I took the boys to see "How To Train Your Dragon" (or whatever it's called). It was cute. The boys seemed to enjoy it. As ever, CGI graphics just get better and better -- rich details like the pebbled hides of the dragons just come to life. It was rated PG, and I think that was, perhaps, justified -- there's nothing scary in it or anything, but there are lots of explosions, fires, the dragons, and what-not. The protagonist ("Hiccup") strikes me as a very Gen X protagonist -- just something in his manner feels that way to me, which is kind of funny to see in a kids movie -- like they know that Gen Xers are parents, now, so they craft a kiddy protagonist that kind of plays to things we can relate to (sort of like how so many of the older kiddy movies had gratuitous Elvis references -- something for the Boomers to wink and nod to) -- but it's funny, because Hiccup is sarcastic and facetious, and so I think any Xer parent taking their kid to it'll be like "Yeah, I'd probably say the same thing."
The aerial scenes are lovely, quite breath-taking on the big screen -- the heavenly clouds, the lovely countrysides, the swooping dragons. All of that. Good stuff. You really felt the propulsive motion of those sequences.
I think the Vikings portrayed in it must be from the Orkney Islands, because they have Scots accents (I know, right? Vikings with Scottish accents? I consoled myself with thinking they were somewhere near the Orkneys). Unless, somehow, Scots accents are seen as inherently barbaric. Not sure, not sure.
But I think the movie had a nice balance of character development and certainly a curiously pacifistic message that jumps out at you in this time of our country fighting two wars abroad (remember them?) -- and one moment that particularly makes you think of today's new reality for survivors of wars.
I won't reveal any plot points or surprises. I'd not say the movie was up there with "Up" or "Wall-E" necessarily, but it was a good effort, and it certainly kept my attention.
Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Movie: The Thin Red Line (1998)
So, I watched "The Thin Red Line" again, after, what, 10 years? Got it on DVD. And, once again, I'm both struck by and off-put by the movie. It remains a 170-minute war movie-as-art film. It remains distinctive in many ways -- Terence Malick's marvelous use of silence, slow montage, tracking shots, scenery, color -- all of that. Very much in evidence, and very much using film as a storytelling medium in and of itself.
And yet, the battalion of cameos in it, like every goddamned male actor of that era in that movie...
So, that distracts me a bit (and Clooney's patriarchal little scene is particularly noisome, above and beyond Clooney even showing up in the movie at all), and I think Sean Penn's vastly overrated acting chops are particularly ill-used in the movie (First Sergeant? Says who? He doesn't look that part at all, just offers Method grimaces and his usual expressions throughout it).
The voiceovers, which comprise nearly all of the dialogue in the movie, are also overused, to the point that you can lampoon it pretty easily...
So, as ever, I'm of two minds with this movie -- on one hand, it manages a masterful visual style, an expansive kind of ebb and flow between action sequences, the humanity and brutality of war, the nuances of violence and victory -- and yet, it also feels incredibly self-indulgent and too full of itself (originally five hours, it was trimmed to 170 minutes -- and you feel every last fucking minute of it, believe me).
And, in the end, what's the moral lesson? What, that war is a terrible thing? No shit. No fucking shit. That Miranda Otto is hot? I dunno, I dunno. It's like with "Schindler's List" -- before that movie, I didn't realize that the Holocaust was a terrible thing (sarcasm, here).
And yet, the battalion of cameos in it, like every goddamned male actor of that era in that movie...
I mean, WTF? It gets distracting -- Oh! There's John Travolta! Hey, there's John Cusack. Oh, shit, there's George Clooney. WTF, is that Jared Leto? Huh, there's John C. Reilly. On and on and on (and on and on). Way, way too many cameos. And it's likely because of Malick's stature (including as a producer), these actors all wanting a piece of that action. Throw in the ones who didn't make the cut, and it's like every fucking actor of that era onscreen.In addition to the cast seen in the final cut of the film, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke also performed, but their scenes were eventually cut.
- James Caviezel as Pvt. Witt
- Sean Penn as 1st Sgt. Welsh
- Adrien Brody as Cpl. Fife
- Ben Chaplin as Pvt. Bell
- George Clooney as Capt. Bosche
- John Cusack as Capt. Gaff
- Woody Harrelson as Sgt. Keck
- Elias Koteas as Capt. Staros
- Nick Nolte as Lt. Col. Tall
- John C. Reilly as Sgt. Storm
- John Travolta as Brig. Gen. Quintard
- Thomas Jane as Pvt. Ash
- Jared Leto as 2nd. Lt. Whyte
- Dash Mihok as Pfc. Doll
- Tim Blake Nelson as Pvt. Tills
- John Savage as Sgt. McCron
- Nick Stahl as Pfc. Beade
- Miranda Otto as Marty Bell
So, that distracts me a bit (and Clooney's patriarchal little scene is particularly noisome, above and beyond Clooney even showing up in the movie at all), and I think Sean Penn's vastly overrated acting chops are particularly ill-used in the movie (First Sergeant? Says who? He doesn't look that part at all, just offers Method grimaces and his usual expressions throughout it).
