 10 people who read my blog. For those who are baffled by the title of this post, it's one of the little clips they often play on the Preston and Steve Show, a local morning talkshow that's freely available online as a podcast (the whole show is posted every day, with almost no commercials). When I can home tonight and saw the Wii waiting on my doorstep (I ordered online), that was the first thing that went through my head... then I realized I could make a Wiipun. In other news, Author is also watching Nadesico and wants to "engage into a stegagography themed game" in which people who get rare discs mark them in some way and post them in a central location, so that other people who get the same disc will know, and can mark it again, etc... until they find out how many copies of a disc Netflix has in stock. Interesting idea, though I should admit that I never got disc 4. It said "Very Long Wait" and then one day, it said "Now" so I put it at the top of my queue, but a couple of days later, I checked again, and it was back to "Very Long Wait." Crap. I proceeded to remove it from my queue and downloaded the episodes, which I still haven't watched (this weekend, I promise!) I'm half tempted to put disc 4 back in the queue, just to play Author's game. Author, if it helps, I do have disc 6 here, if that counts for anything. My assumption is that they have less than 10 (maybe only a couple or even just one) of disc 4. Since they don't have any of disc 5, I wouldn't put it past them... And finally, for anyone who listens to the excellent Filmspotting podcast, it looks like we've reached the end of an era. One of the hosts, Sam Van Hallgren announced on last week's show that he will be retiring from after just a few more shows. At first I was shocked, but then the more I thought about it, I realized I should have seen this coming. The show has had several guest hosts throughout it's 2.5 year run, and it always seemed to be Sam that was absent. Sam will certainly be missed, and I can totally understand his reasons. When he started Filmspotting (or Cinecast, as it was called back then), he was single and working a part time job. Since starting, he's gotten married, bought a house in Milwaukee, and gotten a full time job. Like some bloggers I read, I have no idea how these people manage to produce the quality and quantity of material that they do, and so it's hard to begrudge Sam leaving the show. Again, though, he will be missed. One of the great things about the show was that Adam and Sam have great chemistry and differing tastes. They've already found a replacement for Sam (one of their friends, nicknamed Matty Ballgame), and he's guest hosted before. I'm sure he'll do a good job, but the show will never be the same. Of course, that's what happens - life goes on. Hey, maybe we'll go back to the 2 shows per week format! Really, though, I have to credit Cinecast/Filmspotting for really galvanizing and inspiring my recent (by which I mean the last 2 years) movie craze. I've always loved movies, but listening to Cinecast/Filmspotting has really emphasised my appreciation, and despite Sam's departure, I'm sure it will continue to do so. That's all for now. Back to the Wii for me. Posted by Mark on August 29, 2007 at 10:21 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Top 5 Anticipated Fall Movies So I'm still working through MSN, but I'm not done yet. I see that Filmspotting has begun their Top 5 Anticipated Fall Movies list, and will be concluding it next week. I'm not sure if this fall will be as strong as they seem to think (the first half certainly wasn't as strong as the first half of 2006), but there are several movies I'm looking forward to this fall. So here's my list:
Posted by Mark on August 26, 2007 at 08:38 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Movie Screenshot Game Round XXII Extravaganza The game grinds on, and has more or less become the Mark, Roy and Alex show. So be it - we all seem to be having fun at least! Anyway, I was thinking that we're due for a curveball, and since Friday is List Day, I'm going to post 5, that's right, 5 screenshots for this round. You have to get them all right to win. Rules and screenshots below the fold... Update: Hints are posted in the comments. Let's go people! I'll give it a couple more days, because these are hard screens and there are 5 of them... Again Update: Roy won! Swipe blocks next to each screenshot below for the answer. Also, Roy has posted the next round, so go and play... First, the rules:
Get guessing people! Posted by Mark on August 24, 2007 at 01:40 AM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Movie Screenshot Game Round XV Well, the game has run through most of my blogger friends' sites, but it hasn't really made it's way beyond our little circle. It's been a lot of fun and I'm overjoyed that my friends participated, but I don't know how much longer this can last if it remains confined to our little group... I do know of at least one person who occasionally reads this blog and also has a much larger audience than I, so I'll post another round (*hint, hint*). And, uh, I'm positive he knows what this round's screenshot is. Not that I'm stacking the deck or anything. *ahem* Anyway, the rules:
There you go. Update: Alex wins (swipe for answer: Silent Hill) and he's posted the next round. Again Update: Roy won the last round, and has posted the next round... Posted by Mark on August 08, 2007 at 10:26 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Recent Viewing I've made significant progress with my list of movies I need to see, so I figured I'd give an update on what I thought of what I've seen, and the chances of inclusion on my top 100 list.
Posted by Mark on July 29, 2007 at 01:04 PM .:
link
:.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Movie Screenshot Game Round 13 The game continues, but has yet to really break free. I won the last round, so here's my next screenshot. Before I go, the rules:
There you go. This is probably pretty easy, but again, I'm trying to get this to catch on. At least I didn't make it really easy. For previous rounds, see the main post... Update: Dave wins. Swipe for answer: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Next round has been posted at Dave's blog. Posted by Mark on July 27, 2007 at 12:44 PM .:
link
:.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
No Post Yesterday Sorry, I just got home from work. Long day. In lieu of a proper entry, I shall simply link to the next round of the Movie Screenshot Game. Go forth and post yon answers. Update: Dave has posted the next round. Another Update: Roy wins. He'll be posting the next round at one of his 300 blogs, possibly one created just for this occassion. Just kidding:P It'll probably be at 79 Soul. Yet Another Update: Roy has posted the next round. One More Update: Another round is up over at 79 Soul Posted by Mark on July 19, 2007 at 03:01 AM .:
link
:.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Notorious Filling in some of the holes in my movie viewing history, I recently watched Alfred Hitchcock's classic, Notorious. As Roger Ebert notes, it "contains some of the most effective camera shots in his--or anyone's--work" and so I figured let's take a closer look at some of those great shots. Some are more famous than others, and I'm certainly going to leave off a few, but this should be interesting. Major spoilers ahead, mostly below the fold. First up is a minor shot, not really significant among the Notorious scenes, but more significant of Hitchcock's work as a whole. Many of Hitchcock's films indirectly employed the use of voyeuristic framing to make the viewer feel like they are witnessing the events portrayed on screen. The shot below is literally framed in a doorway, and the distance from the actors implies that we're not supposed to be there. It's an unsettling technique, one which Hitchcock would reprise effectively in his later classics Psycho and Rear Window. This dynamic is reversed in Notorious during the final shot of the film in which our villain is called back to his house to meet a fate we are only left to imagine, as Hitchock closes the door. Interestingly, both approaches can be upsetting: one because we see something we think we shouldn't, another because we fill in the blanks with our imagination. 
