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.



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.

• Freddy vs. Jason: So New Line finally delivers on the promise shown at the end of part 9. I have no idea why it took them 10 years to do it - it certainly wasn't because they were trying to figure out a good story, because the plot is pretty abysmal here. The film starts with Freddy explaining his current predicament. After years of successfully terrorizing the kids of Elm street, it seems the town has finally succeeded in defeating him by getting everyone to forget who he is... Apparently, Freddy gets his power from the fear of the children, and if they don't know who he is, they can't be scared of him and thus he can't enter their dreams. This, of course, makes no sense in light of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, but since when do these things make sense anyway? So Freddy's plan is to summon Jason (currently vacationing in Hell, as per the 9th movie) and send him to Elm street to instill fear in the current generation of teens. Once again, this makes no sense at all, because you'd think that the kids would be more scared of the mask wearing homicidal maniac with the machete than Freddy, but apparently Freddy can exert some sort of control on Jason and so the first kill appears to be more of a Freddy type kill than a Jason type kill (this whole sequence of events is probably just as much of a stretch as having a new Friday set on Earth 2, but I digress). The townsfolk go nuts and we're off to the races. Again, it makes no sense, but whatever. We're here for the boobs and the blood, and there's actually quite a few cool things about this movie. While the film is ostensibly driven by Freddy, Jason gets the best kills by far. There's some nifty machete-work going on, and even a folding bed gag that'll open your eyes. Production values are high, so the film looks pretty good and the stuntwork and makeup are also great.
  
  Remember back in part VIII when I mentioned the missed opportunities of Jason running around in New York? For whatever reason, he only focused on the two kids from earlier in the movie, and it was a real letdown - he should have been mowing down people left and right. Well, this movie gets the concept right. After a while, Freddy loses control of Jason, who just goes on a rampage, killing everyone in sight. All of our teenage heros decide to attend a rave in a cornfield and of course, Jason shows up to crash the party. After foiling an attempted rape (see, Jason's not that bad a guy!), Jason makes his way to the rave and, like a kid in a candy story, starts hacking the crap out of everyone in sight. Someone sets him on fire, but he just plows on, setting the cornfield ablaze and slaughtering as many kids as he can.
  
  
  Jason attends a rave
  Later in the film comes the vaunted battle sequence between Freddy and Jason. This is pretty cool for a little while, but eventually gets somewhat boring. These are two villains who have amply demonstraited their invulnerability during the tenure of their resprective franchises, so there's not really any stakes to the fight, which is basically just an excuse to put each character through the ringer and deal out massive amounts of damage. This can be fun, but it's ultimately a pretty pointless exercise... like the movie as a whole. It's got some good stuff going for it and it's an entertaining watch, but it's pretty bad. **
• It's the Gifts That I Hate (robot chicken)
• Friday the 13th (2009 teaser)
• The Slasher: Jason's Comeback (fake trailer)
• Friday the 13th (2009): After being shot into space and crossing over with another franchise, the series had nowhere to go, so they decided to start over. The film was made under the Platinum Dunes banner (a production company run by Michael Bay who have been responsible for a large number of the recent horror remakes) and was directed by Marcus Nispel (who is most famous for the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, also a PD movie.) What we get is a back-to-basics type of movie. It's not a remake of the original Friday, but it plays out like a summary of the first 4 or so movies. You get the backstory of Jason and his mother in the first 5 minutes or so (which coveres the original Friday), you see Jason in his sack-face outfit for a while (like in part 2) before he dons his iconic mask (which happens in part 3), and you've got a camper who's trying to find his sister and hooks up with the final girl (part 4). The first 15-20 minutes or so of this are good stuff. Then the movie falls back into the standard slasher formula that typifies the series. This isn't in itself, a terrible thing for a reboot to do, but it also doesn't make for a great movie.
  
  There are some changes to the standard formula, I guess. Jason moves fast this time around, sometimes even running (he's played by Derek Mears, who is a big guy and seems to do a pretty good job behind the mask). He also seems to be a bit more shrewd and intelligent in that he actually sets traps and uses bait, etc... He's got a secret lair as well. I think my favorite thing about the movie is that it's possible to interpret the entire story as being about Jason protecting his weed. You see, the film opens with a small group of kids who are coming to Crystal Lake to collect their secret stash of marijuana that was planted earlier in the year. They find the plants, and Jason murders them. Later in the movie, a local yokel finds the weed and attempts to sell it to one of our heroes. Soon after, Jason kills him. They never actually show him smoking up or anything, but I'm pretty sure he's primarily just protecting his weed in this movie.
  
  There are some decent kills, and the aforementioned trap-setting is a nice touch, but for the most part, this movie doesn't set any new highs in the kills or gore department. The nudity department is well covered (er, uncovered? Incidentally, this may be the first time fake boobs have made it into the series, though I'm not positive about that...) though and in terms of characters you want to see die, well, there's one of the all-time great douchebag victims in this movie. His kill perhaps leaves something to be desired, but it was a great performance (a rarity for the series). Otherwise, the production values are high and the movie looks great, even if the plot is lackluster. Oh, and by the way, the ending is breathtakingly bad. I guess I get what they were trying to do, but they just failed miserably. Ultimately, this movie did exactly what it needed to do, but it doesn't exactly set the bar high. I'm interested in seeing what the next installment has in store for us, though I'm guessing it will just be more of the same. **1/2

Well, that about covers it for the series. I'll probably end up doing a wrapup post or two, because I know everyone's enjoying these posts sooo much. Perhaps someday I'll be able to describe why I like these movies despite how horrible they are. Anyways, sorry for the lack of screenshots in this post. It turns out that most of the ones I took for Freddy vs. Jason didn't turn out that well (or I didn't have much to say about them) and I saw the reboot in the theater, so no screenshots there. In any case, I'm sure my wrapup posts will have plenty of screens...



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.

• Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday: After the unsuccessful debacle that was part VIII, Paramount shelved the Friday franchise and eventually sold it to New Line Cinema (known in the industry as "the house that Freddy built"). The filmmakers decided to take the series in a completely different direction, attempting to establish something of a mythology for Jason and devising a bizzare body-hopping scheme that Friday fans seem to either love or hate. So this winds up being the least Friday-like movie in the series. Indeed, while Jason appears in the film, most of his screen time is spent inhabiting the bodies of other characters as he hops from one to the other in an effort to reincarnate himself. It turns out that Jason can only be reborn in the body of another Voorhees. Also, he can only be killed by a Voorhees. As such, there are a few Voorhees women in the movie and... damn, this is a pretty bonkers idea to hinge the movie on. I have to respect the filmmakers' ambition to do something new and interesting with the series and I actually like the idea here, but in what has become the refrain for the series, there were some problems in the execution. The film starts out promisingly enough, with Jason stalking a scantily clad woman through the woods when suddenly the enter a clearing, giant lights turn on and an FBI swat team unleashes an assault on Jason, eventually dropping a fucking bomb on him and blowing him up. From there, things start to go awry, but I have to admit that I found myself enjoying this film.
  
  
  Creighton Duke, Dopey Bounty Hunter
  The one thing that really elevates this film above some of the others in the character of Creighton Duke, a nutty bounty hunter who has sworn to hunt down and destroy Jason, once and for all. To give you an idea just how dopey this character is, I present this exerpt from a hard-hitting interview with Mr. Duke:

  Robert Campbell: I'm going to say a couple of words to you and I want you to say the first thing that comes into your mind.
  Creighton Duke: Okay.
  Robert Campbell: Jason Voorhees.
  Creighton Duke: That makes me think of a little girl in a pink dress sticking a hot dog through a doughnut.

  I swear to God, that's in the movie. He actually says that, and I'm not taking it out of context either. It's fucking brilliant, isn't it? By the way, this is probably a good time to mention that this movie actually features a few bona-fide actors and actresses. The aforementioned Creighton Duke was played with campy glee by Steven Williams (of X-Files and 21 Jump Street fame). In the dialogue above, the character of Rober Campbell is played by Steven Culp, who is most famous for Desperate Housewives but has also done some good work in movies (he was a great RFK in Thirteen Days). And, of course, Erin Gray from Buck Rodgers. Anyway, the movie can be fun if you're in the right frame of mind, but it's ultimately not that great (shocking, I know). There are a few good kills and the filmmaking is slightly slicker than previous installments. Unfortunately, the story doesn't make much sense, especially when measured against the rest of the series. Then again, the rest of the series represents something of a retcon nightmare, so it kinda makes sense to completely go off the deep end, right? RIGHT? Also amusing is that this movie is subtitled "The Final Friday" while there are still three more films in the series (well, one more, a crossover, and a reboot, but still). Actually, I respect what the filmmakers were going for here, and there are some interesting elements that they were able to pull together, but this is ultimately lacking and it doesn't fit too well with the rest of the series... But it has a nice final shot, previewing what will happen in a later movie (alas, it would not happen for another decade or so... but we'll cover that in the next post). **1/2
• Crazy Ralph Tribute
• Freddy vs. Jason (trailer)
• Friday the 13th (2009 - trailer)
• Jason X: At this point in the series, there really wasn't anywhere to go. So what the hell, let's send Jason into space! There's actually not much to say about this movie. It's exactly the sort of silly fun you'd expect "Jason in space" to be. It features one truly iconic kill (which will be chronicled in the extended entry) and another that is a reprise of an older iconic kill (with an added twist that really perfects the notion). It also features an odd cameo by director David Cronenberg, who plays a government official who helped capture Jason and freeze him. I'm seriously baffled by the appearance of such a good director in such a bad movie, but then again, perhaps this lends creedence to my uncredited Francis Ford Coppola cameo theory (see bottom of linked post). The movie is also notable for nanobot technology that completely rebuilds Jason, turning him into, no shit, Uber-Jason. I kinda like the new look, but it also seems pretty dated (which is pretty impressive considering that this movie isn't that old).
  
  
  Uber-Jason
  This is actually the first Friday movie made after Scream, which probably explains the ridiculous premise and tongue-in-cheek feel to most of the movie. Straightforward slasher movies of the sort the Friday series thrived on aren't made anymore... So this is a movie I had a lot of fun with, but which is also pretty obviously a bad movie. It also leaves the series nowhere to go, hence the recent reboot (which will be covered in the next post). **1/2

More screenshots and comments in the extended entry below...






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?



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.

I'm doing this all out of my own pocket to celebrate the upcoming birth of my first child in June (and this is easier than passing out cigars to all of you). So tune in on May 17th, and good luck!

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):

1. Back to the Future
2. Fight Club
3. The Princess Bride
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
6. The Untouchables
7. L.A. Confidential
8. Midnight Cowboy * (Is that Ratso? Gah, haven't seen this movie often enough to tell...)
9. Casablanca
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone * (Could be any one with Quidditch, right? I'll go with the first one though.)
11. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
12. Dogma
13. Psycho * (this had me stumped for a bit, but I think I nailed it down)
14. Not sure. 26 seconds in. Update: Commenter grasskit notes that this is probably the godfather, but I'm pretty sure it's The Godfather: Part II (Because the first is already in the vid, and why would you include the third?)
15. When Harry Met Sally...
16. Not sure. 29 seconds in, John Wayne in a raccoon hat? Update: Kaedrin friend gmichailovic mentions that this is probably The Alamo (1960). Duh, he plays Davy Crockett.
17. The Muppet Movie * (Could be one of their other movies I guess)
18. Not sure. 31 seconds in.
19. Mean Streets *
20. The Blues Brothers
21. Stupid tapdancing musical of some kind. 38 seconds in.
22. Run Lola Run (Lola rennt)
23. Not sure. 41 seconds in. I want to say Mary Poppins but... you know what, I'm virtually positive this is Mary Poppins, even though I haven't seen it in like 25 years. Let's go with that.
24. Heat ("Cause she's got a great ass... and you got your head all the way up it!")
25. Little Shop of Horrors *
26. The Conversation
27. Not sure. 47 seconds in. Is that Paul Newman? Update: Kaedrin friend Larry thinks this might be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a movie I have not seen, but which might be right.
28. Ocean's Eleven
29. JFK
30. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets * (I think? Hard to see there...)
31. The Fugitive
32. Pulp Fiction
33. Not sure. 55 seconds in.
34. The Truman Show
35. Die Hard
36. Not sure. 59 seconds in.
37. Dirty Harry
38. Groundhog Day
39. The Wizard of Oz *
40. Not sure. 1:05 in. I want to say Once Upon a Time in the West, but Charles Bronson was Harmonica, and that doesn't look like him...
41. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
42. A Clockwork Orange
43. Shakespeare in Love *
44. Not sure. 1:12. Looks like a silent comedy type of thing, an area I'm not too familiar with...
45. Not sure. Not much to go on here, and it's not ringing a bell...
46. Glengarry Glen Ross
47. All About Eve *
48. Shrek * (no idea which one, so I'll go with the original)
49. Raiders of the Lost Ark
50. Sneakers
51. Not sure. 1:18 in. Obviously a Steve Martin movie. Possibly Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but I'm not sure...
52. Midnight Run (this was obviously going to be in here somewhere)
53. Full Metal Jacket
54. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (seriously? 3 HP movies?)
55. Raising Arizona
56. Boogie Nights
57. Not sure. 1:24 in. Song says something about cheaters, and this is reminding me of something like The Color of Money, but I can't tell... Update: Commenter grasskit notes that this is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which makes sense.
58. Not sure. Obviously a war movie, probably Vietnam era, but still not sure.
59. Annie Hall
60. Back to School
61. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
62. Platoon
63. Cool Hand Luke *
64. Rio Bravo *
65. Not sure. 1:36 in. B&W western.
66. Also not sure. This silliness seems like a movie I would have seen. Update: Commenter grasskit notes that this is The Meaning of Life, another movie I need to catch up with...
67. The Shining
68. Juno
69. Scent of a Woman *
70. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
71. Ed Wood
72. Scarface
73. The Incredibles
74. The Godfather
75. Not sure. 1:49 in. Is that Steve McQueen? Update: Kaedrin friend gmichailovic thinks this might be Breakfast at Tiffany's, which might be right...
76. Animal House
77. Office Space
78. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
79. Young Frankenstein
80. Not sure. 1:56 in. That looks like Carrie-Anne Moss, so perhaps one of the Matrix movies or Memento?
81. The Thing
82. Not sure. 1:59 in. Lawrence of Arabia? Update: According to commenter grasskit, this is Life of Brian. I need to watch more Python...
83. Citizen Kane
84. On the Waterfront *
85. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
86. Blazing Saddles
87. Not sure. 2:06 in... Update: Another from commenter grasskit: The Great Escape. Again, I've not seen it, but it looks right.
88. Also not sure. Stupid musicians. Update: Finally, another from commenter grasskit: I'm Not There.

Wow, someone from the Academy Awards needs to hire Alonso to produce some montages for the next Oscars! Seriously awesome work there. I don't know how he does it...

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.)



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.

• Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood: After the high point in part VI, this seventh installment starts a precipitous decline. Like part V, I like the concept of this installment, but the execution is somewhat lacking. The idea of a final girl who exhibits psychic powers and thus proves to be a good match for zombie-flavored Jason is an excellent one, and the way Jason is defeated is actually somewhat effective. There is one classic kill that I'll go over in the extended entry (and that we'll revisit when we get to Jason X) and Jason's new (soggy) look is very impressive. I'm no expert, but you can supposedly see evidence of every bit of damage Jason took over the course of the first six films (like the axe to the head, the chains around the neck, the propeller to the jaw, etc...). From what I've heard, the MPAA really destroyed this film by making sure all of the gore was removed. I've seen bits and pieces of the cut footage, and that would have gone a long way towards improving the film because what remains is kinda plodding and stupid (this is, of course, not unusual for the series, but it is usually offset by boobs and blood, of which there is very little in this movie). This film is also notable because it's the first time that Kane Hodder played Jason. Hodder is apparently a fan favorite, but that might just be because he played Jason for 4 films. You can instantly recognize a Hodder Jason by the way Jason seems to be constantly heaving his chest as if he became asmatic in his old age. He also established a sorta visual OODA loop for Jason's movements, which sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is. Ultimately, this is a pretty unremarkable film. Not the worst in the series, but probably in the bottom quartile. **
• Scooby Doo and Jason (Robot Chicken, probably should have been posted next to Part V)
• Jason on the Arsenio Hall Show
• Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (trailer)
• Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: And the series bottoms out in this eighth installment, which would be more aptly named Jason Takes A Cruise. The trailer for this film is actually pretty great (see link above), but apparently budget constraints forced the filmmakers to minimize filming in New York and they also had to deal with the MPAA censors again, thus nulifying most of the gore. Even so, the movie is just an atrocious turd. There are exactly three good moments in the film. First is when Jason is chasing Kelly Hu, and the film is sorta zooming in as Jason slams open some double doors. Second is when one of the kids, who has been established as a good boxer, decides to throw some punches at Jason. Funnily, Jason lets the boxer throw these bunches, and finally the kid tires himself out and Jason throws a punch that knocks the kid's head off. The head flies off the roof of a bulding, bounces down the fire escape and slams into an open dumpster, causing the lid to slam shut. It's the best kill in the movie (there is another interesting kill when Jason slams a burning hot sauna rock into some kid's chest, but the execution is a bit off). Finally, when they finally get to New York, our two heroic kids are being chased by Jason through the streets and end up in a little coffee shop. The final girl tells the waitress that she's being chased by a homicidal maniac with a machete, and the waitress says "Welcome to New York!" in a horrendously steriotypical New York accent (more on this incident in the extended entry). I know those three things sound pretty cool, but they only take up about 1 minute of screen time combined. The other 99 minutes are pretty excruciatingly bad.
  