The voiceovers, which comprise nearly all of the dialogue in the movie, are also overused, to the point that you can lampoon it pretty easily...
Show scene of waves washing gently on the shore. A lizard scurries between some rocks. There's a coconut being tumbled by the waves.You run into it over, and over, and over, and over again, and it begins to call attention to itself, and it begins to irritate me. I remember being irritated by it before, and I find it irritates me again.
Till: What is life?
The waves keep tumbling the coconut.
Witt: Who made this ineffable dream?
CUT TO wind softly blowing through palm tree fronds, a slightly cloudy sky.
So, as ever, I'm of two minds with this movie -- on one hand, it manages a masterful visual style, an expansive kind of ebb and flow between action sequences, the humanity and brutality of war, the nuances of violence and victory -- and yet, it also feels incredibly self-indulgent and too full of itself (originally five hours, it was trimmed to 170 minutes -- and you feel every last fucking minute of it, believe me).
And, in the end, what's the moral lesson? What, that war is a terrible thing? No shit. No fucking shit. That Miranda Otto is hot? I dunno, I dunno. It's like with "Schindler's List" -- before that movie, I didn't realize that the Holocaust was a terrible thing (sarcasm, here).
Whyte: What is true? Who is true? How can we know what is what or who is what or what is when when we're here?
CUT TO a monkey climbing a tree. It pauses while eating a piece of fruit to look at something.
CUT TO a tank, broken, rusting, half-buried in the beach.
Witt: Where are you?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Oscar Mayer Being Wieners?
Hmmm. "Cold cut envy?" Oscar Mayer, oh, you ham! You'll LONG for their deli fresh meats. Mmm hmm. Psychosexual subtext in your advertising, anyone? She looks like she really, really wants to take a mouthful of his...sandwich?
Monday, March 15, 2010
A New Hope?
Watching some of "Star Wars" with the boys, I am struck at how rotten the tactics are of the Rebellion. Like in the end, they send 30 small fighters in against the Death Star. Well and good. But they squander their few numbers by bad deployment, ensuring that the fatality rate is terribly high. They basically send a three-man squadron into the trench for a bombing run, without proper cover. Unsurprisingly, Vader and company waste them. What they should've done is much like you'd have in any team sports -- have your forwards taking the offense, and have some guys covering the back, and then maybe some in the middle to lend a hand when needed. So, instead of this...
...they could have had this...
Do it like a conveyor belt, and whoever survives A's bombing run loops back to the back of the line, with a reserve squadron running interference to cover them. The above configuration (counting the reserve) would allow for 12 fighters allocated, which would leave 18 fighters to otherwise divert the attention of the Imperials. Just keep it up until somebody manages to fire their proton torpedoes into the exhaust duct and voila!
The point is that instead of the incredible man-wasting tactics of the Rebels and the guaranteed high casualty rates, they have better tactics and better survivability in the squadrons. Vader and his crew couldn't have picked off the squadrons if backups were right on their tails.
Instead, they send them down one squadron at a time, with the other Rebel fliers just apparently holding their dicks while their buds are getting wasted.
Of course, this lets Luke get to play the hero, but it's impossible to believe the Rebels could even have survived as long as they had in the face of such rotten battle tactics.
I mean, in "Empire Strikes Back," they use trench warfare against the superior armor of the AT-ATs on Hoth. WTF is that all about? Oh, I know -- high casualty rates again. The poor bastards in the trenches get absolutely slaughtered. Now, you could speciously argue that they are doing a delaying tactic to buy time (with their lives) for the transports. But the infantry's presence on the battlefield doesn't so much as slow the AT-ATs down. What's more, it's demonstrated by Luke (both in a speeder and on foot) that grapple guns and grenades apparently work marvelously to dispatch AT-ATs, so the Rebels were likely better off charging the AT-ATs on foot with grapple guns rather than futilely blasting them with weapons that are immediately shown not to work (which calls to mind whether the Rebels have faced AT-ATs before, which, in all likelihood, they have). Again, bad, bad tactics yielding extraordinarily high battlefield losses.