More screens, commentary, and spoilers below the fold... I've included several screencaps of the next shot to convey the motion on the screen, but looking at screencaps really doesn't do it justice. Ingrid Bergman's character has just seen her father imprisoned for treason, and has spent the night drinking. The scene starts with an establishing shot of Cary Grant, shrouded in shadows and leaning in a doorway (and also Ingrid Bergman laying in bed, waking up with a headache). Hitchcock then follows Grant in a dizzying point of view shot as he walks across the room, the camera rotating as he moves, until he stands above Bergman. The oblique angles of these shots suggest anxiety and tension, and they underscore not only her hungover state, but also the turbulent state of her life. This technique calls attention to itself, but does not overstate the situation. Interestingly, the situation is recalled towards the end of the film, when Grant enters a different bedroom where Bergman lays sick in a bed. That time, the angles are not oblique, as Grant and Bergman's relationship is solidifying in that scene. 
Next is probably the most famous shot in the film. Again, I've got a series of screencaps below, but they don't really do the scene justice. The scene starts with a sweeping high-angle crane shot that pans across the room, then pushes down towards Bergman's hand, which is holding the Unica Key (the key that will open the wine cellar, where it is thought that the villains have hidden something). The high angle of the shot reveals the characters on a checkerboard floor, thus likening the film to a chess match, where the characters are mere pawns. This, of course, has duel meanings. The story revolves around Bergman's relationship with Grant, but the film employs a spy plot in which American intelligence has recruited Bergman to spy on Nazis. So, in a sense, the people involved are really just pawns of war. In another sense, because the shot calls attention to itself, it is clear that the characters are also pawns of the filmmaker. On a commentary track from the Criterion Collection DVD, film scholar Marian Keane notes. The shot demonstrates Hitchcock's supremacy as the author of the film, and does so by revealing the camera's presense; its magical ability to move freely in a house where such freedom is prohibited. And that in Hichtcock's hands, the camera is capable of revealing his intentions, hence his presense behind it. 
As previously mentioned, Bergman has stolen a key off of the villain's keychain. They key is to the wine cellar, and Grant wants to see what's hidden in there. Hitchcock employs a brilliant plot element to heighten the tension of these scenes: they are at a party, and the champagne is flowing freely. Perhaps too freely. They might run out, thus necessitating a trip to the wine cellar to fetch some more. But the moment this happens, the villain will be aware that someone has stolen his key. Towards the beginning of this sequence, Hitchcock makes one of his infamous cameos. Typically, when a director makes a cameo, it's seen as a bit of an egotistical thing. Perhaps it is, but in this instance, Hitchcock brilliantly imbues it with a double meaning. As Bergman and Grant move towards the bar to check on the champagne supply, we catch a glimps of Hitchcock downing a glass himself. It's as if he's telling us that he's not going to take it easy on his characters, and that they had better get a move on if they're going to successfully find out what's in the wine cellar. 
Of course, the villain notices that his key is gone, and later that night, he goes down to the wine cellar to investigate. Grant and Bergman had accidentally broken a bottle that contained a suspicious powder (which we later figure out is uranium), then hastily cleaned it up as they had to leave the room quickly to avoid detection. Later that night, our villain sees nothing wrong... but decides to look closer. He scans the wine bottles on the shelf. The camera moves from bottle to bottle, displaying a finger and a year. The first several bottles say 1934, but eventually we get to one that is out of place, a 1940 bottle. This is the sort of thing that bad cinema would avoid, favoring lengthy exposition about how the Nazi's employed a labeling system for all their work and that looking at the years would confirm whether or not they had been tampered with. Instead, Hitchcock simply shows us the years, and we figure out what he's looking for. 
