tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75719307734624050962024-02-20T03:42:47.659-08:00The Insomniac Film CriticUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-91817426447359536622010-09-15T19:09:00.001-07:002010-09-15T19:28:29.590-07:00Context, Perception, Inception<em><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>SPOILER ALERT:</strong> In this post, I briefly touch on the final shot of Inception and what I think to be the general meaning behind it. Also, I haven't posted since July, so please forgive that there are two Inception posts back to back here - I promise it wasn't intended. FINALLY, I hope this post makes sense.</span></em><br /><br /><div align="left">Inception's critical success needs to be placed in a context, much like its acceptance by the masses does. Movie critics have to watch just about everything that gets a wide release - they see Saw 17, vehemently dislike it, and then watch as it proceeds to become a big financial success. Seemingly every week, critics lose more faith in the filmgoing masses (evidenced by how many critics felt Inception might be too complex for the average viewer), and when they see a movie with a large marketing budget that actually has some sort of depth to it, they collectively lose their shit. If these movies actually do succeed financially, critics' hopes that these successes could bring about mass change for the big Hollywood movie are bolstered (although these hopes are never met). Thusly, these critics aren't just writing about and suggesting that people see Inception, they are writing about hopes for a Hollywood where a financial and critical success like Inception isn't merely an anomaly. This has a huge effect on how the public collectively judges a movie.<br /><br />Inception is an incredible movie, and I say that without reservation, much like I say that it had a perfect marketing campaign. There were enough stunning images in the trailer that most people who aren't completely against blockbusters would want to see the movie, and the trailer gave away nothing important to the plot. This allowed for curiousity around the movie to build, and once the critical fellatio began, all the marketers had to do was put the reviewers' best quotes all over the television and print ads, and they had locked up a huge opening weekend draw. If I remember correctly, Peter Travers (a notoriously easy critic who writes for Rolling Stone) was given the first look at the film and proceeded to write wildly praising prose about the movie (much like his first-look review of The Dark Knight). Then as the rest of the reviews began to trickle across the internet, people began to suspect that they were about to watch something special, culturally significant, and most of all (since just about every review called it this) 'smart.'<br /><br />Any time a piece of media is referred to as smart, people who hear this about it often will actively try to like it. I once knew somebody who continually tried to get into Arrested Development merely because he thought it was something he should enjoy even though it simply didn't line up with the type of media he typically liked. Since he perceived himself as a smart person, he felt he should like this smart media. Once you take this and apply it on the scale of the summer blockbuster, this method of thinking starts applying to significantly more people. You had to look to find advertisements or reviews calling Arrested Development smart, for Inception all you had to do was read a couple phrases on the poster at your bus stop. If you lived in a city and even mildly paid attention to movies, chances are you knew Inception was a well-reviewed movie before it was released. Once it had a successful opening weekend, word of mouth was able to spread, and this fueled Inception's subsequent weeks of topping the box office.<br /><br />Here is where I take issue with media being called smart - if Inception was as smart as critics seemed to believe it is, then a movie like Inception never could have been the hit that it was because people simply wouldn't understand the movie. One of the best aspects of Inception is that, while being complicated, it is not particularly difficult to follow assuming you don't typically have an issue with non-linear storytelling. For the first 30 minutes or so, the audience is completely in the dark, but by the end of the movie everything that really needs to be explained has been. The movie can be thought about for as long as the viewer wants to, but it doesn't really need to be thought about that much in order to enjoy it. Inception isn't a smart movie, it's just a really fucking good one.<br /><br />Of course, this perception of the film can work both ways, and can turn people off from the movie should they be even vaguely media-savvy. Modern movie releases are completely different from even 10 years ago, as the continual escalation in the availability of information continues to change how every piece of mass media is perceived. I recently listened to somebody on a podcast recounting a story of finding out Rocky III existed when it happened to be playing at his local theatre - and this is a movie fan who grew up in Boston. Before the mid-80s or so, even an established franchise didn't really have any sort of marketing push behind it. When Rocky Balboa (the 2006 sequel) was released, so much had changed - before going into the movie I knew Adrian was not in the film thanks to my anticipatory IMDB checking, and I knew Rocky's son was being played by that punk kid in Heroes from reading one of the readily available Sylvester Stallone interviews. The way this changes how we view movies cannot be overstated.<br /><br />A good friend of mine* liked Inception, but not nearly on the level that I (or seemingly most of society for that matter) did. Our conversations about the movie were extensive, and her main issue with the movie seemed to be with it being perceived as smarter than it is. She saw it as a good blockbuster, but as an English major, took issue with some comments Christopher Nolan made in an interview about the film being influenced by Jorge Borges and magic realism. When she saw the movie, she did not find much Borges and no magic realism, and thusly took issue with Nolan talking like it had been an influence. While my post-Inception research lead me to find a few lines in some Borges poem that quite obviously influenced a scene in Inception, it was a relatively small moment in the movie. And while I do see some magic realism in Inception, I am biased towards Nolan and in general know little about the subject - in both of these regards, I support my friend's opinion because she knows a million times better than me.<br /><br />I tried to read as little as possible about Inception before actually seeing it, because I wanted to be unaffected by outside factors. Of course, it was already too late for that because I am a borderline-obsessive film fan and have read about as much as there is to read on Nolan's previous films and the man himself. After first watching Memento years ago, I remember looking for the director's name on its IMDB page, and I have been following him ever since. Memento is one of the few times I can remember where I knew almost nothing about the movie itself and had no real strong feelings toward anybody in the cast or crew, and seeing how it was a great story and idea that unfolded impeccably, I wanted to know more about the man who directed it. Of course, since then, I have seen every one of his movies with the mindset that they are from "the director of Memento."<br /><br />Now I can scour the internet for information about Nolan as well as countless critical readings of his movies which can in turn make me like them more. This makes me even more excited for his new films, and eventually I find myself experiencing a moment that seems surreal to me but should be wholly realistic - sitting in a movie theatre, watching the beginning of a brand new Christopher Nolan movie. Even if Inception was only mediocre, I realize that I probably would have loved it, or at least really liked it anyway assuming the few things I was looking for were there. This is years of excitement coming to their conclusion, so seeing the movie ends up being a mixture of happiness, relief, and hope that it's actually good. Meanwhile, not all that long ago, moviegoers would walk into a movie having just found out it had been released.<br /><br />My friend was not particularly excited about Inception, but since we talk a lot she had to hear plenty about my excitement. This probably had a negative influence on her enjoyment of the movie, and her reading the aforementioned interview with Nolan almost certainly did too. I doubt either of these things would have happened had Inception been released in the media world of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I'm not saying that the evolution of the media has necessarily become a negative for filmmaking, nor am I saying my friend would have loved the movie had she not read that interview, but this growth in the media has resulted in the inception of opinions before we actually view Inception for ourselves. Our perception of a movie changes depending on the media we experience, so we need to be cognizant of the context movies are being released into, and try to form our opinions on them with little outside influence. Since we simply cannot completely avoid outside influence at this point, we just have to make sure we get the context right so that they are accurately remembered.<br /><br />Examples of not taking context into consideration when judging media are everywhere - during Michael Jordan's first retirement in the mid-1990s, the NBA (obviously) changed drastically without him. One of the main beneficiaries of this is Reggie Miller's legacy. Miller was a guard who was basically a less athletic Ray Allen: he had a great jump shot, a flair for the moment, and he should have never been the number one guy on a team with championship aspirations. When Jordan left, he left behind a newly guard-obsessed league, albeit now without a great shooting guard. Reggie Miller had just enough great moments (his playoff 25-point 4th quarter domination of the Knicks as well as a few other memorable clutch performances) to look like a superstar, but in reality he choked far more often than he came through in the clutch. Of course, in the context of a Jordan-free guard-loving league, he was the highest profile shooting guard, and he was thusly perceived to be a superstar. He was damn good, no doubt about it, but he just wasn't great.<br /><br />As such, when an event movie like Inception is released, we need to take a look at the time it came out in for us to properly gauge its cultural impact. Inception, like Avatar last winter, was a fairly big movie for mass film culture, and like Avatar it needs to be analyzed within the proper context. Both films were so well reviewed partially because of the surrounding time period's movies being generally lackluster, and with how they have been reviewed, almost everybody who cares about movies feels an obligation to see them and be able to discuss them. When discussing Avatar years down the line, I hope that it is remembered almost exclusively for technological reasons such as ushering in the era of 3D, just like I hope Inception's greatness is measured within the context that there hasn't been a great year for film since 2007. Contrary to what I believe the final shot of Inception to convey, I would rather have an accurate view of a film's legacy than a false one that makes me happier. I realize that I may be overly criticizing these aspects of filmgoing, but I do feel that these aspects deserve to be critiqued overtly... otherwise we might accidentally end up with an All-Decade team filled with Reggie Millers. Like Cobb's crew, we need to go deeper to finish the job correctly.<br /></div><div align="right"> </div><div align="right"> </div><div align="right"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>*who I do not mean to attack here - if this seems like I'm beating up on you in a one-sided communication, I'm sorry. I tried to be fair.</em></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-21647568059250049392010-07-18T18:13:00.000-07:002010-07-18T23:41:12.626-07:00Inception review-type thingy<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">I’m not going to write anything extensive about the movie itself, but if you haven’t seen the movie yet I would suggest you not read this post until you do. It’s a very good movie, and the less you know going into it, the happier you’ll be at the end of it.</span></span><br /><br />You probably know I’m a big Christopher Nolan fan, and as such you probably know how excited I was about this movie. The only movie I can compare it to in terms of my level of excitement is the Dark Knight, a movie I still love and still can’t believe exceeded my expectations. In my mind, Nolan has never made a bad movie, and the only movie he has made that is anything less than great is Insomnia, but even that is still pretty damn good.<br /><br />I know the reason why I watch as many movies as I do. I always suspected this was the reason, but Inception really hammered it home to me. I don’t know if this is something normal people get, but every once in a while when a movie completely connects with me, I get an overwhelming feeling of numbness as it ends. This can happen to a lesser extent with a lot of movies… just about any movie I really like can send a shiver down my spine at a particularly great moment. But this feeling is different from that. It’s like a thousand spine shivers going right into your head, and all you can think about is what you just watched. The Dark Knight gave me this feeling two years ago, Memento did way back when I was in high school, and now Inception has given me this feeling more powerfully than any movie before it.<br /><br />When the movie ended, I made my way outside of the theatre, and I just had to sit down again for a few minutes. My brain had been turned to mush. The most beautiful thing about Inception is how it can be as deep as you want it to be: it’s a movie about reality that puts you in the central character’s shoes. Depending on your reading of the film, YOU are the central character. As something that was marketed as too intelligent for most, and reviewers worrying about the casual film fan being able to follow the plot, Inception is remarkable. As much as is happening at any given moment of the movie, you are never lost. It’s incredible. Never was I confused as to what was going on, and the only time I was disoriented were in the very beginning, when it is clear that Nolan and company don’t want you to know what is happening.<br /><br />Nolan is a master of populist entertainment: his movies are very ‘smart,’ but they are also easy to follow and well liked by the casual moviegoer. He has said that he has always wanted to make big action films, and I think that is what allows him to make movies that connect with so many people. There are many talking points in each of his movies should you want to read into them, but they also function as an entertaining movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon when you’re hung over on the couch. I could watch Inception and talk about my opinions on it for hours afterward, or I could just watch it while falling in and out of sleep and still follow and love it. You always know you’re watching something good, but how much you want to take from it is up to you. And I took a lot away from Inception, only a little bit of which I will talk about here.<br /><br />Nolan is unmatched when it comes to ending his movies well, and I think that is a huge asset to him. Since Batman Begins, the endings of his movies have always built and built and built on each other until there is one moment and the audience finally gets released from the world they have likely become quite invested in. A movie with a memorable last shot will keep you thinking about it long after the movie is done, and I think Nolan is aware of this. His movies don’t fade out, they cut to black, and then you’re sitting in your seat consumed by the final images. Think of the final shot (and line) of Memento, the cuts to black in his Batman films, the reveal in the Prestige, and of course Inception.<br /><br />The last shot of Inception is perfect, and exactly what I would expect from Nolan. It doesn’t give a concrete answer, just like Memento and the Dark Knight leave their ideas open for interpretation. My reading of Inception is that it is a dream, and all of the main characters are parts of Nolan’s creative personality. Cobb is a stand-in for Nolan himself, and Nolan’s films are his dreams. Again, I don’t know the man so I can’t say for sure, but it just feels like that to me. It is a fairly simple reading to say that Inception is about filmmaking and creativity, but that was what I thought about it. And this allows me to connect with it more, because I want to do what Nolan does.<br /><br />His movies are not without their criticisms, however. His characters are never particularly strong, and I rarely care about them all that much. His Batman films are a bit different in this regard, as I want Batman to succeed, but that is partially due to pre-existing attachments to the character. Also, all of his female characters seem to be there to serve the story of the male characters. But, Nolan’s movies aren’t about characters.<br /><br />Each of his films can be broken down into a short phrase, and all of those phrases have to do with the human mind. Memento is about memory constructing our reality, the Prestige obsession, Batman Begins fear, The Dark Knight insanity (among other themes), and Inception again about how we construct our reality although this time without a focus on memory. Nolan’s movies aren’t about their characters, they’re about our minds. And maybe that’s how his movies can connect with so many people. Or maybe it’s something else, I don’t really know.<br /><br />Towards the end of Inception, there is a discussion about Mal becoming addicted to the dream world, and that it is the only place she can really feel alive. I am not a particularly emotional person in real life, and am typically more passionate about pieces of media than I am about elements of my own life. The dream for me is to make movies, or at least have control over producing videos of some sort, and maybe this desire is partially because that is where I find the most passion in my life. The feeling of watching a video I have completed (well, for one that I like), is great. I can’t even imagine how Nolan must have felt watching the final cut of Inception. Pride? Excitement? If I had written/directed Inception, I imagine I would have been so excited watching it that I probably would have kicked holes in the walls while repeatedly screaming, “I’M THE FUCKING MAN!”<br /><br />Is Inception Nolan’s best movie? Honestly, I’m not sure. Memento could be deconstructed for days like Inception, which might be even more impressive given that Memento doesn’t really stray too far from the real world. The Prestige is a perfectly written movie, and the Dark Knight is the most impressive blockbuster since the Matrix (and perhaps until Inception). Regardless, Nolan’s contributions to film are impressive, and personally I’m happy to say that I have been a Nolan fan since the release of his first film. If these movies are what play out in his dreams, I can only imagine how excited he must be to go to sleep every night.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-3939792107344377292010-07-15T22:20:00.000-07:002010-07-15T22:21:14.215-07:00When you make Kobe look humble, you're fucking up.I want to make a few things clear about my feelings towards LeBron James’ decision to play for the Miami Heat: until this year, I liked him. I was by no means a Cavs fan, but I loved watching him play because, quite honestly, he’s the most talented player in the league by a wide margin. He’s kind of like Charles Barkley was in his younger days: a, unique ‘physical specimen’ who does not conform to what his size says he should (which would be a power forward in the post, not a ball-handling small forward). Keep in mind, before Sir Charles was a loveable public alcoholic, he was a 6’4” power forward who not only played his position well, but was DOMINANT at a size typically reserved for guards. According to their official listings, the Round Mound of Rebound is one inch taller than Steve Nash. But my love for Charles has forced me to digress.<br /><br />My dislike for LeBron had a slow build, and it also corresponded with my growth in admiration of Carmelo Anthony’s game. LeBron’s whining towards the refs has gotten out of control (much like Kobe’s), and that typically starts to send me over the edge on how I feel about a player. During the now infamous Celtics/Cavs second round series this year, I don’t think it’s a question that LeBron quit. His stats were great, of course, but with 2 minutes left in the closeout game, the Cavaliers just stopped trying to win, even though they still conceivably could have. I am a firm believer in your leader dictating the tone of the team, and had LeBron been trying to win instead of just sauntering up the court, I bet the rest of his team would have kept trying as well. It was without a doubt one of the most confusing, frustrating and maddening things I’ve witnessed in my decade of excessive basketball watching. If you’re a competitor, you don’t fucking quit. I suck at basketball, but even when my former roommate was beating me 10-1 in a game to 11, I was still trying. And the only thing on the line there was bragging rights.<br /><br />I will still watch LeBron play next year. I would be a fool not to. But I hate that man, and so do a lot of other NBA fans right now. I’m pretty sure Cleveland will do their own, LeBron jersey variation of the Comiskey Park Disco Demolition Night by the end of the summer, led by Cavs owner Dan Gilbert himself. My hate does not stem from LeBron abandoning Cleveland, because I don’t care about Cleveland (does anybody?), nor does it stem from him taking less money to having a better chance at winning championships. I actually think that’s vaguely admirable. It certainly doesn’t stem from him realizing that he doesn’t have his now-teammate Dwyane Wade’s ‘killer instinct,’ although judging by The Interview with Jim Gray, he doesn’t quite realize that he should and will be deferring to Wade more often than he is used to in crunch time. If he’s willingly accepting an uber-Pippen role, then again, I find that admirable. Wade’s body will break down sooner than Bron’s, and Wade is 3 years older as well, so if these egos can coexist for long enough, LeBron will eventually have his chance as alpha dog again, but with less pressure, assuming the Miami Thrice win a title or two before this change occurs.<br /><br />The reason LeBron left is pretty simple I think, and it is (to me) kind of telling about his personality. He is publicly a Yankees, Cowboys, and (while growing up) Bulls fan, just like every kid you went to school with in the 90s who liked wearing Starter jackets. This guy was the “son of Ohio,” but he never cheered for Ohio sports teams. When Michael Jordan hit “the shot” over Cleveland’s Craig Ehlo in the late 80s, LeBron was probably happy. He’s a bandwagoner, and as somebody who dislikes bandwagoners, I can’t like LeBron anymore.<br /><br />To me, a bandwagon fan is the worst kind of sports fan. This is the non-New Yorker that cheers for the Yankees because chances are, they’re going to win more often than anybody else. He wears his #24 Lakers jersey to a bar in Toronto and yells “GIVE IT TO KOBE!” every time another Laker has the ball. The bandwagon fan doesn’t want to wait to win: they want to win now. And I don’t mean that in a ‘fiery competitor’ sort of way, because the average fan has almost no influence on the game, I mean it in that they don’t want to wait around for their local team to win. I realize this way of thinking might be kind of stupid, because my chosen team, the Raptors will almost certainly never win a title, but at least I’ll respect myself in some odd way. And as I have mentioned many times before in conversation, I find the concept of professional sports to be inherently ridiculous, and thusly support my own ridiculous opinions towards professional sports.<br /><br />Irrationally hating bandwagon fans is pretty much the sports nerd’s equivalent of being the normal nerd in high school: I’m Ducky in Pretty in Pink, and bandwagon fans are the more popular and eventually successful Blane. We’re often working harder to meet our goal, but shit just comes so easy to the popular folk.<br /><br />I realize that my Carmelo Anthony fandom complicates things here. The Nuggets are my secondary team, and Melo isn’t the only player on that team I really like (K-Mart, JR Smith, Chauncey Billups, Nene, etc), but I cheer for them because of Melo. My defense for this is that Melo does not get anywhere near the respect he deserves in comparison to the other premier players in the league. He’s the underdog superstar. People expect LeBron to win, whereas when Melo and the Nuggets made it to the Western Conference Finals a year ago, it surprised people. And it’s easier for a person like me to cheer for the underdog. When Kobe and the Lakers triumphed over the Nuggets last year, it was frustrating. The Lakers had more natural talent, and a deeper bench (in that they had one)… but you could tell just how bad the Nuggets wanted it. But that’s never what really matters.<br /><br />Melo’s also got an ego, no doubt. Anybody who is showered with as much praise growing up as a basketball player at his level would have one, it’s the nature of the game. If people tell you something good about yourself repeatedly for long enough, you’re going to eventually believe it and carry yourself differently. I’ve seen this happen on a much smaller scale than a pro ball player, and I would imagine it takes a very strong will to avoid. But LeBron took the concept of ego and raised it about ten notches with his hour long ESPN special called “The Decision.” What Kevin Durant did in a single tweet, LeBron needed an hour of primetime television for. This has been written about just about everywhere, and honestly, to see how ridiculous it is, all you have to do is read this sentence: “This fall, man this is very tough, I’m going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat.” Those are the words he said in the middle of an obviously scripted interview, and if you remove the painfully forced “tough decision” line, that would easily fit in a tweet. The rest of the hour was almost certainly spent rehashing points we had read many times in the preceding weeks. I can’t be a fan of any athlete who thinks they deserve an hour of primetime for one sentence.