*shaking head*
I don't mind a role being established for the heroes of the story, but not at the expense of tactics with the groups in question. At least make the tactics good.
Don't even get me going about "Lord of the Rings," how the Uruks (an army built expressly to deal with cavalry, hence the pikes they carry) get wasted in battle.
T.I.E. Fighters === Rebel Squadron A (RS A)
...they could have had this...
RS D === RS C === RS B === T.I.E. Fighters === RS A
Do it like a conveyor belt, and whoever survives A's bombing run loops back to the back of the line, with a reserve squadron running interference to cover them. The above configuration (counting the reserve) would allow for 12 fighters allocated, which would leave 18 fighters to otherwise divert the attention of the Imperials. Just keep it up until somebody manages to fire their proton torpedoes into the exhaust duct and voila!
The point is that instead of the incredible man-wasting tactics of the Rebels and the guaranteed high casualty rates, they have better tactics and better survivability in the squadrons. Vader and his crew couldn't have picked off the squadrons if backups were right on their tails.
Instead, they send them down one squadron at a time, with the other Rebel fliers just apparently holding their dicks while their buds are getting wasted.
Of course, this lets Luke get to play the hero, but it's impossible to believe the Rebels could even have survived as long as they had in the face of such rotten battle tactics.
I mean, in "Empire Strikes Back," they use trench warfare against the superior armor of the AT-ATs on Hoth. WTF is that all about? Oh, I know -- high casualty rates again. The poor bastards in the trenches get absolutely slaughtered. Now, you could speciously argue that they are doing a delaying tactic to buy time (with their lives) for the transports. But the infantry's presence on the battlefield doesn't so much as slow the AT-ATs down. What's more, it's demonstrated by Luke (both in a speeder and on foot) that grapple guns and grenades apparently work marvelously to dispatch AT-ATs, so the Rebels were likely better off charging the AT-ATs on foot with grapple guns rather than futilely blasting them with weapons that are immediately shown not to work (which calls to mind whether the Rebels have faced AT-ATs before, which, in all likelihood, they have). Again, bad, bad tactics yielding extraordinarily high battlefield losses.
*shaking head*
I don't mind a role being established for the heroes of the story, but not at the expense of tactics with the groups in question. At least make the tactics good.
Don't even get me going about "Lord of the Rings," how the Uruks (an army built expressly to deal with cavalry, hence the pikes they carry) get wasted in battle.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Movie: Ils (aka, Them)
I finally got the French horror movie, "Ils," on DVD, watched it last night. While people have praised it as exceedingly scary, I found it to not be so -- which was a disappointment, as "The Strangers," (an American version of "Ils" that has not been as well-received as "Ils" was), actually frightened me a great deal. Without wanting to throw spoilers in the mix, I thought that "The Strangers" was far scarier, was shot more evocatively, and absolutely terrified me like few films ever have (although I'll also say that "The Strangers" works ONCE as a terror film -- once you've encountered its terrors, there is a sense of diminishing returns with it on repeated viewings, although the terror gives way to dread, which is still a strong emotion).
What is my problem with "Ils?" Well, it does maintain tension throughout it -- that is without dispute, but the kinetic nature of it, some of the protagonists' choices, this "scared rabbit" mentality they had, it spoke to a kind of political slant in the view of the writers, I think. A kind of moral message carved into the story with a butcher knife, which isn't particularly what one needs in a slasher movie.
So, why did "The Strangers" hit me harder than "Ils?" I think the sense of home invasion was stronger in the former than the latter, and the dilapidation of the simply massive dwelling in "Ils" made it, paradoxically enough, less threatening than the nice cottage of "The Strangers." You already expect horrors in the "Ils" dwelling -- the place looks like the playground of an undead Bond villain, whereas the dwelling in "The Strangers" is a nice, cozy little home -- so, when the descent into nightmare is undertaken, the fall is further in the American version, most definitely.
The protagonists in the American version are somewhat more savvy (and combative) than the chickenshits in the French one. I think any American watching it would be like "C'mon! Deck'em!" when confronted by something like that.
Similarly, the villains in the American version are both more visible and less human than the villains in the French version. There's something terribly chilling about the Mansonian wackos with the masks (see below), when contrasted with the hoodie-wearing villains in "Ils." There are only three killers in "The Strangers" and there are many more in "Ils" and yet the three baddies in the former are far more terrifying.