  
  The big problem here is one of missed opportunities. First, 90% of the movie takes place on a boat (i.e outside of Manhattan), and even when they're in Manhattan, most of the time is spent running around unpopulated and indistinct alleys and sewers. Second, even when they do make it to populated areas like a subway or Times Square, Jason is intently focused on the two kids and mostly barely acknowledges anyone else in the city. This is most disappointing and a true betrayal of the core murderous tendencies of Jason, who should have been hacking his way through the entire population of Manhattan (this is something that the trailer sorta implied and a later film kinda gets right, so we'll revisit this discussion later). Finally, I know that continuity is not one of the hallmarks of the series, but still, what the hell is going on with the continuity of this film? So our final girl hero was traumatized by a childhood swimming accident where she encountered young-Jason, who attempted to pull her underwater. She's haunted by this incident and is hallucinating all throughout the movie, seeing young-Jason all over the place and freaking out. The problem is that young-Jason looks nothing like the real young-Jason from the earlier movies. I don't mean they changed the character design to make him more grotesque or something (that happens in every movie), they just grabbed some normal-looking kid. What the hell? The whole point of Jason was that he was deformed and had no hair, and so kids picked on him and camp counselors didn't care about him drowning. And then the ending. I like Devin Faraci's in-depth description of the ending:

  Which brings us right around to Jason's death. Killing the bad guy should be the highlight of one of these films - we're all rooting for him, but we also want to see him get his just desserts. I honestly don't think you should even start a slasher movie until you've figured out a good, unique death for your killer. Friday the 13th Part VIII certainly has the unique part down pat. At the end of the movie Jason chases Survivor Girl into New York's sewers where she learns that on the 13th of every month the tunnels are flooded with toxic waste.
  
  The filmmakers are now tying our disbelief to a rocket and trying to light the fuse. What the fuck kind of nonsense is this? Even people who buy the rest of the film's portrayal of New York City have got to sit up and wonder how they're expected to accept this nonsense. Watching the film again I began to wonder how anyone looked at the script and thought that this was a decent idea. Why not establish that meteors strike Central Park on the 13th of every month? Or that the Sanitation Department's Disintigrator Trucks hit the street on the 13th of every month? How do you decide which totally nonsensical and absurd and so pulled from your ass that it's still brownish plot device to use?
  
  However the filmmakers came to this brain-damaged conclusion, they went ahead and made it even worse. The final moments of the movie see Survivor Girl and her boyfriend climbing a ladder to avoid the wave of toxic sludge headed towards them. Meanwhile, Jason, who is just below them, looks at the wave and does two equally incredible things: he says, in a little boy's voice: "Mommy, don't let me drown again!" and then starts vomiting water. I don't even understand what the vomiting is supposed to signify - I heard that Jodorowsky saw this and thought it was, and I quote, "totally fucking weird." But it gets better: when the wave of toxic waste hits Jason (who, it should be said, has the appearance of a felt muppet once his mask has been removed), he promptly starts de-aging back to the Japanese kid with the thick head of hair. I am no expert on hazardous waste, but I will stake my entire reputation as a writer on this claim: Toxic waste will not de-age you. Ever. No matter what. If you believe that it will, or if you wrote this movie, I strongly urge you to go play in some toxic waste at your earliest possible convenience.

  Yeah, so this is a bad movie in almost every respect. Even the stuff I like about it is pretty bad (the highlights are mostly unintentionally funny moments) and I don't think there is any saving this movie. Again, this movie is conceptually sound, but there are a lot of serious problems in execution. It's just poorly made in every aspect and it represents the lowpoint of the series (which is saying a lot). *

More screens and comments in the extended entry...


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.



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.



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) Maria Ouspenskaya or Una O’Connor Kane Hodder or Derek Mears?

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.



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)



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).

I don't WANT to be an artist. I don't WANT to make REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: THE GAME! I don't want to be the Bob Dylan of games or make the Citizen Kane of games. I want to entertain people and I do not apologize for that. I don't NEED or WANT to go lecture at MIT or USC or any of these other game colleges that have been cranking out some amazing game makers who truly are key in the 'games as art' charge. As much as I love the work of THAT GAME COMPANY (and very much enjoyed your NPR interview last week with them) and as much as I admire work of Jonathan Blow and all the other folks who make the quirky, arty, and yes- perhaps- more meaningful games, I do not want to BE them. And I think I speak for the majority of game makers everywhere when I say that.

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.

Being dissatisfied with the status quo is easy -- proposing practical alternatives or concrete answers isn't. ...

"It's a red herring, because we think that having a Citizen Kane will prove our artistic legitimacy, but masterworks are not how artistic legitimacy is proven anymore," says renowned designer and academic Ian Bogost.

If more internet commentators did a quick Wikipedia check before leaping into the debate, they'd see that the Citizen Kane issue is moot, anyway. Although its cinema technique helped movies fully come into their own, films were generally considered "artistically legitimate" right off the bat, so there's really no translatable parallel for games.

"The world doesn't work that way anymore," says Bogost.

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?



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?

• Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning: The interesting thing about this movie is that it doesn't really feature Jason. Oh sure, there's a dream sequence and some hallucinated glimpses in mirrors and the like, but otherwise, no Jason. Don't get me wrong, there's a killer who is picking off all the teens and he's dressed up in a hockey mask, but he's a copycat killer, and he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids! In essence, this movie plays out like a Scooby Doo episode, and I think that's an interesting idea. Of course, the bad thing about this is that it plays out like a goddamn Scooby Doo episode. At the end of Part IV, it was strongly hinted that young Tommy Jarvis (who repeatedly hacked at Jason with a machete) would take up Jason's cause, and in an amazing feat of continuity, Part V starts off by informing us that Tommy is mentally disturbed and living in a halfway house for troubled teens. Throughout the film, it's implied that Tommy might be the killer, but you find out instead that the killer is some random extra you saw earlier in the film who seeks revenge on all the kids at the halfway house. It's a dumb twist, but whatever. The film doesn't otherwise stand out a whole lot from the rest of the series. The acting and directing are right on par with most of the series, and the kills are mostly unremarkable, though there are a couple of good ones. From what I gather, most fans of the series aren't happy with this Fake Jason concept, but I rather liked the idea and think this movie is unfairly maligned. There are several entries that are a lot worse than this one, and I like the premise, even if the execution leaves something to be desired. **1/2
• Jason Voorhees cameo on Family Guy
• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken) (Brilliant)
• Friday the 13th - Angry Nintendo Nerd (video game review)
• Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI: There aren't many film franchises that can claim that their 6th movie is actually the best in the series, but I think you could make a pretty compelling case for this film. Don't get me wrong, we're not talking about fine cinema here, but there are many things that I love about this film. In a lot of ways, this one of the strangest installments (for instance, it's the only Friday where young kids actually make it to camp and are in danger)... yet if feels like the steriotypical Friday the 13th story. At first, I wasn't sure about this one. The opening sequence has Tommy Jarvis (our hero from the last couple films) and a buddy heading over to Jason's grave. You know, to make sure he's dead. Of course, Jason's rotting corpse gets struck by lighting and he comes alive again, punches a whole through someone's chest and then something amazing happens.
  
  
  Jason turns towards the camera, holding a spear. Then the camera zooms in on his eye, and you see Jason swagger accross the screen, James Bond style, and swing a machete to reveal the title card. It's a brilliant moment, and it sets the stage for a film that is intentionally funny (unlike previous installments, which are unintentionally funny) but still just as scary as any other movie in the series (though that's not saying much). Writer/director Tom McLaughlin seemed to actually care, and there are a lot of little things I appreciated in the movie, so I took some screenshots and made some comments (see the extended entry for most of these). There's something to be said for the way a lot of 80s horror devolved into outright comedy (some series were better at this than others), and I can see why some people don't care for this installment because of its self-reflexive and referential nature, but for my money, it's the best Friday... It's got the best atmosphere, a plot that kinda makes sense (despite the lack of continuity between part V and VI), some of the characters manage to be likeable, and there are several classic kills in the movie. In the end, it's a lot of fun. If someone wanted to watch only 1 movie from the series, this is the one I'd recommend (after that, part IV would be a good one). ***

More screenshots and comments on part VI in the extended entry...








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.



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:

• It had already been established that the Dallas couldn't fire on the Konovalov without authorization (and they didn't have it - after all, the Soviets didn't fire on the Americans). So when they figure out a way to save the Red October anyway, it's a genuine surprise.
• This is made all the more impressive when considering that the Dallas' captain is aboard the Red October (i.e. it was the second officer who came up with the plan).
• Furthermore, the destruction of the Konovalov plays right into the cover story needed to complete the defection. Only the Red October's officers wanted to defect. They had to figure out a way to get their crew off the ship (they came up with a fake nuclear accident to accomplish that) AND they needed to convince the crew that the US wouldn't steal the Red October (before the crew leaves, the captain informs them that he's going to scuttle the ship). The Konovalov shows up after the crew has left the Red October, so they don't know what's happened. All they know is that they saw a US ship surface, immediately follwed by an underwater explosion (which is more dramatic and convincing than a scuttling). I guess you could call this sequence of events contrived, but I thought it fit together really well - much better than most thrillers.

Damn, that was a long winded explanation. Just watch the movie. The way the Dallas saves the Red October is a great Cavalry moment. I'm sure there are lots of others I'm leaving out. Knowing some of my readers, I'm sure there are at least a few Anime examples (Vandread comes to mind, though I don't remember enough specifics to say for sure).

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).



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."

"Video games don't make people more violent, and I'll kill anyone who disagrees."

<dramatic pause>

"I don't think we can print that."

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. ***



Link Dump: Who Watched The Watchmen Edition
A few links about and reactions to Watchmen.

• So the box office estimate is around $55 million. This sounds pretty good to me and I don't think anyone could argue that it's a failure, but it's apparently not the massive success the studios were hoping for either. Andre comments:

  When I look at these numbers, and the people who want to use these numbers to argue anything about anything, I feel exactly like Dr. Manhattan. Warner's sold a hard-sell as well as they could. The numbers are good for that, they're just not good enough to make this an out of the park hit. And that's that. At the end of the day this was never that film. Maybe someone thought it would be with Snyder at the helm, but it isn't. It's too dense, it's too intellectual, and not in a way with an easy through line. Few are celebrating the fact that one got through, instead a lot of critics seem happy to piss on the grave.

  Given the alternate versions, an international release, DVDs and other supplemental material, I bet it will end up doing well enough to be a success.
• The Annotated Watchmen - A guide to the comic book.
• 104 Ways to Hilariously Ruin the Watchmen Movie - A photoshop contest with funny results.
• Wired Interview with Alan Moore: Recent interview with the writer of the Watchmen comic book. There are some interesting bits... Here's a taste:

  At the time I thought that a book like Watchmen would perhaps unlock a lot of potential creativity, that perhaps other writers and artists in the industry would see it and would think, "This is great, this shows what comics can do. We can now take our own ideas and thanks to the success of Watchmen we'll have a better chance of editors giving us a shot at them." I was hoping naively for a great rash of individual comic books that were exploring different storytelling ideas and trying to break new ground.
  
  That isn't really what happened. Instead it seemed that the existence of Watchmen had pretty much doomed the mainstream comic industry to about 20 years of very grim and often pretentious stories that seemed to be unable to get around the massive psychological stumbling block that Watchmen had turned out to be, although that had never been my intention with the work.

  The movie's box office prospects aside, I'm positive that the Watchmen movie will be influential. It might very well be the death knell of comic book movies! Or not. But when you get this sort of artful deconstruction of the very concept, it's hard to break free of it. For instance, the traditional western movie was pretty thoroughly melted by movies like The Wild Bunch, and the genrea never really recovered (except when further opportunities for deconstruction appeared, such as Unforgiven). Westerns simply haven't been the same since then. And with The Dark Knight and now Watchmen, I have a feeling that superhero movies might not be able to go back to the way things were. Or not. We'll see, I guess.
  
  Anyway, Moore expands on some of the things I referenced in my post:

  There was a time I would have said that if any of my books could work as films, it would have been that first volume of The League [of Extraordinary Gentlemen]. It was pretty much structured so it could have been made straight into a film, and it would have been as powerful as it was in the original publication. But that is to overlook the proclivities of contemporary Hollywood, where I really simply don't believe that any of my books could be benefited in any way by being turned into films. In fact, quite the opposite. The things I was trying to instill in those books were generally things that were only appropriate to the comics medium.

That's all for now...



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.



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:

• 4bia: A Thai horror anthology film with an awkward title that's supposed to be a sorta pun on Phobia (there are 4 stories in the movie, so I guess it makes sense). Anyway, it looks horrific. In a good way. It is a horror film.
• I Sell the Dead: A retrospective of a pair of gravewrobbers and, uh, their shennanigans or something. Sounds fun, I guess, but it features a cameo by Kaedrin favorite, Angus Scrimm! Score.
• Left Bank: Long distance runner versus an "ancient, unknowable evil." OK! (Incidentally, if it's unknowable, how do we know it's evil? How!?)
• Playing Columbine: A video game documentary about the developer who made a game called "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" and all the various responses to the controversial game. Doesn't seem as fun as The King of Kong, but it could be good.
• Landscape #2: Burglers steal a painting, find hidden documents in the painting, and must flee from hitmen hired to get the documents back. Interesting sounding Euro-noir.
• Surveillance: FBI tracks serial killer by piecing together the stories of 3 survivors. Sounds like Rashomon with serial killers. Could be good.
• The Brothers Bloom: Finally! Rian Johnson's follow up to Kaedrin favorite Brick (it was near the top of my best of 2006 list) is apparently a con movie, which could be great fun. I have to admit that the trailer for this isn't exactly awe-inspiring, but I'm still looking forward to this. It's apparently getting a wide release in May, so I may skip it, but we'll see.
• Moon: This movie is about a lone astronaut on the moon. It stars Sam Rockwell and is directed by... David Bowie's son? Ok, I'll give it a shot.

And that about covers it. I probably won't get to all of these and I might see something not listed, but it looks like it could be a decent festival, despite the lack of Danger After Dark fun. Ah well, maybe I should try Fantastic Fest in Austin instead!



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:

• Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. I've seen 4 of the 5 nominated films this year (not bad!), and Slumdog certainly seems to have all the momentum going into the ceremony. The only thing that could upset this is the backlash that's been happening since it started picking up smaller awards, but I don't see that changing the outcome. What's more, I think that of the nominees, it's also the best film. I suppose there's an outside chance for Milk or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I don't think either will take it home. Milk may take one of the other major categories and Button will take all the technical awards and none of the majors.
• Best Director: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire. Traditionally, the best director winner tracks with the best picture (as evidenced by the fact that the nominated movies are the same for both categories). Of course, they do split from time to time, and that is certainly possible here - the likely candidate being David Fincher (though again, I think Button, which has the most nominations, will take more of the technical awards). There's probably also an outside chance for Gus Van Sant.
• Best Actress: Kate Winslet for The Reader. Put simply, Winslet is due. This is her 6th nomination and she has no wins, and the academy will want to reward her. Of course, you can't count out Meryl Streep, but she's at least won a couple Oscars before. Anne Hathaway has garnered lots of praise as well, and the academy does like to champion young actresses, but she's still more of a dark horse in this race. Of course, I'm embarrassed to say that I have not seen any of the nominarted films in this category... but I still think I got it right!
• Best Actor: Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler. This is probably the most interesting race of the night, as the other obvious choice is Sean Penn for Milk, and I think there's a really good chance the academy will give it to Penn as a reward to Milk because they're primarily Californians and they messed up Prop 8. So for that and other political reasons, there's a chance for Penn. The dark horse is probably Frank Langella, but this is really a two horse race.
• Best Supporting Actress: Penéope Cruz for Vicky Christina Barcelona. Honestly, this is a shot in the dark. The award could easily go to 3 of the other nominees. The only one I'm counting out is Amy Adams... I would say that Viola Davis has screen time working against her (apparently only one scene... but on the other hand, it's supposedly a spectacular scene in which she upstages Meryl Streep). Tomei has a chance, but she also already has an Oscar in this category. Tarajj Henson has an ourside chance because she could get Benjamin Button sympathy votes. I've only seen 2 of the 4 nominated films, but somehow I don't think seeing the other two would really help in this category.
• Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight. Duh.
• Best Original Screenplay: Milk. I suppose there's also an off chance that In Bruges will win, and maybe even WALL-E (though I imagine it would be tough to vote for a film with so little dialogue), but in this post-prop-8 California, I'm betting on Milk. I've only seen 3 of the 5 nominated.
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire. Because it's going to be Slumdog's night. I suppose it's possible that Benjamin Button will win, and a couple of other nominees have a chance, but really, this is going to Slumdog.
• Editing: Slumdog Millionaire. The very structure of the story makes strong editing necessary. I suppose there's an outside chance that The Dark Knight will take this home, but I'm doubting that.
• Cinematography: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The academy apparently likes this movie a lot, so I'm betting that this is how they'll reward it. But if it truly is Slumdog's night, that's got a good chance too.
• Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Again, because the academy probably wants to reward Button for something and they're not going to do it with any of the major awards. I do think that The Dark Knight has a chance at this one too, but it's also going to take one of the major awards (despite being snubbed in the Best Picture category).
• Musical Score: Slumdog Millionaire. Because I said so.
• Best Song: Slumdog Millionaire "Jai Ho". There are only two movies nominated here. Why do they do this? There are always at least 2 songs nominated from one movie in this category (for the past two years, there were 3 songs for one movie). Anwyay, I don't think that Slumdog will split its votes, giving WALL-E the win. Why? Because everyone loves the closing credits dance sequence at the end of Slumdog.
• Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I'm betting this is a lock. I'd give it to Hellboy II though.
• Best Animated Film: WALL-E. Is there any doubt?
• Best Documentary: Man on Wire. I'd love to see a speech from Werner Herzog, but I doubt he'll get the award. Katrina doc Trouble the Water is the dark horse, and I'd say it has a pretty good chance too.
• Best Foreign Language Film: The Class. I suppose this could easily to go Waltz With Bashir, given it's take on Israel at war, but I'm still betting on the French with this category.