<br /><br />To be fair, part of this isn’t LeBron’s fault. Michael Jordan was an egotistical douchebag too, but the peak of his career was 15 years ago, before the sports media ‘evolved’ into what it is now. But abusing the media’s admiration of him is almost as offensive as the media’s role in this to me. A lot of wrong decisions were made… and while the special was LeBron’s representations’ idea (and LeBron agreed to it), ESPN was probably the one who really profited. I suspect LeBron lost a lot of fans with the special, but the ratings were massive. I was (shockingly) in a movie theatre at the time, but the clips I watched later on that night were painful. It was like watching the high school quarterback step up to give some sort of speech at an assembly: you hate that he felt entitled enough to do it, but you still wanted to hear how he was going to try to address the school.<br /><br />LeBron has to leave his native Cleveland to (presumably) win faster. Melo misses out on his rightful recognition. The Raptors never win, and Ducky doesn’t get the girl. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is, and the way it always will be.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-30984902307095651662010-07-05T01:08:00.000-07:002010-07-05T01:11:28.520-07:00T.R.O.Y.<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">I initially wrote this a couple of months ago, which should explain any time-based confusion to readers who know me. I also am still unsure how I feel about romanticizing this so much, but it has been a month since I wrote about Community, so I needed to post something.</span></span><br /><br />I love going to the movies, as you may have put together, but I have never really been able to put together a definable reason as to why I like it so much. I obviously love the actual watching of the movies, but I have paid to see some unbelievably poor movies that I never would have watched at home (Kangaroo Jack, Mindhunters, Dickie Roberts, Bulletproof Monk, Million Dollar Baby, etc). This is very much because of the low ticket prices at my local discount theatre, but also because of my lifelong love of movies.<br /><br />I went to the movies fairly frequently before high school, but once I met some like-minded friends in high school, I started going to the movies 2-3 times a week. Outside of trying out for the school basketball team twice and writing one movie review in Grade 9 for the school paper (a positive review of the Legend of Bagger Vance that I clearly wish I could take back), I didn’t partake in any extracurricular activities, and neither did two of my soon to be closest friends. We started to make the walk downtown to the movie theatre after school, and this became something we would do pretty much any afternoon when none of us had to work. This trend continued on many weekends and throughout summer vacations, where I learned something else about my friends and, in turn, going to the movies.<br /><br />I love the friends I have talked about here, but some of them are pretty unreliable. Sometimes I would make plans to go to a movie with somebody, and then they just wouldn’t show up. After this happened a few times, I was pretty sick of just going home, so I started seeing the movies by myself, which I quickly found was almost as enjoyable as seeing the movie with somebody else. This was a pretty killer discovery, because then I realized that on those pesky days when I couldn’t find anybody to go with, I could just go by myself. I could see just about anything I wanted to, and I could go back to see something good multiple times if I wanted to (and I did, sometimes even three days in a row). I didn’t skip much school in high school or university, but when I did, typically I ended up at the movies. This eventually escalated to the point where I’m at now, where whenever I get a day where I don’t have anything to do, I go to this same theatre all day and see everything I’ve missed.<br /><br />I’ve lived in the same city with this theatre for about 12-13 years now, and I have finally gotten a job that is going to move me out of it. I won’t miss this city itself, much like I have never really missed high school or university once I left them. I miss some people, but I never miss the places. I do, however, feel awkward going back. For some reason that I can’t remember now, I had to go back into my high school very briefly a couple of years ago, and upon walking through the doors I was instantly filled with a feeling of awkwardness. I have no idea why, but I just felt completely uncomfortable and had to get out of there as soon as I could. Now that I have left university, the same thing tends to occur, albeit to a lesser degree, when I have to go on campus or the time I rented movies from the video store I worked at for years. I am borderline obsessed with memory and more specifically how I remember moments and artifacts from my past, and I think my being uncomfortable with revisiting these places is because it can only hurt the remaining pleasant memories I may have of them.<br /><br />The other day, I decided to go to the movies for one last chance to have a movie day, knowing full well that this will probably be the end of being able to do this what with adulthood looming* and moving to a city where the cheapest theatre is a full $3 more than what I’m used to paying. The convenience of my home theatre’s location, mixed with its incredible ticket prices, will probably not happen again in my life. I’m obviously not saying I’m never going to the movies again, because that would be absurd, but I might be saying goodbye to the days when I go to see a 1pm movie and am still around for the last show of the night at 10. And the worst part about it all is that when I’m back in town visiting, I don’t see myself wanting to go back to this theatre. Like high school, university, and the video store, I hate going back, likely because so much of my life was spent there.<br /><br />I have many notable memories at this theatre, two of which that stick out to me now are when I saw The Girl Next Door, and then years later when I saw Adventureland. Each time I was alone, and each time I had just finished my final year at an educational institution – high school for The Girl Next Door, and university for Adventureland. I’ve always said that the sign of a good comedy is when it can make me laugh out loud when I’m by myself, and both of these movies accomplished that repeatedly. I also remember really liking each when I saw them – each movie was about somebody who I could see parts of myself in, and I was, to a point, emotionally invested in each main character’s decisions.<br /><br />In the past week, I have rewatched each of these two movies, and have discovered that while the Girl Next Door is still funny, it is certainly not good. The whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking when I was 18, but now I’m thinking I was an idiot. While it isn’t altogether impossible, it still seems bizarre that I could ever be emotionally invested in a movie like this. I typically feel like I should be laughing at absurd teen movies, not taking them seriously: this is why you give the “really?” look to people who think that the Breakfast Club is a serious film.<br /><br />Going back and watching the Girl Next Door again is pretty much how I feel about returning to my high school, university, and probably soon my favourite movie theatre. The place is still the same, but your good memories of it far outweigh anything that can be accomplished by going back. With time, parts of your memories will fade away, and you’ll be left with only the best (and I suppose worst) parts of those memories. I am an advocate for watching movies multiple times, and I am not saying that I shouldn’t have watched the Girl Next Door again, I am just saying that I shouldn’t necessarily expect to get the same initial feeling watching a movie years after first viewing it. I liked Adventureland this week just as much as I did a year ago, but that may change with time like my opinions on the Girl Next Door did. I might see my old theatre in the future, but it can never be the same. It is far more likely that it will feel like rewatching the Girl Next Door, or meeting up with a friend I haven’t seen in years: the idea of it will be exciting, but the actual event will almost always be a letdown. Luckily, I have the memories and the ticket stubs to remind me of what was, and what the place meant to me.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">*I say that you’re not truly an adult until you stop shamelessly using your clothes as napkins in public places, and while I have yet to reach that stage, I always fear that day is on the horizon.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-70638050889954454022010-06-05T01:21:00.000-07:002010-06-05T01:22:00.050-07:00Movie referenceThere are certain people and media products that seem to be constantly striving to serve people like myself (read: media sponges who take many forms of media that would be deemed ‘low culture’ way too seriously). The writer who best illustrates this point to me is Chuck Klosterman, for music there’s Girl Talk, and for TV now there is Community. These are products that are aware that, while low culture may not necessarily be advancing its art form, acknowledge that these products have value and in turn use it to create their own point. Klosterman does this explicitly, Girl Talk implicitly, but Community does both.<br /><br />The show centers around a Spanish study group that is composed of a mish mash of character types, all of whom you have seen before countless times in other movies and TV shows. This group attends Greendale Community College, and you know, hijinks ensue. In the study group are the high-strung overachiever Annie, the old racist misogynist idiot Pierce, the dumb athlete Troy, mother of two Shirley, buzz kill atheist Britta, pop culture wizard but often socially awkward Abed, and the leader with the silver tongue, Jeff Winger.<br /><br />The pilot for this show sets up all of these characters, most of all Jeff, who is described initially by Abed as “Chevy Chase in any one of his movies,” but then Abed corrects himself and says Jeff is “more like Bill Murray in any one of his movies.” The truth is, he’s a mix of both, as he mixes Chase’s wit with Murray’s goofiness, all while being a “textbook narcissist.” Jeff sets up Community as an ensemble comedy with a leader who is a narcissist but still likeable (much like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, Stripes*, etc) with a flair for sarcasm (Chevy Chase in Fletch) and the necessary dash of “fuck you” that each comedians’ characters had when the actor was in his prime.<br /><br />The rest of the characters are less important to the show’s overall progression (with an exception that I will deal with shortly), as they fill the roles of their aforementioned character types. Britta is there as Jeff’s “will they or won’t they” girl and Pierce is clearly meant to be Jeff in twenty years, but again these characters are mostly there to provide material for Jeff’s character. While each character gets their share of plot lines, it always comes back to Jeff. He will struggle with his feelings for Britta, and he will worry about becoming Pierce, but he will still continue to be the Murray/Chase hybrid that the show requires. As in all of the great ensemble comedy movies that came from the Saturday Night Live tree in the 1970s and 80s, there needs to be a powerful comedic leader, a role that Jeff fills.<br /><br />Abed is completely aware of all of this, even going so far as to mention it multiple times. What makes Abed one of the most uniquely postmodern characters on television right now (and probably ever) is that he is more or less a viewer of the show that he is actually in. Abed’s main purpose on the show is to point out everything that resembles another piece of popular media, as well as occasionally trying to reenact other media. In the pilot alone, he acknowledges the study group’s resemblance to a John Hughes ensemble and, as mentioned previously, points out Jeff’s Murray and Chase similarities. Abed acknowledges that in modern society, there is little genuine action and emotion, as the bombardment of media products has left us in a hyperreality where we are all both consciously and subconsciously referring to past media products. Think of Abed as a sort of hipster version of Jean Baudrillard, except funnier, easier to digest, and much easier to paraphrase without bastardizing his general idea.<br /><br />Jeff is definitely the emotional core of the show, but Abed is more representative of what the show actually is. Through its constant references to other pop culture products, Community creates a new whole that is both hilarious and at times even emotionally compelling. The show is a sitcom, and each episode is structured as such: we get a plot set up, and by the end of the episode that plot has a resolution. Community subscribes to the more modern sitcom formula however, in that it is shot in a single camera style (as opposed to in front of a studio audience) and there are lengthier plot lines that are carried through multiple episodes, most notably Jeff and Britta’s relationship that has been developed over the course of the first season.<br /><br />In keeping with what makes the show great, however, is how it continually pokes fun at the sitcom format itself. Abed discusses the sexual tension between Britta and Jeff, comparing them to Ross and Rachel, and Abed foreshadows the season finale twist that you could often find in a show like Friends. Community not only references other sitcoms, but also learns from these past sitcoms’ mistakes. Like Abed, the producers and writers of Community have seen every major sitcom, and know what to do to avoid making the same mistakes that others have. Any shark jumping moments that have occurred on past sitcoms will not be repeated unless Community is attempting to make a point of it. Should Community last long enough to be able to jump the shark, it will likely do so in a new way.<br /><br />Reference comedy has grown in popularity in the last 10 years, and I think a lot of this can be attributed to Judd Apatow’s team of comic actors, specifically Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd. Each of these actors’ most famous characters, both in Apatow and others’ films, rely heavily on media references to get laughs. A reference that is funny will get a bigger laugh than a regular joke that is just as funny: the reference joke gets a laugh that comes with a bonus boost of “oh I get it!” whereas the non-reference joke only gets the normal laugh. This feeling of being included in the group that gets the reference joke often bolsters the joke itself, and the audience will likely respond with a bigger laugh because of it. Community recognizes this and uses it to its advantage, much like Apatow-produced films have. If you get the reference jokes on Community, you are a part of a group that acknowledges this brand of humour, and with this feeling of community you subconsciously laugh a little bit harder**. This isn’t necessarily a cheap way to get a laugh, although it can be, it’s just a newer way.<br /><br />With all of the referencing and apparent commentary on media-saturated society that Community does, it would be easy to fall into the category of being postmodern just to seem more interesting. Think of those glamour shots in Garden State that do little to serve the story or make anything more than a weak point, or the thrown in references to ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ and other media in 500 Days of Summer: these are examples of mentioning media just to seem cool, and you can find them in just about any media product targeted directly at hipsters (and often this blog – remember my last post, when I referenced Metal Machine Music for a reason that didn’t really further my point? Yep, perfect example). Community, however, rarely falls into that trap, and even the most postmodern episodes make their references in a way that serves the story. The episode everybody talks about is the paintball episode, “Modern Warfare,” and rightfully so. It is the most explicitly postmodern episode of the show so far, and not only does it serve as a tribute to action movies, but it also advances key plot points that have been building throughout the season. By the end of the episode, Jeff has both acted selflessly and had sex with Britta. These actions have been built up all season, and both get a form of resolution in this episode, even while drenched in the metaphorical paint of action movie homage.<br /><br />For all of the goofing around Community does, it is clear that the crew really care about the level of technical quality of the show. This, again, is never more evident than in the paintball episode, as the action scenes rival anything you can see in a modern action movie. Just about every episode has a sort of thesis that it tries to make a point with (some more obvious than others), and it is typically a slightly different take on a point a traditional sitcom would try to make. One of my favourite ‘characters’ in the show is the Greendale Human Being, the school mascot that is basically a person dressed in a plain bodysuit that covers all of his skin. He symbolizes the thesis of the episode “Football, Feminism and You,” which Jeff says late in the episode, “that not being racist is the new racism.” Other episodes have themes about being raised on television, an episode about whether humans are inherently good or evil, Christianity’s unwillingness to accept others, and more.<br /><br />The show also gets at a few grander points with its postmodernism. By having everybody in the cast playing a well-defined character type that we have seen before, Community acknowledges that the “types” that have been set out in John Hughes movies, MTV reality shows, preceding sitcoms and other products not only exist, but will continue to be perpetuated both in media products and real life. Most North Americans under the age of 35-40 at this point have grown up with a ton of popular media, and now more than ever, these media products define who we are. We are all, at this point, variations on and combinations of character types, and not only does Community acknowledge this, but it seems to be one of the first mass media products that is okay with it. Community knows that this is how modern people are, and as the show’s other main thesis is to accept people for how they are, it only makes sense that the show encourages us to creatively make references as opposed to being wholly original. Community encourages people to rethink what has been put out as the accepted idea of something: not being racist is the new racism, clichés exist/people are types and that is okay, and there is almost nothing you can do now that hasn’t already been done before on television. No idea is truly original at this point, but how you use past ideas still can be.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">*Bill Murray’s character in Stripes is actually named John Winger. Is Jeff’s name just a coincidence? Not a chance.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">**This is completely a theory of mine. I have no evidence to back this up.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-74807095457332915742010-06-02T14:50:00.000-07:002010-06-02T14:52:31.636-07:00This blog isn't dead... but Casper sure is.Around Halloween of my first year of university, something reminded me of the 1995 live-action Casper movie. I felt compelled to watch the movie again, as I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid, and I bought it that day. The movie itself is actually pretty bad, although I don’t think I was expecting too much. I’m convinced Bill Pullman was drunk for most of the shoot, the script is really uneven, and it features some very bizarre cameos from Dan Aykroyd as his Ghostbuster Ray Stantz to Mel Gibson. Being that this movie was produced by Amblin and Steven Spielberg, I would imagine these cameos were called-in favours. But I digress. What surprised me was not the quality of the movie, Bill Pullman’s drunkenness, nor Clint Eastwood’s appearance, but more how mind-blowingly depressing it was.<br /><br />The movie focuses on the haunting of Whipstaff Manor, a residence that becomes the property of Carrigan when her husband dies. It’s a really cool, albeit creepy, house and if you aren’t like me and stopped watching kids movies when you turned 12, you may remember it better as the house in the Backstreet Boys’ video “Everybody” (you know, the one where they did their whole Thriller thing with the monsters and stuff). In Casper, however, it happens to be haunted by Stretch, Stinky, Fatso, and Casper as opposed to Nick, Brian, AJ, Kevin and Howie. Bill Pullman is Dr. James Harvey, a ghost psychologist who is hired by Carrigan to rid the house of these spooks, bringing “his loner daughter Kat,” played by Christina Ricci, along for the ride. The matriarch of the Harvey family, Amelia, passed away before the movie has begun, and Dr. Harvey is on a continual search to find her spirit. Okay, I think that’s enough setup.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Shit, I forgot to mention that when the kids at Kat’s new school get wind of her living at Whipstaff, they decide the school Halloween dance should take place there. Oh, gosh, I wonder if that little tidbit will come into play later in this post. Hmmm… And yes, I’m aware that I’m lazily plugging this information in at the last second and attempting to pass this paragraph off as creatively postmodern [hence the brackets, and then also these inner brackets]. Maybe I'll italicize this too, to further the illusion of creativity.)</span><br /><br />Casper first terrifies Kat, but once Kat realizes Casper isn’t a threat, they become pals. He doesn’t have much of a memory of his life as a human, but before too long Kat finds some artifacts from Casper’s life, and it all begins to come back to him. It turns out Casper died because after finally getting the sled he wanted so badly, he went tobogganing with it all day and came down with pneumonia that soon killed him, which in turn drove his father insane trying to resurrect his son. Casper recounts this story in a monologue, and it dawned on me that this is a 12-year-old kid explaining to us how he died. And if that wasn’t sad enough, Casper has since gone through the afterlife without any friends, and merely functioning as a slave to the other Whipstaff ghosts. This isn’t depressing at all, you say? Well just wait, because there’s more.<br /><br />Kat goes through some fairly trying things throughout the movie as well. For one, her mom died, so that sucks, but by the end of the movie, her dad has also died! It’s okay though, because pops gets brought back to life through the Lazarus machine that Casper’s dad built in what can only be described as his “batshit insane period” (not too different from Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” period, I would imagine). Casper was about to regain his humanity through the use of this machine, but since there was only enough fuel for one reanimation, Casper thought it best to let Kat have her dad back. Don’t worry though, Casper will be rewarded for his selflessness.<br /><br />As the school Halloween dance at Whipstaff begins, Casper gets a visit from the spirit of Kat’s mom. She grants him the ability to be human so that he may go to the dance (for some reason that is never explained, she can do this - perhaps birthing a cranium the size of Christina Ricci’s earns you Super Ghost status), and it is referred to as a ghost version of Cinderella. Since Casper is only 12 years old, however, Amelia is only letting him be human until the clock strikes 10, as opposed to midnight in the fairy tale. Apparently, reanimating her husband and ensuring that their daughter does not become an orphan is not enough for Casper to be allowed to stay up past his bedtime. For all of the positive things people say about Amelia throughout the movie, she kind of seems like a bitch. Again, digressing.<br /><br />Casper, now human, comes down the stairs to the main hall and finds Kat. They dance together until Kat realizes that they are floating, which leads her to kiss Casper. But then, the clock strikes 10, Casper turns back into a ghost, and everybody else at the party is scared shitless and runs home. Way to fuck up a perfectly good dance, Casper.<br /><br />I should also point out what Dr. Harvey is doing during the dance: after Amelia visits Casper, she goes to see her husband. They talk for a couple of minutes before she has to make her exit… without even saying hello to her daughter. Not only does that strike me as rude, but it also seems really mean. Dr. Harvey never even thinks that he should yell down the stairs, “hey, Kat! Come up here and say hi to your dead mom! She stopped by for a visit!”<br /><br />So Casper turns back into a ghost, the party clears out, and then Dr. Harvey joins Casper and Kat for a (no joke) Little Richard sing along to end the movie! Awww man, what a pleasant little film! I’m not massively depressed at all! Just think about the conversations that will be occurring after the sing along is over: “Oh, by the way Kat, the spirit of your mom came by to say hello. I assumed you didn’t want to see her though.” And what about the awkwardness between Kat and Casper after that kiss? They had one kiss as humans, and now Casper’s back to being a ghost, so I assume that’s the end of that romance. I realize 12 year old romance is not something to get up in arms about, but I hope Dr. Harvey is a normal psychologist too so that his daughter doesn’t go completely nuts, a la Casper’s dad. There’s a reason there was never a real sequel to this movie: Kat probably went crazy within a week of the movie ending.