Of course, there are many other famous shots in the film (such as the first appearance of Madame Sebastian), but I don't have time to go through them all. This film will most certainly end up on my Top 100 list, when I get around to creating it. Last week, I listed a bunch of films I wanted to catch up with before I compiled the top 100 list. I was a little unsure if this was a good idea, though, as great films usually get better with repeated viewings. Would I really find something worth putting on the list after a single viewing? Well, Notorious certainly fits the bill. Of course, I've watched it twice this weekend, and I've watched some of these scenes several times while writing this post, but what do you expect from a truly great film that I loved. It's perhaps not totally perfect, but it's close, and the story hangs together much better than Hitchcock's earlier works (see my Hitchcock category archives for more). To be sure, the spy story is a bit contrived, but the important thing isn't the spying or the Nazis or the uranium, it's Bergman and Grant's relationship. The rest is just window dressing (what Hitchcock infamously refers to as the MacGuffin). There were already 4 Hitchcock films on my preliminary top 100, so this would make 5. It's possible that a sixth will emerge as well, though I think that if that happens, one of the initial 4 will be driven off the list. We'll see, I guess. Posted by Mark on July 15, 2007 at 08:33 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Odds & Ends The movie screenshot game is still chugging along, and someone just answered Round 6 today. In other news, I've already caught up with 2 of the films from my Greatest Movies I've Never Seen list: 12 Angry Men and Network. Both are excellent films, though they are also very, very different (both are directed by Sidney Lumet). Part of the reason I'm watching all these films is that I'm looking for more films to put on a Top 100 movie list. One of my arbitrary requirements for this list was to avoid films made in the last 5 years. The idea is that films have to be able to stand at least a small test of time before they can be included in my all time best list... and I think that's a good reason too. For one thing, some movies can become obscenely dated or irrelevant, and I think this rule helps avoid such embarrassing choices. But if a movie has been around for 30 years and I'm only just watching it now, how likely is it that my initial reaction will be accurate? I've often found myself mellowing on films I thought I loved. Then again, there are some films that I only gain an appreciation for after multiple viewings. So is going through this list of great films that I haven't seen really going to help me much? I'm sure some of them will end up on my list, but will they stay there? I guess only time will tell. Update: I forgot to mention how I was able to watch those two movies so quickly. Netflix has somewhat recently (apparently in January) launched a new feature called Watch Now, where instead of putting items in your queue and waiting for them to come in the mail, you can just watch them online, whenever you want. It's a spectacular idea, and as bandwidth becomes cheaper and the quality of this service gets better, I can't imagine how new HD formatted discs (i.e. Blue-Ray and HD-DVD) could compete. Between Netflix and services like Comcast's OnDemand, I think there's a good chance that neither of the new HD formats will really catch on. Of course, the big issue here is movie selection. Netflix has a huge and diverse selection of movies, but only a small portion of them are available to watch online (there are currently around 3000 and most of those appear to be older films). I don't know if this is because they just launched the feature and will be adding more titles as time goes on, or because they need to get some sort of special clearances, etc... The actual experience of using the Watch Online feature could probably improve a bit. They use Windows Media Player to drive it, and it includes some DRM (which I don't mind because, as far as I'm concerned, this is basically a rental. Plus, the feature doesn't cost anything extra.). It only appears to work in Internet Explorer 6+, which is really annoying. I'm used to people not supporting Opera (my browser of choice) for the latest and greatest web features, but to only support IE is absurd. The only other issue here is that my WMP installation appears to be wonky, as I can't seem to watch anything on full screen mode. The quality of the video could probably be a little better, but it works well enough for me (again, when watching a movie for free on my computer, I'm a little less picky.) Anyway, it's a fantastic idea. It could use some improvements, and I'd love to see the selection of Watch Now movies expand drastically in the coming months (this would be particularly helpful with Anime series, I think, though I doubt that's high on their priority list), but for now, I'm just happy that I got a good service without even asking for it... Posted by Mark on July 11, 2007 at 08:58 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
The Greatest Movies I've Never Seen On Wednesday, I pointed to several Top 100 movies lists, and mentioned that I'd like to compile my own list. Sitting down to do so, I almost immediately had the first 50. Getting another 25 wasn't that hard either, and now I'm somewhere around 75 movies. I could easily get to 100, I think, but I feel like I'd just be padding it out with mediocre films. Compiling a top 100 list is a humbling experience, because when you start looking around, you see just how many films you haven't seen. This can be somewhat embarrassing until you realize that most amateur film buffs have a lot of holes in their viewing as well (well, at least, I hope so). That's one of the things I love about the Filmspotting podcast - they're not afraid to admit they haven't seen various classic movies, and they've even dedicated portions of certain shows to listing out movies they should have seen (plus, a feature on their old show called "Cinecast Confessions" wherein one of the hosts owns up to not having seen a classic). So questions are abound. Should I complete the top 100 now, or should I wait until I've had a chance to catch up with some of the greats? Either way, I'd like to at least make a list of movies I need to see. There are certainly a lot of so called "classics" that I really don't have much interest in seeing, but a lot of the movies below have elements that at least make me curious. For anyone who wants to play along, I created this list at the Lists of Bests website. Come join the fun (or create your own list and let me know!)
So that's Update: Added some foreign films to the list. This brings us to an unweildy 25 films, but I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit... Posted by Mark on July 08, 2007 at 04:29 PM .:
link
:.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Movie Screenshot Game Round V: Presented in Glorious Extra Color The game has been a modest success so far, though it still hasn't really broken out of my limited readership. I actually won the last round, so here's the next image. Before I go, the rules:
This should be relatively easy, especially for a certain segment of my readers... Here's the game so far:
Posted by Mark on July 07, 2007 at 09:21 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Link to Someone New: Top 100 Movies Edition A quick note: after a promising start, the screenshot game has stalled a bit. Alex posted a screenshot (update: new screenshot posted, and we have a winner!), but I have no idea what it is, and apparently neither do his readers. If you've got a keen cinematic eye, go check it out and see if you can answer it (if you get it right, you get to host the next round!) When I started the game, I was a little worried that something like this would happen. One of the perils of trying to start a meme on a low traffic blog, I guess. That's why my screenshot was so easy. I bet this could take off if it ever hits a reasonably high traffic blog. In any case, it's time to make another attempt at escaping the echo chamber of blog reading that I've constructed around myself by linking to people I've never linked to before. The theme here is Top 100 movie lists.