The use of silence, music, and noise in the American version cannot be overstated -- it plays a key role in it in a way that the French version lacks. The French have you careening through the cavernous dwelling when the American version has you sitting there, in darkness and silence, waiting -- much more powerful stuff. Even simple things like hard knocking on a door at odd hours is absolutely terrifying in "The Strangers."
Perhaps the civilization of the French accounts for the horror they perceive in the "big reveal" of the story, whereas, in the States, where all sorts of outrages are apparently more common (or we hear about them more), the reveal is kind of not so revealing. Oh! Good heavens! Versus in the American version, the baddies are big and bad and scary (and two of them are girls) and we ultimately don't know their identities, and something about that makes it scarier -- we don't know who they are, and their motive for doing it is simply because the characters happened to be home. The arbitrary and absolute nature of that violence seems more terrifying to me than the moral outrage we're supposed to feel in "Ils." Maybe I'm jaded.
I'm at a loss for why "The Strangers" is less-favorably reviewed than "Ils," because I'm a fan of French filmmaking, and I really wanted "Ils" to deliver for me, but it just didn't. Tense, yes, but not terrifying. I think people feel like maybe they're supposed to like the original better, but in this case, I think the American remake was superior. Maybe it was in the hands of a better director and writer, I'm not entirely sure, but one terrified me, and the other didn't.
I'm forever grateful that "The Strangers" came out a few years after I'd sold my home in the quiet woods! Even then, I found myself being sure the door was locked in the apartment while watching it. "Ils" didn't spark nearly that same reaction.
What is my problem with "Ils?" Well, it does maintain tension throughout it -- that is without dispute, but the kinetic nature of it, some of the protagonists' choices, this "scared rabbit" mentality they had, it spoke to a kind of political slant in the view of the writers, I think. A kind of moral message carved into the story with a butcher knife, which isn't particularly what one needs in a slasher movie.
So, why did "The Strangers" hit me harder than "Ils?" I think the sense of home invasion was stronger in the former than the latter, and the dilapidation of the simply massive dwelling in "Ils" made it, paradoxically enough, less threatening than the nice cottage of "The Strangers." You already expect horrors in the "Ils" dwelling -- the place looks like the playground of an undead Bond villain, whereas the dwelling in "The Strangers" is a nice, cozy little home -- so, when the descent into nightmare is undertaken, the fall is further in the American version, most definitely.
The protagonists in the American version are somewhat more savvy (and combative) than the chickenshits in the French one. I think any American watching it would be like "C'mon! Deck'em!" when confronted by something like that.
Similarly, the villains in the American version are both more visible and less human than the villains in the French version. There's something terribly chilling about the Mansonian wackos with the masks (see below), when contrasted with the hoodie-wearing villains in "Ils." There are only three killers in "The Strangers" and there are many more in "Ils" and yet the three baddies in the former are far more terrifying.
The use of silence, music, and noise in the American version cannot be overstated -- it plays a key role in it in a way that the French version lacks. The French have you careening through the cavernous dwelling when the American version has you sitting there, in darkness and silence, waiting -- much more powerful stuff. Even simple things like hard knocking on a door at odd hours is absolutely terrifying in "The Strangers."
Perhaps the civilization of the French accounts for the horror they perceive in the "big reveal" of the story, whereas, in the States, where all sorts of outrages are apparently more common (or we hear about them more), the reveal is kind of not so revealing. Oh! Good heavens! Versus in the American version, the baddies are big and bad and scary (and two of them are girls) and we ultimately don't know their identities, and something about that makes it scarier -- we don't know who they are, and their motive for doing it is simply because the characters happened to be home. The arbitrary and absolute nature of that violence seems more terrifying to me than the moral outrage we're supposed to feel in "Ils." Maybe I'm jaded.
I'm at a loss for why "The Strangers" is less-favorably reviewed than "Ils," because I'm a fan of French filmmaking, and I really wanted "Ils" to deliver for me, but it just didn't. Tense, yes, but not terrifying. I think people feel like maybe they're supposed to like the original better, but in this case, I think the American remake was superior. Maybe it was in the hands of a better director and writer, I'm not entirely sure, but one terrified me, and the other didn't.
I'm forever grateful that "The Strangers" came out a few years after I'd sold my home in the quiet woods! Even then, I found myself being sure the door was locked in the apartment while watching it. "Ils" didn't spark nearly that same reaction.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Movie: Zombieland
I saw "Zombieland" on DVD tonight. Mildly funny -- an enjoyable enough movie, although I wasn't (ar ar) blown away by it -- it wasn't the comedic multiple orgasm-on-celluloid that I was led to believe it was.