<br /><br />I loved this movie as a kid, and while I don’t remember watching it very many times, every time I watch it now I still remember everything that happens. I can even hum the incredibly depressing piano theme music to the movie from memory. I’m starting to suspect that this one movie has greatly shaped my choices of media products, and life in general, for reasons I have explained above. I remember thinking that the movie was more depressing than most other movies I watched at that age, and looking back on it now, it definitely is. As a child I can remember being pretty fascinated with death, and that is not something that has let up as I’ve aged (although I feel that’s a pretty common thing). My favourite television show is Six Feet Under, and the majority of my favourite movies do not end particularly happily. Casper might have been a kids movie that was bad and depressing, but at least it wasn’t completely hiding us from death. The line people seem to remember from this movie is when Casper asks Kat, “Can I keep you?” The movie shows us that Casper can’t really keep Kat, much like we can’t really keep anything. The people at Amblin Entertainment seemed to feel that this was a lesson we should be learning at a young age.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-18541232018816128202010-03-19T17:53:00.000-07:002010-03-20T00:35:47.247-07:00War is bad and people die.Paul Greengrass isn't the best working director right now (that's Christopher Nolan), but I don't think it is debatable as to whether there is anybody who makes better action movies than Greengrass. We all know I love Michael Bay, but there is a definite difference between his movies and those made by Greengrass: Bay makes movies that are more incredible than good, while Greengrass makes incredible movies that are also objectively great. I have mentioned here that the Rock is my favourite action movie, but I know that when I take my own personal attachments away from it, the Bourne Ultimatum (and maybe even Supremacy too) is probably a better movie made with a more interesting style.<br /><br />The main reason I love Greengrass as a director is something that I have cited for most of my favourite movies in that he combines Hollywood ideals (in this case the blockbuster action movie) with many things you would be more likely to see in an independent movie. The best thing about this is that Greengrass does it all in a style that is not only visually appealing, but looks like something I could personally pull off. The handheld style of his movies has been heavily criticized, and I understand that criticism. While I think the editing and camera work in these films is so well done that they are never hard to follow, I can understand people simply not liking the aesthetic. Greengrass' films aren't trying to appear as fake documentaries, but it's clear he is using that style to add an element of realism to the action movie, which I say works every time. I have read this criticized as a way of merely simulating excitement, which I think is ridiculous. It's a fucking action movie, of course it is simulating excitement, and I think this style allows for the most simulated excitement possible. By using this handheld, liquid style for his films' camerawork, Greengrass creates movies that feel like they exist in spaces as opposed to sets, which heightens the level of excitement and realism by placing the viewer in the middle of the action. Kathryn Bigelow, director of the Hurt Locker (which was shot by Green Zone and United 93’s cinematographer Barry Ackroyd), has explained the style about as well as one can: "That's how we experience reality, by looking at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously. The eye sees differently than the lens, but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style, the lens can give you that microcosm/macrocosm perspective, and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion."<br /><br />Greengrass' movies also lack a certain sheen that is typically seen on the big budget Hollywood movie: his Bourne movies, and Green Zone especially, look as though there has been very little done to the image in postproduction. There are scenes that are dimly lit, and the image does not appear to be brightened in postproduction. You even get to see what I think would be called visual noise, where the image is so dark that an adjustment is made to the actual camera to brighten the image while it is being shot but at the cost of clarity. I realize that it is possible, and maybe even likely, that this noise is actually applied in post, but the thing about it is not when it is applied, but that it is in fact done. Even before I was a camera nerd, I noticed that there was something different about certain images in the Bourne movies and United 93, and it added a certain level of realism to me even then.<br /><br />I saw the Bourne Supremacy for the first time in 2004, and to put it as eloquently as possible, it was un-fucking-real. I already had a deep appreciation for the fake documentary format (thanks, Christopher Guest and Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant), but the Bourne Supremacy took all of the great visual elements of that format and applied them to the action movie… and the result maintains one of the most exciting movies I will ever see. While I have surely romanticized this memory plenty over the years, I remember being legitimately shocked early in the film, the hand-to-hand combat being eye-opening, and the car chase leaving me in a state of badassery-induced shock. Even now when I rewatch this movie that I have seen at least 25 times, I still get shivers at certain moments. It is a small number of media texts that I find legitimately inspiring (there is one other text I could apply this adjective to), but every time I watch a Greengrass movie, I find myself thinking of movies I want to try to make, and his movies make me feel like I actually can do just that*. It sounds weird, but it’s the triple truth, Ruth.<br /><br />The last thing I really enjoy about Greengrass films, although this is not something I figured out back in 2004, comes in the ideology of his movies. He is borderline obsessed with debunking what he considers government wrongdoing, and he is the most explicitly countercultural director working within Hollywood. His Bourne movies are more subtle than his overtly political movies Bloody Sunday, United 93, and Green Zone, but even then they do not try too hard to hide their politics. Jason Bourne is, as Greengrass calls him in the commentary for Ultimatum, the spirit of the opposition, and I think Ultimatum even has characters that are meant as stand-ins for members of the Bush administration. More overtly, the film features many shots that evoke some of those taken from inside Abu Ghraib prison and the various forms of torture the US government subjected its occupants to. That something like this can be done inside of what was one of the biggest movies of 2007 is something that makes me hopeful for the future of the blockbuster: the blockbuster as a whole is generally considered shallow and dumb, but there are still spots out there for subtle (or overt) political commentary within one every once in a while. This is why it’s unfortunate that Green Zone… uh… bombed.<br /><br />I was excited about this movie, and honestly really liked it despite its flaws. The script was far more explicit in its politics than anything else Greengrass has done, but outside of that I have few complaints about the movie. Much like Nolan's Inception will be this summer, Green Zone felt like a movie that Greengrass knew he would only have a tiny window to make: he's coming off a gigantic hit, so he can secure a massive budget for something he would never be able to get made under just about any other circumstances. The sad part about this is that Green Zone was never going to be a hit, and it never even had a chance. No big-budget Iraq movie has succeeded, and Green Zone is not the exception to that rule. I think Greengrass knew this was his chance to get a budget to do pretty much whatever he wanted, and he made a good thriller that is at times too explicit with its politics. Some of these lines of dialogue are pretty awful, and at some points I was reminded of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lmvdcYJP_0">Keenan Ivory Wayans' small role in Don't Be a Menace</a>. However, the fact that a movie like this merely exists still makes me quite happy.<br /><br />Michael Moore recently posted on his Twitter page that he can't believe this movie ever got made and that it was poorly marketed as an action movie, which stands as the first time I fully agree with something Moore says. But, like I said earlier, Green Zone never had a chance to make money with a budget of at least $100 million, and the best shot it had was to market all of the Bourne similarities (of which there are a couple too many). While there is some incredible action in the movie, it is at heart a political thriller, and the politics were definitely put ahead of the thrills. The real issue I have with Green Zone comes with its twisting of the truth: it is basically left-wingers doing what they hate right-wing people for doing. By conveying Greengrass and company's perception of the truth through a fictionalized version of the Iraq war, they are doing precisely what they would likely accuse Fox News of doing, but on a much larger stage (albeit as a one-off as opposed to a 24/7 news network). While I think Greengrass' version of the Iraq war is closer to the truth than how Rupert Murdoch's News Corp often presents it, I don't know that I can really say with objectivity in that my views are far closer to the former than the latter. I like that a more left-wing opinion is in a mainstream blockbuster, so long as it is not presented in a way that is excessively brash. If you’re going to call out somebody who opposes you, don’t do it in the same way they’re using making their points… which brings me to that stupid fucking woman who sat behind me in Green Zone.<br /><br />This woman seemed to think that her ticket purchase was a vote for the real truth, and that everybody in the theatre was of the most left-wing thought process possible. She decided that whenever a character made a broad comment about the war existing because of state-sponsored lying, this woman applauded and would loudly vocally agree with whatever point the movie was making as if it was an absolutely truthful account of the Iraq war. When the film shows Bush declaring America to have won the war, this woman yells out "Fool's gold! Fool’s gold!" If some right-wing thinker had been doing the opposite and yelling out "shenanigans!" when Miller questions something and applauding when Poundstone speaks his mind, this left-wing crazy woman would have surely been furious. Loud leftists are just as bad as loud rightists, and I worry that Green Zone might just be a loud leftist. I like to think that it is merely stating an opinion, but is hopefully not doing so in such a loud way as to offend people that may not agree with it.<br /><br />I am firm in my belief that no movie can create any direct change in reality, and I am apprehensive enough even calling a piece of media personally inspiring, but I do believe that movies like this have the ability to raise awareness of certain subjects and can often lead to a viewer wanting to learn more about the subject. The second time I saw Green Zone, a father and his teenage son sat in front of me, and I expected them to be disappointed with the fact that they didn’t get more of a Bourne-style thriller. After the movie was over, however, they got up and walked past me, and the son was asking his father more about the actual war. The kid seemed genuinely interested in something he saw in the movie, much like I became far more interested in filmmaking after I saw the Bourne Supremacy for the first time. Green Zone's financial failure may stop Paul Greengrass from securing a blockbuster-level budget for his next attempt at overtly political filmmaking, but I am hopeful that his movies, and Hollywood blockbusters in general, will be able to continue to occasionally inspire people in a number of different ways.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >*I feel I should mention that these are not necessarily all Bourne-esque ideas.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-26785103143924879712010-02-24T09:03:00.000-08:002010-02-24T09:14:12.973-08:00Ummm... pretend this is a clever title regarding Saturday Night Live.As a nerd, I am very passionate about the pieces of media I do and don’t like. While I sometimes let my more embarrassing tastes go unmentioned, I still often have trouble ignoring a negative remark about a movie or TV show that I love, regardless of the situation or how I will be perceived for standing up for that given piece of media. Something that has likely been noticed by friends of mine is that this happens far more often with Saturday Night Live than it does with anything else.<br /><br />SNL is easy to dislike, and tough to love, so I don’t necessarily have a problem with friends saying that they don’t like the show. Sketch comedy simply isn't everybody's taste. However, I take issue with how few people tend to actually have valid points when attacking the show. Invariably, people who don’t watch the show consistently will say something along the lines of how “it used to be funnier,” or even worse, "it just sucks." Luckily, I watch SNL enough that I can talk shit about it adequately, and then defend the show immediately after.<br /><br />The show is not, nor has it ever been, consistently hilarious. If you get one show per season that features exclusively funny sketches, you’re getting lucky, and there are a variety of reasons for this. It isn’t necessarily the fault of the writers or the performers, but more Lorne Michaels’ desire to craft the show in a way that ensures there is something for every viewer. Michaels likes to front-load the show in order to get as many viewers as possible to stay with the show through to Weekend Update, which is why you’re getting a lot of character sketches in the first half. Keeping as many viewers as possible doesn’t mean necessarily putting your best sketches first, it just means putting the broadest sketches first. This creates a loose structure for each show: you’re going to get a political sketch as a cold open, the host monologue, an ad parody, a few character sketches, Weekend Update, and then the rest of the show is seemingly up for grabs to the writers. This desire to attract a wide range of people is what leads to the character sketch dilemma: when Michaels sees a sketch kill in the second half, he assumes it will kill again and another sketch starring that character finds itself in the first half of the show a few weeks later. While the show has always had character sketches, from what I can tell these characters began to recur much more often starting with Michaels’ return to the show in the mid-1980s. Upon leaving the show after its fifth season, Michaels attempted to succeed as a Hollywood producer and failed professionally for the first time in his life, which both lead him back to SNL and made him more willing to appease NBC executives when he returned. In the 1970s, the show was new and graced with incredible luck, so they could put on whatever sketches they desired and still find an audience. By the mid-1980s, however, the show had lost a lot of its audience and Michaels had to become more adept at appealing to wider audiences to keep the show on the air (SNL was perpetually on the verge of being cancelled for most of the 1980s). While I wish Michaels were less afraid to stray from this format, I realize that the television industry has undergone extensive changes since the 1970s, and that this is what is necessary to keep SNL alive in the modern television industry.<br /><br />Another reason the show isn’t always great are, again, faults of the format: writing for the coming Saturday’s show begins on the Monday previous, creating a time crunch, and sometimes you just can’t write for a host who is not funny (if January Jones follows this, know that I’m talking directly to you). Again, I know it’s a flaw of the show, but at this point Saturday Night Live is the last remaining relic of the live variety show, and in order to keep it going you need to put up with its flaws. I love live sketch comedy, but don’t reside in a major city, where it can often be difficult to find live comedy that isn’t awful. While the massive budget behind SNL does take away some of the charm, if that’s the way it has to be for me to see live sketch comedy, then so be it.<br /><br />The biggest thing working against how people perceive SNL, however, is time. It has been around forever, and almost nobody seems to be able to objectively judge the show because of this. I read a quote from a long-time writer on the show saying that, at any given time post-1980, people complain about the show’s current level of quality while saying how much better the previous cast was. I wish I could find the quote, because that is just about the most accurate statement I have ever read about SNL. Five years from now, Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg will be well liked, but right now everybody seems to want Tina Fey and Will Ferrell back. As much as I love the latter two comedians, the writing on the show is better in the past two seasons than it ever was with Fey as the head writer and Ferrell as the star.<br /><br />Sketch comedy rarely ages well, and as funny as most of the original SNL cast were as performers, the writing in the first five “golden” years of the show are no exception. There are plenty of sketches that are still funny, but a lot of the sketches aren’t because I am simply too young to understand the context. The show has always been current, and many sketches directly comment on events that have occurred mere weeks or even days before the show's airing. When I made a documentary on SNL about a year ago (links below), I watched much of the first few seasons and found that a lot of it simply isn’t funny. Like I said here a few months ago about people who claim movies are currently worse than ever, SNL detractors tend to have a similarly hazy memory: if a sketch doesn’t make you laugh or isn’t remarkably bad, chances are that soon enough it will be completely out of your memory. I remember watching Seth Rogen’s appearance on SNL a year ago with my then-roommate, and we recently discussed the hysterical Fast & Furious sketch, but I had a hard time remembering one other sketch from that show. I remember it was a fairly high quality show, but over the past year I have forgotten all but the funniest sketch. This same method of thinking can be applied to every SNL from years past.<br /><br />After about five years of sporadically watching SNL, I started watching it more consistently, and have probably seen most of the shows in the past five years and all but 2 or 3 in the last few seasons. The current cast is unbelievably talented, and the writers and producers seem to have figured out how to best use everybody. Amy Poehler has finally left Update, allowing Seth Meyers to become the most clever and honest anchor since Norm Macdonald was fired for being too funny. The show lacks a breakout sketch star, but I think that allows for more creativity in the writing, as it can cut back on the need to write a sketch specifically to get a popular performer more airtime. Sketch comedy should be about the ensemble, and the current cast is representative of that. Just think back to a decade ago when it seemed like every other sketch was a popular Will Ferrell character, and I’m happy for the increase of variety the current cast gives us.<br /><br />I guess I’ve said an equal amount of good and bad things here about Saturday Night Live, as I probably should. The show is incredibly flawed, but I still love it and feel that its existence is important for our media-saturated culture. The influence the show has had on the television medium is always mentioned by SNL defenders, but almost never adequately broken down (and this paragraph will likely be no exception). There are the obvious things like Update allowing the Daily Show to exist and all of the great writers and performers given a platform by the show, but the influence of SNL is far more impressive than that. Advertisers owe an incredible debt to the show, for adding humour to advertisements can be attributed at the very least in part to SNL’s penchant for parodying products that has been present since the show’s inception. We owe the same debt to SNL, for I’m happy to at least get an occasional laugh from advertising… imagine how frustrating our ad-saturated world would be if every advertisement was boring and awful (as opposed to just most of them).<br /><br />Being influential, however, is not reason enough for the show to remain in existence now, and I think SNL is still important culturally outside of merely being influential. Chevy Chase says the initial idea behind Saturday Night Live was to be a platform with which to satirize the television format. As television has expanded, that satire has become both more necessary and more easily accessible through other shows that have followed SNL’s lead. Making fun of CNN’s political coverage may be an obvious joke to make, but that it is being made on such a big stage makes it valuable. I don’t believe that a piece of media has much power to enact any sort of real change, but SNL adds awareness to a lot of media-related topics that I like to see publicly addressed.<br /><br />Finally, once or twice each season, a sketch or moment will stretch outside of the show to reach the masses (think last year’s “I’m on a Boat,” or when Jenny Slate accidentally said “fucking” on-air earlier this season). The show still holds a huge amount of cultural capital, and it is one of a small number of television shows that are so widely entrenched in our culture that a significant on air moment is a discussion-worthy topic to such a large group of North Americans. In a time-delayed mass media culture that tries to cover up anything deemed overtly offensive by higher-ups, I find it oddly comforting that I can still hear the occasional uncensored, albeit accidental, f-bomb on live television, and SNL’s decades of tradition is what allows it to remain one of the few truly live broadcasts on television. The show may use a format abandoned long ago, but what it uses the format for still holds cultural weight… even if it isn't always funny.<span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Live from Wall Street<br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4113512&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4113512&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4113512">Live from Wall Street. part one of four.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1573515">alex stephenson</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p><p><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4118330&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4118330&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object></p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4118330">Live from Wall Street. part two of four.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1573515">alex stephenson</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p><p><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4118904&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4118904&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object></p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4118904">Live from Wall Street. part three of four.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1573515">alex stephenson</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p><p><object height="300" width="400"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4119739&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=4119739&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object></p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/4119739">Live from Wall Street. part four of four.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1573515">alex stephenson</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</p></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Just for fun, here is a list of media products that would not have been possible without Saturday Night Live:</span><br />Ghostbusters, Fletch, Trading Places, Anchorman, Hot Rod, A Mighty Wind (The Folksmen debuted as an SNL sketch in 1984) and countless other classic comedy films either written by and/or starring SNL alumni<br />The Daily Show, and by extension The Colbert Report<br />30 Rock<br />Late Night with Conan O’Brien<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And a list of things SNL certainly made more possible:</span><br />Seinfeld*<br />Mr. Show<br />The Office (US)<br />Office Space<br />Chris Rock’s success as a stand-up comedian<br />(Debatably) most of Judd Apatow’s career<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">*For the Seinfeld fans: Larry David once quit his writing job at SNL on a Saturday over a sketch he wrote not making it on air. By the next week’s Monday meeting, he had realized he made a mistake and showed up to work, pretending he never quit. If this rings a bell, it’s because George Costanza did the same thing when he worked for the Yankees. Other Seinfeld episodes were also inspired by David-penned sketches, and David first met Julia Louis-Dreyfuss when she was an SNL cast member.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-88399108110976403482010-02-02T21:05:00.000-08:002010-02-02T21:27:24.862-08:00YES!!! AVATAR GOT NOMINATED!!!!!! OH HAPPY DAY!Happy Oscar nomination day, everybody! Although I suppose it's not particularly happy, as to be honest, some pretty bad movies were nominated (especially for Best Picture). Obviously it would have been impossible to predict, but even if the Best Picture category had remained a 5 movie thing, I would still have trouble picking 5 out of this 10 that deserve to be in a shortlist for the best movies of the year. Avatar, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, THE BLIND SIDE?!!? Are you serious? I haven't seen Precious, but I have seen everything else and am comfortable saying that A Serious Man and Up are the only movies of the 9 that deserves any sort of real praise. You want me to nitpick and get my hate on for the Best Picture nominess, you say? Well, if I must.