The other challenge is how subjective to be. There are a lot of incredible films in terms of film techniques or innovation, but do they really belong on my list? Citizen Kane is an incredible film, and on any objective list, it should probably be somewhere near the top. But should it be on my list? I recognize the greatness of the film, and I got into it while watching it, but in the end, I didn't really connect with it the way I do with some of the films that will be at the top of my list. On the other end of the spectrum, I have an inexpicable love for Phantasm. While undeniably creepy at times, it's also a pretty bad film. Should either of those films be on my list? Who knows? Maybe filling up 100 slots will be harder than it seems, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have lots of honorable mentions... I doubt I'll be able to compile a good list by Sunday, but you never know. Maybe I should start with the cinecast confessions list: Movies I Can't Believe I've Never Seen. Posted by Mark on July 04, 2007 at 11:33 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Movie Screenshot Game I'm not in a writing mood, so let's play a little game. I'm starting it off, but if you win, you can continue the game. Here's how the game is played:
Let's kick things off with a ridiculously easy screenshot (click for larger image): 
Please answer in the comments. First right answer wins! And yes, I know, this is probably too easy, but I'm interested to see how this game spreads (or if it speads). Update: We have a winner. Swipe for answer: The Matrix. Alex is hosting Round 2 of the game! Updates: I'll keep a list of all future rounds here:
Update: Added a new optional rule, and brought the game back from death with round 24. Posted by Mark on July 01, 2007 at 09:50 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Bad Movie Corner The movie corner feature here at Kaedrin normally features at least a couple of good movies, but sometimes, well, I like to watch bad movies. Particularly ones from my youth. Something about being a youngin' made these movies a lot easier to swallow, I guess because I didn't know any better, and there's a sentimental element that draws me back to them even today. It's strange, but I was much more willing to sit around and watch whatever came on back then. I'm not sure if it's a good thing that I don't do so much anymore... In any case, here are three bad movies that I love. Perhaps you could say that they're so bad they're good...
Posted by Mark on June 24, 2007 at 06:44 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Referential A few weeks ago, I wrote about how context matters when consuming art. As sometimes happens when writing an entry, that one got away from me and I never got around to the point I originally started with (that entry was originally entitled "Referential" but I changed it when I realized that I wasn't going to write anything about references), which was how much of our entertainment these days references its predecessors. This takes many forms, some overt (homages, parody), some a little more subtle. I originally started thinking about this while watching an episode of Family Guy. The show is infamous for its random cutaway gags - little vignettes that have no connection to the story, but which often make some obscure reference to pop culture. For some reason, I started thinking about what it would be like to watch an episode of Family Guy with someone from, let's say, the 17th century. Let's further speculate that this person isn't a blithering idiot, but perhaps a member of the Royal Society or something (i.e. a bright fellow). This would naturally be something of a challenge. There are some technical explanations that would be necessary. For example, we'd have to explain electricty, cable networks, signal processing and how the television works (which at least involves discussions on light and color). The concept of an animated show, at least, would probably be easy to explain (but it would involve a discussion of how the human eye works, to a degree). There's more to it, of course, but moving past all that, once we start watching the show, we're going to have to explain why we're laughing at pretty much all of the jokes. Again, most of the jokes are simply references and parodies of other pieces of pop culture. Watching an episode of Family Guy with Isaac Newton (to pick a prominent Royal Society member) would necessitate a pause just about every minute to explain what each reference was from and why Family Guy's take on it made me laugh. Then there's the fact that Family Guy rarely has any sort of redeemable lesson and often deliberately skews towards actively encouraging evil (something along the lines of "I think the important thing to remember is that it's ok to lie, so long as you don't get caught." I don't think that exact line is in an episode, but it could be.) This works fine for us, as we're so steeped in popular culture that we get the fact that Family Guy is just lampooning of the notion that we could learn important life lessions via a half-hour sitcom. But I'm sure Isaac Newton would be appalled. For some reason, I find this fascinating, and try to imagine how I would explain various jokes. For instance, the episode I was watching featured a joke concerning "cool side of the pillow." They cut to a scene in bed where Peter flips over the pillow and sees Billy Dee Williams' face, which proceeds to give a speech about how cool this side of the pillow is, ending with "Works every time." This joke alone would require a whole digression into Star Wars and how most of the stars of that series struggled to overcome their typecasting and couldn't find a lot of good work, so people like Billy Dee Williams ended up doing commercials for a malt liquor named Colt 45, which had these really cheesy commercials where Billy Dee talked like that. And so on. It could probably take an hour before my guest would even come close to understanding the context of the joke (I'm not even touching the tip of the iceberg with this post). And the irony of this whole thing is that jokes that are explained simply aren't funny. To be honest, I'm not even sure why I find these simple gags funny (that, of course, is the joy of humor - you don't usually have to understand it or think about it, you just laugh). Seriously, why is it funny when Family Guy blatantly references some classic movie or show? Again, I'm not sure, but that sort of humor has been steadily growing over the past 30 years or so. Not all comedies are that blatant about their referential humor though (indeed, Family Guy itself doesn't solely rely upon such references). A recent example of a good referential film is Shaun of the Dead, which somewhow manages to be both a parody and an example of a good zombie movie. It pays homage to all the classic zombie films and it also makes fun of other genres (notably the romantic comedy), but in doing so, the filmmakers have also made a good zombie movie in itself. The filmmakers have recently released a new film called Hot Fuzz, which attempts the