It wasn't quite an undead romantic comedy ala "Shaun of the Dead" (and, at heart, that's what that movie was, although it had some great comedic moments in it, likely because the Brits have that razor's edge instinct for comedy when they want to). Or maybe it was another undead romantic comedy of sorts, since the neurotic nerd guy does end up with the cool babe, the babe who'd be out of his league in a non-apocalyptic world, but now, somehow likes him (instead of the Woody Harrelson character, who a gal like that seems likelier to like). Wish fulfillment by the screenwriters?
The telegraphing of the various Zombieland Rules was overdone -- it's one thing to have them make a pass through, but for them to keep reappearing felt like the writers were looking down their noses at the audience -- "Look! This is what the narrator was referring to earlier!" The "rules" feels like a hook that sold the screenplay.
I think we survived the Great Zombie Cinematic Plague, if we're in the parodic place for it, now -- sort of like the "Scream" movies re: slasher movies, where it's all self-referential and what-not. "Zombieland" captures some semblance of humanity in its characters, which gives it something of the half-life of a Twinkie, but that's not saying too terribly much.
I can't hear the title of it without thinking of Terminal Mind's "Zombieland" tune -- a good song, offering a critique of American culture. They were a Texas band, and this story begins in Texas, so maybe the writers were inspired by that. Very likely.
I need to think a bit more about it, I guess. Or not.
It wasn't quite an undead romantic comedy ala "Shaun of the Dead" (and, at heart, that's what that movie was, although it had some great comedic moments in it, likely because the Brits have that razor's edge instinct for comedy when they want to). Or maybe it was another undead romantic comedy of sorts, since the neurotic nerd guy does end up with the cool babe, the babe who'd be out of his league in a non-apocalyptic world, but now, somehow likes him (instead of the Woody Harrelson character, who a gal like that seems likelier to like). Wish fulfillment by the screenwriters?
The telegraphing of the various Zombieland Rules was overdone -- it's one thing to have them make a pass through, but for them to keep reappearing felt like the writers were looking down their noses at the audience -- "Look! This is what the narrator was referring to earlier!" The "rules" feels like a hook that sold the screenplay.
I think we survived the Great Zombie Cinematic Plague, if we're in the parodic place for it, now -- sort of like the "Scream" movies re: slasher movies, where it's all self-referential and what-not. "Zombieland" captures some semblance of humanity in its characters, which gives it something of the half-life of a Twinkie, but that's not saying too terribly much.
I can't hear the title of it without thinking of Terminal Mind's "Zombieland" tune -- a good song, offering a critique of American culture. They were a Texas band, and this story begins in Texas, so maybe the writers were inspired by that. Very likely.
I need to think a bit more about it, I guess. Or not.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Icky
From the RedEye:
Ick. That whole crew creeped me out when they first appeared; I saw their narrative arc from the outset, and I'm sure the super-exposure inflicted on those kids is going to haunt them for the rest of their days. Nice going, there, parents. They are very creepy, and for Gosselin to be deemed one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009, what the hell is everything coming to? Yeesh.
Cry babies
Kate Gosselin says her eight children just aren't happy without the near-constant presence of cameras.
"They cried in the van on the way home from school the other day. ... They kept asking: 'Where's the camera crew? Where's the camera crew?' We miss them.' And I said, 'Our show is over,'" Kate tells Barbara Walters on "The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009," airing Wednesday on ABC.
Ick. That whole crew creeped me out when they first appeared; I saw their narrative arc from the outset, and I'm sure the super-exposure inflicted on those kids is going to haunt them for the rest of their days. Nice going, there, parents. They are very creepy, and for Gosselin to be deemed one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009, what the hell is everything coming to? Yeesh.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Movie: 2012 (cont'd)
I had a few additional thoughts about "2012" -- the problematic character of John Cusack's daughter in it, the child actress whose defining characteristics are her problem with bed-wetting (thankfully not much more than an opportunity for some goddamned Pampers product placement[tm]) and her tendency to wear hats. But I found it odd, like that parents would pimp their daughter out in such a role -- "Oh, yeah -- you're the bed-wetting girl, right?" Couldn't be sleepwalking, no; had to be bed-wetting. WTF? I dunno. Just seems like that would be an embarrassing first film credit for an aspiring actress. Maybe that's just how it goes in Hollywood.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Movie: 2012
I saw "2012" yesterday, on a whim. It was an odd juxtaposition with "The Road" of the day before, since both serve up apocalypse -- one monochromatic, bleak, and cold; the latter, exuberant and hopeful.