<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Blind Side</span> - What? I acknowledge that Sandra Bullock is fun in this movie, but you have seen the movie before. Does Sylvester Stallone get royalties anytime a new sports movie blatantly steals the Rocky formula? To me it is telling that Michael Oher, the now-professional football player that this movie is about, has no intention to ever watch the movie about his life. He has said that it's a story that happens all the time, it just so happens to be that this is the one getting notice. That's a fairly potent metaphor about the movie: Friday Night Lights may have been an infinitely better movie (in that it was actually good), but it's the Blind Side that gets the love. Ugh. If I didn't inexplicably like Sandra Bullock as much as I do, I would be Avatar-mad about this one.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">District 9</span> - I have always been a big fan of the fake documentary format, and thoroughly enjoyed its use in the first half of District 9. But somewhere in the middle of the movie, they drop the style completely and we are suddenly getting privileged shots that no documentary crew could possibly get. At least they keep the handheld aesthetic the whole time, I suppose. The idea of the movie is great, with the aliens/impoverished citizens being moved by the government, but that doesn't mean that the movie is necessarily as good as its idea. It's a decent action movie, yes, and I always want to see a good action movie taken seriously, it just so happens that the Academy is honouring the wrong one.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">An Education</span> - I like this movie. It was fun, it was funny, and Carey Mulligan was great. Best Picture? Probably not, but at least it is good.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Hurt Locker</span> - This is a great action movie, as scenes involving bomb defusing are always incredibly suspenseful, and the Hurt Locker does not change that. The problem I had with the movie is that it is little more than an action movie that features a fairly obvious message which is really drilled into your head by the time you leave. There is a 10 minute period of the movie that could have been completely removed and the movie would have been infinitely better. As it is though, it's a good movie, but not as great as it should be.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Inglourious Basterds</span> - This movie looks gorgeous, has a number of Spaghetti Western references, and also features a great performance by Brad Pitt... Too bad the rest of it is painful to sit through. I have liked every Quentin Tarantino movie to date, but holy shit was this one awful. The endless dialogue scenes have lost their charm to me it seems, and the last line of the movie is a huge "fuck you" to anybody who likes the far better movies Tarantino movies Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Up in the Air</span> - Again, a good movie, but far from great. I love George Clooney, and as per usual he does his Clooney thing, but the movie is only good outside of one scene that I would put among my favourite scenes in the last couple of years. The rest, however, is just a good little comedy that, like Jason Reitman's previous film Juno, does not quite deserve the acclaim its getting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Avatar</span> - The movie looks very cool, and the 3D is outstanding. Whew, I'm happy that part of this is over. Ahem… Fuck James Cameron and his ridiculous haircut. His "pro-environmentalism" movie cost $300 million, creating who knows how much waste in merely the production stage. And when leaving the theatre I saw it in, I watched as an usher punched down into one of three full garbage cans next to him, so that Avatar's audience could throw more of their garbage into it. I recognize any multi-million dollar movie about environmentalism is a contradiction in some way, but at least some of them don't feature dialogue that sounds like it is being exchanged by Amidala and Anakin in Attack of the Clones. And as for the anti-capitalist message of the film? It is now the highest grossing movie of all time, and who knows how much of that goes right to Cameron. Go light a million dollar bill on fire for your own personal enjoyment, you fucking hypocrite.<br /><br />So, how would I have handled things differently, you say? I do recognize that this has not been a great year for movies, and I would have trouble finding five movies that I would actually think should be remembered decades down the line. But fear not, for I will tell you what I liked the most anyway. I didn't do many categories, but I am singling out elements of certain movies that I feel deserve mention.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Favourite Movies</span><br />As I stated in my previous post, my favourite movie from the past year was the Brothers Bloom, but there are other serious contenders. <span style="font-weight: bold;">A Serious Man</span> is a truly great movie, and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can watch it again and try to decipher it some more. The Coens have shown in the last few years that they are capable of not only making great movies, but also making incredibly dense ones as well. Like No Country for Old Men, watching A Serious Man can lead a viewer to come to any number of conclusions as to what the film is about (A Serious Man even more so), and chances are the viewer is right. Here are some other movies I really liked this year, with mini-reviews:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Road</span> - This was a great, gorgeously executed movie that I think is better than the book (which I did happen to like quite a bit). It is unrelentingly depressing, yes, but I think there are potent ideas in there, even though the movie pretty much removes the environmentalism elements of the book. It felt like Terence Malick making a post-apocalypse movie with the way parts of it were shot and the voiceover work throughout. And while I am not a fan of Viggo Mortensen, he is unbelievable in this movie, and one of his scenes with Charlize Theron is unbelievably crushing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Adventureland</span> - I love a comedy that tries to be a little serious, as I feel that combination is the closest movies ever get to emulating real life. I get suspicious of any drama that doesn't feature any jokes, because even on the shittiest days of my life, I can recall joking around at least a little bit. Shit, the Road is about life after the apocalypse, and even it has a couple of jokes in it. Adventureland is a great comedy that is also a great movie, and that is pretty rare… I don't have much more to say about it other than "see it."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Away We Go</span> - This is a fairly simple movie that is elevated by a number of good performances. While John Krasinski doesn't do much outside of his normal, he is really good at it so I don't have a problem with it. And as big of a fan as I am, I had no idea Maya Rudolph had this kind of a performance in her, as she is the anchor of the movie and does her job really well. The bit parts are also played perfectly, as both Alison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal are hilarious, and Chris Messina gets a great scene as well. Both Krasinski and Rudolph get a chance to show their abilities toward the end of the movie, and neither disappoints. I realize this is far from a great movie, and it is probably the worst of my choices, but something about it really gets to me, and I love it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fantastic Mr. Fox</span> - See this movie immediately, for it is just massively enjoyable. It's hilarious, the stop motion is great, and Wes Anderson doesn't even have to tone down its Wes-ness. I'm not cussing with you, you need to see this movie.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Funny People</span> - This was a decent movie that really should have been a million times better. It is very funny when it wants to be, and it is a great movie for as long as it deals with the friendship between Ira and George. The problem comes with another part of the plot, which totally derails the movie and forces us to literally watch the director's kid's ballet recital. Oh Judd, you'll make a great movie someday, I know it, but this one should have been it. I'm putting it on this list because what I liked about it, I liked a lot… It just so happens that it gets really bad at parts.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Favourite Performances</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Joseph Gordon-Levitt's</span> performance in <span style="font-weight: bold;">500 Days of Summer</span> was… incredibly believable. Maybe it was just the character, but he was flawless, and there were multiple situations in this movie where his reactions struck me as remarkably similar to how I would react in the same scenario. He is also the king of subtleties, of which this performance featured many. The people will learn he's not just the kid from 3rd Rock eventually, I'm sure of it. This is the best performance I saw all year, and second place isn't even close in my opinion.<br /><br />However, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sam Rockwell</span> absolutely dominated in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Moon</span>. It was a role that allowed for him to have a lot of fun, and he did just that. I loved the movie, and he is pretty much the only character in the movie, so he must have done his job well. The scenes where he is interacting with himself are incredibly entertaining, and as the conflict gets more intense, his performance never gets worse.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Martin Starr</span> deserves a mention for his very small part in<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Adventureland</span>. He probably had no more than five scenes, but there is one scene towards the end that he positively kills. Comedies like Adventureland hinge on one or two key scenes in order to be taken as more than just comedies, and the scene that relies on Starr is perfect, and it is all because of how he is able to convey his lines. Small roles can be pivotal, and Adventureland is as good as it is in large part because of Martin Starr.<br /><br />In a movie I really didn't like, and playing a character type that I really hate, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Zoe Saldana</span> somehow made me really like her in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Avatar</span>. While "white messiah" movies are always a little painful in their treatment of the people that the hero has come to save, Saldana made Neytiri a legitimate character as opposed to merely just another racial stereotype. This however, is assuming she did a lot of motion capture for her role… otherwise I have to give Cameron and crew some credit, for the way Neytiri moved was a big part of me liking Saldana. Her movements really separated her from the rest of the Na'vi, allowing her to be much better than a role as a racial stereotype might generally allow.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rachel Weisz</span> in<span style="font-weight: bold;"> the Brothers Bloom</span> was without a doubt the most adorable character I have ever seen in a movie. She is obviously gorgeous, but in playing the perpetually confused Penelope she was both cute and somehow identifiable. Like I mentioned in my last post, the main three actors are flawless in this movie, but I think Rachel Weisz was the best of them.<br /><br />Finally, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Carey Mulligan</span> was pretty great in <span style="font-weight: bold;">An Education</span>. I love a shit-talking teenager as much as the next person, which she did throughout the movie, and when it was time for her to show some range, she did it well. I'm officially excited for her next role (well, whatever she happens to be in after the Wall Street sequel).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Favourite Score</span><br />I may be biased because I've never seen a movie with a Nick Cave & Warren Ellis score that I didn't love, but their score for <span style="font-weight: bold;">the Road</span> was beautiful. Listening to it apart from the movie really brought the movie back into my mind, even more than a standard score does, and I think that's one of the better compliments you can give to a film score. Nathan Johnson's<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Brothers Bloom</span> score deserves similar praise, but while the music in The Brothers Bloom features great themes, it isn't consistently great like the score for the Road is. Hans Zimmer's score for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sherlock Holmes</span> deserves a mention as well, because it is really fun throughout.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Favourite Cinematography</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Serious Man</span> was shot by Richard Deakins, who makes just about any movie he works on visually stunning. A Serious Man does not have many complicated setups, but there is something about the look of the movie that is perfect to me. There are multiple instances where the camera is actually tilted, and it doesn't just feel like a stylistic choice, but actually makes sense within the context of the story. What Deakins does with lighting is unbelievable by itself: for proof, watch the scene where Richard Kind's character opens the fridge in the middle of the night.<br /><br />I love the look of digital video, and accordingly I loved the cinematography in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Public Enemies</span> (as I have for every Michael Mann movie since he started experimenting with it in Ali - it even makes Miami Vice watchable to me). I will more than likely do an extremely nerdy post about digital vs. film at some point in the future, because there is too much to touch on here. But for now just know I thought Public Enemies looked great and the visuals made up for a lot of the script's problems. So, credit to Dante Spinotti for making a biopic about the 1930s look modern.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Favourite Audio Edit</span><br />Yep, this is happening. I'm seriously picking out one audio edit to talk about. In the hippie dinner scene in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Away We Go</span>, the Stranglers' "Golden Brown" is playing throughout the scene, but once the argument kicks into high gear and Burt takes a stand, the volume of the music picks up and it goes from diegetic music to non-diegetic in about five seconds. While this is obviously not the first time this has been done, it really elevates the scene to have far more emotional impact than it may have otherwise, and I know at least for me it had a big effect.<br /><br />Well kids, thanks for reading, and feel free to disagree with my choices below.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-23701409062955786012010-01-03T22:43:00.000-08:002010-01-03T22:47:47.296-08:00The ole leather pumpkin.This post is almost completely unrelated to movies, so in order to make it feel like this belongs here, I will throw in a Space Jam reference or two. Can we get them out of the way early you say? Yes, let's.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hboasia.com/images/posters/378x195/space_jam.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 378px; height: 195px;" src="http://www.hboasia.com/images/posters/378x195/space_jam.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">"I had no idea Dan Aykroyd was in this blog post!"<br /></div><br />Well, that's because he isn't. This post isn't about dynamite sketch comedians, it's about basketball, something that I watch often and play occasionally. More specifically, it's about the Toronto Raptors (although if I’m feeling nostalgic it may also feature some post-game analysis of the epic Toon Squad/Monstars match up from November 1996). I love the Raptors so much that it's pathetic: whenever I see a video of a crazy sports fan going nuts on YouTube, I think "Wow, this makes me feel a lot better about myself," before I ultimately rethink it and wonder, "Holy shit, is this how I get?"<br /><br />I often wonder how I am still friends with some people that have seen first hand just how emotionally invested I can be in a game. I think the peak of my absurd Raptors fandom came in my first year of university, which was unfortunately also one of the worst years in franchise history. The Raps had a record of 27 wins and 55 losses, allowed multiple teams to come back and win when they had been up by 20 points or more*, and players earning big minutes included Mike James, Loren Woods and Rafael Araujo. But, the games were normally close, so I kept watching. I remember seeing a stat at one point in the season saying that over 20 of their games were won or lost in the final minute (normally the latter because of Mike James, but occasionally the former because of Mike James). I also recall literally falling off the couch of my residence living room once when MoPete missed a potential game-tying three pointer, and my roommate who I didn't know well at the time was in the room with me… how she remains friends with me is baffling.<br /><br />The lowest moment of my career as a Raps fan came during another season on a night when a girl I was seeing broke up with me, and then I waited up to catch the 3 a.m. replay of the game I missed because of going to see her earlier in the evening. Of course, all that waiting was for a game where I would eventually get to see the Raps blown out by 30 points. Sadly, the event that hurt me more that night was watching the Raptors get outplayed, and when I think back to that night, I remember far more about the game than I remember about my conversation with this girl. That was my worst moment of being a Raptors fan, but all is instantly forgiven when they give me the feeling of pure joy that comes from a satisfying win. Like yesterday.<br /><br />My uncle does pretty well for himself, and he scored me one of his company's corporate tickets for the Raptors' home game against the Houston Rockets. I knew these would be better seats than the yellow and green seats of the Sprite Zone that I was accustomed to, but I had no idea just how good they were going to be. When I was going into the Air Canada Centre, the ticket ushers kept telling me that my seat was further down… code for "closer to the court." I wish I could have seen my own face, because I know my smile was getting progressively wider as my altitude decreased.<br /><br />I got to my seat. I was three rows up from the court. You know where the announcers sit? I was mere feet behind them. I could have thrown my Coke at Matt Devlin, but I didn't want to get kicked out. The point is this: I was no further than ten feet from the court, and I can't remember the last time I was that happy. To be honest, I didn't know that it was possible to be this happy past the age of 10... It was like when I got a Super Nintendo as a kid. Nothing else around me mattered. Had Zooey Deschanel been sitting next to me naked, I may not have noticed**.<br /><br />Given that I probably won’t ever have the opportunity to be this close to the NBA again, I decided early on in the game that I was going to focus on watching a couple of players I love: the Raptors' Chris Bosh and Jarrett Jack, as well as the Rockets' Shane Battier. I figured my proximity to the court would allow me to see and hear plenty of things that you can’t pick up on TV, and I was correct.<br /><br />I love good defensive basketball (which makes my Raptors fandom even more odd, for they are perennially awful on D), and Shane Battier is one of the best defenders in the league. If you need any proof of this, just check out some highlights of his defense on Kobe Bryant in last year's Western Conference semifinals. The Lakers won the series, but Battier helped to make it much more difficult than anybody expected. Watching him defend the Raptors' Hedo Turkgolu yesterday was impressive. While Turk did have a good game, most of his points came when Battier was either on the bench or defending another player. Battier’s intensity was impressive, and his footwork was crazy… I wish he were a Raptor.<br /><br />Chris Bosh is hands-down my favourite player in the NBA, as well as the best power forward in the NBA. I don’t consider the latter to be a debatable statement: it’s a truth. This season he has been playing with more passion and intensity than in years previous, and he is also averaging a pretty impressive 24 points and 12 rebounds. He is a really fun player to watch too, something I don’t normally say about a big (I prefer guards, as anybody who grew up in the Jordan era does). Anybody that says tall people are only good because of their size is an idiot, and these idiots have clearly never seen Bosh play. Hearing him call out plays and anchor the defense (he is an oddity on the Raps as he can actually play some pretty decent D) was fascinating, as was watching him play dominant basketball on the offensive end. He is a free agent at the end of the year, and he won’t be coming back to the Raptors due to their lack of being good at basketball, so if you live in Toronto and haven’t seen him play live yet, you had best get on it.<br /><br />My favourite position to watch (and play) is point guard. Watching a great point guard see the floor and carve through the defense is something to see, and Jarrett Jack put on a great show yesterday. He is far from a premier point guard, but he plays like I wish every Raptor would. He plays hard, he doesn’t make bad decisions often, he plays good defense, and he isn’t a whiny punk bitch (I’m looking at you, Bellinelli). When the Rockets’ Trevor Ariza threw an elbow at the Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan in the third quarter, Jack was the only Raptor to step to Ariza. I want all of the Raptors to consistently play hard and with intensity, but sadly only Jack and Bosh do.<br /><br />I got to experience my favourite sport in a new way yesterday. I could hear everything coach Jay Triano was calling out to his players, I could hear players arguing with the ref, and I could see Antione Wright chirping Patrick O’Bryant for watching the cheerleaders during a timeout. And to top it all off, the Raptors played near-perfect ball and got the win.<br /><br />I’m not a crier, and I never really have been. I used to joke that I would cry if the Raptors ever won a championship, but now I don’t know if I’ll be joking next time I say it. Professional sports are kind of a weird thing to be really into, but I guess movies are too. For all of the stress I have experienced being a Raptors fan, the good moments make it all worthwhile. I guess professional sports are more like movies than I thought when I started writing this… some games are suspenseful and gut wrenching in a way that few action movies ever are, and others are far more depressing than any movie I’ve seen. And some movies, like yesterday’s game, aren’t filled with tension but are just completely satisfying from beginning to end. I watch movies because they engage me emotionally more than most of what happens in my own life, and I guess you can apply that same thinking to the Raptors too.<br /><br />I concede that liking a sports team as much as I do is bizarre, but then again, I’m a weird guy. But if being as happy as I was yesterday makes me weird, then so be it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put on my Bosh jersey and yell at my TV for a couple of hours.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">*including Kobe Bryant's 81 point game and a Sunday afternoon matchup against the Dallas Mavericks where I left for work at 3pm with the Raps up 25 or so points in the third. By the time I got to work at 4pm, I had a text message from my roommate saying that the Mavericks had won the game. Fucking Nowitzki.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">**I would have noticed.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-20139920206551995632009-12-24T14:39:00.000-08:002009-12-24T15:41:49.487-08:00It's beginning to look a lot like... an opportunity to make up for neglecting your kid.It's almost Christmas, and I just both started and finished my shopping. I don't dilly dally when I'm in a mall: it's a calculated attack. I know exactly what I need, I know exactly where to get it, I walk quickly while dodging all bad walkers and I was out of the mall less than an hour after I entered it. I imagine this is what Christmas shopping is like for Jack Bauer. It's possible to shop like this because there is nobody on my list asking for whatever unattainable Furby/Cabbage Patch Kid/ Tickle Me Elmo type thing is huge this year. However, I still got to go through the experience of trying to find that unattainable gift with a dear friend of mine named Howard, and we go through this experience annually when I watch my favourite Christmas movie.<br /><br />Jingle All the Way is about Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is some sort of carpet king in Minneapolis. But being the king of carpets comes at a price. Howard often ignores his family in favour of business, and they seem to be getting fed up with it. His son Jamie, played by the always loveable and talented method actor Jake Lloyd, has a karate class the night of December 23rd, and Howard has promised he will make it. But, as anybody who has ever seen a movie before can predict, Howard doesn't make it, sending the Langston family into a fit of Christmas disappointment.<br /><br />Howard comes home to find his son sitting in front of the television watching a show about Turboman, Jamie's favourite superhero. Howard is getting worried about how he is going to mend this situation, and after going through a number of embarrassing attempts to win Jamie over, he comes up with the foolproof American solution. Howard asks Jamie what he wants for Christmas, which gets Jamie out of his chair and performing a live dramatic interpretation of a commercial for the Turboman action figure. When Howard essentially promises Jamie that he will get this toy for Christmas, everything is suddenly okay and the father and son share a heartwarming hug. And then I weep.<br /><br />Jingle All the Way is a Christmas movie, yes, but it is about the worst aspects of Christmas and in a way that I don't think is meant to be ironic. Everybody knows that Christmas hasn't been about Jesus in a long time, but this movie flat out says that Christmas is exclusively about getting whatever material product you want. Everybody needs to buy a Turboman doll, because if they don't, their kid will hate them.