same trick for action movies and buddy comedies. It is, perhaps, not as successful as Shaun, but the sheer number of references in the film is astounding. There are the obvious and explicit ones like Point Break and Bad Boys II, but there are also tons of subtle homages that I'd wager most people wouldn't get. For instance, when Simon Pegg yells in the movie, he's doing a pitch perfect impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator. And when he chases after a criminal, he imitates the way Robert Patrick's T-1000 runs from Terminator 2. References don't need to be part of a comedy either (though comedies seem to make the easiest examples). Hop on IMDB and go to just about any recent movie, and click on the "Movie Connections" link in the left navigation. For instance, did you know that the aformentioned T2 references The Wizard of Oz and The Killing, amongst dozens of other references? Most of the time, these references are really difficult to pick out, especially when you're viewing a foreign film or show that's pulling from a different cultural background. References don't have to be story or character based - they can be the way a scene is composed or the way the lighting is set (i.e. the Venetian blinds in Noir films). Now, this doesn't just apply to art either. A lot of common knowledge in today's world is referential. Most formal writing includes references and bibliographies, for instance, and a non-fiction book will often assume basic familiarity with a subject. When I was in school, I was always annoyed at the amount of rote memorization they made us do. Why memorize it if I could just look it up? Shouldn't you be focusing on my critical thinking skills instead of making me memorize arbitrary lists of facts? Sometimes this complaining was probably warranted, but most of it wasn't. So much of what we do in today's world requires a well-rounded familiarity with a large number of subjects (including history, science, culture, amongst many other things). There simply isn't any substitute for actual knowledge. Though it was a pain at the time, I'm glad emphasis was put on memorization during my education. A while back, David Foster noted that schools are actually moving away from this, and makes several important distinctions. He takes an example of a song: Jakob Dylan has a song that includes the following lines:As Foster notes, this doesn't mean that "thinking skills" are unimportant, just that knowledge is important too. You need to have a quality data set in order to use those "thinking skills" effectively. Human beings tend to leverage knowledge to create new knowledge. This has a lot of implications, one of which is intellectual property law. Giving limited copyright to intellectual property is important, because the data in that property eventually becomes available for all to built upon. It's ironic that educators are considering less of a focus on memorization, as this requirement of referential knowledge has been increasing for some time. Students need a base of knowledge to both understand and compose new works. References help you avoid reinventing the wheel everytime you need to create something, which leads to my next point. I think part of the reason references are becoming more and more common these days is that it makes entertainment a little less passive. Watching TV or a movie is, of course, a passive activity, but if you make lots of references and homages, the viewer is required to think through those references. If the viewer has the appropriate knowledge, such a TV show or movie becomes a little more cognitively engaging. It makes you think, it calls to mind previous work, and it forces you to contextualize what you're watching based on what you know about other works. References are part of the complexity of modern Television and film, and Steven Johnson spends a significant amout of time talking about this subject in his book Everything Bad is Good for You (from page 85 of my edition): Nearly every extended sequence in Seinfeld or The Simpsons, however, will contain a joke that makes sense only if the viewer fills in the proper supplementary information -- information that is deliberately withheld from the viewer. If you haven't seen the "Mulva" episode, or if the name "Art Vandelay" means nothing to you, then the subsequent references -- many of them arriving years after their original appearance -- will pass on by unappreciated.I know some people who hate Family Guy and Seinfeld, but I realized a while ago that they don't hate those shows because of the contents of the shows or because they were offended (though some people certainly are), but rather becaues they simply don't get the references. They didn't grow up watching TV in the 80s and 90s, so many of the references are simply lost on them. Family Guy would be particularly vexing if you didn't have the pop culture knowledge of the writers of that show. These reference heavy shows are also a lot easier to watch and rewatch, over and over again. Why? Because each episode is not self-contained, you often find yourself noticing something new every time you watch. This also sometimes works in reverse. I remember the first time I saw Bill Shatner's campy rendition of Rocket Man, I suddenly understoood a bit on Family Guy which I thought was just a bit based on being random (but was really a reference). Again, I seem to be focusing on comedy, but it's not necessarily limited to that genre. Eric S. Raymond has written a lot about how science fiction jargon has evolved into a sophisticated code that implicitely references various ideas, conventions and tropes of the genre: In looking at an SF-jargon term like, say, "groundcar", or "warp drive" there is a spectrum of increasingly sophisticated possible decodings. The most naive is to see a meaningless, uninterpretable wordlike noise and stop there.While comedy makes for convenient examples, I think this better illustrates the cognitive demands of referential art. References require you to be grounded in various subjects, and they'll often require you to think through the implications of those subjects in a new context. References allow writers to pack incredible amounts of information into even the smallest space. This, of course, requires the consumer to decode that information (using available knowledge and critical thinking skills), making the experience less passive and more engaging. Use references will continue to flourish and accellerate in both art and scholarship, and new forms will emerge. One could even argue that aggregation in various weblogs are simply exercises in referential work. Just look at this post, in which I reference several books and movies, in many cases assuming familiarity. Indeed, the whole structure of the internet is based on the concept of links -- essentialy a way to reference other documents. Perhaps this is part of the cause of the rising complexity and information density of modern entertainment. We can cope with it now, because we have such systems to help us out. Posted by Mark on June 10, 2007 at 03:08 PM .:
link
:.