Having no expectations of cinematic excellence with "2012," I wasn't disappointed. I knew critics had panned it, but it hardly matters with a disaster movie like that -- what moral message are you going to get from a movie like that, anyway? It's good to be alive? Family's important? Know the right people? Everybody matters? (easy to say when you're one of the survivors)
It was hokey, had a lot of famous people cameos that felt a bit like "Naked Gun" (oooh, that's supposed to be the Governator! Ooh, there's Queen Elizabeth II!) and so on.
The effects are massive and astounding -- an orgy of mass destruction, annihilation on a grand scale, with little people tumbling into gaping holes in the ground, or being smashed by tsunamis (or by aircraft carriers tumbling -- the symbolism of a black President being killed by the carrier John F. Kennedy was not lost on me, whether Emmerich intended it or not, and I think it was intended, since the carrier broadsides poor, ashy Danny Glover, the name of the carrier visible across the flight deck as it nails Glover).
John Cusack and Amanda Peet don't really gel as a couple, and the kid characters are predictably annoying (the character sketches with them are laughably slight -- the boy has a cell phone! The girl loves wearing hats and apparently diapers because she wets the bed -- something that reappears near the end in an all-time terrible line of dialogue). Woody Harrelson's hippy-dippy deejay loves to eat pickles (that's his character quirk, I guess).
But the characters are entirely beside the point with a movie like this -- the only point is the massive destruction, which gets a bit repetitive as you wade through it. Three airplane near-escapes, lots of waves, tumbling mountains, human dignity (and shame) in the face of certain doom, and so on. I can imagine a grad student doing studies of disaster movies, the evolution of them, the arbiters of virtue and villainy.
A few thematic flourishes rubbed me the wrong way -- several times a kind of tooth-sucking about the futility of modern technology and civilized life in the face of ancient prophecies and crackpot "wisdom." Those little bits happened several times, which was annoying. People might think it, but nobody wants the world to end quite so badly as the crackpots, and few are more disappointed (yet undaunted) when the world fails to end on cue -- the world is bigger than the world's religions, but don't tell that to them (or to Emmerich).
Bizarrely, Africa survives the apocalypse, and appears to be the hope of the survivors, owing to some geological quirk. Not sure the point of that, exactly, except I guess come-uppance for Western Civilization and Africa's turn at bat (I imagine malaria will make very short work of most of the survivors who make landfall there, but it's beside the point of a movie like this).
Still, it does its thing -- massive destruction, the aesthetics of apocalypse, like a gaper's delay in traffic, everybody peeking at the car accident as they go by. Move along, move along -- nothing to see, here.
Having no expectations of cinematic excellence with "2012," I wasn't disappointed. I knew critics had panned it, but it hardly matters with a disaster movie like that -- what moral message are you going to get from a movie like that, anyway? It's good to be alive? Family's important? Know the right people? Everybody matters? (easy to say when you're one of the survivors)
It was hokey, had a lot of famous people cameos that felt a bit like "Naked Gun" (oooh, that's supposed to be the Governator! Ooh, there's Queen Elizabeth II!) and so on.
The effects are massive and astounding -- an orgy of mass destruction, annihilation on a grand scale, with little people tumbling into gaping holes in the ground, or being smashed by tsunamis (or by aircraft carriers tumbling -- the symbolism of a black President being killed by the carrier John F. Kennedy was not lost on me, whether Emmerich intended it or not, and I think it was intended, since the carrier broadsides poor, ashy Danny Glover, the name of the carrier visible across the flight deck as it nails Glover).
John Cusack and Amanda Peet don't really gel as a couple, and the kid characters are predictably annoying (the character sketches with them are laughably slight -- the boy has a cell phone! The girl loves wearing hats and apparently diapers because she wets the bed -- something that reappears near the end in an all-time terrible line of dialogue). Woody Harrelson's hippy-dippy deejay loves to eat pickles (that's his character quirk, I guess).
But the characters are entirely beside the point with a movie like this -- the only point is the massive destruction, which gets a bit repetitive as you wade through it. Three airplane near-escapes, lots of waves, tumbling mountains, human dignity (and shame) in the face of certain doom, and so on. I can imagine a grad student doing studies of disaster movies, the evolution of them, the arbiters of virtue and villainy.
A few thematic flourishes rubbed me the wrong way -- several times a kind of tooth-sucking about the futility of modern technology and civilized life in the face of ancient prophecies and crackpot "wisdom." Those little bits happened several times, which was annoying. People might think it, but nobody wants the world to end quite so badly as the crackpots, and few are more disappointed (yet undaunted) when the world fails to end on cue -- the world is bigger than the world's religions, but don't tell that to them (or to Emmerich).