<br /><br />The rest of the movie takes place on Christmas Eve, and documents Howard's day trying to track down a Turboman doll. At the first toy store he goes to, he meets Myron (Sinbad, who is somehow really funny in this), a postal worker who is stuck in the same predicament as Howard. They end up battling as a sort of Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner duo who are in competition all day, and this is the other interesting/upsetting element of the movie. Howard represents the upper class, while Myron is the lower class. We know that Howard has an incredible house in the suburbs, and that money is not a big problem for his family. Myron, however, is a working class mailman who likely does not live as comfortably as Howard, but is in just the same holiday predicament.<br /><br />Myron mentions how he has to carry around letters to Santa (while the movie never comes out and says it, it does kind of acknowledge that Santa doesn't exist), even those from poor children who will not be able to get what they want because of financial issues. Myron knows that Christmas is about the "rich and powerful toy cartels," and that North America has come to accept this about Christmas. I am in no way calling for a return to Christian values here, I'm just trying to point out that this is possibly the most accurate Christmas movie there is. Obviously, much of it is absurd, but this movie is great for capturing what the modern Christmas is like.<br /><br />Howard's quest for the Turboman doll is something he undertakes solely because it's the only thing that will get Jamie to forgive him, and that alone says more about North American culture than most "serious" pieces of media can. Jamie is a spoiled rat who gets what he wants, and Howard knows he can't just stop spoiling him now. When Myron says he never got the toy he wanted for Christmas, but his neighbour got it and went on to become a billionaire, Howard is even more convinced that Jamie needs a Turboman. Howard had better get his kid that toy, for otherwise Jamie will be condemned to a lifetime stuck in the middle class.<br /><br />Towards the end of the movie, Howard ends up at the Christmas Eve parade downtown in an attempt to meet up with his family. He accidentally stumbles into a building that is apparently used for parade float preparation, and due to his muscular physique, Howard is mistaken for the actor meant to be Turboman in the parade. Howard is then put in costume, complete with a functioning jet pack, and goes up to the float where he has the opportunity to give Jamie a special edition Turboman doll. Finally, Howard has provided for his child (unless you count keeping him warm and fed in a gorgeous house, in which case he was providing all along).<br /><br />BUT WAIT! Myron caught up, and is now in the costume of Turboman's arch-nemesis, Dementor! This leads to an incredible, over-the-top action sequence that features flying fists, flying discs, and flying people. After it's all over, Howard/Turboman has defeated Myron/Dementor, and Jamie has his Turboman doll. But, as Myron is being lead away by the police, Jamie realizes that this movie features no holiday spirit and makes a last ditch attempt to inject some by giving the action figure to Myron for his kid. Aw, how sweet. Myron says that it will make his son very happy, but I don't know how he'll give it to his son: by my count, Myron is going to be charged with attempted kidnapping, multiple counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and theft. His son might get his Turboman doll this year, but he certainly won't have his dad home for the next few Christmases, and his family will have to learn to adjust to life without a father figure and his paycheque.<br /><br />There is one quick shot during Howard's Turboman jet pack scene that sums up this movie and the modern Christmas frenzy perfectly. Howard loses control of his jet pack and flies through the window of an apartment building before flying out through another window on the other side. While passing through the building, however, he flies right through a family's dining room as they pray over their Christmas Eve turkey dinner, destroying everything. Turboman, and consumerism in general, has lead to the destruction of the religious and familial elements of Christmas, and he doesn't even care enough to look back once.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The title for this post is courtesy of my good friend Emma... thanks pal!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A NOTE ABOUT YEAR/DECADE END STUFF</span>: You are probably currently being bombarded by top 10 lists from every critic, blogger, and nerdy friend for both 2009 and the 2000s as a whole. People like reading quick hit lists, but the real reason so many people write them is because they're fun as shit! I probably won't post a top 10 movies of the decade, but I will post something both movie and music related sometime in January. I will also eventually make some sort of list about my favourite movies of 2009, but not for another couple of months (I don't live in a massive city, so often I have to wait a while for a lot of good stuff to make it to town). I do already know what my absolute favourite movie of 2009 will be when all is said and done though, and you can expect a post about that in the near future too. If Santa's pending visit wasn't already enough to keep you from sleeping, this news must be!<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-54302521885615001022009-12-20T13:57:00.000-08:002009-12-20T21:04:07.463-08:00A few little things<span style="font-weight: bold;">UNO!</span><br />I saw Brothers last week, which was pretty good. It was mostly well acted, NatPo was real cute, and there were some fun parallels between some characters... I'll warn you though: if you are like me, Tobey Maguire will always make you think of Spider-Man. If you're like me even more, any time you see him angry, you will want to make a dark symbiote joke. But I digress.<br /><br />I like Jake Gyllenhall. I think he is a good actor (although I wish he would do a comedy every so often - the man is obviously funny), but Brothers features a couple of scenes that together form what I like to call "How to NOT Eat Food like a Regular Person.*" At the beginning of Brothers, Jake's character has just gotten out of jail, and we see him eat his mashed potatoes of freedom with a vigor matched only by... I can't even think of anything. He tears those potatoes up! I forgive this one... I mean, he did just get out of jail. I haven't been to jail, but I imagine that if I had, I would demolish my first post-jail meal too.<br /><br />Later in the movie though, he eats again, and it is ridiculous: Jake's character apparently loves his pizza so much that he has to eat it UPSIDE DOWN. I'm serious. Over the course of this meal of upside down pizza, he smacks his lips, licks his fingers, and plays with his napkin constantly. Was he in jail for overacting? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that at one point in this scene, Jamie Foxx (dressed in a tailored suit, of course) pops up over Jake's shoulder and winks at the camera before disappearing. Maybe Foxx was his lawyer and knows he will soon be getting more business? Who knows.<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">*now with an introduction by Jamie Foxx!</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">DOS!</span><br />The poster for Christopher Nolan's next movie Inception exists now, and it gets me really excited. Yeah, the poster looks like that Dark Knight teaser poster with the Joker, but that one made me lose my shit, too. After the Dark Knight's success, I bet that Nolan can do pretty much whatever he wants with Inception, and I'm willing to bet it's going to be incredible. Nolan is probably the best working filmmaker today, so I'm really excited to see what he'll do with the creative freedom.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/inception_poster-590x872.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 590px; height: 872px;" src="http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/inception_poster-590x872.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL THREE IN SPANISH!</span><br />I had another point, but in all the excitement about upside down pizza, I seem to have forgotten it. I saw the Blind Side last week too, which I would give a rating of "good, but exactly what you would expect." Sandra Bullock's physique, however, gets a rating of "DAMN!" Maybe even the coveted rating of a damn featuring both a Y and a U. If you don't know what I mean, just watch half an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air... Will is sure to say it at least once.<br /><br />Anyway, a real post will be forthcoming in the next couple of days, I just couldn't wait any longer to continue my crusade against poor eating in films. Shame on you, Jacob.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-44853471222323539342009-12-10T17:37:00.000-08:002009-12-11T19:28:51.878-08:00My thoughts on Avatar (before I see it)<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">MILD SPOILER ALERT</span><span style="font-style: italic;">: This post (obviously) won't spoil Avatar, but if you haven't seen the first two Terminator movies, this may hurt them for you. Also, I realize that my examination of the time travel in the Terminator is crude, but few discussions about time travel end up making sense anyway, so I just kept it brief.</span></span><br /><br />I don’t hate James Cameron, although with the way I talk about him you might soon think that I do. However, I do hate how he seems to be perceived by the media, film critics, and most regular folk. For some reason, people just absolutely love this guy’s work. I have trouble seeing why he gets the love he does though, and it's not just because I constantly try to think the opposite of what mass society deems I should think (I suspect this explains why I often loudly claim my love for Steven Seagal movies, that the Lord of the Rings sucks, and that Annie is hotter than Britta), but because I actually don’t think his movies are much better than well-made action movies.<br /><br />Anybody who says that the Terminator movies are expertly written is at least half-crazy. The plot of the first movie goes something like this: Kyle Reese is sent from the post-apocalypse 2029 to pre-apocalypse 1984 in order to stop a Terminator from killing Sarah Connor, a woman who will eventually give birth to a sort of Che Guevara who hates machines instead of America. Obviously good triumphs, with Sarah and Kyle defeating the Terminator and leaving it a scrap heap.<br /><br />The second movie, however, takes place in 1995, as we are inching closer and closer to the apocalypse. Cyberdyne Systems found the remains of the Terminator from the first film, and was able to create a powerful microprocessor for weapons systems from it, which is eventually what leads to the development of Skynet, and then, you know, the apocalypse and stuff. A young John Connor with his mom and a modified, wisecracking T-1000 are trying to stop this, but the whole plot of the movie and the eventual apocalypse requires the existence of the remains of the first Terminator.<br /><br />Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984 by John Connor himself in order to stop the Terminator, thusly allowing its remains to be found and for Cyberdyne to develop Skynet. Given that the means for time travel exist in 2029, Connor must know that by altering the past even in the slightest, you will change your present. Connor should have realized the risks of having a destroyed version of some pretty advanced technology being found by a tech company in 1984. He should have let the Terminator kill his mother and by extension himself, because then there wouldn’t have been any giant police station shootouts and the Terminator could leave 1984 without his remnants being found. Knowing what was at risk, Connor's death and his mother’s death would likely be seen as necessary for the greater good, the Terminator would be a 20-minute movie that did not spawn a franchise, and Edward Furlong never would have become a pop music sensation in Japan*.<br /><br />The Terminator is an interesting movie, mostly because it’s so dated now that I don’t think I could qualify it as “good” anymore. It was made on a very low budget, and the special effects make that obvious to the casual modern viewer. While it was definitely very well-liked at the time, judging by the lengths of their respective Wikipedia pages, the sequel is far more beloved. James Cameron gets endless amounts of love from critics and film nerds just like me for writing and directing a cool action movie around a plot hole… and like John Connor, T2 unnecessarily ushered in a negative change in its respective environment.<br /><br />James Cameron is often noted as starting the advent of computer generated imagery in film, and he has received plenty of praise for it. CGI has allowed for a number of great films to exist, but I think that its use is more often than not a detriment to an action movie. Now it seems that whenever the choices are between CGI and trying a little harder and doing it for real, 90% of the time CGI will be used for a variety of reasons. Any big action scene generally requires a suspension of belief and an unbroken sense of tension in order for a viewer to be completely engrossed in it, but the second I see a computer generated image that is noticeably bad, I think about it instead of the scene, and that tension is lost. I think the best action movies of this past decade are the Bourne series, Collateral, Casino Royale, The Lookout, Public Enemies and others that are slipping my mind currently. What these movies all have in common is a decided focus on avoiding CGI whenever possible: while Public Enemies has one bad CGI shot towards the end, I can't think of any other notable uses of CGI in these movies. While there are some movies that use CGI flawlessly in their action scenes (the Transformers movies come to mind), you are still taking the viewer out of the action as they marvel at the technology.<br /><br />Through the success of the first Terminator, Cameron was in a position to be hired to make Aliens. I would imagine that after Aliens’ box office success, Cameron could pretty much do what he wanted, which meant the Abyss, T2, True Lies and then Titanic, all featuring his baby CGI. When Cameron (kind of embarrassingly) claimed he was the king of the world at the Oscars, he was probably right if that world was confined to “Hollywood in the 1990s.” And then, he disappeared to his castle until 2005, when he announced Avatar, the film whose commercial is currently bombarding you whenever you watch professional football.<br /><br />I am curious to see how Avatar does financially, just as I am curious to see whether or not the movie is actually good. I bet it will be a colossal hit, and I will probably classify it as “pretty badass.” But I want it to fail… horribly. I want it to be the new Cutthroat Island. I want it to be the new Waterworld. I want Avatar to "Ishtar," and then I want Avatar's name to be used as a verb for the poor performance of a future blockbuster. And it’s all because of one thing James Cameron said.<br /><br />Cameron has mentioned multiple times that he cut back on the story element of Avatar in order to focus on the new stereoscopic 3D technology. While I concur that few blockbusters put the story over the action, most of these movies aren’t directed by people who are hailed as the saviour of the modern blockbuster. It seems like critics and movie nerds alike are expecting to see the world changed by Avatar, but it will probably only be a mediocre-to-good movie that has elements taken from it and put into countless other shitty blockbusters. It isn’t going to reinvigorate the modern blockbuster, it’s going to hurt it.<br /><br />When Avatar inevitably does huge numbers, its success will likely be attributed to Cameron’s innovative use of technology, and probably deservedly so. By almost all accounts the effects are insanely cool: while one Guardian reviewer said the 3D effects made him nauseous, it seems that everybody else says "WHOOOOAAAA." The problem is that by sacrificing story, and also by making that sacrifice known, Cameron has given viewers few other reasons to cite for the movie’s success. This then leads future blockbuster filmmakers to (rightly) assume that the technology was the reason for the success, and then these filmmakers also ignore story in favour of messing with the new technology.<br /><br />From what I can gather without having seen the movie, Avatar is about humanity's encroachment on a world that is living in harmony, populated by the Na'vi. Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a paralyzed U.S. Marine who is able to walk again through the development of the new Avatar technology, and he starts to explore the Na'vi world of Pandora. Through technology, Jake is able to do what he wants in this world that existed before him, but he quickly realizes that what the humans are doing is destroying a world that was more or less a utopia before they arrived. Cameron has mentioned that he sees the movie as a sort of warning, and that he wants viewers to think about how they interact with nature, and yet he doesn't seem to realize how big of a metaphor he is creating for himself. While Hollywood is far from a utopia, James Cameron was able to do what he wanted with the blockbuster due to the advent of filmmaking technology, and in doing so he forever altered the landscape of the world of filmmaking.<br /><br />All of this makes me sound like a luddite who hates any sort of technological growth, but I think I have a point here. While James Cameron often uses his technological advancements well, many others that borrow them in the future just aren't using them as well. Despite the fact that it exists because of what I deem to be a plot hole, T2 has held up over time and is still a good action movie. Aliens is still good as well, and every time I see True Lies on television, I always find myself watching it until at least the next commercial break. The problem is that they are just that: good. They aren't great like many people claim, and Cameron is above all else trying to make some money. He is barely different from Michael Bay, the most reviled modern filmmaker of the past decade: the only real difference is that Bay is more honest about his ambitions. He wants to make money and knows he is making popcorn movies, whereas James Cameron seems to feel he is advancing the state of filmmaking, while most critics and movie fans seem to feel the same way. While Cameron has said that Avatar is for 14 year old boys, he knows nerds like me will think about it far more than we should, and he expects us to marvel at the technology and praise him for it. While I will likely marvel at the technology, I don't think it will add much to the future of filmmaking, and it will detract more from future action movies than it will help them. CGI is consistently used well by Cameron and Bay, but not many others. I worry that the same thing will happen with 3D in action movies.<br /><br />Maybe Cameron wrote the character of Jake intentionally as a metaphor for himself, and that Jake will use technology to achieve his goals without care for what is going on around him… or maybe it's just a coincidence. It appears from the trailer that Jake has a crisis about how humans are treating Pandora at some point, and the ending of the movie will likely feature a "we need to treat nature and our fellow man better" type of message. However, I think it would be far more appropriate if Jake and the rest of the humans used their technology to do whatever they desired within Pandora, because that's what James Cameron is doing in Hollywood. And like John Connor's decision to send Kyle Reese to 1984, Cameron's work is going to affect the future of his environment in a negative way, not a positive one.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">*according to Furlong's IMDB trivia page, this happened. I would have looked into it more, but honestly I just didn't want to find out that it wasn't true.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-84398047629606750082009-12-01T15:47:00.000-08:002009-12-01T15:56:42.302-08:00I apparently might also love Ben Affleck...<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >I'm changing some stuff around here. I will no longer be posting every Monday, instead I will be posting whenever something is finished. I've rushed a couple of my last posts, and I don't like that. This isn't a job, I have no real deadline to make, so I'm going to take some extra time and do a better job.<br /><br />I originally put that "posting every Monday" thing into play because I was worried I would just stop writing, but that has not been a problem. Finding a satisfactory conclusion has been, and hopefully more time and thought will fix that. So, I will (hopefully) post at least four things a month, but there won't necessarily be a post every Monday.<br /><br />Since I am desperate to keep the few readers I have, if you don't have Google reader and want me to notify you when I post something new, I will gladly do so. I'm not going to post my e-mail here, but comment if you want notifications and we'll figure something out.<br /><br />And now onto the real reason you should be here:</span><br /><blockquote><br />"Stop giving Ben Affleck such a hard time. He occasionally shows that he's really talented, he just makes poor choices with the movies he chooses to be in."<br />-my oft-repeated argument/apology for Ben Affleck<br /><br />"It's really cool, I liked it a lot... But I don't think it will age well."<br />-my description of Gone Baby Gone, <span style="font-weight: bold;">November 2007</span><br /><br />"I don't know what the fuck I was thinking in November 2007... this is a great, great movie that will absolutely hold up over time. And I was right about Ben Affleck! SUCK IT!"<br />-my thoughts about my description of Gone Baby Gone from November 2007, <span style="font-weight: bold;">November 2009</span></blockquote>I won't lie, I'm a big fan of the brothers Affleck. I've been an apologist for Ben for longer than I can remember, and if you read my post about the Assassination of Jesse James, you know how I feel about Casey. It seems that every review of this movie (like, ever) has to mention that they are brothers, and just how bad of an actor Ben Affleck is, and how surprised people are that he made a good movie. This is me fulfilling that obligation.<br /><br />I also feel that I should explain why I have defended Ben Affleck for so long. I think that reason is a combination of Chasing Amy, and a couple of scenes in Good Will Hunting. He is really good in Chasing Amy in general (I haven't watched the movie since high school and realize it is probably the most dated movie ever by now, but I'm sure he's still good), and there are those two scenes towards the end of Good Will Hunting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">SPOILER ALERT:</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> This next paragraph will potentially ruin Good Will Hunting if you haven't seen it. Skip ahead if you want, but the movie as a whole isn't very good so you won't be missing out on much if I spoil it. Plus, I'm saving you from having to watch Minnie Driver act.</span><br /><br />I don't like Good Will Hunting very much: I think it's far too Hollywoodized, Minnie Driver's head is fucking HUGE, and when you think about it, very little of the movie actually makes sense. What does make sense, and what are clearly the best scenes in the movie, are the ones between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Their last scene together at the construction yard is one of my favourite scenes ever, and that it sums up everything that's good about a friend you are really close with. There is one line especially where Affleck's voice wavers just the tiniest bit, and it's absolutely perfect. Later, in Affleck's final scene, the expression he makes when walking back to the car is just as perfect. I don't like the movie, but I've watched it about 5 times just to see those scenes in context… Even if every other scene he was ever in was absolute trash, I would defend Affleck to the death for these moments alone.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">SPOILERS OVER</span><br /><br />Was I surprised that Ben Affleck directed a good movie? No, not at all… especially since he has never really come across as an idiot to me. Maybe dating J-Lo was a poor idea, but don't act like you wouldn't have if given the chance.<br /><br />FINE, alright, he shouldn't have been in so many shitty, shitty action movies. Yes, Paycheck and Pearl Harbor are two of the worst movies I've ever seen. But, check out these movies:<br /><ul><li>Mallrats (I'm not a big fan from what I recall, but people love this movie)</li><li>Chasing Amy (assuming his performance has aged well)</li><li>Dogma (again, not a fan of the movie, but him and Matt Damon were great)</li><li>Reindeer Games (honestly, all I remember about this one are Charlize Theron's boobs, but isn't that enough to make it a great, timeless film?)</li><li>Boiler Room (a very cool movie)</li><li>Changing Lanes (this is a really good movie)</li><li>Dazed and Confused (IT'S DAZED AND CONFUSED!)</li></ul>Boom. Chances are you like John Cusack, and he's been in a much smaller number of good movies, ergo your Affleck hate is completely unjustified. Now that my Affleck discussion obligation has been excessively fulfilled, I can move on to the actual movie.<br /><br />Like I mentioned in the post about the Savages, 2007 was a great year, and Gone Baby Gone is one of the reasons. It is a neo-noir about a child kidnapping, yes, but that doesn't even begin to do justice to the number of good questions posed by this movie.<br /><br />The movie starts off with a voiceover monologue about what home is, and the effect it has on a person, setting the theme for the movie. We quickly get some criticism of the mass media, and then we're onto the plot which opens up a whole slew of ethical questions:<br /><ul><li>Who has the right to be a parent? Who doesn't? Who gets to decide what a good parent is?</li><li>What is a home? How does your own home affect your growth as a person?</li><li>Do child molesters have the right to a fair trial? Should they just be killed?