Monday, June 04, 2007
I of Newton So yesterday's entry about obscure works being found via the internet, and specifically Jonathon Delacour's quest to figure out what TV show he was remembering, reminded me of several old TV episodes that I haven't seen since I was very young, but which I still remember vividly. I was curious if the internet could help me figure out which shows or episodes I was thinking of. The first one had to do with a math teacher who idly mentions he'd sell his soul to complete a problem. The devil appears and they engage in a battle of wits, the stakes being the math teacher's soul. Some of the specifics here elude me, but I distinctly remember a few things. First, the devil had horns and sunglasses and his shirt had text on it that kept changing. Second, the challenge had something to do with the teacher trying to ask a question the devil couldn't answer (I remember the devil giving specific examples of how previous people tried and failed to do so). And finally, I remember the punchline (which I won't spoil). Now, this could have been on any number of anthology shows. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, one of those old Hitchcock theater thingys... So I searched for "Twighlight Zone devil [punchline]" (where [punchline] represents the punchline I don't want to spoil). Bingo, the second result in Google is a detailed recounting of the 8 minute episode (spoilers on that page, don't go until you've watched the episode below), which was apparently titled I of Newton. It starred Sherman Hemsley (of The Jeffersons fame) and Ron Glass (of Firefly fame) and there are apparently a bunch of neat references (Dante, for instance). The page also mentions what one of the devil's t-shirts says: "hell is a city much like Newark." Heh. Update: Knowing the title, finding the episode on YouTube was easy. Enjoy: Awesome! We really need more of these anthology shows, but we seem to be moving in the opposite direction of huge, multi-season story arcs rather than anthologies with 8 minute stories (or short story magazines, for that matter). A shame, really, but I could see the format making a comeback someday. Posted by Mark on June 04, 2007 at 10:35 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
The Long Tail of Forgotten Works I'm currently reading Chris Anderson's book The Long Tail, and he relates a story about how some books find an audience long after they've been published. In 1988, a British mountain climber named Joe Simpson wrote a book called Touching the Void, a harrowing account of near death in the Peruvian Andes. Though reviews for the book were good, it was only a modest success, and soon was largely forgotten. Then, a decade later, a strange thing happened. Jon Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air, another book about a mountain-climbing tragedy, which became a publishing sensation. Suddenly Touching the Void started to sell again.There is something interesting going on here. I'm wondering how many great works of art are simply lost in obscurity. These days, we've got the internet and primitive tools to traverse the long tail, so it seems that a lot of obscure works find a new audience when a new, similar work is released. But what happened before the internet? How many works have simply gone out of print because they never found an audience - how many works suffered the fate Touching the Void narrowly avoided? Of course, I have no idea (that's kinda the point), but one of the great things about the internet and the emerging infinite shelf space of online retailers is that some of these obscure works are rediscovered and new connections are made. For instance, I once came accross a blog post by Jonathon Delacour about this obscure Japanese horror film called Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People. The description of the film? After a yacht is damaged in a storm and stranded on a deserted island, the passengers: a psychologist, his girlfriend, a wealthy businessman, a famous singer, a writer, a sailor and his skipper take refuge in a fungus covered boat. While using the mushrooms for sustenance, they find the ship's journal describing the mushrooms to be poisonous, however some members of the shipwrecked party continue to ingest the mysterious fungi transforming them into hideous fungal monsters.Sound familiar? As Delacour notes, a reviewer on Amazon.com sure thinks so: Was this the Inspiration for Gilligan's Island? ...and that's a serious question. It predated the premier of Gillian's Island by several years. There's a millionaire who owns a yacht that looks like the Minnow. On board is a professor, the captain, a goofy (though somewhat sinster in the film) first mate, a pretty but shy country girl named Okiko, and a singer/movie star. There are seven castaways in all. "Lovey" is replaced by another male character, a writer named Roy. The boat crashes into an island where they are castaways... Course on Gilligan's Island they didn't all turn into mutated mushrooms monsters. Rent or buy the DVD (one of my favorite films in Japanese cinema, finally getting its due...) and you tell me if Gilligan's Island isn't a complete rip-off of this film.Several reviewers actually make the Gilligan's Island connection, and one even takes time to refute the claim that Gilligan ripped off Matango: Actually as stated on this DVD's actor commentary Matango premiered in Japanese theaters in and around mid 1963. The Gilligan's Island first pilot (with different actors as The Professor and Ginger)was made in late 1963 thus the Japanese film does not predate Gilligan by a few years as another poster here thinks.Schwartz could have heard about a Japanese film made with seven castaways (as Hollywood and Tokoyo's Toho were in communication). But he definitely didn't see the Japanese film before he pitched gI to the networks in early 63.So perhaps this was just a happy coincidence... A commentor on Delacour's post mentions that the movie is loosely based on a 1907 short story by William Hope Hodgson called The Voice in the Night, but while it certainly was the inspiration behind Matango, it probably didn't inspire Gilligan's Island... I seem to have veered off track here, but it was an interesting diversion: from obscure Japanese horror film to Gilligan's Island to William Hope Hodgson... would anyone have made these connections 20 years ago? It certainly would have been possible, but I doubt it would happen as quickly or efficiently as it did on the internet. Posted by Mark on June 03, 2007 at 08:35 PM .:
link
:.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
6 Relatively Obscure Bit Characters From 80s Movies That I Love During last week's list day, I made reference to 6 Relatively Obscure Bit Characters From 80s Movies That I Love, and asked if anyone could name the movies they're from. A couple people could get one, but otherwise, no one posted. Is this a reflection of their difficulty or of my low traffic? Regardless, if you're interested in the answers, they're below the fold....
Posted by Mark on May 30, 2007 at 09:11 PM .:
link
:.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Innovative Films I've been following along with Filmspotting's Noir Movie marathon, and after viewing a couple of movies, I began to think about how many of the most innovative movies are often somewhat underwhelming when you catch up with them. For instance, I hadn't seen Double Indemnity before. It's a classic film, one of the first Film Noirs, and while I thought it was great, I wasn't quite so sure what all the fuss was about. During their review, Filmspotting's Adam remarked that this was a perfect film, one that he thinks is among the best of all time. Sam thought it was great, but perhaps not perfect. After looking around a bit, I think I'm starting to see part of why this movie has won so much acclaim. There are some things that would probably come across after multiple viewings, but one of the primary reasons this movie is loved is that it was amongst the first Noir films, and it set the bar for all that followed it. Many of the conventions of the genre were presented for the first time in this film, then copied and imitated as time went on. For instance, the use of lighting through Venetian blinds presents the viewers with a distinct image. The shadows that fall on the walls and on characters' faces look like the bars on a jail cell, and this makes the characters seem trapped by their actions. It's a subtle effect, and it's become a standard convention of the genre. 