Bizarrely, Africa survives the apocalypse, and appears to be the hope of the survivors, owing to some geological quirk. Not sure the point of that, exactly, except I guess come-uppance for Western Civilization and Africa's turn at bat (I imagine malaria will make very short work of most of the survivors who make landfall there, but it's beside the point of a movie like this).
Still, it does its thing -- massive destruction, the aesthetics of apocalypse, like a gaper's delay in traffic, everybody peeking at the car accident as they go by. Move along, move along -- nothing to see, here.
Movie: The Road
I saw "The Road" on Thanksgiving Day, which was either the worst day to see it, or the best, depending on what one is thankful for, precisely. It's a grueling, grim, bleak-as-fuck movie that offers two slivers of hope in it, sort of like being a starving man finding a peanut in your pocket, and carefully halving the peanut, eating one half earlier in the day, and saving the other half for later.
I won't throw any spoilers into this, but it's a terribly dark movie, and you know what's going to happen to one of the characters almost from the outset, as Viggo does some "acting" (he's a good enough actor, with a penchant for extreme roles like these, but he telegraphs something early on that is like a pulmonary Morse Code for "DOOM(tm)" in movie terms -- from the first exhalation, you know where that's going to lead).
Both Viggo as The Man and the boy who plays The Boy (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Charlize Theron, who plays his mother) do a good job conveying the dismal nature of their existence -- it's like a concentration camp without walls, a world-gone-foul in some unnamed, unspecified apocalypse that has claimed the world-as-we know it. Everything is dead and/or dying, with trees falling and not an animal to be found in the wild, or so we're led to believe.
The world seems divided between varying shades of survivors -- good, bad, and ugly -- with the ugly being the cannibals and slavers, in no uncertain terms, and the bad being the merely ruthless and/or opportunistic predators and/or scavengers. I put a lot of and/or in the mix because in a world devoid of hope and trust, it's hard to know friend from foe, since everybody's brandishing a knife or a gun, without assurances of who's predator and who is prey.
Viggo's quest for hope in the South, and his pathological concern for his son's security point to how strongly human safety is bound up in solidarity -- that is a curious thing. Only the cannibals and slavers appear to work together -- Viggo is very much a go-it-alone type, and there's some kind of editorial point to be made in this. Maybe The Man is too much of a control freak to be willing to trust anyone else, but three groups of predators are all doing pretty well for themselves (in relative terms) by banding together. I feel that maybe McCarthy and/or the director/screenwriter might be chalking that up to the predatory lifestyle of those groups, but that they are in groups is exactly how and why they succeed. That, and guns. Work together, and Man can prosper in almost any setting -- work alone, and you become something of a hermit and a vagabond. Viggo the Vagabond wending his way through a shattered world.
The Boy offers a strong moral counterpoint to some very questionable decisions and actions by The Man, which is valid and vital, makes the Boy's presence in the world all the more vital and necessary. Despite the bleakness of their life, he maintains the hopeful promise of a better world in his heart. That is one half of the sliver of hope in this movie.
The other half, as I saw it, was the presence of a beetle, flying free. They discover it in an empty chewing tobacco container, and the bug flies off for parts unknown. I liked seeing that, since we're to believe the world is dead, and no animals live within it (which feels like a cop-out of sorts, or a narrative convenience -- since wild animals would likely be better able to survive the post-apocalyptic holocaust than man). That beetle, not unlike the sprig of green in "Wall-E" showed to me that all was not lost -- that man may have destroyed his civilization, but the world would, in time, heal and move on, long after we were gone. In the (Cormac) McCarthyite world, even that sliver of hope is better than none at all.
I won't throw any spoilers into this, but it's a terribly dark movie, and you know what's going to happen to one of the characters almost from the outset, as Viggo does some "acting" (he's a good enough actor, with a penchant for extreme roles like these, but he telegraphs something early on that is like a pulmonary Morse Code for "DOOM(tm)" in movie terms -- from the first exhalation, you know where that's going to lead).
Both Viggo as The Man and the boy who plays The Boy (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Charlize Theron, who plays his mother) do a good job conveying the dismal nature of their existence -- it's like a concentration camp without walls, a world-gone-foul in some unnamed, unspecified apocalypse that has claimed the world-as-we know it. Everything is dead and/or dying, with trees falling and not an animal to be found in the wild, or so we're led to believe.