</li><li>What constitutes proof? Can we trust the people we're told are to be trusted?</li><li>Does the media do more bad than good?</li><li>Why are some people posing for the camera when their goddamn kid got kidnapped?!!?</li></ul>And all of this is done without ever getting too heavy-handed, and without any actor slipping for even a second. Casey Affleck is (obviously) perfect, Amy Ryan is perfect, Ed Harris is Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman, and Michelle Monaghan is really good too. The cinematography is gorgeous as well for a movie that is almost exclusively shot handheld, and the movie moves along quickly without rushing anything.<br /><br />I could get more in-depth about why this movie is so good, but I think this post has turned out to be more about Ben Affleck than anything, so I'm going to continue with that. As a study of celebrity, the star as director is fascinating to me: in Gone Baby Gone, we get to see that Affleck has some issues with the media, which is no surprise given that he was a favourite target of theirs during his J-Lo phase. It also might even be a bit of self-criticism: Bennifer never really ran from the media, and in the movie neither does Helene. <br /><br />Knowing that Affleck is from Boston is also key, because it might appear to be kind of an anti-Boston movie without having known that. I would imagine that all of the questions about raising kids, and who deserves to be able to raise kids, likely come out of the fact that Affleck himself has become a father since fading a bit from the spotlight. Watching Gone Baby Gone, I see the way Helene treats her kid Amanda and think of the Chris Rock joke "that kid is going to rob me in ten years." We see many grown up versions of Amanda in Gone Baby Gone, and it's not pretty.<br /><br />Then what is it about Gone Baby Gone that I like so much? Is it that it is the first movie I've seen directed by a celebrity I like that backs up my own thoughts about said celebrity? Partially. But apart from Ben Affleck's attachment, this movie is just really, really good. As a thriller, it works. As a series of ethical questions, it works. And yes, as a vague examination of a celebrity, it works. But there is nothing about the movie that isn't intriguing, and I think it definitely belongs in that illustrious "Top 5 of 07." Step aside, Michael Clayton, I'm rejigging this list.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-53339451211634203732009-11-25T11:14:00.000-08:002009-11-25T11:25:16.492-08:00I think I'm in love with Laura LinneyI’m taking the easy way out this week and just writing a pretty basic (and spoiler-free) movie review, but it’s for good reason. 2007 in my mind was a very good year for movies, with No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, the Assassination of Jesse James, I’m Not There, Gone Baby Gone, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Bourne Ultimatum… do you see where I’m going with this? It was a good year.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">I am also taking the easy way out this week in another way, too: after I wrote this I realized I did not articulate at all just how good the movie I’m discussing is, and instead of re-writing, I’m just going to occasionally interject… now carry on.</span><br /></div><br />The problem is that with so many great, deservedly recognized movies, there were bound to be a couple that don’t get the full credit they should. The Savages isn’t the best movie of that year (it might not even be in the top 5 of that list I just rattled off), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely great.<br /><br />As I have mentioned before in my post about Sugar, I find it rare that a movie focuses more on character than plot or theme. This is one of those rare films. Siblings Wendy and Jon Savage (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman respectively) have to find a nursing home for their father (Philip Bosco) as he struggles with dementia. This all sounds like something overly dramatic, but I assure you it isn’t. It’s actually remarkably funny, and I would probably consider it a comedy more than I would a drama.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Here is my problem with this movie: it IS great, but it is difficult to fully explain why. I love this movie so much that it is legitimately difficult for me to explain why, and that’s really frustrating.</span><br /></div><br />Wendy and Jon’s relationship with their father has never been a particularly good one, and at the beginning of the movie they haven’t seen each other for years. Wendy and Jon are not particularly close with each other either, and the movie follows them as they get to know each other again. The acting is flawless on each of their parts, but let’s be serious, if you get Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney in the same scene, acting will not be your problem. And with the Savages, the writing certainly isn’t a problem either.<br /><br />The movie begins with a surreal musical sequence that is hilarious before it moves onto some fairly dramatic plot exposition. The first 45 minutes aren’t particularly funny, for that time is spent setting up the main characters’ relationships. This set-up is absolutely essential to the second half of the movie, however, for once the audience knows the characters, the film gets the opportunity to focus on the laughs. And that is the strength of this movie, in my opinion: the writing. I really enjoy movies that set up their world and then just sort of live in it for a while, and in the Savages you get about an hour of that. Wendy and Jon’s relationship is enjoyable to just watch, and I wish more movies would give you something like that.<br /><br />Because of the setup in the first half of the movie, we know these characters and have an idea as to how they will react. We know that when Jon hurts himself, Wendy will tap into her maternal urges to take care of him while Jon will downplay everything about the injury. Their scene in Jon’s hallway is absolutely hilarious, and it can only be that funny because of the large amount of setup we’re given before we get there.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">This movie, as a whole, is hilarious. It’s not just this scene, but also the scene where Jon gets hurt, the cookies scene, the pillow scene, etc. </span></div><br />I think the Savages is very close in tone to Six Feet Under, but without the occasional feeling of self-importance and pretension (that being said, I love Six Feet Under). It is a mixture of comedy and drama, and the comedy is made much funnier because the drama is so effective. Not only do you laugh at the joke, but you also laugh as a release from the fairly heavy subject matter you’ve been paying attention to.<br /><br />Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are two of my favourite actors, and they are both perfect in this movie. Yes, they are playing variations of the same character they normally play, but dammit they do it really well. And how many actors out there consistently play drastically different characters anyway? I know Philip Seymour Hoffman does it more often than most, but he still plays the intelligent middle-aged writer type in about half of his movies… he just so happens to excel at it. You could change a few words in those last couple of sentences and it would apply to Linney as well.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">This is also Laura Linney’s best performance by a mile. She does almost always play the 40ish upper-middle class woman, but she is unbelievably good at it, and this might be the only movie where we see her character having no real idea about what to do with herself.</span><br /></div><br />I saw this movie once when it first came out, and I absolutely loved it to the point that I was kind of afraid to watch it again in case it wasn’t as good as I remembered it. Well, it’s two years later and it hasn’t gotten any worse. The way the movie builds on its characters is still beautiful, and the jokes haven’t gotten any less funny as time has passed. And while the last scene does sort of bow to a bit of a Hollywood cliché, it works well enough for me.<br /><br />All things considered, there are few really significant events that happen over the course of our lives, and what the Savage family is dealing with is something that can conceivably happen to most of us. What the movie the Savages tells us, however, is that you don’t need a high-concept movie to be thoroughly entertained. If you start with something that is well written, you’ve got a good chance to make a great, entertaining movie… the problem is that nobody will promote it other than bloggers who beg their friends to watch it.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic;">WATCH THE SAVAGES! Seriously, it’s just so damn good. But maybe I should change a word in that last sentence from “beg” to “yell at.”</span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-31405555975936820062009-11-16T16:47:00.000-08:002009-11-16T17:03:48.215-08:00I'm a Celebrity Dog: Get Me Out Arf Here!<span style="font-style: italic;">SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Andrew Dominik's Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford... but the title of the movie itself features the biggest spoiler anyway.</span><br /><br />The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is absolutely one of my favourite movies in years, if not period. I love a good western, as well as a movie that doesn’t rush to get to its conclusion… this movie has both of those elements, as well as some stellar acting (Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell especially), a gorgeous score, and it is far and away the most beautifully photographed movie I have ever seen. But, enough of that normal movie review shit; let’s get down to brass tacks.<br /><br />The movie is about the infamous bank robber, Jesse James, and his last days before two other members of his gang, Robert Ford and his brother Charley, murder him. Throughout the first two hours of the movie, we are told that Jesse is the most famous man in America through the distribution of nickel books that tell stories of his crusades. When we meet Bob Ford, he is 19 to Jesse’s 34 and Bob has grown up idolizing Jesse.<br /><br />The thing about Jesse, however, is that while he has committed many crimes, the idea of Jesse James as Bob knows it is more of a concept than a person. Jesse and others throughout the movie mention how the books Bob grew up reading are often fabrications, and that Jesse is not the person described in those books. However, Jesse still makes mention that there is some truth to them: he doesn’t care who rides with him, and “that’s why they call [him] gregarious.” The celebrity begins as truth, but quickly becomes an embellishment of it, although the celebrity often enjoys that embellishment.<br /><br />Jesse is just that, a celebrity, and between him and Bob, I think this movie is about the concept of celebrity, and those who idolize celebrities. The release of this movie was delayed for over a year due to poor test screenings, and I think the delay only helped to make the film more prescient, as our society’s love of celebrity only seems to grow stronger as each year passes. As a culture, we are often more like Bob than we care to admit. I am far from blameless in this as well, for when I come across a link about a celebrity I admire, I will almost always click on it out of curiousity.<br /><br />As the movie progresses, we witness Bob forming his own public persona, albeit almost exclusively by copying Jesse. We may not all do this the same way, but we do certainly do it now more than ever. With the advent in popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, MyFace, etc., we all get a chance to create our own public persona by customizing our pictures and information about ourselves by listing our political views and favourite movies. Again, I am guilty of this myself, and I am probably even more guilty than you because I have a blog. By reading this, you are reading a heavily edited version of my thoughts, and I am only posting what I want you to read. I am helping to construct your opinions of me as a ‘writer.’ The only difference is that people in general care about me far less than they do Brad Pitt… but I concede that he is way hotter than me, so I understand.<br /><br />The Assassination of Jesse James is a decidedly anti-fame movie: it doesn’t seem to think fame is healthy, and it will eventually destroy those who have it. Jesse is murdered because of his fame: his pride in his exploits in part leads to his murder. Even when he is dead, he is still a concept that people clamor to be a part of. A picture of his corpse becomes extremely popular, and Jesse’s body goes on a road show exhibition as well. Jesse may be dead, but that only seems to make people want a piece of him more, which is akin to many posthumous pieces of media.<br /><br />We have seen this most recently in the death of Michael Jackson: once he died, the mass media blew up with speculation about his death, and people tried to get one last piece of his life. Like Jesse James, Michael Jackson’s fame probably drove him at least partially insane, and could have possibly caused his death at a fairly young age. And, of course, in death we saw Jackson’s albums back at the top of the charts again (I think I remember seeing his albums were the majority of the Billboard Top 10 for a week or two), and a documentary about his proposed concert tour was rushed into theatres. Just like people once fought to pay $2 for a picture of Jesse’s corpse, people are now rushing to movie theatres to watch an unfinished version of Jackson’s last artistic contribution to the world.<br /><br />The Assassination of Jesse James also shows us the effect that fame can have on people as they achieve it. After Bob and Charley murder Jesse, they attain their own type of fame. In order to capitalize on this, they begin performing a theatrical reenactment of Jesse’s last days, with Bob as himself and Charley as Jesse. Over time, we see Charley descend into depression from the guilt he feels, and his performance begins to get more accurate before he eventually kills himself. Charley couldn’t handle the guilt he felt from killing a man, much like he couldn’t handle the fame he got from partaking in the act.<br /><br />Bob, however, initially relishes it. He loves being known as “the man who killed Jesse James,” and shows little remorse over the death of Jesse. He considers himself to be courageous for killing the bank robber, but he eventually starts to feel guilty and descends into alcoholism. Much like his brother, Bob eventually realized how immoral it was to use a man’s murder to increase your financial and social status. The final scene of the movie shows us Bob being killed by Edward O’Kelley, but by that point Bob has resigned himself to his fate. Bob eventually realized that fame is not a positive thing, and that it adds far more pressures than one could foresee prior to attaining it for themselves.<br /><br />While the way I’m writing about this movie may make it seem like an after school special about the trappings of fame, it is much more subtle than it sounds here. Even if you aren’t as interested with the idea behind the movie as I am, you should still see it because it is a great movie. And once you do see it, be sure to post about it on your Facebook page to let everybody know just how much you love it!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-1095818582472896062009-11-11T08:42:00.000-08:002009-11-11T09:00:07.694-08:00Michael Bay: The People’s Auteur<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >This is an essay I wrote in my undergrad, and it is just about the only written thing I'm proud of from said career. It's super long, moderately academic, and what may come off as an obsession with one article by Richard Dyer was a requirement of the assignment. I do, however, have a legitimate obsession with Michael Bay that is probably unhealthy. I do legitimately love most of this movies: I think the Rock is the greatest action movie ever (and until the Bourne movies it was a wide margin), Bad Boys 1 and 2 are thoroughly entertaining, the first Transformers is spectacular while the second is a worse film BUT TOTALLY AWESOMER. The Island is a cool movie which I think would have been remembered a lot better if it had a better climactic fight scene (because that city car chase was insaaaaane), and Armageddon is Grade-A hilarity through and through. Pearl Harbor, however, is one of the worst movies ever made. That's okay though Michael: Pearl Harbor sucks, but I still love you.</span><br /><br />Michael Bay is a name that evokes horror to film critics, yet all but one of his films have been big hits both in America and overseas. He is perhaps the most notable action director working today, much to the chagrin of many film fanatics. When you are aware that you are seeing a Michael Bay film, you can expect to see non-stop action, edited with a fast-paced cutting style. You also know that there will be multiple instances of product placement, and by the time the film concludes, good will triumph over evil.<br /><br />These are just some of the things one can expect in viewing a Michael Bay movie, and they come out of the combination of his desire to be an action hero, a businessman, an auteur, and above all, a populist. Michael Bay makes movies for Middle America, and the other three elements of his persona listed here influence and are affected by these populist desires.<br /><br />It is clear that Bay loves to make action films, and it is also fairly evident through interviews that he likens himself to the heroes the audience cheers for. In Richard Dyer’s Stars as Types, Bay could fit into the mould of the Tough Guy. In commentary tracks he has recorded over his films, Bay often mentions how he operates his own camera in times when he is the only person on set brave enough to do so (The Rock, Bad Boys, Transformers commentary tracks)*. He also discusses how he sees each of his movies as the making of the hero, often involving a wiser old man teaching a young boy to become a hero (Diamond), and this can be read as a way of interpreting how he sees himself as a director on each film. While this is certainly easier to apply to his earlier films, where he is learning about filmmaking from Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, Bay’s completion of later films can still be seen as a lone hero defeating the obstacles in his way before walking off into the sunset as the credits begin to roll. Bay also often discusses competition between his blockbusters and those of other directors: he talks about how he shot, on average, thirty more set-ups each day than J.J. Abrams’ 2006 film Mission: Impossible III (The Island commentary), and how Len Wiseman’s 2007 film Live Free or Die Hard (Transformers commentary) changed its release date to avoid competition with Bay’s Transformers (2007)**. His constant deflection of interview questions that probe into his personal life shows that Bay would like to be seen as the strong, uber-masculine hero, perhaps similar to Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) in Bad Boys (Bay 1995). While multiple writers interviewing Bay criticize him for not being able to open up (Hochman, Hedegaard), Bay says that he is merely guarded because he feels it is not the public’s business, and that “nothing good’s ever been written about [him]” (Saroyan).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*In discussing shooting a scene on an aircraft carrier in Pearl Harbor, Bay mentions how there was a ‘Danger Line’ or a ‘Line of Death’ that no camera person would go past because it was too dangerous with airplanes taking off. Bay grabbed a camera and went, his words, “like 5 feet past the Line of Death.”<br />**He also mentions how Live Free or Die Hard couldn’t get support from the US Army, but Transformers did. He has “a hotline to the Pentagon… but I guess they just don’t have the juice.”</span><br /></div><br />While Bay does exhibit some elements of a personality in the mould of a tough guy, he would probably be quicker to liken himself to a Rebel. It becomes clear through interviews and film commentaries that this is where Bay would likely want to place himself in the types that Dyer outlines. Bay often mentions how he has to fight with the studio in order to have his way on the set, notably in the case of deciding shooting locations for The Rock (1996). On his commentary track for the film, Bay details how Disney wanted him to shoot the film in Los Angeles instead of on the actual island of Alcatraz, where the film is set. Bay says that after he visited Alcatraz, he went to the studio and said that he’s “got to shoot on this island, because this island is just so fucking bitching” (The Rock commentary)*. He also details struggles with the studio about plot points and elements of his action scenes for all of his movies, to the point where he had to write a cheque for $25 000 dollars (all figures US), a quarter of his fee, in order to get a climactic action shot for his first film (Bad Boys commentary). Bay also constantly fights against the scripts he is given to work with, choosing to rewrite dialogue with his actors as production is ongoing. Bay discusses on each of the commentaries viewed how he often encourages actors to improvise, or even rewrite scenes of dialogue in order to add more humour to the picture. Specifically, he discusses how Bad Boys (1995) had a terrible script**, and that The Rock was green-lit before its screenplay was completed. In order for these films to have been successful, Bay claims, his script changes with the help of his stars were necessary (Bad Boys and The Rock commentary tracks). His addition of this improvisation throughout his films in order to make them funnier, in combination with his combative tendencies, leads Bay to mention how the studio always thinks he is out of his mind (Transformers commentary).<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*This is my favourite Michael Bay quote ever.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">**And was originally going to star Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz… Seriously.</span><br /></div><br />Through an application of Dyer’s discussion of the Rebel as a star type, we can read these elements of Bay to be rebellious. He does oppose the system (in this case, the studios producing his films) in the ways discussed above, but he is still far from a Rebel. Outside of these elements of his filmmaking process, Bay is very much the Good Joe. He stands up to the bullies of the studio initially, but when the production of the film has been completed, he just wants to please as many people as he can. Bay is different from many directors in that he will adjust his films based on the responses of focus groups and test audiences.<br /><br />One of the most important elements of Bay’s personality is his absolute dedication to Middle America*. This can be summarized in a word of advice given to Bay by his grandfather: “if you want to make money in this world, whether you make jeans or whatever, you sell to the middle of the country” (Strauss). Bay has taken this advice to heart, as his films often aim to please the average citizen, as opposed to the film fanatic. He extensively tests all of his films for focus groups, and pays attention to their every move. Bay says that when he sees multiple people get up to go to the washroom at the same time, he knows that there is a change that needs to be made to the film at that point (The Rock commentary)**. When questioned about whether this approach is hurting filmmaking, Bay responds by saying that these are the people you are making the movie for, so he should be molding the movie to fit what they desire. He discovered how much he liked to see an audience’s positive reaction to his work when he was at a screening of his senior thesis film, and “saw 350 people looking at the screen, laughing,” which helped to ignite his crowd-pleasing sensibilities (Snead). In an interview that took place at The Rock’s premiere, where the film was being screened for studio executives and celebrities, Bay states that he has “seen this movie eight times now, and this was the deadest audience I’ve seen. I like seeing this with the people I made it for, because they laugh and cheer and are much more vocal” (Diamond). Bay feels that test screenings and focus groups are vital to make the most enjoyable film possible. He also does not understand why other directors have such a disdain for these strategies: Bay feels that it is better to see scores of other people enjoy his work, as opposed to merely being personally satisfied (Sutherland). In the commentary tracks for the respective films, Bay discusses how using his focus group research to improve his films by shooting two extra scenes for Transformers, removing a shot from The Rock that audiences deemed too gruesome, as well as adding more story exposition scenes to Bad Boys***.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*I picture Michael Bay and Jack Donaghy hanging out. Pleeeeease make that cameo happen.<br />**This is also the reason the San Francisco car chase is in the Rock.<br />***Which apparently means that Bad Boys had story exposition to begin with.</span><br /></div><br />In keeping with his strategy of making films for Middle America, Bay likes to make sure to keep the characters and stories of his films accessible. While this applies to an extent to all of his films, it is most notable in his most recent work, Transformers. Bay describes the story as that of the relationship between a boy and his first car (Strauss), and in the commentary for the film discusses many of the techniques used to make the film accessible. Bay shows his main character, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), in a variety of generic suburban settings, including a classroom, in order to increase the sense of accessibility. Bay states that the classroom is identifiable to everybody, because “every guy has had this experience. We have all been in this classroom” (Transformers commentary).