And that's all for now. Check back as the Oscars start for frequent commentary.

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:

• Alex's Picks - Well this is boring, he has the same picks as me, except for the two categories he wussed out on and didn't pick.
• Nate Silver's Statistical Predictions - The big shock is his prediction that Taraji P. Henson will win best supporting actress. However, I think the issue with that is that his statistical model was screwed up by the fact that Kate Winslet's performance in The Reader was considered a supporting role by everyone but the Oscars.
• Karina Longworth is tweeting the Oscars. You can follow her there or at the Spout blog.
• Speaking of Spout, their latest episode of Filmcouch contains an amusing rundown of predictions.
• CHUD has some Live Coverage as well.
• Kaedrin regular Spencer will also be commenting at her livejournal blog!

And oh God Hugh Jackman is giving Barbara Walters a lapdance. My eyes. MY EYES!

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.



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



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

• Man on Wire: This documentary follows French tightrope walker Philippe Petit's amazing high-wire stunt performed between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. This act was, of course, illegal, and indeed, the film carries with it many of the conventions and tropes of the heist movie... except that Petit wasn't stealing anything, he was just obsessed with tightrope walking (and had been performing various other similar stunts around the world, such as his walk across the towers of Notre Dame). The story is amazing and Petit is bewildering. I'm particularly thankful that director James Marsh decided to completely ignore the 9/11 angle, as such sermonizing would be unnecessary and distracting.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Slumdog Millionaire: Danny Boyle's Dickensian romp across India is getting a lot of attention these days and is seemingly a frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar. There seems to be something of a backlash as well, which I feel is somewhat undeserved. I certainly don't think it's the best film of the year, but it features an interesting mix of dark and edgy material with a more optimistic undertone. There are moments of extreme violence and tragedy, but the movie is ultimately an uplifting experience. Of the Oscar nominees, it's my favorite.
  More Info: [IMDB]
• Teeth: Adventurous filmmaking at its best, this movie is about a teenage girl who has teeth... down there. This is most unfortunate for all the males in the movie, especially the ones who attempt to take advantage of our heroine (which is to say, most of them). As a male, it was sometimes hard for me to watch (let's just say the film gets graphic), but in the end, I had a lot of fun with the movie. Despite it's B movie/horror roots, the film delves deeper than you might expect, exploring the nature of sexual power and male/female interactions. If you think you can handle the gore, it's a good film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• The Bank Job: Based on the true story of the 1971 Baker Street bank robbery, this movie follows a band of amateur thieves as they plan and execute their heist, which is aimed at the safe deposit boxes rather than the standard cash. What they don't plan on is that the safe deposit boxes also contain loads of dirty secrets, and there are people who don't want those secrets to come out. Nefarious acts ensue. I have to say that I was really taken with this movie. It seems like a by-the-numbers heist movie, but I'd say it's the best heist movie made in the last several years (and I like me some heist movies).
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Mad Detective: Directors Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai have crafted an exceptional police procedural and infused it with a giddy wackiness in the form of their main character, Bun, who can see the inner personalities of people. Bun's talents are explained in a stunning visual manner and the film's climax is a cinematic masterpiece. Unfortunately, this film is hard to find and it took me a while to get to it, but it was well worth the wait (it actually displaced the original number 10 movie on this list and may deserve to be even higher on the list than I placed it).
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Full Review]
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall: A movie that almost perfectly walks the fine line between romantic comedy and raunchy comedy, never straying to far from either. I'd say this is a tough trick to pull off, but this sort of mix seems to be producer Judd Apatow's specialty. Still, I think even among those films, this one is a winner. The film feels fresh and all of the characters in the movie are surprisingly well developed. The film is written by and stars Jason Segal, who goes all out in his performance. Mila Kunis is wonderful, as are the other supporting characters played by Kristin Bell, Russell Brand, Bill Hader and Jonah Hill. Excellent stuff.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards]
• Let the Right One In: This Swedish horror film follows a lonely 12 year old boy, bullied by schoolmates, who falls in love with his neighbor. She happens to be a vampire. Set against a stark and beautiful snowy backdrop (excellent cinematography here), this film is not your typical vampire movie. It's more contemplative and subtle. There are moments of violence and gore, but they highlight the sadness of a vampire stuck in the body of a 12 year old girl. It's clear that vampires are a bad thing, an evil thing, but they're also sad creatures (and not in the whiney romantic, woe-is-me Interview with the Vampire way), which kinda endears you to them. It's also surprisingly tender, as you see the relationship between the young boy and vampire blossom. There is a Hollywood remake coming, but from what I've heard so far, you'd do far better to watch the original.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Timecrimes: An intricate Spanish time-travel thriller, and my favorite film of the 2008 Philly film festival. It has a light and humorous feel to it, but it's got a dark edge and it doesn't shy away from consequences. It's intelligent and rewards thought, but it's not difficult to follow or understand (which can be a problem with some time travel movies). Perhaps it's just my affinity for time travel stories, but I loved this movie.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Capsule Review]
• The Counterfeiters: This movie actually won the 2007 Oscar for best foreign-language film last year, so perhaps a bit of a cheat, but it did not get a theatrical release until this year. And it's a fantastic film. It follows the story of Jewish artists and counterfeiters forced to produce fake foreign currency, destined for use by the Nazis to destabilize the economies of the UK and US. The film contains a series of fascinating moral dilemmas. Do you refuse to help the enemy and endanger your lives and the lives of those around you? Or do you protect them while aiding your enemy? There are no easy answers here, and there are two main characters who both espouse differing answers. Neither and both are proven right, if that makes any sense. Not an easy movie, but extremely compelling and highly recommended.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• The Dark Knight: It's an obvious choice for me, and while I can perhaps see some flaws in the film, I can't deny that it was the most enjoyable, entertaining and thought provoking (not an easy mixture) moviegoing experience of the year. One of my criteria for compiling a list like this is rewatch value, and when you consider that I've already seen this movie 5 times (while I have not seen any of the others on this list more than 2 times), it has to be at the top of my list. It's like a crime story that happens to feature a man dressed as a bat fighting a man dressed as a clown. This is another movie that features intricate plotting and a focus on consequences. There are no easy answers here either. Heath Ledger's inspired turn as the Joker is destined to become a classic, and the character is the perfect foil for Batman. The worst thing I can say about the movie is that the sequel has nowhere to go and will certainly pale in comparison.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards] [Blog Post]

So how did the Filmcouch hosts do in psychoanalyzing me? For the record, the top 5 I sent them was a little different - I had The Bank Job where Forgetting Sarah Marshall is in the above list. Anyway, their first observation was that I was a relatively young male, which is certainly true. The next thing they noticed was that all of these movies are about people who are operating under the radar (i.e. counterfeiters, bank robbers, vigilantes, vampires, etc...), so they think I'm drawn to people who operate outside the system (or smarter than the system). This may be partially true (see next paragraph for more). They also noticed that most of the movies touch on the idea that sometimes you have to do a bad thing to make things right (i.e. two wrongs make a right), and in some cases, sympathy for people doing bad things (but a recognition that such sympathy is strange). Because of that, they see me as someone who likes shades of gray. Again, this is probably partially true (more below).

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

• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: Brutal drama about a woman who helps her friend get an illegal abortion. The film takes place in Romania towards the end of the Soviet era, and it's not a very pleasant film, though it is very well made. Strange as it may seem for a movie about abortion, it doesn't take a side in the pro-life/pro-choice debate, and is more effective because of that.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Baghead: This ultra-low-budget (reputedly around $1000) horror film has its share of flaws, but it's also quite an entertaining flick. Aside from it's low-budget nature, there's nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but I've always maintained that there is something to be said for a well-executed genre film, and this movie does its job well enough.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Body of Lies: This underrated (and, uh, poorly titled) spy movie was actually reasonably smart and entertaining. It has a distinct political viewpoint on the war on terror, but it doesn't overplay its hand and keeps the lecturing to a minimum. The movie focuses more on the plotting of the story than the politics, and I think it works reasonably well.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Burn After Reading: The Coen brothers perplexing follow up to the critically lauded No Country for Old Men is about as different from that film as possible. I'm very much reminded of their follow up to Fargo, which was The Big Lebowski. I didn't care much for Lebowski the first time I saw it, but as time went on, I came around. I have a similar feeling about this movie, though I still don't think it's near the top of the Coen brothers films. My biggest issue with the movie is that none of the characters are particularly likeable. On the other hand, several are pretty funny, Brad Pitt's performance is hilarious, and the scenes at the CIA offices with J.K. Simmons and David Rasche are priceless.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: I actually enjoyed this more than I expected. I'm always game for a David Fincher film, but the previews for this looked awful. So I came away from the film with a pretty good feeling, but that said, there were a bunch of things I didn't particularly care for. Many have mentioned this film's similarities to Forrest Gump, a movie I loath, so it's interesting that I don't mind this movie and even enjoyed it. Not Fincher's best work, but an interesting diversion.
  More Info: [IMDB]
• The Fall: A gorgeous feast for the eyes. The story follows a man in a hospital who tells a story to a little girl in order to coax her into getting him some morphine. Most of the film takes place in the imaginary world the man creates, which is visually impressive, but the story he tells is somewhat lacking. Of course, that's kinda the point, because the man is kinda making things up as he goes along, but that doesn't make it much better. Ultimately, there are parallels between the real world and the imaginary one, and in the end, I did enjoy the film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• In Bruges: I really liked this movie right up until the end, which I felt was rather stupid and glib in attempting to tie everything together. There are some stereotypical characters here: the two hitmen who are opposites of each other - one a philosophical type, the other more hedonistic. Fortunately, the writers do a really good job with those characters, and Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell give excellent performances too. If it weren't for the ending, this film would probably be in the top 10.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Iron Man: One of the more enjoyable and fun experiences of the year, and one of the better superhero movies, I nevertheless felt this film was somewhat overrated. It's a good, solid film. Robert Downey Jr. gives an excellent performance. The explosions and action were cool. But ultimately, I don't think this film carries the weight of a movie like The Dark Knight, and there are certain aspects which are lacking in this film. For instance, I thought the film lacked a credible villain. I suppose the reveal of the true villain was supposed to be something of a surprise, but it was blatantly obvious from the start who the bad guy was going to be, and the climatic battle was a bit too silly for me. With a box of scraps!
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Kung Fu Panda: Is there a more common trope than anthropomorphized animals in American animated movies? Despite the cliche, this film was a lot of fun.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón: It's like a latino Ocean's Eleven! It even has a latino George Clooney lookalike (but he's the villain in this film). Unfortunately, it's not quite as good as Ocean's Eleven, but it is still a rather entertaining heist film. It doesn't quite hit all the appropriate notes and the various twists aren't quite twisty enough, but it gets the job done and is definitely worth a watch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• The Promotion: This odd and underseen comedy stars Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly as assistant managers at a supermarket who are vying for the same promotion. It's offbeat and quirky and fun, but with a darker edge (which I'm assuming is why it didn't get much of a release). That said, it's got an interesting sort of understated humor that works well. I enjoyed this a lot and think it could be interchangeable with my number 10...
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Role Models: This is probably the funniest movie of the year, and if not for the more cliched story, it might have been in the top 10. Still, it was much better than some of the other high-profile comedies this year, and all of the comedic performances were well done and funny.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Spiral: [Note: This was originally my #10 film, but was unseated once I saw Mad Detective. I've preserved my original thoughts here, with some additional notes.] Unquestionably the weakest movie on this list and I have to say that it just barely squeaks onto the list [Again, it has since been knocked off the list]. It's not a great movie, and in objective terms, several of the honorable mentions probably deserves to be here ahead of Spiral. But for some reason, this movie got under my skin and stuck with me, so here it is. It's a slow burning thriller that I'm betting most people haven't even heard of (another reason to give it some love, I guess), but I did enjoy it quite a bit.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• Wall-E: The first half of this film was spectacular and ambitious filmmaking, but as soon as the humans showed up, things started to get less interesting. It's still a wonderful film, and I have to give credit to a movie that spends the first 45 minutes or so with almost no dialogue... and yet manages to be compelling and interesting. Visually impressive, funny, and touching.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]
• The Wrestler: Darren Aronofsky's character portrait of a down-on-his-luck professional wrestler is very well made, but ultimately a little too cliched for my tastes. It's an excellent movie, but it's not really my type of movie. However, Mickey Rourke's performance is amazing and the final shot in the movie is exceptional.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Full Review]
• Zack & Miri Make a Porno: I've always been a fan of Kevin Smith's brand of raunchy humor, and this film is no exception. Perhaps not the funniest movie of the year, I still laughed a lot and as usual, Smith grounds the film with heart you don't often find in raunchy comedies. I don't think it's his best work, but I do think it was criminally underseen.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Amazon]

Bottom 5 Movies of the Year
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.

• The Happening: The worst dialogue delivered in the worst possible way make this film laughable. The story is rather pointless as well. I've been something of a Shyamalan apologist in the past, as I liked The Village and even Lady in the Water, but this movie is just indefensible.
  More Info: [IMDB]
• Speed Racer: Matty Robinson (of Filmspotting fame) described the movie thusly: "It's like a skittles induced stroke." Of course, he was being favorable to the movie, which is something I'm not inclined to do. It is visually ok, but everything else was pretty awful (except for Christina Ricci, who was unfortunately given nothing to do).
  More Info: [IMDB]
• Storm: My least favorite movie of the 2008 Philly film festival. It has a lot of interesting ideas, none of which are followed through in any detail, instead devolving into an incomprehensible stew of cliches and unlikeable characters.
  More Info: [IMDB] [Capsule Review]
• Sukiyaki Western Django: I have to give Takashi Miike credit for trying something new and different, but ultimately the film didn't work for me at all. Perhaps I was in the wrong mood or something, but I just couldn't get into this movie.
  More Info: [IMDB]
• The X Files: I Want to Believe: This could have made an excellent creature of the week type episode of the original series, but instead the movie attempts to tie in way too much of the series' baggage, thus creating a mess of a storyline. I really liked the show a lot, but found this movie terrible.
  More Info: [IMDB]

Should Have Seen
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!?

• Doubt
• Gran Torino
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• My Winnipeg
• Rachel Getting Married
• Synecdoche, New York
• Waltz With Bashir
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Tell No One
• Gomorra
• Mad Detective
• The Escapist

Well, that just about covers it for 2008. The only thing that remains is the annual liveblogging of the Oscars (which are next Sunday? Yikes, time flies!) Anyway, here's to hoping that 2009 is a better year!

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!



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.

My god, people, have we allowed “nerdy” to be defined down so greatly that watching Desperate Housewives - a top 20 Neilsen primetime soap opera with no actual nerd content per se - qualifies as “nerdy” now? That is just wrong. The nerdular act cannot be allowed to be so mainstream.

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.