I think part of the reason Sam and I were a little underwhelmed by this is that we've already seen several movies that imitate Double Indemnity, and thus weren't as impressed by the innovative nature of the film. After learning more about the film, after putting it in its cultural and historical context, I'm beginning to see why it's viewed as a classic... but I'm still not sure what it all means. This happens all the time with classic films. Citizen Kane is often regarded as the greatest American movie of all time, yet a lot of folks watching it today find it to be a bit of a bore. I have to admit that when I first saw it for my college film class, I thought it was good, but I couldn't see why it got such great reviews. There are a lot of reasons, but one of them is that the film was simply revolutionary. Orson Wells' bag of cinematic tricks were perhaps not entirely innovative, but the combination of everything - the extreme closeups, the odd angles, uncanny arrangements of backgrounds and foregrounds, the flashbacks and broken narrative structure - was extraordinary. Wells broke free of the spacial constraints of the frame, and his film has been an inspiration to all who followed it. In Michael Chabon's Pulizer winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the main characters, a pair of comic book creators, see the film and are astounded: ... Citizen Kane represented, more than any other movie Joe had ever seen, the total blending of narration and image that was - didn't Sammy see it?- the fundamental principle of comic book storytelling ... Without the witty, potent dialogue and the puzzling shape of the story, the movie would have been merely an American version of the kind of brooding, shadow-filled Ufa-style expressionist stuff that Joe had grown up watching in Prague. Without the brooding shadows and bold adventurings of the camera, without the theatrical lighting and queasy angles, it would have been merely a clever movie about a rich bastard. It was much, much more, than any movie really needed to be.The two comic book creators saw a way to escape the constraints of their medium as a result of Citizen Kane. Of course, I'm talking about a work of fiction here, but Chabon has said that he based one of his characters on the legendary comic book artist Will Eisner, who has admitted how much his comics owed to the movies, and notably Citizen Kane. However, even knowing this, Citizen Kane isn't the sort of movie I like to watch over and over again and I can see why lots of people think it's boring. All of the innovations in the film that were so breathtaking at the time are now taken for granted, just as I took the Venetian Blind effects in Double Indemnity for granted. We look at some of these things and think, "Jeeze, I've seen that a million times before." But at the time the film was made, audiences hadn't seen these things before... This raises a number of questions, and I'm not sure I have any satisfactory answers. Are innovative movies better than what follows simply because they were the first to do something? Are the movies that follow an innovative predecessor any less effective because someone else used a particular technique first? How well will innovative films hold up after time and is a film that uses similar techniques to address contemporary issues any worse? Film is a relatively young medium, and many of the earliest films are difficult to appreciate unless you have a good understanding of their cultural and historical context. Does that make them any better or worse? I don't think there are any real answers here, only more evidence of the subjectivity of art. Even contemporary films suffer due to lack of context. I've seem my share of foreign films and am a fan of many, but I have to admit that there is a nagging feeling that I'm just not getting it. Many times, I can feel something wrong with the translation, and it's difficult to really tell how well I'm understanding exactly what the filmmakers are looking to do. Citizen Kane is a hard enough nut to crack, let alone something like Seven Samurai. This is perhaps a bad example, as Seven Samurai comes in an exceptional Criterion Collection edition that belabors its many virtues. But a lot of films don't get such treatment, and thus it's more difficult to understand what's happening on screen. Another example, last week, I rented Sonatine and got the distinct impression that I was missing something. The film was released on DVD in America through Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Pictures collection, and the DVD has a few extra features, including an interview with the film's writer and director, Beat Takeshi (aka Takeshi Kitano). In it, he's asked about what he thinks of Quentin Tarantino's movies, and he responds that he likes them, but that he wishes he spoke English. This makes a lot of sense when you think about Tarantino's style, wihch includes lots of great dialogue. I'd bet that a lot of the intricacies of his dialogue is lost when translated, and I always wonder what I'm missing when I see a foreign film. Film snobs like to complain about the ignorant masses who won't give foreign films a chance just because of subtitles, but I think the translations play into this as well. Again, I don't have any answers here. Like all art, film is subjective, and while it's important to recognize the achievements of innovative films, it's also important that those films be entertaining and I can see how some folks don't especially care for the "classic" films like Citizen Kane or foreign films like Sonatine. Most people are looking to be entertained and if you're not interested in the history of film or a movie's story, then you're probably not going to give a crap that Citizen Kane pioneered the use of deep focus in film. You'll just yawn because you've seen it a million times before. Context matters, and it's not just the context of the film that's important, but the context of the viewer as well... Posted by Mark on May 27, 2007 at 02:39 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Ten Things I Like About Grindhouse Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double-feature Grindhouse was released this weekend. Since it's a pretty non-standard experience, I figured I'd avoid the standard review. Here are ten things I like about Grindhouse (in no particular order):
I could probably keep listing things I like about Grindhouse (the above list was done in a stream-of-consciousness style), which I think says something about the film. Interestingly, there's probably someone right now who's writing a "Ten Things I Hate About Grindhouse" and listing out the exact ten things I did. Go figure. Posted by Mark on April 08, 2007 at 08:38 PM .:
Comments (0) |
link
:.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
I believe the answer is Spartaaaaaaa Time is short this week (I know, what else is new, but it's especially short this week) so I'll just point to some of the funniest photoshopped 300 parodies I've seen [via NeedCoffee]. I've included one of my favorites below, but I think the best one is in an animated gif about halfway down the page. 