<br /><br />Bay’s extreme patriotism is also present in this film, as it is in all the others he has made. The cars that are used in the film for the Autobots and Decepticons are American-made, and there is extensive glorification of the military throughout the film. Bay’s work generally depicts the military in such a positive light that he is able to use military equipment and vehicles before other filmmakers. He even has what he describes as “a hotline to the Pentagon,” which he has earned because Bay makes the military “look good when I do my movies” (Transformers commentary). In the climactic battle, everyman Sam and the army meet up to do battle in tandem with the Autobots, at which point Captain William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) has to convince Sam to help them fight. After Lennox says to Sam, “you are a soldier now!” the audience watches the transformation of the everyman into a mythical action hero who defeats a villainous 50-foot tall robot.<br /><br />Not only are Bay’s films themselves both patriotic and populist, but the way he runs his set is as well. He prefers to do his action scenes with real stunt people whenever possible, as opposed to using computer generated imagery. Bay likes to use these stunt people in order to keep his films more realistic, but also so that he can keep more stunt people employed (The Island commentary). He also details how he has had the same crew in place since he shot The Rock, and that they have become “like a family” (Bad Boys commentary). In his dedication to these working people of America, Bay even went so far as to give up 30 per cent of his fee for Transformers so that he could shoot in the United States (Transformers commentary). Dreamworks wanted to shoot in Canada and Australia, but Bay felt an intense loyalty to his crew, and that he needed his Los Angeles crew and stunt workers to make the film properly (Sutherland). He furthers his argument by saying that he believes “American movies that portray America should be made in America” (Saroyan). So far, this dedication to the hard-working people of Middle America has worked out for Bay, and it is unlikely that he will change his strategy as long as these films continue to turn large profits.<br /><br />Bay makes no secret of the commercial goals of his films: the first paragraph in his press-kit biography claims that he has “won nearly every award bestowed by the advertising industry” (Burns). Bay was the youngest director to ever have films gross over $1 billion at the box office (Saroyan), and to date his films have grossed over $3 billion (Schembri). His former producing partner Jerry Bruckheimer states that Bay has learned how to be a shrewd businessman from his time as a director of commercials, in that Bay has to listen to what his clients say, and also be involved with the profitability of the commercial and making sure the budget does not run over. Bay’s clients, however, are now heads of major motion picture studios, and his films are shot on a much bigger scale than his commercials were (Snead).<br /><br />Michael Bay’s career has also been heavily influenced by factors that originally occurred in Hollywood in the 1970s. The death of the studio system allowed for the restructuring of studios into media entertainment conglomerates. This allowed for more blockbusters to be greenlit: there were now more ways to offset losses, and big productions could also be spun in order to make money through a variety of ancillary markets (Hall 165). This made big productions a safe risk for studios, and they started to be seen with more frequency because of this. Through Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1976), studios learned how much money could be made with the risk of a bigger budget film, so long as it is aggressively marketed. This has changed the way films are made in relation to an audience, for now returning the investment on the film requires drawing in the largest audience possible (Corrigan 88). Bay is fully aware of these elements of the films he is making, and his films take these factors into consideration from before production even begins. Scott Renshaw argues in a review of The Island that the modern blockbuster is a place where Bay can sell a variety of products: a kiss, a chase, or a consumer product. Bay wants to sell his movie to as much of America as he can, and he keeps his target audience in mind at all times because of this. He often makes reference to a time when he was working on The Rock where one of his screenwriters, Jonathan Hensleigh, mentioned it was odd that Bay would take his target audience into consideration. Bay’s reaction to this is to say, “if you’re given sixty million dollars you had better fucking know who you are selling it to.” (The Rock commentary, Diamond, Snead).<br /><br />And selling may be what he does best. From the moment he begins work on a project, Bay is already formulating ways to market his work. He discusses on the commentary for Bad Boys how he convinced Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson to hire him over another, older director because Bay already had ideas of how to sell the picture to a mass audience. He also wanted to make sure that moviegoers were thinking about Transformers over a year before the movie was released: in the first week of production Bay had the idea to create a teaser trailer in order to create awareness (Transformers commentary). He also blames his only domestic failure, The Island (2006), on a marketing campaign devised by the studio as opposed to Bay himself (The Island commentary).<br /><br />Bay’s films are influenced by capitalism to such an extent that the designs of the robots in Transformers were rushed along by toy manufacturer Hasbro. The company needed to have finished designs so that they could begin production on the toys in order to have them completed for the film’s release date. Bay also accepted $3 million from General Motors in order to use their models for the films robot combatants (Transformers commentary). He justifies this by saying that these methods give him more money that he can use to spend onscreen, and that he does not consider this him “whoring out” the movie. Bay feels that this is a fair compromise: he receives money that he can use to make his film better, while the advertiser benefits by having their products shown as fantastical heroes (Schembri). Bay feels that in the real world, brand-name products and advertisements are everywhere, so it only makes sense that they should also be in Hollywood films (The Island commentary)*. These commercial and populist elements stand in stark contrast to the way many traditional auteurs would feel about filmmaking, but this does not keep Michael Bay from joining their ranks.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*Of course, the original Xbox ads in the Island were outdated within a year of the movie’s release, and many of the other companies in the movie have had stylistic overhauls. Note to Mike, this defense does not apply to movies that take place in the future.</span><br /></div><br />The auteur theory existed long before film studios began to see the profits that could be made with blockbuster films, but when the aforementioned shift to the New Hollywood began, marketers brought an altered version of the auteur theory along for the ride. The concept of the auteur states that the director is the authour of the film, and that the film represents their creative vision*. Timothy Corrigan argues that if this theory is still alive in today’s Hollywood, it is bound tightly with the celebrity industry (82). The director’s name and star image is used to sell the film just as much as, if not more than, its lead actors. Michael Bay is in this group of their directors, as the trailers for his films from The Rock (1996) onward have included either a voiceover stating that he directed them (The Rock, Armageddon), or text declaring him as the director (Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II, The Island, Transformers). This naming of Bay as the director helps to both promote the film and attach a sense of authourship to his films as a collective. Foucault argues that the name of an authour, in this case Michael Bay, is also used as a description (105): saying a film is directed by Bay also says that it is “from the director of Pearl Harbor,” or any of the other films Bay has directed. In this manner, “the name seems always to be present, marking off the edges of the text, revealing, or at least characterizing, its mode of being” (Foucault 107). This marketing strategy adds to the narrative image of a Michael Bay film. The idea of his films, being that of a shallow action picture, is known by the audience as it is being sold to them, and this helps contribute to the preconceived notion the audience develops before they see these films (Ellis 30). This explains how critics are unable to put their preconceived notions of a Bay film aside to review a new work: they are constantly reminded by the new text that it has been created by an authour whose work they have viewed before.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*I don’t know if I like the auteur theory. While it definitely makes nerdily discussing movies easier in many respects, film is a collaborative medium. So many people have their hands in a film that I don’t like seeing one person get all the credit. While I agree the director (or the screenwriter for that matter) probably adds more to any given movie than anybody else, there are plenty of little (or huge) things that anybody from a costume designer to a set designer can add to the movie. That being said, if I ever direct a good movie, GIVE ME ALL THE FUCKING CREDIT!</span><br /></div><br />Perhaps the mention of Michael Bay as an auteur would not sit well with many film fanatics and critics, but Bay has certainly been identified as one. In reading almost thirty reviews of his films, it is clear to see that Bay is singled out in every one of them, and in reviews of his later films, Bay is consistently discussed more than his star actors. Corrigan discusses how The Godfather (Coppola 1972) gave critics pre-conceived expectations for how to judge future films by Francis Ford Coppola (94), much in the same way Bay’s previous films influence critics’ opinions of his new works. Of course, this is done contrarily to how Coppola’s are judged, in that critics expect trash out of Bay as opposed to high quality filmmaking. This offers a preconceived notion of what a film by Michael Bay will entail: there will be explosions, quick cuts, and little in the way of plot and character development. These auteurs have their work overshadowed by their name (in Bay’s case though, perhaps only to critics).<br /><br />Michael Bay, through the marketing of his films, has been named, using Corrigan’s terminology, as a sort of commercial auteur, or a star director (91). Bay is now prominently mentioned when discussions of his films occur in the media, and in a recent Entertainment Tonight piece from the set of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) Bay was a higher priority over the star power of actor Shia LaBeouf (Steines). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXRCf9LbLM0&feature=related">Bay has even starred in a Verizon FiOS commercial in which he spoofs his own image by setting off explosions while walking around his house (Verizon)</a>.<br /><br />What has yet to really be defined however, is what aspects of Bay’s films can be traced back to the auteur theory. In his Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962, Andrew Sarris details how he feels that the three premises of the auteur theory can be visualized as three concentric circles. The outer circle contains the technique and casts the director as technician, the middle circle is the director’s personal style, and the inner circle is where the meaning of the film is found (563). Bay’s films are, at their most basic, certainly identifiable as films, proving that he is at least a competent technician in the creation of his films. He also clearly has a personal visual style: Bay’s films are all use quick and plentiful edits, feature plenty of swooping camera movements, and will end in a climactic battle between the hero and his foe. Bay even has multiple camera shots that are like his signature on each film. Each of his films features a shot where the camera begins behind a character at waist level and tracks around until the audience is looking the character in the face. In addition to this, Bay’s films will feature at least one shot of a large aircraft seen flying towards the camera as the sun is setting behind it. When discussing the third of Sarris’s concentric circles, however, it becomes slightly more difficult to think about Bay as an auteur.<br /><br />As outlined earlier, Bay is not shy in his position as a populist filmmaker. He does not try to include much in the way of interior meaning in his films, for he is merely concerned with the audience enjoying themselves. A consistent theme in his films has been the aforementioned use of male-to-male relationships, and the tension that can come through in these relationships (Diamond). These male-to-male elements of his films are where Bay encourages the most improvisation from his actors, and often the audience’s response to the film relies on the relationships between the audience and these characters. While critics generally do not like Bay as a director, they seem to have no problem discussing how the skill and charisma of his actors can still engage the audience (Ebert, Brodeur). Does Bay not have a hand in making these characters likable? It may be the actors saying the lines, but it is Bay who is encouraging them to improvise, and then participating in cutting the best takes together in the editing room.<br /><br />Another way to read Bay’s films is to use them as a metaphor for problems within contemporary American society. These films are empty, hollow, and filled with advertisements, much like the modern Americanized culture we find ourselves living within. In a review for Transformers, Max Burke writes that the film represents “Michael Bay’s America in 2007: if you find it depressing and vacuous, then you have not paid enough attention to the devolution of American culture.” Burke continues to say that the film, like all of Bay’s films, reflects the superficiality and selfishness of modern American culture. While this is not a positive interior meaning for a film to have, it does give Bay something to add to his status as an auteur: his films accurately represent the society that they are created within. These films also represent the continuing expansion of the blockbuster that began in the 1970s. Bay’s strategies towards creating a large profit for the studios financing his films have both worked to advance blockbusters in the realm of profit generation, as well as create problems for filmmakers who want to have their smaller films seen. Studios rely on these tent pole films, being those that have significant production and marketing budgets, to quickly return a significant profit. These films are the most valued of a studio’s production calendar, and smaller films are often treated as merely ways to fill gaps before the next tent pole. As such, studios show less affection for a director of a smaller film, as opposed to Bay, who they adore for creating such big returns. The fact that Bay continues to make these films helps to contribute to this blockbuster culture, as well as continue to shrink the number of smaller, more intimate pictures. Bay mentions that he continues to worry that big movies are going away (Saroyan), but he is helping to ensure that they do not. He also makes continuing reference to a smaller film he would like to make, entitled Pain & Gain, and mentions it in many of his interviews dating as far back as to the release of Armageddon (Saroyan, Hochman, Schembri, etc). Bay states that he just keeps being offered blockbusters, so he never gets around to making it*. However, does he doubt his skills in making a smaller picture? Perhaps he worries that he would be making a film that not everybody in his focus groups would rate as “excellent.”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">*On his blog, when he announced that he was returning to direct Transformers 3, the last sentence of his post was “Pain & Gain shoots immediately after.” I really hope it does, if only out of curiousity.</span><br /></div><br />Michael Bay is an interesting figure in Hollywood. His films are loved by studio heads, and generally by Middle America as well, but despised by film critics. Bay’s films signify the death of cinema to many critics, but that is not completely the fault of Bay. His films are born out of the birth of the New Hollywood, and Bay’s populist and commercial approach to filmmaking is merely another facet of how cinema has changed. Whether or not this change is a good thing is another issue, but Bay cannot be solely blamed for it, for there were plenty of other factors involved long before Bay ever directed a film.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-81736193588204656952009-11-05T21:39:00.000-08:002009-11-08T18:24:11.128-08:00But, this character is about 15 years younger than Denzel! WHAT WILL WE DO?!!?This is Part 1 of 2 about the movie <span style="font-weight: bold;">Law Abiding Citizen</span>. You might think that this does not seem like the type of movie that deserves a two-part piece, especially when you consider that it isn’t particularly good. But I don’t necessarily write about good movies, I write about movies that get me thinking about something. And Law Abiding Citizen got me thinking about a couple of things, one of which is this: Jamie Foxx is terrible.<br /><br />Honestly, outside of maybe Leonardo DiCaprio, no actor is more overrated than this guy. Let’s get a couple of nice things out of the way first, though:<br /><blockquote>1) I admit he does a killer Ray Charles impression. So, you know, good work watching video and imitating him, Jamie.<br />2) He doesn’t hurt Collateral too much.<br />3) He is good in Any Given Sunday… but that’s because he is always standing next to either a scenery chewing Al Pacino or Dennis fucking Quaid.</blockquote>Well, now that we’ve got the compliments out of the way, I can tell you how I really feel. Foxx always has the same look on his face in a dramatic scene. ALWAYS. You know the one I’m talking about, the “Jamie Foxx intense face.” He just scrunches up his face as tightly as he can and tries to look tough. Back when Freddie Prinze Jr. was a thing, I remember people always bitching about his lack of a changing facial expression. I’m not trying to say Freddie Prinze Jr. is underrated (because he sucks), but nobody ever tried to claim that his performance in She’s All That was transcendent.<br /><br />Foxx also does a lot of those little actor-y things that drive me insane. I have a couple little rules that help in telling the difference between a decent actor and an over-actor: watch how they eat, and watch how they hold a phone. If you don’t see anything that sticks out to you as a “nobody would do that” type of thing, then this person probably isn’t a terrible over-actor. However, if you see an actor rub their nose while chewing loudly or hold a phone to their ear across their body, then they are an over-actor. Jamie Foxx is a repeat offender on each count.<br /><br />Not to get all lame and semi-serious on you here, but I think the worst part about Jamie Foxx is that he symbolizes how racist Hollywood is. It seems that for a black actor to be able to get any decent lead roles, they have to be good looking and get extremely lucky in mixing a good performance with a movie that is popular. Jamie Foxx had that with Ray, and since then it seems like he has been the go-to guy for any black lead role who needs to be a decade younger than Denzel Washington can play (and that Will Smith is too nice for). Never mind that Derek Luke and Larenz Tate are better actors than all of them, until another under 40 black actor lands that lucky role, we’re stuck with Jamie Foxx in movies like this one. And Law Abiding Citizen features just about everything that makes Jamie Foxx terrible: over-the-top eating, over-the-top cell phone holding, over-the-top intense face, over-the-top and constant muscle flexing, over-the-top trying to look cool, etc. Please, Derek and Larenz, find that lucky role. You are the ones who can stop the intense-faced monster that is Jamie Foxx.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, and by the way, Jamie Foxx is also the creator of "From Gs to Gents." So... yeah.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-22637678310599327612009-11-02T20:48:00.000-08:002009-11-03T06:23:49.001-08:00Sugar<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Again, I apologize that this is late. I honestly didn't know I still had readers. But I promise it won't happen again... until it happens again.</span></span><br /><br />I watched this movie <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sugar</span> yesterday, about a young baseball player from the Dominican Republic as he tries to realize his dream of being a pitcher in the Major Leagues. If this sounds at all interesting to you, stop reading this, because I really had no idea the direction this movie was headed in, and I never would have guessed. The less you know about Sugar, the better.<br /><br />Miguel “Sugar” Santos grows up in the Dominican and moves from a baseball boarding school to a training camp in Arizona, and from there to a Single A team in Bridgetown, Iowa. Up until that point it is a fairly standard baseball movie, but it then begins to take on the feeling of a movie about an outsider. Sugar can barely speak English, and apart from baseball, he is almost completely lost. Over time, his performance on the field falters, and Sugar realizes his baseball days are over. Without warning, he leaves his team for New York, fleeing the dream of America’s national pastime for the American Dream.<br /><br />Sugar’s struggle to find his footing in a foreign country is fascinating and engaging without ever getting too corny, and the way the film depicts the death of his dream is even more interesting. It is well documented that such a small percentage of athletes ever reach their professional goals, and this is the only movie I can recall that seems to say that this is okay. Our culture is constantly trying to encourage the celebrity lifestyle through gossip magazines and websites, as well as the explosion of reality television in the past decade. However, it is rare to see a view of the real life that occurs after somebody sees their dream die.<br /><br />I love movies and television shows that deal with the acceptance of normalcy, because it is something that doesn’t get seen enough in popular media (not that anybody knows what Sugar is). This is why the Office (the British one especially) is one of my favourite pieces of popular media: it is about finding the good things about a normal, day-to-day life. Sugar does the same, showing us a person’s growth while trying to leave his dream behind for something more attainable.<br /><br />Sugar goes through a period of uncertainty with his baseball team, but once he turns to New York, he never looks back. It is only at the very end of the movie, when he joins a local rec league, that we see Sugar show any sadness or reflection. The last shot of the movie displays Sugar sitting behind the chain-link backstop on a bench between innings, high-fiving his teammates. He then stops, sitting silently and staring at the ground for a few moments before beginning to clap for his fellow ball players. Sugar applauds his team, and by extension himself, for accepting the way life really is, with only brief thoughts of what could have been before realizing that he chose a healthier way of life.<br /><br />I am an advocate for watching movies multiple times in order to get more out of them, but I doubt if I will ever watch Sugar again. Throughout the movie, I recall thinking that it was a good movie, but before the last scene that was all I thought it was. The last shot, however, was so powerful to me that I am certain it will remain burned in my brain for a long time to come. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the filmmakers behind this film and Half Nelson previously, are proving to be an interesting team. Their movies focus more on people than plot, something that is rare. Like in Half Nelson, the main character of Sugar feels like a real person: the film was a window into this person’s reality, and it feels so accurate that I didn’t notice how good it was. We see Sugar accepting the end of his dream, and with that I realized that I actually cared about a character as if he were a real person, and as far as I’m concerned, that is a pretty high compliment for a movie to receive.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-63542064400172454102009-11-01T20:21:00.000-08:002009-11-01T20:25:53.276-08:00Again, I'm the worst.Alright, so I have 3 posts in progress, but none of them have an ending. Instead of rushing them into production and ending up with a shitty product, 'The Devil's Own' style, I'm going to hold off and post them when they're done. I realize I've probably lost 50% of my readership by wasting time, but whatever.<br /><br />By next Monday I hope to have at least two of them finished and posted to make up for the lost ones. For now, I will simply leave you with this: <span style="font-weight: bold;">watch 'Synecdoche, New York.'</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-65697175571070082342009-10-25T12:59:00.000-07:002009-10-25T14:18:31.338-07:00I'm (kind of) taking a week off.<span style="font-style: italic;">I must apologize to both of my loyal readers, but I don't have anything for you this week. I just couldn't find the time to write anything decent. I promise I'll be back next week to entertain you with a new half-baked theory about some movie.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">However, I did find something I wrote a year or so ago that I'll post today. It's a list of movies that aren't too well known that I think you (yes, you) should see. I don't know who I wrote this for originally, so just pretend that I wrote it for you. These are not very well written mini-reviews, but they get the point across.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Accepted</span> – A teen movie that somehow is completely formulaic but still hilarious and kind of touching, probably mostly due to the cast. Justin Long is Ferris Bueller-esque.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beautiful Girls</span> – A “chick flick for guys” in that it deals with guys trying to figure out what they want in life and how they deal with the women in their lives. It is hard to make it sound appealing, but it is a great movie with a couple hilarious monologues.