• Batman - Not Nerdy. When I think about it, it's not that surprising. After all, I have never read any of the comic books, not even Year One or The Dark Knight Returns, which MGK specifically calls out later in his creteria as not being particularly nerdy. That said, I wonder how watching The Dark Knight 5 times (three times in the theater) in less than a year qualifies.
• Star Wars - Slightly Nerdy. Now this one is surprising. Sure, according to this guide, I'm nerdier about Star Wars than I am about Batman, but only a little. I suppose if he had loosened the criteria or chose a different random fact for the "nerdy" level, I could easily have reached that level, for I have had some experience with the “expanded universe” Star Wars novels. One other gripe is that no self-respecting nerd would defend the idea of Jar Jar Binks!
• Harry Potter - Somwhere between Not Nerdy and Slightly Nerdy. I didn't particularly love Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and my dislike may disqualify me from the Slightly Nerdy level. On the other hand, I didn't particularly hate the novel either, and I had no problem blowing through it rather quickly.
• Magic: The Gathering - Slightly Nerdy. I have to say that I didn't play this game that much, but I really did enjoy it when I did. But it got way too complicated later on, and some people took it wayyy to seriously.
• H.P. Lovecraft - Dangerously Nerdy. Finally! Though I have to admit that I don't qualify for three of the lesser levels... However, I have read several of his stories, which is apparently dangerously nerdy.
• Nerd Television - Dangerously Nerdy. Totally. The two shows I haven't watched much of are the lowest ranked ones. I've seen a significant portion of the other ones, including The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (at this point, even recognizing what Brisco County Jr. is, is probably nerdworthy).
• Star Trek - I think I might be Fairly Nerdy here, otherwise I'm Not Nerdy. It's just that I don't actually remember which one Picard rode the dune buggy in. That probably disqualifies me. I do love TNG though. Could never get into any of the other spinoffs.
• Computer Use - Nerdy. Potentially Really Nerdy, but there are definitely a couple of coding jokes in XKCD that I haven't gotten (but I get a pretty good portion of them).

Again, I am a bit surprised at how non-nerdy I am. I mean, aside from a couple of dangerously nerdy subjects, I'm not very nerdy at all. How did you do?



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.

• The 2008 Top Tens - Movie City News collects and aggregates 286 top 10 lists, ranking the movies by number of list mentions and a weighted version that considers how high on each list a given movie was ranked. The top 5 movies on the list are WALL-E, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk and The Wrestler. Not a bad list, though at most, only two of those will be appearing on my list. One nitpicky frustration - why on earth did they put all the data in images? It makes it a lot more difficult to find a movie you want to know about.
• The 19 Best Movies That You Didn't See in 2008: An interesting list of the underdistributed, sometimes underrated films of last year. Except for Speed Racer, which was horrible. Honestly though, this year's list isn't as good as last year's list, which I take as just another sign that 2008 was not a particularly good year for movies.
• jim's ten best favorite movies of 2008: the movie - Jim Emerson's top ten is presented in the form of an 8 minute montage of clips from his favorite movies. I was able to name 4 of them (probably because I haven't seen the other 6, and I have to say, I didn't see anything in his clips that indicated that I was missing anything). Kind of a stereotypical critic's list... but I'm greatly looking forward to his 2nd annual Exploding Head Awards (that's a link to last year's awards - he hasn't posted this year's yet).
• Speaking of Jim Emerson, he's been doing some spectacular nit picking (don't miss Part 2) on The Dark Knight, particularly with the first sequence in the film which culminates with a school bus merging with other school busses. If you still haven't seen The Dark Knight, don't read his posts! They will put you in the wrong frame of mind to watch the movie (or any movie, for that matter - at least, any movie you're watching for the first time). Now, these are nitpicks, but I do believe that Emerson has a point. I love the movie, and I'm sure regular readers wouldn't be surprised that it will be my top movie of the year, but it isn't perfect. There are several sequences that cheat in one way or another, whether it be through editing or awkward camera angles or any other number of filmmaking tricks. Emerson's argument boils down to a question of whether the filmmaking tricks employed in TDK impair suspension of disbelief. I would say that when I view a movie, I have a certain sense of moviegoing goodwill. When I watch a movie, I want it to be good, I want to be sucked in and immersed in the world a film creates. But sometimes there are things that happen in a movie that are simply unbelievable. These movies knock you out of the movie's world and force you to recognize that you're actually sitting in a theater (or on a couch, or whatever). These moments work against my moviegoing goodwill. Usually a single moment won't do it - it's a culmination of things. After a while, my goodwill runs out and the movie simply can't recover. The Dark Knight obviously grated on Emerson. He found himself wondering about all the details of the various things that were being presented to him. He claims this was a sorta unconscious effect. He knew he didn't like the movie, but couldn't explain why until he'd seen the movie a few more times on DVD/BR, where he could really dig into it. That's when he started noticing all of the shots or edits that worked against his suspension of disbelief. Now, I didn't have that problem. Indeed, I've seen the movie 5 times since it came out, and while a couple of things jumped out at me during my first and second viewing, I didn't really start to think about it until the 5th viewing, at which point some of the imperfections became more clear. But even then, it wasn't enough to ruin my moviegoing goodwill. Even reading Emerson's well thought out objections, I find that I can see his point without granting that it ruins the movie or the suspension of disbelief that is required to watch it. I'm interested by this sort of thing, because I think people like the movies they like for less rational reasons than we're willing to admit. There are a lot of great movies that I can nitpick to death, but still love anyway. So when I find myself trying to explain why I dislike a movie with something like "Well he fired 8 shots out of that there revolver! You can't do that!" or "...giant humanoid robots really don't make any sense" I think what I'm really trying to say is that the movie did not pull me in and immerse me in it's own world. The frustrating thing about this is that I think this can be dependant on mood. Context matters, and there are certainly times when I'm muchmore willing to suspend disbelief than I would normally be... and vice versa. Well, I've babbled on long enough, so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Didn't mean to get off on that tangent there. That last subject is perhaps something I'd like to revisit at some point, but it will not be tonight...



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.



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).

• The Joker, played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
• Prince Nuada, played by Luke Goss in Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Tai Lung, voiced by Ian McShane in Kung Fu Panda
• Lewis Denton, played by AJ Bowen in The Signal

Winner Announced!

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.

• Major Eden Sinclair, played by Rhona Mitra in Doomsday
• Batman, played by Christian Bale in The Dark Knight
• Hellboy, played by Ron Perlman in Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Tony Stark/Ironman, played by Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man
• Mike Terry, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor in Redbelt
• Fox, played by Angelina Jolie in Wanted

Winner Announced!

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...

• Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• James Franco in Pineapple Express
• Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Seann William Scott in Role Models and The Promotion
• Paul Rudd in Role Models
• Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading
• Justin Long in Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Winner Announced!

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.

• Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Rhona Mitra in Doomsday
• Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2
• AJ Bowen in The Signal

Winner Announced!

Most Visually Stunning

• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• The Fall
• WALL-E
• Let the Right One In

Winner Announced!

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.

• Teeth
• The Ruins
• Let the Right One In
• Inside
• Timecrimes
• Cloverfield
• The Man from Earth
• WALL-E

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...

• The Dark Knight
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

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!

• The Happening
• Speed Racer
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Quantum of Solace
• Pineapple Express
• The X Files: I Want to Believe

Winner Announced!

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.

• The Dark Knight
• Kung Fu Panda
• Iron Man
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army
• Wanted

Winner Announced!

Best Plot Twist/Surprise
Not a particularly strong year for the plot twist either.

• Inside
• Body of Lies
• Burn After Reading
• The Dark Knight
• Timecrimes
• Spiral

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.

• Teeth
• Slumdog Millionaire
• The Signal
• Cloverfield

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!



Link Dump
For obvious reasons, time is a little short these days, so here are a few links I've found interesting lately:

• Still Life - This is a rather creepy short film directed by Jon Knautz. It has a very Twilight Zoney type of feel, and a rather dark ending, but it's quite compelling. Knautz went on to make Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer... alas, that film, while containing a certain charm for the horror aficionado, isn't quite as good as this short.
• Zero Punctuation: Assassin's Creed: I've seen some of Yahtzee's video game reviews before, but while they are certainly entertaining to watch, I've never quite known whether or not they were actually useful. It can be a lot of fun to watch someone lay the smackdown on stupid games, and Yahtzee certainly has a knack for doing that (plus he has a British accent, and us Americans apparently love to hear Brits rip into stuf), but you never really know how representative of the actual game it really is. Well, after spending a lot of time playing around with Assassin's Creed this week, I have to say that Yahtzee's review is dead on, and hilarious to boot.
• A Batman Conversation: It's sad and in poor taste, but I bet some variant of this conversation happened quite frequently about a year ago.
• MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits: Look! I'm only like 2 months behind the curve on this one! MGK posts a bunch of parodies of book covers from famous SF and fantasy authors (I particularly enjoyed the Asimov, Heinlein, and even the Zahn one).
• Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2008: Self-explanatory, but there are some pretty cool pics in here...
• Books as Games: I realize most of my readers also read Shamus, but still, this faux-review of Snow Crash if it were created as a video game before it became a book but in the present day (it, uh, makes more sense in his post) is pretty cool.
• "Sacred Cow Slayings" Rumored at Sony... Is PlayStation In Jeopardy?: It figures... I finally get off my butt and buy a PS3 and then rumors start appearing that Sony is about to can the program. I don't think it will happen, but this news is obviously not comforting...
• Keanu Reeves wants to make a live-action version of Cowboy Bebop. No comment.

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...

• Might as well get this out of the way first: The PS3 is actually pretty great. At this point, I've spent most of my time playing Assassin's Creed, which is great so far (though my understanding is that it gets repetitive and that's certainly something I'm starting to see...). I also watched the Final Cut of Blade Runner. The set I got comes with 3 other versions of the movie and like 15 hours of extras (these are in standard definition though), including an almost 4 hour in-depth documentary on the production. I also got Resistance, Call of Duty 4, and The Dark Knight, but have yet to fiddle around with those. The PS3 online system seems decent, though I haven't really done anything with it just yet. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my purchase so far.
• Last January, I made 5 predictions for 2008, and it turns out that I was mostly correct! Neal Stephenson did announce a new novel (which I thoroughly enjoyed), but I was wrong about the setting (though I admitted that possiblity in my prediction). The WGA strike did end, and for the most part, TV didn't recover much of what they lost. There were few new shows that did well and big ratings drops for existing hits like Heroes. Box Office numbers were a bit skewed by The Dark Knight and Iron Man, but admissions were down (on the other hand, they were only down 4%, which isn't bad when compared to the rest of the economy). I predicted Blu-Ray would pick up ground, but not that Blu-Ray would win so decisively and so early. My DRM prediction seems rather stale - not much has changed in either the music industry or the movie industry. And Barack Obama did win the election. So overall, I'd say 4 out of 5 wasn't bad... but that's probably more because I didn't really go out on a limb with any of my predictions! Not sure if I'll be making any predictions for 2009, but you never know...
• As I have for the past two years, I'm going to do another Kaedrin Movie Awards series of posts for 2008. As I've mentioned before, 2008 hasn't been a particularly great year (perhaps still feeling the effects of the writer's strike?), so I'm still trying to catch up with some films in order to compile my lists. if you have any nominations for the standard awards (see last year for an example) or any arbitrary awards you'd like to see, feel free to leave some comments or send me an email...

That's all for now. I believe I have some evil people to assassinate. Or perhaps I should repel an alien invasion. Or maybe I should just watch The Dark Knight again. Decisions, decisions...



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!



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...



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?



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...

• Gremlins: First up is a little bit of nostalgia for me. One of my favorites as a kid, this movie still works pretty well even today, though perhaps it's not as great as I remembered it. On the other hand, now that I've seen a lot more films, I started to pick up on a lot of the references in the film (and there are a ton of them). Director Joe Dante had a lot of fun with the referential nature of the film, and it shows. As Christmas films go, it is indeed a bit dark, but still a lot of fun. ***
  
  
  
• Jack Frost: It's important to note that this film is not the heartwarming 1998 film starring Michael Keaton as a father who comes back to life as a snowman so he can visit his kids again. I imagine the fact that these two movies share a title has lead to at least a few memorable video rental store blunders. This movie is about a serial killer who crashes into some toxic waste truck during a blizzard. The toxic waste fuzes him with the snow and voila: murderous snowman! This movie is about as good as you'd expect it to be (which is to say it's bad, but a fun bad). You know you're in for a treat when our sherrif hero gets some oatmeal cookies from his daughter. The secret ingredient? Anti-freeze? If there's a more subtle technique for foreshadowing, I certainly can't think of one. The other notable aspect of this movie is that it marks the first appearance of Shannon Elizabeth, who shares an intimate moment in the shower with our abominable friend. Bad puns and ironic Christmas decorations abound. In the end, you get what you expect out of this one... in my case, I had some fun with it, but it's clearly a bad, bad movie. **
• Black Christmas (1974 version): Interestingly enough, this film was directed by Bob Clark... director of the polar opposite A Christmas Story. I guess Clark had a lot to say about Christmas. In this case, things are darker and less nostalgic than his other film, but this one is no less a classic. Indeed, it deserves to be recognized as one of 3 or 4 films that created the slasher subgenre... but strangely, it's only really achieved this status in the horror aficionado world. Mainstream audiences don't seem to have heard much about this one, and it's a shame becaues it originates several of the key elements of slasher horror: the long POV shots, the creepy phone calls (and requisite police trackers who shockingly realize that the calls are coming from inside the house!), the final girl syndrome, and more. All of this was done 4 or 5 years before both Halloween (which is still a classic and deserving of all the praise heaped upon it) and When a Stranger Calls (which is perhaps not so much of a classic). Despite being aped by every 80s slasher movie, this film still retains its edge somehow, and is actually pretty effective. The film was remade in 2006, and of course, that didn't go so well (though I have to admit that I liked some of the ideas, I can't say it was executed all that well), but it did have the rather positive effect of getting more people to see the original, which is a plus in my book. It really is a great movie, and probably deserves more mainstream recognition than it gets. ***1/2
  
  
  

That's all for now... only a few days left!



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!



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 Conquers the Martians:


Santa Claus:

Over 3 hours of brilliant stuff going on there... enjoy!



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.



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.

• Die Hard: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho, Ho, Ho." Okay, so that line sounds a lot better with Alan Rickman's eurotrash accent. In any case, the story takes place on Christmas Eve when a bunch of "terrorists" take over an LA highrise building, but neglect to count on NY cop John McClane. It's one of the best action movies of all time, and has spawned its own sub-genre (i.e. Die Hard on a plane, Die Hard on a boat, Die Hard on a bus, etc...) Not at all a holiday film, but there are a few songs and holiday decorations that set the mood...
• Trading Places: Probably my favorite incidental holiday movie of all time, I watch this to kick off the holiday season almost every year. It takes place in the timeframe between Thanksgiving and ends just a few days after New Years, and it has some very memorable holiday related scenes. In particular, the scenes where Winthorpe dresses up like Santa and crashes the Duke & Duke party are classic. Unlike a lot of comedies, this movie seems to have something to say and it doesn't do so in a stupid fashion. It kinda resembles the classic comedies of the 30s and 40s, but with a modern sensibility. Fantastic movie...
  
  
  Winthorpe Claus
  
• Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick's final film is perhaps not his best work, but I also think it's underrated. It takes place during the holiday season, and Kubrick takes full advantage of the high contrast lighting opportunities. I suppose the movie is something of a downer, and thus doesn't really make such a great introduction to the holiday season, but it's gorgeous to look at...
  
  
  My house is decorated like this...
  

That's all for now, stay tuned for more tomorrow...



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.

• FilmCouch - This is Spout.com's weekly podcast, which has rather quickly become one of my favorites. Each show is about a half hour long and they typically use a new release as a starting point for a more general discussion. For instance, instead of just reviewing Quantum of Solace, they had a discussion about what makes a good spy film and how recent spy movies have tended to emphasise action over espionage. They also try to highlight obscure and overlooked films (for instance, Gabriel over the Whitehouse). This sometimes makes the podcast feel like it's more interested in indie movies than popular movies, and they do sometimes focus a little too much on film festivals (which can be interesting, but is usually kinda frustrating because us listeners don't have a way to check out the films they're talking about until months or years later), but overall, it's an excellent podcast, and even when they take on a subject that doesn't sound good, they usually manage to make it interesting. It's become my second favorite podcast (behind Filmspotting, which is still the gold standard).
• Left Field Cinema - This weekly 10-15 minute UK-based podcast is a little more formal than most, but it's excellent content. The podcast is run by Michael Dawson, who basically reads a short essay every episode. Each episode is a bit short for my tastes and I prefer the back-and-forth of a multiple person podcast, but when you combine those traits, it actually works out (at least, in this case it does). I particularly enjoyed the 5 part series called Horror Movies as Modern Day Morality Tales.
• Filmically Perfect - I actually mentioned this one in my last post, but didn't mention much about it. This is a weekly half hour podcast hosted by Niki Dakota, J. Todd Anderson (who is a storyboard artist that works for, amongst others, the Coen brothers) and George Willeman (who works at the Library of Congress). Each podcast is about a particular film, one which has been chosen by the hosts to be "perfect." Their criteria seems awfully vague at first, but after listening to a bunch of episodes, it's grown on me. I'm still not convinced, but even if it not a great set of criteria, it makes for a decent way to look at the movies. Here are their four rules for a perfect movie:
  1. A perfect movie creates the world it exists in.
  2. It wholly sustains that world.
  3. Regardless of changes in society, it retains its meaning and entertainment value.
  4. A perfect movie is never placed in any preferential or numerical order. Each film is perfect by its own scale.
  Rule #3 is probably the most important of these and one of the tougher hurdles to clear. They appear to be on something of a hiatus recently, but there's an ample set of episodes covering everything from Citizen Kane to Office Space.