Some other good ones: King Leonidas, Zidane Style, Wile E. Coyote, and This is Ping Pong. Oh, and of course, the PG Version. Posted by Mark on April 04, 2007 at 09:36 PM .:
Comments (1) |
link
:.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Thermopylae is a wedge issue! It's All Geek to Me by Neal Stephenson: After a lengthy absence, Stephenson returns with an oped in the NY Times. He tackles the film 300 from various geeky angles, and in the process, he hits on a few ideas that I've been thinking about recently. Critics at a festival in Berlin walked out, and accused its director of being on the Bush payroll.This seems to be happening more and more these days. Somebody makes a movie without any intention of making a political statement, and then liberals and conservatives fall all over themelves in an attempt to spin the movie in their favor. This isn't limited to movies or other forms of art either (nor is it limited to politics, for that matter - people often spin things in subjective ways). For instance, talk to anyone who has strong opinions about politics and they'll tell you that the media is biased against them. It's amusing, really. When I saw 300, the thought that this might be applicable to our current political situation occurred to me, but I dismissed it pretty quickly. I'm sick of politics and have been for a while now, which brings me to another point Stephenson makes: When science fiction tackles classical themes, the results may look a bit odd to some, but the audience - which is increasingly the mainstream audience - is sufficiently hungry for this kind of material (and, perhaps, suspicious of anything that's overly polished) that it is willing to overlook the occasional mistake, or make up for it by shouting hilarious things from the balcony. These people don't need irony or campiness self-consciously pointed out to them, any more than they need a laugh track to enjoy "The Simpsons."I've been thinking a lot about politics in art, and I don't think it's as influential as it once was. The modern world is so saturated with politics and hyperbolic outrage that yet another movie or album that decries war or globalization or secularization or whatever is just, well, lame. You look at someone like George Orwell and you can see why he wrote what he did and why he wrote how he wrote. If he were writing today, I bet it would seem gimmicky and lame. Alas, at the end of the article, it didn't mention that Stephenson would be releasing a new book anytime soon. I know he's working on the Diamond Age Miniseries, but I'm still impatient for his next book, whatever it may be. These NY Times opeds are nice and all, but they seem too short for Stephenson. I like it better when he rambles on for a few hundred pages. Posted by Mark on March 21, 2007 at 08:22 PM .:
Comments (2) |
link
:.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Watchmen Every couple of years, someone gets the bright idea to adapt Alan Moore's classic graphic novel Watchmen into a movie. Some work is done, then the project falls flat. To get an idea for how long this has been going on, I wrote about it on this blog over five years ago, and at that point, it had already been stuck in "development hell" for over a decade. For a long time, Terry Gilliam was attached to direct. He was a big name, but he was also quite ambitious and known for getting mired in long, failed productions. By the end, he wanted to make a 12 hour film (or mini-series) out of the comic. One would have to applaud that sort of ambitious thinking, but it's easy to see how Gilliam didn't get anywhere. In any case, he eventually fell off the map, and in one of the more retarded Hollywood moves of recent history, screenwriter David Hayter was brought on not only to revise the existing Sam Hamm script (which was good, except for the changed ending) but also to direct. Hayter had achieved some clout because of his involvement with the X-Men films, but handing such a complex story to a first-time director seemed quite foolish. Luckily, that period didn't last long, and a few years later, up-and-coming indie director Darren Aronofsky attached himself to the project. This was all kinds of cool and the film geek community was delighted. Actors started clamoring for roles, including Jude Law, who's apparently quite the fanboy. Alas, it was not to be. Aronofsky left the production to focus on his dream project, The Fountain. Paramount was still anxious to get the film started, so they sought out a replacement and eventually settled on Paul Greengrass. Though not as well-known as Gilliam and not as hip and trendy as Aronofsky, the choice of Greengrass was inspired and of all the directors who've expressed interest in Watchmen, I think he would have been my favorite. Like Aronofsky, Greengrass is an up-and-coming director. However, unlike anyone else attached to the project, Greengrass has also proven to be quite adept at making movies with a political element that doesn't suck (United 93, Bloody Sunday), while at the same time being able to direct a decent character-based action movie (The Bourne Supremacy). Watchmen would involve interweaving elements of both, among other thematic material. Unfortunately, an executive shuffle at Paramount meant that Watchmen would again get the boot. This is understandable. When a major studio undergoes a change in leadership, all greenlit projects are scrutinized. Watchmen had a long history of false-starts, a big budget, and a story that was... not family friendly (to put it nicely). Put yourself in the position of a newly appointed studio head, and then ask yourself if you'd really want to start off by attempting to make what many consider an unfilmable movie? So the plug was pulled yet again, and Greengrass went on to make United 93 instead (and it's a masterpiece, imhbco). The movie sat in limbo until about a year ago, when director Zack Snyder, who was in post-production for the now-released hit 300 (an adaptation of Frank Miller's classic comic), was tasked with bringing Watchmen to the screen. 300 was released last week and ground it's way to an astounding $70 million opening weekend. I saw it, and while I enjoyed it, I have to admit that I'm not sure he's going to be able to handle Watchmen's complex themes. He's certainly talented, and I'm not counting him out, but his previous work simply doesn't tackle anything as ambitious as Watchmen. He directed a spirited remake of Dawn of the Dead that was quite entertaining (certainly among the best of the recent spate of horror movie remakes) but not exactly challenging. Ditto for the cliched but gorgeous and action-packed 300. I have to admit that I'm intrigued by the possibility of a Watchmen movie, and Snyder isn't a bad choice. Indeed, the unexpected success of 300 augurs well for the Watchmen production, which is now slated to start shooting this summer. For that alone, Snyder deserves some credit, as he might be the one who will finally bring it to the screen. Indeed, Snyder appears to have begun some early concept work on his new project. Last summer, at the San Diego Comic-Con, Snyder and Miller showed some footage from 300 and did a Q and A. The footage was too bloody for an official widespread release, but of course, you can't stop the signal. It appeared on You Tube shortly after the comic-con and has supposedly played an important role in the marketing of 300. However, just a few weeks ago, someone discovered a little secret burried in the footage. Hidden between warring Spartans and Persians is a single frame of what appears to be Rorschach (perhaps the most recognizeable character from the Watchmen comic): 
Well, it's a little dark (click the image for a much higher resolution image), but it's definitely Rorschach. The high resolution image was | |
(song)