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Before Sunset</span> – If you saw Before Sunrise and thought it was decent and missed the sequel, see it. It makes the first one way better and it’s a great examination of how people can change and stay the same in 10 or so years.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cop Land </span>– Sylvester Stallone playing a role that is different from the norm for him in a great cop movie. It is clearly strongly influenced by classic westerns, notably 3:10 to Yuma.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Confidence </span>– Cool little con-man movie. Dustin Hoffman is annoying as hell in it, but outside of that it is certainly worth watching. And since it’s DuHo you can let it go this one time.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Control </span>– Biopic about Ian Curtis’ (lead singer of Joy Division) struggles with epilepsy, depression and relationships. A biopic that isn’t painfully formulaic!!! Who knew?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Death at a Funeral</span> – If you like British comedy, see this immediately. If you don’t, stay away.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gattaca </span>– Is genetic modification of humans okay? What is going too far? How brooding can Ethan Hawke look? All three of these questions are examined masterfully in this movie.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints</span> – Great acting (oddly enough the exception being Robert Downey Jr.) from a huge cast, and a great “coming of age tale.” Fuck I hate that term, but that’s what it is. Shia LaBeouf is the main character growing up in New York in the 80s, and he actually has to do something other than just being himself, which is cool. Channing Tatum is also incredible… if you haven’t seen this movie, I can’t recommend it highly enough.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters </span>– A documentary about professional Donkey Kong players. It is structured so well to make you hate the one guy so much, and cheer so loudly for the other, and some of the supporting people are just completely hilarious. A highly entertaining documentary.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Lookout </span>– Great concept, and very well executed. Easily one of the best crime movies I have seen in the last few years.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Love Liza </span>– Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the best, and this is more or less a one man show. Crazy depressing, but very good.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Manic </span>– Indie wunderkid* Joseph Gordon Levitt stars as a teenager who gets put in a mental health facility. Don Cheadle (!!!) is the kids’ teacher, and it’s a good, non-cliched examination of troubled youth. Zooey Deschanel is also in it, for those that appreciate beautiful ladies with acting skills.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">P.S. </span>– Kind of up and down, it’s a far from perfect movie, especially since one of the main plot points is kind of absurd. BUT, it has Laura Linney and Topher Grace each turning in great performances. Fuck Marcia Gay Harden though, I don’t like her<span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Proposition </span>– In my opinion, the best modern western with maybe the exception being the Assassination of Jesse James. It is dirty and grimy as hell, and is exhausting to watch.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Saved! </span>– Hilarious satirical look at Christian high schools, and Mandy Moore is funny as shit in it. So long as you are not particularly religious, this movie is highly recommended.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Savages</span> – Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are my favourite actress and actor, respectively, and in this movie they both prove me right. They play a brother and sister who have to find their father a home to live in as his health is declining. It is a very balanced mix of drama and comedy, and is handled in a way that the drama adds to the comedy, and vice versa. The jokes are really funny because you care about the characters, much like the best episodes of Six Feet Under. 2007 had some truly great movies (No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, etc.), but this is the one that will sadly probably be forgotten.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Six Degrees of Separation</span> – The acting and dialogue is all great, and it keeps you guessing the whole way through.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Spellbound </span>– This one is about the national spelling bee, and holy shit it is good. My favourite documentary of all time by a mile, because the kids are so entertaining and the contest is quite suspenseful.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sunshine (2007)</span> – Another one of the great movies from 2007 that will be quickly forgotten about. A team of astronauts has to reignite the sun to save Earth from dying, and this film deals exclusively with their mission. It takes place entirely within the spaceship, and deals only with these 8 people. It is directed by Danny Boyle, and bears many similarities to 28 Days Later in that it deals with how people in a small group handle their mortality in a possibly apocalyptic situation. It takes a bit of a sketchy turn late, but it is so good up until that point that you can easily get past it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada</span> – Tommy Lee Jones should have been playing sheriffs exclusively for his entire life, because he is great at it. Another good modern western.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Woodsman </span>– This movie is unbelievably creepy and at times unbearable because of that, but if you can handle the subject matter it is definitely worth a watch. Also, one of Kevin Bacon and Mos Def’s scenes together is among my favourite scenes ever.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">*If you read my 500 Days of Summer post, you will notice that I used this ‘joke’ then, too. I am nothing if not repetitive.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-51551848164519447722009-10-18T16:58:00.000-07:002009-11-19T11:59:16.167-08:00Why do critics hate crowd pleasers?<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I originally wrote this months ago, and in the time that passed since then have realized that I did not see Taxi Driver and Transformers on the same day (I saw Taxi Driver and the Hangover). Everything I talk about here did happen, it's just that the time line has been rearranged a little.</span><br /></span><span><br />The answer to the question is simple: they generally don’t watch movies with other people, and therefore don’t take an audience’s reaction to the movie into account. Within Roger Ebert’s scathing review of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen</span>, he basically said that anybody who likes the movie has poor taste and Ebert hopes that these Transformers fans’ tastes elevate.<br /><br />Well, fuck you Ebert. I loved Transformers, and I can also appreciate “serious films” as well. I recently saw <span style="font-weight: bold;">Taxi Driver</span> at the art-house theatre in town, and then hours later saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at another theatre. I am not going to try to argue that Transformers is a better movie than Taxi Driver (“Movies better than Taxi Driver” isn’t a long list though), but it is damn sure entertaining. Each of these two movies succeeds in achieving their goals: Taxi Driver is a great movie about Travis Bickle’s isolation and frustration with society, and Transformers is, well, awesome.<br /><br />When I saw Taxi Driver recently, the crowd was almost completely silent, and walking out of the theatre, I didn’t hear a word – likely because Taxi Driver isn’t exactly a pleasant piece of cinema. The Transformers theatre, however, was completely different. During the movie there were laughs, slight cheers, and even moments where brief applause could be heard. I’m not saying it was like a party in the theatre, but it was a notably different experience. Walking out, you could hear much of the crowd’s approval of the movie, and I have noticed similar things each of the three times I saw it in theatres. I am not saying everybody liked it, because I really doubt that is the case. I am merely arguing that Taxi Driver and Transformers offer completely different film going experiences, and that neither one is necessarily better than the other.<br /><br />The filmmakers behind each film have very different goals – Martin Scorsese and his crew likely set out to make a serious film to be taken as art, while Michael Bay’s crew set out to make a calculated piece of entertainment. Movies like Transformers need an action scene every 25 minutes or so, a certain amount of laughs per scene, and they almost always end happily. To ensure the audience gets the maximum enjoyment possible from the movie, there are generally lots of test screenings employed for these types of movies.<br /><br />Bay did not start this democratic method of filmmaking, but he and other action directors happily participate in it. Bay has said that he doesn’t make movies for critics, but instead aims to please Middle America. And honestly, I don’t see why film critics seem so angered by the fact that people sometimes want to engage in movie going exclusively to have fun. While some movies are more of an isolated experience, like Taxi Driver, movies like Transformers are perfect to see with a group of people.<br /><br />Bay orchestrates his movies so that he can get reactions from his audience, and other directors who try to make crowd pleasers undoubtedly do the same. These filmmakers want to hear laughs, screams, applause, cheers, and most of all, they want their audience to leave smiling. They want a trip to the theatre to be more than just seeing a movie – they want it to be an “experience.”<br /><br />I’m alright with this. Most of my favourite memories from being in a movie theatre come not from the movie itself, but the audience. I will never forget laughing along with the rest of the audience at the ludicrous writing in Lady in the Water, the people who cheered “ROCK-Y! ROCK-Y! ROCK-Y!” during the climactic fight in Rocky Balboa, and seeing a full theatre collectively jump during 1408. I will probably never watch any of these movies again, for they are far from good movies (okay, Rocky’s awesome), but it’s unlikely I’ll forget these experiences.<br /><br />To be fair to Ebert and seemingly every other movie critic, I would happily trade all of these experiences to have legitimately great movies such as Synecdoche, New York be the commercial hits that the masses flock to see. But what critics seem to disregard is that Hollywood takes any movie that is a huge commercial hit and attempts to replicate it, and in doing so often bastardizes everything that was so great about it originally. I think that I would rather keep things the way they are and just deal with the fact that there are movies made to provide people with a fun couple of hours, and there are films that are made to be seen as art.<br /><br />Not everybody likes a movie like Taxi Driver, just like some people aren’t fond of movies like Transformers. But just because some would rather watch Transformers than Taxi Driver does not make those people stupid. What makes movie critics stupid, however, is that they often expect their word to be taken as the only correct way to feel about a movie.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />For those wondering, here is the quote that set off this rant: </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">"Those who think "Transformers" is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve."</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-37889157759113252052009-10-12T08:51:00.000-07:002009-10-12T10:06:41.334-07:00{Look} at HOW [indie] eye/ \yam?<span style="font-style: italic;">SPOILER ALERT: This week's post features spoilers for Paper Heart and 500 Days of Summer. There, I warned you.<br /></span><br />This year has seen some great and interesting romantic comedies, including Adventureland, I Love You Man, and Away We Go. The ones I am going to be taking a closer look at, however, are Paper Heart and 500 Days of Summer (although I will not be putting the 500 in parentheses, for they are [ridiculously] unnecessary). These movies both put forward interesting ideas about the idea of love, ideas which stuck with me weeks after seeing them.<br /><br />Paper Heart stars Charlyne Yi (the Asian stoner girl from Knocked Up) and Michael Cera (Hollywood’s favourite zip-up hoodie enthusiast) in a “documentary” about Charlyne’s quest to find out if love exists. Most of the interviews with real-life couples appear to be unscripted, but the film as a whole is still mostly scripted (and there is even an actor playing the film’s director). The whole thing is excessively postmodern to tell you the truth, and I love that about it. But that’s not the point here.<br /><br />Charlyne doesn’t believe that love exists, so she decides to make a documentary about what other people feel love is. In the process, she meets Michael, and the documentary starts to follow their relationship while still trying to maintain its original goal of questioning the existence of love.<br /><br />Charlyne’s confusion as she appears to fall in love for the first time is great to watch, and as far as I’m concerned, true to life. Falling in love for the first time is weird, and you never really know what to think. Charlyne is one of the better on-film examples of this I have seen: nothing about the early stages of a relationship is smooth, and Charlyne’s performance is nothing if not awkward.<br /><br />The same goes for when there are signs of trouble in her relationship with Michael – she is once again confused and unsure of what to do. While Charlyne does appear to find love, or at least the beginning of love in the movie, Paper Heart conveys the idea that love is a product of fate: Charlyne was just going about living her life when Michael literally walked into it.<br /><br />Tom Hansen (indie wonderboy Joseph Gordon-Levitt) would surely agree with this idea of love at the beginning of 500 Days of Summer. He seems to believe in true love, and Tom thinks that Summer Finn (indie wondergirl Zooey Deschanel) is that girl for him, even though she refuses to even acknowledge him as her boyfriend. The film is an examination of their whole relationship, from the day they meet until Tom gets over his heartbreak.<br /><br />Summer is a good character in that she feels like a real person, but she is not a particularly likeable one. It’s hard to articulate how, but I can definitely see how Tom would fall for her. Well, if a girl as gorgeous as her told me that she was a fan of a favourite band of mine, I think I would fall in love with her too. I have, sadly, fallen for a girl’s CD collection before, and it will probably happen again. Certain things can blind you from unlikable elements of a person, and Summer does enough loveable things that Tom can’t see that she is in fact, unlikable.<br /><br />The most interesting part of 500 Days of Summer is how Tom eventually gets over Summer. When they run into each other and hang out at a wedding months after they broke up, Tom sees a second chance at his true love. In one of the more brilliant scenes I’ve seen in a while (for those that have seen the movie, you should already know I’m talking about the expectations/reality scene), we learn that Tom is wrong, and Summer is done with him for good. Tom’s friends already knew this, and tried to help Tom get over Summer, but of course Tom was blinded by the idea of true love. He has built Summer up into what he wanted her to be, for he no longer has a realistic perspective of who she is (and maybe he never did).<br /><br />In a memorable monologue, Tom’s friend Paul explains how there are no perfect women, and that his long-term girlfriend is perfect because she is real. While it is unknown whether Tom hears this, his younger sister helps him realize that he made Summer the perfect woman when she never really was. He may have thought she was “the One,” but the people around Tom knew that wasn’t the case.<br /><br />500 Days of Summer is a hopeful movie, but it does not advocate a belief in fate like Paper Heart does. The ending thought of 500 Days of Summer is that in order to continue living, one has to take control of their own life and avoid being blinded by concepts – if you chalk things up to fate, you will be stuck reliving the same thing for your whole life.<br /><br />Neither Paper Heart nor 500 Days of Summer are conventional stylistically, but they each have conventional ideas fueling them. I think a choice between which of these movies you like better probably says a lot about what you think of love: Paper Heart is a vote for fate, while 500 Days of Summer says that we have a bit more control over our own lives. To tell you which of these movies I like better would give you far too much insight into who I am*, but just know that these are both good movies that attempt to give their opinion on an unanswerable question. Are you Charlyne, or are you Tom? Either time will give you an answer eventually, or you’ll find out on your own. Good luck.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*and I worry that there are already too many metaphorical cards on the metaphorical table of metaphors.</span><br /></span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-81218789900811278992009-09-30T17:11:00.000-07:002009-10-05T17:52:51.199-07:00Are movies really worse than ever? Part 2 of 2<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 2: Melting away the mediocrity</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Last time I took a look at the Academy Awards, and today I’m moving on to the state of North American cinema as a whole.</span><br /><br />People seem to loathe the state of North American cinema these days, which I think is valid. I mean, there is a lot to hate. The problem I have comes when people say “movies are so much shittier than they used to be!” like there is nothing good being made now. Every year, there are still (at least!) a few truly great movies released, the problem lies with the fact that fewer people get a chance to see them.<br /><br />The modern independent film sector of the movie industry is doing well, producing a handful of great movies every year (and don’t get me wrong, Hollywood has a few winners every year, too). Charlie Kaufman has consistently proven to be one of the most interesting writers film has ever seen, Rian Johnson may be the most interesting and creative director since Wes Anderson, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt has proven in the independent world that he is capable of playing just about any character. These three are a mere sample of the quality work that can be found in the independent world, but they are by no means the end of it.<br /><br />Generally, the best modern Hollywood films have an independent sensibility to them – most of the great modern directors have come from independent film (the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, etc) or music videos (Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Michel Gondry, etc), places where original ideas can be more easily accepted without having to get approval from a focus group.<br /><br />In the age of the auteur, or the “Golden Age of Cinema,” there was a lot more freedom for directors to do what they wanted within the studio system. Now, great directors have to build up some clout outside of Hollywood before they can get that Hollywood money. The directors I listed are just that, and I think they are modern film’s version of the much-lauded auteurs of the past that included Kubrick, Penn, Nichols, and others. Those directors made movies in a different landscape, one where great movies often got the recognition of Academy Awards (The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, etc) and were able to be box office hits. However, the films by today’s auteurs are often not advertised and distributed to an extent where it is possible for them to be hits. A good portion of these modern directors’ movies take some effort to find, and most people really don’t care enough to find them.<br /><br />Another, and in my opinion the most important, factor in the way the “Golden Age” gets remembered is that enough time has passed for the mediocre films to be washed away. We remember the movies like the Graduate because they are so good that people continue to talk about them long past 1967, allowing for re-releases and new special editions on home video. This will hopefully be the case for great modern films like Adaptation, but that is yet to be seen. However, the modern movie industry as a whole is tarnished because we can still remember the mediocre movies and money grabs of the recent past such as Ghost Rider and Superhero Movie. Time will likely forget these movies, but hopefully remember the great ones.<br /><br />Has anybody in the modern film industry captured post-graduation stress better than the Graduate? No. But did any movie from the “Golden Age” capture the writing process better than Adaptation? No. The overall quality of movies has remained the same, and our generation has its own truly great classics, it just so happens that they are now more difficult to find. So next time you want to talk about how shitty modern movies are, be sure to remember that there are plenty of movies from the 60s and 70s that were forgettable, and that you have in fact, just plain forgotten about them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7571930773462405096.post-69425742309810489852009-09-30T17:08:00.000-07:002009-09-30T17:11:41.299-07:00Are movies really worse than ever? Part 1 of 2<span style="font-weight: bold;">Part 1: The Academy Awards</span><br /><br />Somebody recently posed an interesting question to me: can you name the last really good prestige picture? My answer was the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I think the last one prior to that came a decade ago in American Beauty. The person that posed this question to me, however, unknowingly sparked another thought in my mind: does this matter? Are Academy Awards really the proper measuring stick for what is a great movie anymore?<br /><br />My answer to both questions is “absolutely not,” and it has been a long time since Oscars were consistently given to the best movies (although were they ever, really?). The Academy Awards have become like, to employ an overused cliché, an old boys club that rewards the people who jump through the right hoops. Best Actor and Actress awards are handed out not in recognition of a great performance, but as lifetime achievement awards when these performers did not give the best performances of the year (Kate Winslet in the Reader, Denzel in Training Day, that old guy in Little Miss Sunshine, etc.). It is the worst watching Anne Hathaway and Ryan Gosling participating in standing ovations for the winners when they have to know that they were far more deserving… watching these ovations might even be worse than watching the Reader.<br /><br />The awards for films themselves have become points to be advertised, and executives like the infamous Weinsteins campaign vigorously to get awards, going so far as to make extensive cuts in post-production or even structure the film in a way to get awards right from the pre-production stage. In my (and just about everyone else’s) opinion, years of campaigning for awards has caused the Oscars as we see now to become nothing more than a celebration of Hollywood ideals. But, that’s not the point here. The point is that Hollywood has, over time, transformed in such a way that it is now almost bizarre to see a good prestige picture. Curse you, Weinsteins!<br /><br />However, can we really blame the Weinsteins and other campaigning studios for this? Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m realizing that maybe the Oscars have been a celebration of Hollywood ideals for longer than I originally thought. In 2006, Crash took home the Best Picture award over the likes of Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale (nominated only for writing), and others. While the latter two respectively offered a critique of the modern media in the guise of an Edward R. Murrow biopic and a painfully honest critique of the nuclear family, the Academy awarded the film that dealt with broad racial stereotypes (but happened to make everybody feel good about themselves afterward). In 1989, a much fouler offence occurred when Driving Miss Daisy won the Best Picture award in the same year Do the Right Thing (nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but not Best Picture) was released. A film so painfully broad that it hurts me to write a synopsis of it, Driving Miss Daisy gave viewers the heartwarming tale of lil’ ol’ Miss Daisy learning about the horrors of racism from her driver Hoke, while Do the Right Thing offered a far more earnest examination of race relations in America. Just like would happen in 2006, the movie that was easier to take was the one that took home the award.<br /><br />Does that make movies worse than ever? Again, absolutely not. The movies winning Best Picture awards may be, with Crash, the Departed and Slumdog Millionaire all being recent victors, but I think that as a whole, movies are doing just fine. Hollywood will continue to follow its tried and true formulas, continuing to release countless rom-coms, big budget action movies, cheapo horror movies and ‘prestige’ pictures with only a few real gems in the mix… but that’s okay. Just remember the Driving Miss Daisy/Do the Right Thing comparison: one of those movies is the butt of at least three jokes a week (and that’s just from me), while the other is remembered as an almost-undisputed classic. And just in case you’re still confused to which one is which, it’s the classic that didn’t win any Oscars.<br /><br />So let’s hope that the Academy Awards remain what they are: a celebration of film as a whole that awards forgettable films while the truly great movies are still remembered as such decades after their release.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3