There are plenty of other podcasts I haven't gotten to yet, but these have been keeping me busy lately...



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...)

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Screenshot 3:

Again, answers and quick comments in the extended entry... And the answers are:

• Screenshot 1: Mongol - This was a film I meant to catch up with at the Philly Film Fest this year, but I missed out and had to wait for DVD. It's a historical epic charting the rise of Ghengis Kahn (called Temudgin in the film). It has strong visuals and solid battle sequences, interspersed with a couple of interesting relationships, but little else. The battle sequences are bloody and chaotic, and they're shot beautifully, but never really approach the greatness of other historical action sequences. You do get a feel for Temudgin's flare for strategy, but that's not the focus either. It's enough to make the film worth a watch, but I was left wanting more. Perhaps this was the intention, as my understanding is that this is the first in a trilogy chronicling the life of Ghengis Kahn... ***
• Screenshot 2: The Ruins - I was actually surprised by this movie. It's a well worn premise - teenagers in the woods fighting off monsters (in this case, a carnivorous plant, which is a subgenre that is itself cliched and actually rather silly) - but writer Scott Smith and director Carter Smith steer clear of tired plot devices and focus in on the psychological horror of the situation. There's some gore too, but it takes a back seat to the tension that builds as the 5 teenagers attempt to survive this ordeal. It's not a terrribly optimistic picture, but it is quite effective. ***
• Screenshot 3: Versus - This Japanese action spectacle is about a forest which brings the dead back to life as zombies. There's also something about these two warriors who have been battling for centuries, but it's all just an excuse for people to shoot a lot of guns and swing a lot of swords (the mixture of gunplay and swordplay is not something you see all that often, but it's used a lot here). It's all framed with super-cool visual poses and spinning camera moves, and I'll admit that it is somewhat effective in those respects. Unfortunately, the movie goes on far too long and the action sequences begin to feel tedious and uneccessary after a while. The plot, such as there is one, is simplistic and yet difficult to understand. It's perhaps worth a watch for action fans (which I am) or zombie movie fanatics (which I'm probably not), and perhaps video game fans would get a kick out of it too (all that repetition and action makes it feel kinda like a violent video game). **

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. ;P

Once 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.



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.

For proof, all you have to do is talk to any number of scientists and engineers and, yes, even some of the more recent crowd of astronauts to discover that many of them began to first show an interest in space technology as the result of watching science fiction movies and TV series that opened up the possibility of space flight. Once we see it being done, even fictionally, we can get behind it and start making it happen.

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.

... Advocates of space exploration need to go make their own case to the public. More books, movies, and TV shows should be created about the real deal. There are a few bright points: The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and October Sky come to mind. These were all terrific, exciting stories about the real thing, and the existence of Star Wars doesn't diminish their power. A top ten TV show about colonizing the moon or visiting Mars would do wonders. NASA and the National Science Foundation already provide funding for public education, and good public education would also be inspiring, engaging on a personal level. I would love to see NASA sponsor script contests, or produce movies that were realistic about space exploration and possessed some educational component (just getting the science right would count in my book). There's already a lot that these organizations do, but astronauts visiting colleges to give speeches doesn't have anything like the impact of a popular movie or TV show.

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...



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:

• Trick 'r Treat: This is the "wishful thinking" pick, as I'm pretty sure it won't be released this year (this despite the fact that the film has been in the can for well over a year and has garnered almost universally positive reviews). It's obviously meant for a Halloween release, but at this point, I'll settle for any release date and I've seen some rumors of a late December release (though again, I think those rumors have been squashed). The movie itself is a horror anthology featuring 4 different stories. I've tried to avoid learning too much about the movie because I don't want to ruin it for myself, but it seems to be a real crowd pleaser.
• Slumdog Millionaire: This movie is in limited release right now and will be going a bit wider in the coming weeks (not sure how wide it will go). The story follows an Indian teen who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?" The story is told through flashbacks that accompany each question, detailing how this teen knows the answer. Directed by Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later... fame), the film is getting good reviews and sounds like my kinda movie.
• The Wrestler: Darren Aronofsky's portrait of a down-on-his-luck professional wrestler (played by Mickey Rourke, who is getting raves for his performance) on a quest to re-enter the spotlight for one final showdown with his former rival. It doesn't sound like much, but neither did Requiem for a Dream, and that blew me away. Still, I was disappointed by Aronofsky's The Fountain, and I'm a little wary of this one.
• The Brothers Bloom: I loved writer/director Rian Johnson's 2006 high school noir film, Brick, so I'm naturally a little excited about this long-con movie. I have to admit that the trailer doesn't do a whole lot for me, but I'm willing to give Johnson the benefit of the doubt.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: This is another film where the trailer underwhelms me, but I definitely curious to see David Fincher's film about a man who ages in reverse.
• Other Junk: Other films I'm not so sure about, but may check out anyway include Frost/Nixon, Australia, Waltz with Bashir, Gran Torino (I wasn't going to include this one until I saw that trailer, which features an aging Clint Eastwood literally saying "Get off of my lawn!") and Milk. Not sure I'll get to all those, but they're on my radar.
• Stuff to see on DVD: Some movies that came and went earlier in the year that I want to catch up with include Man on Wire, Kung Fu Panda, Funny Games, Splinter, Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade, The Recruiter, and My Winnipeg. Some of these might be rather difficult to catch up with, but I'll give it a shot...

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like a lot of the above films will be getting very wide releases (some will go wide in mid-January though). There are a few mainstream movies that could also pop up, and I'll definitely be watching a bunch of them, but I'm not expecting anything particularly great... Will I be able to fill out my top 10 spots with the films above? It's certainly possible, but I have my doubts. This season's lineup isn't that great. Here's to hoping that my low expectations will lead to some surprises this holiday season...



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:

• Blu-Ray is better than DVD, but the difference is not as great as between DVD and VHS. One of the big issues with VHS was that the format degraded the more you watched it. DVD was thus a huge step forward in quality that would not degrade. On a personal level, as a huge movie nerd with a relatively large HDTV, I'd love a better solution for watching movies so maybe it would still be worth it for me.
• The format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD really took all the steam out of the enthusiasm for HD discs. I sat on the fence during the war, and I have to admit that I really dislike Sony as a company (more on this a little later).
• Blu-Ray was counting on the fact that standard DVDs didn't look that great on HD televisions... but they missed the advent of relatively cheap upconverting DVD players. Perhaps if the format war ended sooner, this wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it's too late for that. I have a large DVD collection and don't need to replace most of them with BR discs because they look good on my cheapo upconverting DVD player.
• Harris notes an interesting part of the industry: While consumers are indifferent to the format, only really large producers can afford to release discs in the format. Harris has the details in his article, but it doesn't seem likely that we'll see a lot of small indie or foreign flicks on Blu-Ray unless the price of producing discs comes down significantly. As a movie nerd, this hurts. Hopefully, things would improve if market share increased.
• While standalone BR players are coming down in price, Sony has repeatedly stated that the PS3 is not (at least, not for the upcoming holiday season, which is when you'd expect it). Sony is counting on their upcoming slate of games to drive sales. This is interesting since the two other next-gen gaming consoles both cost around half of what the PS3 costs. Gaming consoles have the time-honored tradition of selling their console at a loss so that they can pick up market share and make a boatload on games. The PS3 seems to be attempting to buck that trend. This may be because they were too ambitious with their system... I bet they're already losing lots even at the $400 price point. For a variety of reasons, the PS3 is the only BR player I'm really considering. I like video games and from what I've seen, the PS3 is probably the best BR player out there anyway.
• The current economic woes do not bode well for BR. If we weren't looking at a 2 year recession (at least), then maybe Sony's bullish attitude would be warranted. As it stands, I'm at little confused by their strategy here. They're attempting to wring every last dollar out of every angle. High console prices, high authoring costs and high disc prices make it difficult to really get behind this format.
• On the plus side, if BR doesn't work out and HD downloads become the way of the future, the PS3 has that built in as well... Of course, they'll have to work out some of the bugs in that system, like the dumb DRM scheme that does not allow you to redownload movies you purchased. DRM plays a big role in why I absolutely hate Sony, so it's distressing to see that they still don't get it. But then, most downloadable movie services have similar issues. That is the one big hurdle downloads will have to clear before going mainstream... and given the way things have gone so far, that's probably going to be a challenge.
• As a Netflix customer, it's mildy annoying that I'd have to pay a surcharge to be able to rent BR discs. It's an understandable position on Netflix's part - the format is more expensive and the amount of BR customers is low - but it's still annoying.
• One advantage of the PS3 over the XBox is that their online component is free, while you have to pay for XBox Live. On the other hand, XBox Live is by all accounts much better than PS3's online offering, and the PS3 network's terms of service seem to indicate that they really just don't get it.
• It's only been 8 months since the death of HD-DVD. Perhaps everyone is being a bit too harsh jumping on BR. Sales have been steady, just not stellar. And it turns out that HD-DVD wasn't the only challenge that BR faced. You've got upconverting DVDs, HD Downloads, and now a bad economy to overcome. It's no wonder BR hasn't dominated.

All of that said, I'm still considering a PS3 system. Perhaps that means that the format isn't dying after all... or perhaps it just means that I'm a niche videophile customer. While Sony doesn't seem to be considering price cuts, I'm hoping for some sort of holiday deals. Last year, Moriarty picked up a PS3 and got 15 free movies along with it... Now that the format war is over, I doubt we'll see anything that extreme this year, but something along those lines would definitely get me interested.



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!



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:

• Braindead (aka Dead Alive): Before the Academy started handing him Oscars, Peter Jackson made some of the bloodiest, most disgusting horror comedies ever. This particular film is one of the goriest ever, and it's absolutely brilliant. ***
• Ravenous: Did you know that cannibalism imparts superpowers? I didn't. Anyway, I actually kinda enjoyed this movie. **1/2
• The Midnight Meat Train: Stylish but cliched and not terribly scary. Some of the worst and unnecessary CG effects and an uneven ending detrack from what is an otherwise relatively decent movie. **
• The Call of Cthulhu: If someone made a movie of HP Lovecraft's short story at the time it was published in 1928, it would probably have looked something like this 2005 silent film. It's an interesting idea, and it works reasonably well, though the filmmakers rely too heavily on intertitles (often inserting them when they weren't even really necessary) and personally, I like the story better. **1/2
• Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence: It's like a Die Hard reunion! It's got Robert Davi and Grand L. Bush (Special Agent Johnson, and Agent Johnson (no relation)) and even Paul Gleason. Oh, and a rampaging cop too. **
• God Told Me To: Larry Cohen's cult favorite is... weird. It has some interesting ideas and some creepy scenes, but ultimately falls apart. You can see why it's become a cult classic though. **
• The Lost Boys: Shocking confession: I never saw this movie before a few weeks ago. It was entertaining enough and reasonably well made (except for Corey), but a little overrated. ***
• The American Nightmare: This documentary covers the horror film from a political perspective. Interesting enough, and they focused in on some of the more obscure films... but I would have liked to have seen more films covered. ***
• Ichi the Killer: Takashi Miike's ultra-violent epic is entertaining at times, disgusting at others, and ultimately incomprehensible. Miike is talented, but I think this is one of his more overrated efforts. **
• The Blair Witch Project: I've heard that this movie hasn't aged well, but I don't know what those people are talking about. It's just as creepy as the first time I saw it. ****
• Masters of Horror: Pro-Life: I enjoyed John Carpenter's other MoH episode, Cigarette Burns, when I watched it last year, so I had high hopes for this episode. Alas, this was probably the worst MoH episode I've seen. *
• Masters of Horror: Dreams in the Witch-House: This episode, on the other hand, is one of the best MoH episodes that I've seen. Based on an HP Lovecraft story and directed by Stuart Gordon (of Re-Animator fame), the film follows a witch that haunts a boarding house using creepy dimensional tactics. Good stuff. ***
• Masters of Horror: Sounds Like: Frank Sobotka with really sensitive hearing. Not a bad episode, just not a particularly good one either. **

That's all for now. Just a couple days left, and a few old standards to watch - The Shining, Evil Dead II, and of course, Halloween



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.

• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror IV: The Devil and Homer Simpsons
• Poor Devil (WTF is this? Franklin Mint Blog has details)
• Hellbound: Hellraiser II (trailer)
• Jigoku: The title of this film means "hell," but unfortunately, only the final third of the film takes place there. The first hour or so is comprised of a tedious, handwringing melodrama about Shiro Shimizu, a good student with a loving fiancee, who seems to have drawn the ire of Tamura. I'm not sure what the deal is with Tamura, but whenever he appears (and I use that term literally), people die. This film doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's beautifully shot, and once you begin the descent into hell that the title promises, things pick up a bit. Granted, things still don't make sense, but then, you kinda expect that in hell. In any case, Shiro is sentenced to an eternity of damnation in the Japanese/Buddhist version of hell... unless he can gain redemption by saving his unborn daughter. Or something, I don't think it really matters. The only reason to really watch this movie is for its use of gore, as you see various characters from the first hour punished for their sins. Relatively tame by today's standards, this movie, made in 1960, clearly disturbed audiences of the time and paved the way for gore as a mainstay of the horror genre. Alas, since none of the characters really matter much and since there is little emphasis on story or plot, I didn't care much for the film. Fantastic visuals though. Probably only interesting for students of the genre. **
  
  
  The boiling cauldron level of hell
  
• The Ring (trailer)
• Ringu (trailer)
• Video Dating (Robot Chicken)
• Ju-on: The Grudge: This Japanese haunted house tale puts an interesting spin on the cliched subgenre, creates an undeniably creepy atmosphere, and produces some excellent scares, but ultimately doesn't go anywhere. We're informed by the title sequence that a Ju-on is "The curse of one who dies in the grip of powerful rage. It gathers and takes effect in the places that person was alive. Those who encounter it die, and a new curse is born." And that's basically it. A bunch of people enter the house, get cursed, then we see them disappear or die mysteriously. Writer/Director Takashi Shimizu attempts to liven the proceedings by employing a nonlinear narrative structure, and by instituting the rule that it doesn't matter where you go, these ghosts will still find you and do their thing. The latter is an interesting twist, solving the problem of a lot of haunted house tales (i.e. Just leave the house, dumbass! Well, in Ju-On, that won't help you). At first, this movie is wildly effective. Shimizu crafts a creepy atmosphere that sets the mood and then manages a few unsettling payoffs. The film is filled with little visual tricks that keep you on edge, constantly looking in the shadows or reflections for an unseen ghost. The sound design and minimalist soundtrack provide a lot of the scares and complement the visuals well. The unconventional narrative structure is engaging at first... a series of interlocking "chapters" that each tell the tale of one individual's struggle to avoid the curse. Unfortunately, by the end of the film, the novelty of the atmosphere was beginning to flag, and the nonlinear timeline manages to give away the ending about a half hour before it happens, thus taking all the suspense out of the ending and making the seemingly interesting narrative structure essentially pointless. The ending is the one major flaw in an otherwise harrowing movie. That said, this is probably the creepiest movie I've seen during the 6WH (the only other candidate was also a ghost movie, The Others), so I'll give the movie a pass. ***
  
  
  It's either a little boy ghost or a cat ghost, or both.
  
• Vampire 24: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Robot Chicken)
• Blood+ (trailer)
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (trailer)
• Hellsing (disc 1): I wanted to get some Anime on here, as horror is a genre not particularly covered by my guides to the Anime world. I actually wanted to watch Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, but Netflix doesn't have it for some reason, so I had to resort to this series. I picked Hellsing because it got generally good reviews and sounded rather interesting. After the first 3 episodes, it seems to be chugging along well, though I don't think the series plot has been established yet. There's no clear villain, except for the hordes of vampires that the Hellsing organization hunts down and destroys. Interestingly, the Hellsing organization employs vampires for this purpose. This actually makes a bit of sense; I've always thought that the best vampire hunters would be other vampires. One of the main characters and seemingly the most powerful vampire is Alucard, an obvious hint that he is, in fact, Dracula (Alucard is Dracula spelled backwards, and is even used in Bram Stoker's novel). The other main character is a young policewoman who chose to become a vampire when she got between Alucard and a rampaging vampire. She struggles with what she's become, and we get our introduction to the world of Hellsing through her. No recognizeable villain or serious challenge to Alucard's power has appeared, unless it's the Vatican's hunter who has just appeared at the end of disc 1 (The Vatican's vampire hunting unit, named Iscariot, seems to disagree with the Hellsing organization's practice of fighting fire with fire). While I can see that Iscariot will show up later in the series, they don't seem like the primary villain. Anyway, so far, so good. More thoughts on the series (still 10 episodes to go) will be posted separately.
  
  
  Alucard
  

That about covers it for tonight, but the festivities will continue through the week and Wednesday's entry will be a special Speed Round edition, featuing a bunch of movies that I've watched recently but haven't had the chance to write about. Thanks to NeedCoffee for the pointer to Poor Devil (they're doing a Halloween marathon as well). Kernunrex's 6WH is also proceeding well; he's even been watching Kaedrin favorite Phantasm and it's several sequels. In an interesting twist, Shamus will be posting about survival horror video games during what he calls Hallowweek. And the usual crowd is up to their Halloween shenanigans: Horror Movie A Day, Quint from AICN is still going strong, The Metal Misfit, Random Acts of Geekery, and Cal's Media of the Month. It also looks like local horror aficionados are hosting a marathon of their own this weekend: Exhumed Films 24 Hour Horror-thon. The schedule is being kept secret for now, but it looks like fun.



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).



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...

• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror IV: Bart Simpson's Dracula
• The Last House on the Left (trailer)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (trailer)
• The Hills Have Eyes (1977): One of Wes Craven's earlier efforts, this movie has its moments, but is ultimately a bit uneven. It's about a typical American family whose car breaks down in the middle of nowhere only to be attacked by a vicious group of cannibals. It's a bit cliched, even for its time, but Craven does a reasonable job executing the story, especially when you consider that he was working on an extremely limited budget. The film's pacing is a bit off, but the centerpiece of the film is a harrowing second act, when things suddenly go from bad to much, much worse. The last act went on a bit too long and then ended a bit too suddenly (though, looking back, it seems to be a rather satisfying ending). The acting is about what you'd expect from a low-budget horror film of the era, but there are a few standouts and a couple of great casting calls (for instance, Michael Berryman is well cast as one of the cannibals, named Pluto). Visually, Craven was still growing, but he managed to pull a lot out of the landscape, and despite the low budget, most of the film is well shot. The success of the film is mostly due to his efforts, and it's not a surprise that this movie has developed a strong cult following. **1/2
  
  
  
• The Notebook (fake trailer)
• Them (trailer)
• High Tension (trailer)
• Inside: This French film starts off with a car accident where a pregnant photographer named Sarah loses her boyfriend. Month's later, it's Christmas Eve, and Sarah will be going to the hospital the next morning to have labor induced. As she grieves her dead boyfriend, a stranger shows up at her house and starts to wreak havoc. I actually watched this movie a long time ago, but figured I'd include it because it's somewhat obscure but it's been garnering great reviews from a lot of horror fans. I will admit that I became very involved in this movie and that it is extremely well made, but the story kinda derails at one point and it totally ruined the movie for me. One problem I had was that a large part of the emotional response I had to the film is simply because they made the main character a pregnant woman. That fact is integral to the story, but it's also a cheap shot. If you put a pregnant woman in danger, of course I'm going to be affected by it. I don't care how well made the movie is, it's going to be an emotional experience simply because a pregnant woman is in danger. Movies, especially horror movies, need to be somewhat manipulative. But the best movies are able to be manipulative in a much more subtle way. Inside was manipulative in a very overt, look at me, I'm torturing a pregnant woman sort of way. As a genre, Horror is supposed to confront uncomfortable subjects, and this is certainly uncomfortable, but this film went a bit too far for me. In general, this is probably a subject that deserves a more thorough look. Anyway, this film reminded me of another French horror film (that I watched during last year's 6WH), High Tension. Both movies are exceptionally well made, but undone and held from greatness by a fatal flaw. In High Tension, it was the twist ending. In Inside, it's the cheap shot of a premise mixed with some incredibly stupid (but all too common in horror) character decisions (in particular the cops in the film start out great, but after demonstrating that they're pretty smart, they immediatly start doing incredibly stupid things). However, my griping aside, this film is very well made. And though it's a cheap shot, the story is quite involving. The tension is high and it's one of the goriest movies I've seen recently. There's even a twist towards the end that works pretty well. It's definitely worth watching for fans of the genre, but the cheap shot of a premise still bothers me. **1/2
• Horror Friends
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) (trailer)
• Hostel (trailer)
• The Hills Have Eyes (2006): This remake of Wes Craven's 1977 film reviewed above was directed by Alexandre Aja, who was also the director of the aforementioned High Tension (and thus the quasi-French connection of all this week's films is revealed). In general, this film succeeds and fails in pretty much the same places as the original. Great photagraphy, a bit cliched, an intense second act, and somewhat uneven pacing. Aja was working with a somewhat higher budget, so the film is more slickly produced than the original, and it looks great. He also managed to ratchet the tension of the second act even higher than the original, being more gorey and disturbing (interestingly, this is partly achieved by endangering a baby, something I found distasteful in the same way as Inside, though I have to admit that this was an effective technique here). Unfortunately, some of the additions and changes are a bit cliched in themselves. For instance, instead of there being just this crazy family of cannibals, they're actually mutant cannibals caused by the government's nuclear bomb testing. This felt a bit unneccessary, and despite having more background on the villains of the film, I found that I connected with them less. They seemed to become a bit more unreal, which made them ess scary. Again, while Aja does his best to distinguish this film from the original, it doesn't really add much to the experience. On the other hand, I did enjoy this film a lot more than I expected. **1/2
  
  
  

And there you have it. Only 1 week left (actually, it's almost two weeks until Halloween, so there'll probably be two, maybe even three more entries).



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. ...

The episode wasn't all bad, though. Jayne's big action piece in the fourth act when he was chasing Mal across the rooftops on Ariel had me actually kinda rooting for him. And Adam Baldwin just crackles when he tries to get all authoritarian and keeps flashing that badge to people who couldn't give a rat's ass.

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.



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).

• Psycho (trailer)
• Prom Night (trailer)
• Grindhouse: Don't (fake trailer)
• Sleepaway Camp: Young Angela, still shaken and withdrawn from seeing her father and brother killed in a boating accident years earlier, travels to camp with her protective cousin. It's just another summer at Camp Arawak, with the usual softball, swimming, horsing-around, and DEATH! Honestly, how many 80s slasher flicks have this exact premise? Fortunately, this film has a couple of twists on the cliches. First, the kids in this film are younger than usual, and they're actually played by kids (not 30 year-olds pretending to be kids). This means less opportunity for the traditional slasher T&A, but more time for childish antics and tomfoolery. It makes for an interesting tradeoff. Another oddity is that you are generally rooting for the killer in this movie. The tone is set by the first attack against the pedophile cook, who really had it coming. Successive kills are less warranted, but there's usually some sort of motive for the killings (most of the dead folks had been picking on poor Angela, for example), and that's a little different than your typical slasher pic. Most of the performances are about what you'd expect, but Felissa Rose does a great job as Angela, with a fantastic empty stare. The death sequences are unusual as well - you get death by boiling water, bees, and curling iron, amongst others. Furthermore, most of the death sequences have a buildup, an implied death, followed by a closeup look at the gorey aftermath. This technique is difficult to describe, but surprisingly effective. And no discussion of this film would be complete without mentioning the ending, which is amazing. I don't want to ruin it, but without the ending, this movie wouldn't be worth it at all. I found myself strangely sucked in to this movie and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. ***
  
  
  
• Slumber Party Massacre II (trailer)
• The Evil Dead (Japanese version of the trailer - I have no idea what he's saying, but his voice is fantastic!)
• The Hills Have Eyes (trailer)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: Oddly, I don't think I'd actually seen this entire movie from start to finish before. I think I watched it about 10 minutes at a time throughout the 80s, so there were a few spots I never remembered seeing. But it's still a classic. The premise has an elegant simplicity that is difficult to deny. How do you hide from an enemy that haunts your dreams? There's no escape from Freddy Krueger, which is why this movie is so compelling. Director Wes Craven does an exceptional job executing this film. It's filled with creepy but compelling imagery, including some of the most memorable and horrifying death sequences in all of horror. The surrealistic nature of dreams (or rather, nightmares) opens the door to all sorts of fantastical visuals, but Craven keeps things grounded enough that we never really doubt what's happening. In that respect, it owes something of a debt to the original Phantasm (especially the haunting and ambiguous ending), but Craven crafted a brilliant film and established an iconic villain in the process. He also probed some fertile symbolic ground as well, which is another reason this film continues to be effective (for instance, the children in the film are always trying to wake up while the adults are constantly advising them to stay asleep). Successive installments would dull the fear by delving into Freddy's past and making him more comedic in nature, but in this first film he's menacing, grotesque and vicious. I'm really glad I revisited this movie, as it was better than I had remembered. ***1/2
  
  
  
• Chopping Mall (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI: Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace
• Scream (trailer)
• Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film: This documentary traces the slasher film from its origins in the sixties and seventies to its heyday in the early eighties to its demise later that decade and its resurgence in the mid-nineties. Lots of talking heads here, but the filmmakers don't skimp and get the top directors, producers, actors, etc... including the likes of Wes Craven, John Carpenter, and Tom Savini. They even manage to cover relatively obscure topics like how the giallo scene in Italian horror influenced the eighties slasher craze (I would have liked to have seen a little more of this, but the fact that they mentioned it at all was surprising). All in all, watching this documentary made me want to watch more slasher pics, which is a pretty good indicator. I wish there were more documentaries like this, as there are a lot of topics to explore in modern horror films. ***

That's all for this week. I've really been cranking through films this Halloween season, so I might have another full installment on Wednesday... [Thanks to Widget's 32 Days of Halloween for the Psycho trailer and the Japanese Evil Dead trailer]



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.



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:

• The Call of Cthulhu By H.P. Lovecraft (short story)
• Hellraiser (trailer)
• Jacob's Ladder (trailer)
• The Signal: A strange, hypnotic pattern mysteriously appears on all the TVs in the world, and after watching it for a while, people seem to go on a murderous rampage. It's clear from the taut opening (which unfortunatly turns out to be a red herring) that first time directors David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, and Dan Bush have a love for the horror genre and know what makes it tick. Each director took on a third of this movie... but unfortunately, this leads to some serious pacing and tone issues, as the story ping-pongs from gorey realism to apocalyptic dystopia to outright camp and comedy (including an attempt at parody and even some slapstick) with no real rhyme or reason. Part of the problem is that the story follows a single plotline, but each segment of the film is drastically different from the other in tone and style. In theory, I suppose this could work, but it doesn't work that well here. Still, each segment taken by itself is pretty good. The second segment stood out the most in my mind because it really nailed the comedic and surrealistic undertone of the film, while the other two segments went for more of a realism that is harder to pull off. The performances by the three main leads in that act (AJ Bowen, Cheri Christian and Scott Poythress) are also the best in the film, as well as a hilariously perverted bit part played by Chad McKnight. I found the film entertaining and well made, but it had trouble transitioning from one segment (and one director) to another. The ending also turns out to be a little more conventional than I expected. All in all, it was worth a watch, but not especially brilliant. **1/2
  
  
  
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
• Shining (fake trailer)
• The Shining (trailer)
• The Others: A seemingly standard ghost story set in 1945 at a desolate mansion in Britain. Nicole Kidman plays the lead, and her two children have a rare allergy to bright lights, so all the rooms in the house must have their drapes drawn shut and those walking around the house must be sure to close the door behind them, least stray sunlight get in the room. The servants of the house have mysteriously taken off, and the movie opens with three new housekeepers arriving to help out Kidman, whose husband has been off in the war. This is one of the few films that have really creeped me out so far this year, and it achieves most of that more through restraint than anything else. There are no horrific deaths in the film, no gore, and very little violence. The scares here are all based on atmosphere and style. Director Alejandro Amenabar makes great use of shadows and especially sound to impart the dread that saturates this film. One scene involving a piano was particularly spooky, as was the infamous "Are you mad? I am your daughter!" scene. Kidman carries the movie on her shoulders, and puts in a good performance in what must have been a difficult role. Fionnula Flanagan also has an interesting performance as one of the new housekeepers. The film's climax is not as scary as I would have expected, but it does have a satisfying twist (I suspect even guessing the twist would not ruin the movie). The film does have some issues with pacing (it's a little slow), but it's ultimately quite effective and possibly the best of the 6WH so far. I wish more films would rely on atmosphere and style to provide the scares, but films like this seem pretty rare (I was reminded a bit of the excellent 2007 film, The Orphanage). ***
• Twilight at the Towers, by Clive Barker (Short Story from Cabal)
• Dark City (trailer)
• After Dark Horrorfest 2007 (trailer)
• The Deaths of Ian Stone: Part of the 2007 After Dark Horrorfest, this film is often described as the horror version of Groundhog Day. That doesn't exactly fit the premise of this movie but it works well enough. Basically, Ian Stone wakes up in a new life every day, only to be hunted down and killed by shadowy pursuers. He's haunted by memories of his past lives, and is anchored by one other person who keeps showing up in his life. The more he remembers, the more dangerous he becomes. It's an interesting and entertaining movie despite all of its derivative elements. Unfortunately it's not very scary, and its various twists aren't all that surprising. The movie does much better when the happenings are mysterious... once we start to get answers, it falters a bit. However, it manages to overcome its deficiencies (or at least, it clears the hurdle) and I did enjoy it. The direction and performances are rather standard, but the film also looks pretty good when you consider its low-budget origins. The shadowy monsters are appropriately menacing and the main villain, played by Jaime Murray (essentially reprising her "Pardon my tits" role from Dexter), is devious and ruthless enough that we're rooting against her. It's an enjoyable movie if you take it for what it is, and it's well worth a watch. **1/2

Incidentally, this Horrorfest thing sounds pretty interesting, except for the fact that it seems to happen months after Halloween instead of the weeks preceding it (where you'd think it would make more sense). I do remember hearing about it towards the tail end of the 2007 fest, but the only film that really interested me was The Deaths of Ian Stone, and it was no longer playing... Still the 2009 fest is coming in January (again, January? Why then!?), so maybe I'll take a gander when it happens this year. That's all for this week. Next week will mark a return to the 80s slasher movie as well as a movie that I've seen described as a modern silent film (a concept that intrigues me).

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?



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.



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:

• An American Werewolf in London (trailer)
• The Wolf Man (1941) (trailer)
• Futurama Episode: The Honking (sorry, vid not online)
• The Howling: Director Joe Dante's tribute to the werewolf movie isn't the finest example of the genre (heck, it isn't even the finest werewolf movie of 1981, which is a distinction that belongs to An American Werewolf in London), but his obvious enthusiasm comes through during the proceedings, and it's hard to dislike the results. The story follows a TV reporter who takes a trip into the countryside after she has a disturbing experience with a serial killer. Werewolf-laden hijinks ensue. Again, it's quite entertaining, and the werwolf movie staple of the transformation scene is handled well by makeup expert Rob Bottin. Lots of references and visual puns, and the gorgeous Elisabeth Brooks make the film nice to look at, despite the low budget (Dante was a graduate of Roger Corman's low-budget school of filmmaking, so he knew how to stretch a buck). A solid, entertaining werewolf movie, but not fine cinema. What did I learn from this movie? When your vegetarian boyfriend starts tearing into some ribs with glee, he has most likely become a werewolf. ***
• How to Make Yourself a Pinhead
• Dracula (teaser)
• Young Frankenstein (trailer)
• The Monster Squad: A bunch of kids battle the classic Universal monsters in the suburbs. So this one is kinda cheating, as it's not primarily a werewolf movie, but it does feature a werewolf along with several other iconic monsters. Lead by Dracula, the monsters include the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Frankenstein monster, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. If The Howling was a tribute to werewolf movies, this is a tribute to the whole stable of Universal monster movies. This time, the filmmakers embrace their B-movie roots and the result is a fun and charming movie. This is a movie that sorta mixes 80s horror-comedy (stuff like Ghostbusters, Gremlins, etc...) with the kiddie adventure genre (Goonies, Explorers, Space Camp, etc...) to reasonable success (not sure why the kiddie adventure genre doesn't get more love these days - perhaps because the movies are so very unrealistic). It's great fun, if a little silly. What did I learn from this movie? Indeed, the most famous thing about the movie is the werewolf anatomy lesson. ***
• The Wolf Man (1999) (cartoon short by Tim Hope)
• Grindhouse: Werewolf Women Of The S.S. (fake trailer)
• Teen Wolf (trailer)
• The Company of Wolves: Neil Jordan's nightmare about wolves and deep, dark forests that evokes and explores the Little Red Riding Hood story. The film is stylish, dark and moody, with a rather strange narrative structure. The film is literally the dream of a modern-day girl, but within the dream, it features several stories centering around wolves (most of the stories are told by Granny in an apparent attempt to scare our heroine away from men). This winds up seeming a bit hokey, but the creepy atmosphere is undeniable and Jordan is a talented director. The werewolves in the film are interesting (and the transformations handled well) in that when the transformation is complete, the wolf looks like, well, a regular wolf (not a man-like wolf creature). The film does feature one of the most interesting werewolf moments that I've seen. The father character heads out into the woods with a mob to hunt down a wolf that's been terrorizing the village. Successful, the father cuts off one of the wolf's paws as a trophy... but when he returns home, the paw has transformed into a human hand. Spooky. A little more artistic than the other movies this week, but ultimately, this movie could have used a bit more focus. What did I learn from this movie? Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle (because, you know, he's probably a werewolf). **1/2

All in all, a pretty entertaining week. Perhaps sometime in the next four weeks, I can pull together a group large enough to play the Werewolf mind game. I'm not sure what next week's schedule will hold in store, but it will probably be more of a mixed bag, rather than the themed weeks I've been doing.

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.



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.

• Friday the 13th (trailer)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (trailer)
• Freddy vs. Jason (trailer)
• Friday the 13th Part 2: Though he makes a surprise appearance in the original film, this film is the first to feature Jason Voorhees as the primary villain. Alas, he has not yet donned his trademark hockey mask, instead sticking with a pillowcase with an eye hole cut out (this is rather less menacing, but it works I guess). Years after the first movie, a new campground is set up as a camp counselor training school and a group of teens arrives to learn... and DIE! The movie features some nice bits, including the trademark POV shots, creepy music, a nice campfire story about the "legend" of Jason Voorhees, and many ominous shots of someone's legs as they approach. There's a little more T&A here, but the kills became a bit stale (perhaps because they were running out of things to steal from Mario Bava's Bay of Blood). Strangely, a lot of people seem to survive this film, never to be mentioned again in the series. Other plot holes abound as well, a rather neat trick considering the simple plot. I know, I know, what should I expect? Not much, and this film obliges. Still, it's reasonable fun if you're into this sort of thing. **
• Halloween (trailer)
• Grindhouse: Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Scourge of the Undead (fake trailer)
• Friday the 13th Part III: Yet another group of kids vacationing at Crystal Lake run afowl of Jason Vorhees (in 3-D!). This film takes place right after the second film. Lots of news reports about the murders from the night before, and more people keep piling up. This film marks the first appearance of Jason's iconic hockey mask as well as Jason's uncanny ability with a spear-gun (I mean, he hit her right in the eye!) I watched the film in 2-D, but you can obviously see the bits that were meant to be 3-D, many of which are just plain stupid (i.e. a shot of a kid holding a baseball bat, awkwardly pointed directly at the camera). There are a couple of shots that would probably have worked well (the aformentioned spear-gun thingy was pretty cool, as was a nice eye-popping incident). Structurally, the film resembles the original in most ways, right up to the crazy old man giving warnings and the "surprise" ending (which just begs for a sequel). Altogether a better film than the second, but not much and still a little sloppy. **
  
  
  Jason Voorhees
  
• Jason Vorhees cameo on Family Guy
• A Scooby Friday (Robot Chicken)
• Horror Movie Big Brother (Robot Chicken)
• Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: The fourth film in the series is far from the titular "final" chapter, but it's also perhaps the most enjoyable and best produced installment since the original. This one picks up right after the third film, with the police carting off all the bodies, including the supposedly dead Jason. Obviously, havoc is wreaked at the morgue and Jason makes his way back to camp Crystal Lake, just in time for a new group of kids to arrive at their rented house for fun... and death! Unlike the no-name actors in the first three films (not counting Kevin Bacon), this one features two (count 'em) bona-fide C-list stars: a young Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover (just before his breakout role as George McFly - I don't know how I didn't put this together before now)! Visually, this film seemed to be more polished and less sloppy than the others. Of course, the film basically covers the same ground as the others. Lotsa dead kids, mostly dispatched in unimaginitive ways, and all the standard horror cliches. Oh, I guess the "shadow-death" (where a stabbing is shown with shadows thrown by lightning) is pretty cool, and it also has the scariest moment of the series so far: Crispin Glover dancing to some horrible 80s song (it's too insane to describe - watch the video)! Also worth noting is the truly epic amount of damage Jason sustains during the proceedings. Weasello recaps:

  Jason actually dies twice in this movie. Well, to be more precise, he begins dead as the last movie (sorta) ended. He comes alive in the morgue, however, and proceeds to: Get his hand sliced three times by a machette, get his hand cut nearly in half (between the fingers) by a machette, a machette slash/embedded into his chest under the left armpit, 16 hammer bashes to the head, 1 hammer claw embedded in the back of the neck, a computer monitor bashed onto head (and as a result, a few seconds of electrocution, even though the monitor wasn't plugged in), then... to trump all other injuries.. the trusty machette nearly cleaves Jason's head in twain, horizontally. It enters the left side of his head, stopping at about the nose, cutting right through the eyeball. Jason then collapses to the ground, and the knife gets pushed slowly through his head as it hits the floor. Jason then twitches a few times before being hacked at an additional 15 times with the machette. I fear he has finally "died."

  Of course, despite the title of this movie, the ending screams sequel. Ok, so not fine cincema, but one of the better installments of this series so far. **1/2

One of the most interesting things about the series so far is the surprising restraint that has been shown. Sure, the series is more violent and gory than, say, the original Halloween, but Jason barely appears in the first 30-40 minutes of most installments (and thus the kill count is surprisingly low), and you often don't see his mask or face until even later in the movie (in part IV, you don't see the mast until 1 hour and 9 minutes into the movie). Another interesting bit: there don't appear to be much in the way of guns in these movies. There are some projectile weapons, but it's mostly bladed stuff. Of course, later installments have lots of guns, but I'm surprised by the lack of guns in the first few installments. I've quite enjoyed revisiting the series so far, though I think I'll take a break to get some variety into the SWoH. Or maybe I'll just check out Sleepaway Camp. Heh. In any case, if you're a fan of the series, I highly recommend Weasello's fun writeups on E2. Well, that about wraps up week 1. Stay tuned next weekend for some Werewolf fuelled fun.

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.



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.



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]



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.

25 years ago, fans adored Lucas. He could do no wrong. Star Wars was fresh in 1983 and, while it was uncertain how long it would take before Lucas produced more stories in that galaxy far, far away, fans believed. In 1997, when the Special Editions were released, the lovefest was still in full swing. Old fans re-discovered the magic of Star Wars. New fans experienced it on the big screen for the first time. Lucas was 14 years older, with gray peppering his once jet-black hair, but no less an admired figure. Better still, everyone knew there was new Star Wars on the horizon. Then came 1999 and The Phantom Menace, dubbed by many as "the movie event of all time." (Considering the hype and attendant expectations, it seemed that way.) Suddenly, not only could George do no right but, in a hyperbolic statement of unrivaled vitriol, he was being accused of "raping" people's childhoods.

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.



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.

• Filmspotting: The first podcast I ever listened to regularly, and I think it's also the best. It's probably also one of the longest running podcasts and is also one of the best produced (I believe their shows are broadcast on NPR these days). They've got a great format, covering at least one new release a week, sometimes doing a marathon of older films (I've played along with several of these), massacre theater (a contest where they act out a scene from a movie and you have to guess what movie), and a top 5 list. It's a great show, and it's still going strong. I do find that I miss one of the original hosts, Sam Van Hallgren, but the show really hasn't missed a beat since his departure.
• All Movie Talk: I seem to be in the habit of discovering awesome podcasts that almost immediately stop making new episodes. Nevertheless, every All Movie Talk episode is excellent, and since they chose not to review current releases, most of their shows take on a more timeless quality. The show features Samuel Stoddard (of Rinkworks fame) and Stephen Keller (of, uh, All Movie Talk fame) and a whole host of interchangeable segments like director spotlight, trivia questions, industry trends, how to (where they make fun of certain genres by explaining how to be in one of them, for example, "How to: Be the New Teacher In the Hood"), top 6 (and they do a good job picking more obscure categories for this, like "Plot Holes In Good Movies"), and film buff's dictionary (where they take a film term and explain what it means and how it impacts movies, etc...) They actually have a great mix between the old and the new, and I found myself actually learning a lot about movie history and how movies are made. I highly recommend downloading their episodes and listening to them.
• Creative Screenwriting Magazine: This podcast basically features Q&A sessions with screenwriters (and sometimes directors). As such, the podcast depends entirely on the screenwriter in question, but when you get a good personality on there, it's great. You also get a nice window into screenwriting, a lesser known side of movie-making.
• The Treatment: Similar to Creative Screenwring podcast above, this NPR show basically features an interview with a filmmaker or writer, and again, it depends highly on who is being interviewed. Still, it's interesting stuff.
• Mastercritic: This now long-defunct podcast was one of my favorites when it was on, and probably one of the more fun amateur podcasts out there. Still, it was an interesting podcast, and it featured some great topics, like "the number of zombies it would take to kill all of Tom Cruise’s movie characters" (which I should probably write a blog post about). The podcast was made by a bunch of video game developers, which was actually a pretty interesting perspective. They also had some fun movie-based trivia games, and it was actually pretty well produced (except towards the end, when they stopped playing music behind the show, which actually did change the feel of the show). Like a lot of the now-defunct podcasts, this one turned out to be too much work for those involved, and really, I can't blame them.
• The Chud Show: This show is... strange. It's probably not for everyone. It's a great movie news site, but once you realize that the name of their site (Cinematic Happenings Under Development - CHUD) is partly an homage to a cheesy 80s horror flick (in which CHUD stands for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers"), you can see why perhaps not everyone would appreciate the show. Still, if you share their odd (pun-saturated) sense of humor, it's pretty funny.
• Smodcast: I'm not sure if this actually counts as a "movie" podcast, but it's a podcast by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier (of Clerks., Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, etc... fame). Sometimes they talk about movies, but more often than not, they're just bullshitting about some random topic. As such, it's a little uneven, but almost always worth a listen. I wouldn't have expected this, but the episodes that feature Walt Flanagan as a guest host are actually some of the best ones (the episode where they discuss the comic book action figures is absolutely hilarious)...
• Hollywood Saloon: They don't release shows that often, but when they do, they're these huge 2 hour opuses. There's no set format for them, but they've done an excellent director spotlight on David Fincher, and series spotlights on James Bond, Halloween, and Indiana Jones. They've also recently started posting commentary tracks... I haven't listened to any of them yet, but I will. The shows are actually rather informal, and they do tend to ramble on and repeat themselves from time to time, but they're still a lot of fun to listen to.
• Some other podcasts I listen to: MeanDawg Top 5 (rather than have a segment for top 5, they just make a whole show out of it), Outside the Cinema (B-movie and horror focused podcast, also featuring a top 6 segment), Watching the Directors (basically covers individual directos, and they also do something called The Ten Quiz - this is another podcast that depends on who is being covered and if you're familiar with they're films, but it's a decent podcast), and Filmically Perfect (anothe NPR podcast that covers one classic movie per episode)

If I were to ever do a movie podcast, I'd probably feature a lot of the segments mentioned above, but instead of a top 5, I'd want to do something that would allow me to talk about movies I like that aren't necessarily the greatest of their genre. I have a really hard time picking a "top 5" for various genres (as evidenced by listing 20 heist movies in my top 5 recently), so I think I'd be better at just picking a bunch of movies to talk about, perhaps in various categories (i.e. Classic, Contemporary Classic, Obscure/Sleeper, Remake, Sequel, etc...) Not all the categories would match up with every category, but it would be interesting. Of course, this would assume I'd have enough time and motivation to put something like that together, week after week. For now, I'll settle for listening to more podcasts. Anyone have any other great film podcasts?

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.



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!



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...

• Best Special Effects: I'm going to agree with Adam and Matty here and go with Silent Running. The film has many flaws, but special effects is not one of them. Director Douglas Trumbull worked on special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and would go on to do effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner. There are several sequences in this movie that must have influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars. Most notably, the escape pod sequence from Star Wars seems lifted directly from Silent Running.
• Best Actress: This is a really tough award because there weren't really that many great female roles in the movies (indeed, Silent Running didn't feature any female characters). Basically, it comes down to Jenny Agutter in Logan's Run or Candy Clark in The Man Who Fell to Earth. The Filmspotting guys went with Agutter (and she deserves some credit for bringing some humanity to an awful film), but I think I'm going to go with Candy Clark. I didn't like where here performance ultimately went, but I think that was more because of the character than the performance, and the opening scenes made a pretty good impression. I wish there were more choices here though, and sadly, it doesn't look like we're in good shape these days...
• Best Actor: It was tempting to agree with Adam's pick of Charlton Heston's campy performance in The Omega Man (or even Soylent Green, which contains some great Heston outbursts, particularly the end of the film). And though I disagree with Matty's pick of Bruce Dern, I do think he makes a surprisingly effective argument, highlighting the "misplaced activism" of the character. Ultimately, however, I couldn't help but give it to David Bowie for his near catatonic (uh, in a good way) performance as the alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth. I'm not sure how much of this is just perfect casting, as Bowie's physical appearance is absolutely perfect for the role. His wiry, androgenous frame and gaunt face makes him look other-worldly, and his mannerisms and line delivery are pretty good as well.
• Best Supporting Performance: Filmspotting rightly praises Edward G. Robinson's performance in Soylent Green, but I'm going to go with Kate Reid as the no-nonsense Dr. Ruth Leavitt in The Andromeda Strain. She gives a fantastic performance and also provides a refreshing contrast to the modern tendency to cast super-models as scientists (think Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in The World Is Not Enough). Unlike most of today's films, I actually believe she's a scientist (the same goes for most of the other no-name actors in the film - they're all pretty ordinary looking folks).
• Best Moment/Scene: This is another tough one as there are a lot of scenes/moments in the films that would be worth picking. In the end, I'm going with Soylent Green for two scenes. First is the scene where Edward G. Robinson "goes home" by watching this nature montage of the way earth used to be. It's a moving scene, and one not ruined by Chuck Heston hysterics. Speaking of which, the other moment in the film I love is the ending, which does feature a wonderful Chuck Heston line reading. Another moment I considered was the opening scene from The Andromeda Strain in which two soldiers encounter the organism... but the scene is brilliant because it's told almost entirely through audio.
• Dystopia You Would Most Like To Live In: Depending on how you define a Dystopia, only a few of the films feature one. I can say without a doubt that the one I'd least like to live in would be Soylent Green. The Omega Man has it's plusses, but there are too many disadvantages as well. If you consider Silent Running a dystopia, that would definitely be my choice. We don't actually see earth in the film, but from what is described, it doesn't sound too bad. The only thing that sucks is that there is apparently no vegetation or fresh food. Finally, Logan's Run would be ok, though as someone who is nearing their 30th birthday, I think their disadvantages hit a little closer to home than I'd like. Incidentally, we need more SF movies that don't feature dystopias. Someone get on that.
• Best Picture: I agree with Adam that Soylent Green was the most surprising film in the series (I expected it to be much worse than it was), but I was really taken with The Andromeda Strain, and that's my pick. It's not a perfect film (the standard action movie climax featuring lasers is a bit of a stretch), but it's definitely my favorite of the series, and I think it's also the best made. It's certainly the most scientifically rigorous of the films (basically a science procedural), yet it doesn't sacrifice tension or pacing to achieve that feat. Director Robert Wise does an excellent job with the visuals, and I think the pacing is due to his work. Also worth noting is the exceptional set-design in the film. Despite the ending (which isn't bad so much as it doesn't really fit with the rest of the film), this is a great film and well worth a watch.

All in all, it was an interesting marathon. I think the biggest different between Filmspotting and me is that I loved The Andromeda Strain (which was strangely not even mentioned in their awards), while they really got into some of the movies I didn't care for.



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)



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.

But later you watch Notorious a second time. Strangely, you feel suspense, moment by moment, all over again. You know perfectly well how things will turn out, so how can there be uncertainty? How can you feel suspense on the second, or twenty-second viewing?

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.

One reason why pre-1980 movie lovers are generally better educated in cinema than their post-1980 counterparts is that TV-based movie watching in the '60s and '70s meant seeing what was provided, and that typically covered many genres and eras of film. I can recall watching a silent film (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) on a local station one afternoon in 1977. When was the last time a silent movie aired on any over-the-air television station? The advent of video in the early 1980s and its rapid adoption during the middle of the decade allowed viewers to "program" their home movie watching. They could now see what they wanted to see rather than what was on TV.

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).



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...

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

Screenshot 3:

Again, answers and quick comments in the extended entry... Here are the answers:

• Screenshot 1: Election - An interesting Triad ganster flick from one of my favorite Hong Kong direcors, Johnny To. It's not really an action film, instead relying on plot and characterization. It works pretty well. There is a sequel to this movie which is also quite good. ***
• Screenshot 2: Les Diaboliques - Brilliant French thriller that calls to mind the films of Alfred Hitchcock (the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, was a contemporary and rival to Hitchcock). There is an American remake of this film, but it is awful, see the original instead. ****
• Screenshot 3: The Animatrix - From the segment titled "A Detective Story" comes this character who bears a striking resemblance to Spike from Cowboy Bebop (with shorter hair). Of course, this makes sense, as the segment in question was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the writer/director of Cowboy Bebop. I got similar vibes for a couple of other segments in this series of shorts, most notably with the segment titled "Matriculated," which was directed by Peter Chung, creator of the Aeon Flux cartoons. As a whole, I don't think this is great, but certainly worth a watch, and about half of the segments are very well done. **1/2

'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:

• The Omega Man (1971): Things kick off on a campy note with this adaptation of Richard Matheson's brilliant novella I Am Legend. Like every other adaptation of the book, this one completely misses the point, though that doesn't seem to matter. I suppose there's some social commentary here, but the real reason to watch this (assuming you want to) is to revel in its campy glory. Since the story concerns the last human on earth, these movies always have to come up with some plot device that will allow the main character to talk... in Will Smith's recent version, he talked to a dog. In The Omega Man, Charleton Heston talks to a bust of Ceasar. He also looks at himself on a closed circuit video feed and comments "Hi, Big Brother, how's your ass?" And he talks to a dead car dealer too: "How much for a trade-in on my Ford? Oh, really? Thanks a lot, you cheating bastard..." Heston's delivery of lines like this is priceless. The villains are completely different than the book or other movies (I still can't figure out why people don't want to make the villains vampires like the book... instead, we get "The Family" in this movie, which are diseased humans, and the CGI monsters of Will Smith's version). Unfortunately, there's not much to love about this movie. It's worth a watch, but nothing very special. **
• The Andromeda Strain (1971): Based on Michael Crichton's book of the same name, this movie follows the outbreak of an alien organism on earth and the team of scientists who investigate it. It's essentially a science procedural (and I'm having trouble thinking of another example... at least, another example that is as rigorous) mixed with a thriller. The first act sets the stage and immediately starts ratcheting up the tension (particularly good use of audio here), then the movie settles down at the Project Wildfire base where the scientists begin their investigation. Surprisingly, this part of the movie works really well, even though the majority of this section portrays the tedius repetition of the scientific process as they try to figure out the organism through slow, methodical, systematic steps. Some have complained that this section was a little too long, but I loved it. I don't see much of a difference between this any any number of other procedurals that follow other subjects like medicine, law, or police. Indeed, while watching this movie, I thought of All the President's Men, a film that stresses the tedious minutiae of journalism instead of the sensationalism of the results. Anyway, the one area of the film that doesn't work as well as it could is the ending in which one of the scientists seeks to disarm the automatic nuclear detonation device. It's a standard action movie cliche (complete with lasers!), and it plays as such. I guess it's not terrible, but it's out of place in a movie that was primarily concerned with intellectual thrills. There were a lot of things I really liked about this movie. Robert Wise's direction is well done, and I think a large part of the film's solid pacing is due to his work. The set design, particularly of the Project Wildfire base, is utterly brilliant. And the no-name actors do a good job. There's an effective undercurrent of paranoia and distrust of authority that works really well. Incidentally, this movie was recently remade into a 4 hour mini-series... and it's absolutely awful. Everything that was good about the original film is missing from the mini-series, and the things they added were absurd and ridiculous. Bad acting, bad writing, bad science - it runs the gamut of badness. Don't waste your time. The orginal is riveting entertainment, and one of the better science fiction films I've seen. ***1/2
• Silent Running (1972): Due to a poorly explained plot point, plants and trees can no longer grow on earth, so humans create a giant nature reserves in space. But the ships are expensive and in demand, so the companies that run them decide to jettison the forests. And for good measure, let's nuke them too! But one of the crew members goes renegade and attempts to escape with the last of the forests. Making it look like an accident, he gets away with it for a while, but eventually he understands how stupid this movie is. I mean, he realizes the error of his ways. This is one of those movies I kept thinking to myself, but why?. Earth is no longer capable of sustaining plantlife, but why? Humans create nature reserves in spaceships, but why? The reserves are to be destroyed, but why? And so on. I just didn't buy the setup. It's actually more entertaining than I'm making it out to be, in large part because it's visually interesting. Director Douglas Trumbull worked on special effects for 2001, the aforementioned The Andromeda Strain, and would go on to do effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner. There are several sequences in this movie that must have influenced George Lucas when he made Star Wars. The acting is, uh, a bit over the top. Bruce Dern bears most of the load, and not so well. Still, his relationship with the little robots on the ship was kinda interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling. In the end, I didn't much like this one. **
• Soylent Green (1973): I think the biggest surprise of the marathon was that I enjoyed this movie. A Chuck Heston film that depicts a future in which the Earth is overpopulated and food is rationed. The Soylent corporation provides artificial foodstuffs, and their most recent variation, called Soylent Green, is quite popular. Heston investigates the murder of the President of the Soylent corporation and eventually finds out the disturbing secret behind Soylent Green. Again, surprisingly good stuff here. Not great (my enjoyment is probably a matter of lowered expectations), but solid and entertaining. I kinda bought into the setting of the story, something that didn't happen with a couple of other movies in the marathon. Of course, the infamous ending is almost funny at this point (should I even bother with hiding the "surprise?" I guess I am, but if you don't know, go watch the film and let us know what you think. I'd like to get the perspective of someone who didn't know the ending.) and again, Heston's delivery is priceless (on par with his Planet of the Apes meltdown). Decent stuff. ***
• Logan's Run (1976): After a horrible war, survivors are holed up in domed cities that care for their every need... with one catch: Life must end at 30. There's a possiblity of "renewal" at an event called Carousel, but many people attempt to escape when they turn 30. These "runners" are hunted down and killed by "Sandmen" (basically police). Logan is a Sandman who gets caught up in a scheme to find "Sanctuary" outside of the domes, and he has to become a runner. I've heard a lot about this movie, and I have to say that it was really disappointing. It's got an interesting idea at its core, but it doesn't explore much of it and instead wants to use it as an excuse for action scenes and a big chase. Unfortunately, the action and the chase are rather tame, and the details of the plot are rather dumb. There are lots of things this film could have explored, like the reality and implications of faith (people seem to cling to their illogical and destructive beliefs with religious fervor) or how a society becomes brainwashed, but it seems that you're just supposed to accept those things without thinking about them. One other thing that was constantly ruining the immersion of the film was the bad special effects (the models were particularly jarring). This wouldn't matter so much if the film had a better story or even better action sequences, but as it is, it just detracts from the film. Ultimately, I'm a little confused as to why this movie has a decent reputation. *
• Bonus Film! Solaris (1972): Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding, thoughtful masterpiece about a psychologist (named Kris Kelvin) who travels to a space station on the planet Solaris where mysterious things are happening. The oceans of Solaris are thought to be a host to some sort of intelligence, and the psychologist eventually succumbs to madness brought on by the appearance of his long dead wife. This film went a little above my head. It's not an easy film to watch. Its slow and deliberate pacing demands a thoughtful examination of the ideas presented within, and Tarkovsky's visual flare embues the film with a trippy, dreamlike quality. Tarkovsky is quite effective at establishing atmosphere. For instance, when Kelvin arrives at the station, the film becomes saturated with a tremendous and disturbing sense of dread. It perhaps lingers on some shots too long and could have otherwise used some pruning. It also gets to be a little on the pretentious side as it explores the human condition. Then again, it's examination of the human condition is what makes it a good film. This is the sort of movie that doesn't seem to reveal itself with only a single viewing, so my thoughts are a bit tentative here. There's a lot to chew on, and I haven't quite gotten there yet. For now, let's say that it's a thoughtful, if difficult, science fiction film. ***

Coming up next on the list:

• The Man Who Fell to Earth: I've seen various portions of this movie and was not impressed. I'm not sure I'll get to this one, but if I do, I'll have pretty low expectations.
• THX 1138
• Westworld

I think the biggest trouble I have with some of these films is that I don't buy the world they're set in. Both Silent Running and Logan's Run had serious logical issues in their setups that prevented me from becoming immersed in the story. Other films might have had their issues, but were at least internally consistent and their plots moved forward somewhat logically. Suspension of disbelief is important in SF movies more than most (because they're speculating about much more than most other films), so when something ridiculous appears onscreen, it's hard to swallow. Anyway, there were definitely some bright spots in the marathon and most of the films are certainly worth a watch. I'm looking forward to the remaining films, though I'm still a little wary of a couple of them.



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 Stars
So how much does Will Smith get paid to make a movie these days? Well, $28 million for I, Robot -- or a quarter of that film's $105 million production budget (or $3 million more than all of Cloverfield).

Or 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.

... Cameron's premise also permits the emotional center of "T2" to consist of the child and the Terminator "bonding," which in turn allows for all manner of familiar and reliable devices. Thus it is that "T2" offers us cliche explorations of stuff like the conflicts between Emotion and Logic (territory already mined to exhaustion by "Star Trek") and between Human and Machine (turf that's been worked in everything from "Lost in Space" to "Blade Runner" to "Robocop"), as well as exploiting the good old Alien - or - Robot - Learns - About - Human - Customs - and - Psychology - From - Sarcastic - and/or - Precocious - but - Basically - Goodhearted - Human - with - Whom - It - Bonds formula (q.q.v. here "My Favorite Martian" and "E.T." and "Starman" and "The Brother From Another Planet" and "Harry and the Hendersons" and "Alf" and ad almost infinitum).

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 Direct
The screenwriter is used to having his work brutally slaughtered by other filmmakers, so when he gets a chance to step up to the director's chair, he's going to do everything he can to make it work, no matter what.

I 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.



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.)



Link Dump: Space!
Time is short, so just a few space themed links for you:

• Space Station Movie Night: A while back, NASA released the International Space Station's daily logs. Most of the entries are rather dry and technical, but the astronauts sometimes logged what movies they were watching, and Scott David Herman decided to collect all of them in a post. Some highlights:

  24 NOV 2000: Watched disk 1 of "Apocalypse Now". Shep tried to explain why Robert Duvall is always wearing the black cavalry hat, but being a Navy guy, he's not sure he understands it either.
  
  29 DEC 2000: Let the real "Space Odyssey 2001" proceed.
  
  5 JAN 2001: Finished the 2nd disk of "2010". Something strange about watching a movie about a space expedition when you're actually on a space expedition.
  
  26 JAN 2001: We eat dinner and watch "GI Jane". Lots of SEAL questions, and Shep explains why this is not exactly like the real SEAL training.
  
  6 FEB 2001: We ate some dinner and watched the last part of "City of Angels". Shep did his best to explain to Yuri and Sergei what the phrase "chick flick" means.

  Interestingly, they seem to be watching movies on CDs and dont get a DVD player until 2001 or so. Anyway, lots more there. Interesting stuff.
• Amazing Photos of the NASA Space Shuttle: A series of photos showing how the Space Shuttle and its rocket boosters are assembled in preparation for a launch.
• Cities at Night: The View from Space: Amazing photos of cities taken from the ISS on the dark side of the planet. You get an interesting view of each city, and the overall density of human development by looking at these photos. I remember seeing something like this world map a while back, and there are many telling observations you could make about human development (observe the difference between North and South Korea, for instance), but you don't get much detail from that. These photos are great. See also this video detailing how the shots were taken and taking a tour around the world... [video via K-Squared Ramblings]
• The Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars: An interesting perspective. Ever notice in TV shows or movies that whenever you see a planet, you're almost always seeing the full planet in direct view of the sun (i.e. the "light side" of the planet, with none of the dark side visible). [via Kottke]

That's all for now...



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:

• The chart shows both DVD rentals and movies or shows watched online through Netflix's "Watch Instant" service. There are certain distinctions that should be made here, namely that DVD rentals are measured by the date the DVD was returned, while Watch Instant rentals are measured when you watch them. Also, when watching a TV series on Watch Instant, each episode counts as a separate rental (if I were watching on DVD, there's usually 3-4 episodes on one disc, but since I'm watching on the Watch Instant service, each episode counts as a separate rental).
• As you can see, my initial usage was a little erratic, though I apparently tend to fall into a 4-5 month pattern (and you can see two nearly identical curves in 2007) where DVD rentals range from 6-13 per month. 13 appears to be my ceiling for a month, though I've hit that several times.
• I've only fallen below the 4 disc per month ratio needed to bring the average rental down below $4 once (twice if you count July 2006, but that was my first month of service and does not constitute a full month's worth of data). To be honest, I don't remember why I only returned 2 movies in January 2007, but that was the first and only time I fell below the necessary 4 rentals.
• My Watch Instantly service usage started off with a bang in July 2007 but quickly trailed off until 2008, when usage skyrocketed. This is when I discovered the TV show Dexter and quickly worked my way through all of the first season episodes (13 in all). Following Dexter, I started in on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and I just finished that today (expect a review later this week), so that means I watched 26 episodes online. Expect this to drop sharply next month (though I still plan on using it significantly, as I'll be following along with Filmspotting's 70's SF marathon, which features several movies in the Watch Instantly catalog). All in all, it's a reasonable service, though I have to admit that watching it on my computer just isn't the same - I bought that 50" widescreen HDTV for a reason, you know...
• You'll also notice that both March and April of 2008 have me hitting the ceiling of 13 movies per month. This is the first time I've done that in consecutive months and is largely due to watching BSG season 3 and my discovery and addiction to The Wire.
• As of April 2008, I'm averaging 9 movies a month (I've rented 198 DVDs). Even if I were to use my original price of $17.99 a month, that works out to around $2 a DVD rental. When you factor in the price drops and the Watch Instantly viewing (I've watched 51 things, though again, in some cases what I'm watching is a single episode of a TV show), I'm betting it would come out around $1.50-$1.75.

So it seems that the service is definitely worth the money and is indeed saving me a lot. Plus, Netflix has a far greater selection than any local video store (with the potential exception of TLA Video, but they're too far from my home to count), thus allowing me to indulge in various genres that you don't see much of in a typical video store. The only potential downside to Netflix is that you can't really rent something on impulse (unless it's on the Watch Instantly service). There are also times when new or popular movies take some time before they're actually available to you, but you have to contend with that from video rental stores as well. Indeed, I can only think of 3-4 times I've had to wait for a movie (this is mostly due to the fact that I tend to rent more obscure fare where people aren't exactly lining up to see it...) For the most part, Netflix has been reliable as well, almost always turning around my returns in short order (I mail it one day, and get the next films two days later). There have been a few mixups and I do remember one movie that wasn't available on the east coast and had to be shipped from California, so it came after a wait of 3-4 days, but for the most part, I'm very happy with the service.

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...



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:

• It goes without saying: As a twenty-something geek, there are certain movies that are just way too obvious to put on this list (otherwise, my list would look like everyone else's list). In no particular order: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk (these last two worry me a bit, but I will most assuredly be seeing them).
• The International: The most art-housey of the films on my list sounds like one of my favorite kinds of art house movies: the art house crime pic. Director Tom Tykwer infamously combined art house and crime in his brilliant 1999 film, Run Lola Run and while I don't expect this film to be that good, I think it still shows a lot of promise.
• Trailer Trash: The funniest part of the Grindhouse double-feature last year were these "fake" trailers for non-existent movies (for example, Werewolf Women of the S.S.) that they played between the two main features. Director Eli Roth (who did the hilarious Thanksgiving preview, a pitch perfect parody of the original Halloween trailer) had the idea to make an entire movie of fake trailers. It's a high concept, but it sounds like it could be a lot of fun, and Roth seems like a decent choice to head this sort of thing up.
• The Happening: M. Night Shyamalan gets a bad rap because everyone loved his first few films but not his most recent films. The impression is that he's just getting worse and worse but from my perspective, I've never been all that impressed with him in the first place. Sure, I enjoyed his first few movies a lot, but I didn't consider them masterpieces. I think both The Village and Lady in the Water are flawed yet entertaining movies and I really don't understand the almost universal dislike of these two movies (though I will note that I saw both of these films with very low expectations, which could be part of why I enjoyed them). For the most part, my opinion of Shyamalan's work hasn't changed much. I tend to enjoy his movies, and so I'm looking forward to this one.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Guillermo del Toro has emerged as one of the better fantasy/horror directors out there, and the first Hellboy was quite enjoyable (I mean, come on, monsters, the occult, nazis, Cthulhu-like creatures from another dimension - what's not to like?). This second film looks to be an even more eclectic mixture of "folklore, myth, and fantasy" (as he describes it). I love this quote from del Toro: "...he's saving the world from an archvillain who's determined to do, you know, very arch things."
• Pineapple Express: I like stoner comedies. I like action movies. What's not to like about a stoner action film? This movie, the latest from the Apatow juggernaut (written by Seth Rogen and starring a bunch of Apatow gang members), follows two stoners who go on the run after witnessing a murder. It doesn't sound like much, but then a couple of years ago, two fellas set out for White Castle and it ended up being one of the more enjoyable movies of that year (there's a sequel to that one coming out soon too, but it doesn't look so great). Probably not fine oscar-caliber cinema, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.
• Honorable Mention: The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Step Brothers, Hancock, WALL-E, and Speed Racer

And there you have it. Honestly, this year isn't shaping up to be all that great, though there are some promising movies coming out later in the year (including new films by David Fincher, the Coen brothers, and maybe even Darren Aronofsky).



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):

• 3-15 Minute Episodes: These series aren't common except on the Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim, which features many series that fit this format, including Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Metalocalypse, etc... Each episode airs in a 15 minute timeslot, though with commercials, that ends up being around 11 minutes per episode. However, all of these shows are broad comedies or parodies, and often don't tell a single coherent story, instead relying on one-liners, funny situations (though I wouldn't classify these shows as sit-coms) and short parodies. There also isn't much of a continuity between episodes, which perhaps explains why we don't see much dramatic content being pushed out in this sort of timeslot. However, one high-profile exception to this is the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. Volume 1 of the series featured a whole slew of 3 minute episodes, while volume 2 featured 12 minute episodes. It's a good series, though again, I've only ever seen the DVDs where all the epis