The world seems divided between varying shades of survivors -- good, bad, and ugly -- with the ugly being the cannibals and slavers, in no uncertain terms, and the bad being the merely ruthless and/or opportunistic predators and/or scavengers. I put a lot of and/or in the mix because in a world devoid of hope and trust, it's hard to know friend from foe, since everybody's brandishing a knife or a gun, without assurances of who's predator and who is prey.
Viggo's quest for hope in the South, and his pathological concern for his son's security point to how strongly human safety is bound up in solidarity -- that is a curious thing. Only the cannibals and slavers appear to work together -- Viggo is very much a go-it-alone type, and there's some kind of editorial point to be made in this. Maybe The Man is too much of a control freak to be willing to trust anyone else, but three groups of predators are all doing pretty well for themselves (in relative terms) by banding together. I feel that maybe McCarthy and/or the director/screenwriter might be chalking that up to the predatory lifestyle of those groups, but that they are in groups is exactly how and why they succeed. That, and guns. Work together, and Man can prosper in almost any setting -- work alone, and you become something of a hermit and a vagabond. Viggo the Vagabond wending his way through a shattered world.
The Boy offers a strong moral counterpoint to some very questionable decisions and actions by The Man, which is valid and vital, makes the Boy's presence in the world all the more vital and necessary. Despite the bleakness of their life, he maintains the hopeful promise of a better world in his heart. That is one half of the sliver of hope in this movie.
The other half, as I saw it, was the presence of a beetle, flying free. They discover it in an empty chewing tobacco container, and the bug flies off for parts unknown. I liked seeing that, since we're to believe the world is dead, and no animals live within it (which feels like a cop-out of sorts, or a narrative convenience -- since wild animals would likely be better able to survive the post-apocalyptic holocaust than man). That beetle, not unlike the sprig of green in "Wall-E" showed to me that all was not lost -- that man may have destroyed his civilization, but the world would, in time, heal and move on, long after we were gone. In the (Cormac) McCarthyite world, even that sliver of hope is better than none at all.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Movie: ALIEN
I watched "Alien" on DVD the other night. I haven't watched that movie in a very long time. Of course, the scares associated with it are long faded, so I just watch it out of appreciation of Ridley Scott's former cinematic skill as a director (I say "former" because I think he's sold out a bit over the last decade or so). The movie holds up well, still looks futuristic, it's nice seeing those various actors younger, and the alien's monstrous as ever.
One amusement for me was how the lifeboat shuttle only can take three crewpeople -- this on a ship that has seven people aboard. That little details amused me. It's a space freighter capable of lugging 20 million tons of ore, and the Company puts one lifeboat aboard that can only handle three crew? That little detail speaks volumes about the Company's priorities, where the crew is concerned.
That's something I explore in some of my own SF stories -- a kind of "fuck you" attitude toward its astronauts on the part of the sponsoring agency. I like that sardonic flavor of it, versus the old-school "Men In SPAAAAAAACE" grandiosity of the 50s and 60s. I like the idea of the poor bastards being hurled into space and screwed over by the people who are ostensibly there to help them -- I explore that in my story, "Mission Control."
Anyway, I liked that little detail, along with the ship's computer, Mother, being all but nice and kind to her "children" among the crew. The mission's a setup from the outset, the Nostromo is intended to pick up the alien organism from the get-go. And I loved the voice for Mother (which you only hear on the auto-destruct sequence, as she counts down her own death with machinelike precision -- that moment always resonates powerfully with me. I like that detail, since it is just so inhuman and haunting). The voice for Mother isn't the typical sexy female computer voice, but rather, it's the carping, officious tone of a mean old matron -- you can just hear it. Again, Scott's attention to detail back then was wonderful, and yielded rich rewards.
Further, the age of the crew is a nice touch -- nobody's really young aboard the Nostromo. That is a great detail, this sense of mortality and age among a weary, worn crew. It wouldn't have worked if everybody was young and strong and pretty.
Also, I love how most of the crew smokes. In the close confines of a space ship (even a gigantic ore freighter), where oxygen is, at least in theory, at a premium, having them smoke was great.
One amusement for me was how the lifeboat shuttle only can take three crewpeople -- this on a ship that has seven people aboard. That little details amused me. It's a space freighter capable of lugging 20 million tons of ore, and the Company puts one lifeboat aboard that can only handle three crew? That little detail speaks volumes about the Company's priorities, where the crew is concerned.
That's something I explore in some of my own SF stories -- a kind of "fuck you" attitude toward its astronauts on the part of the sponsoring agency. I like that sardonic flavor of it, versus the old-school "Men In SPAAAAAAACE" grandiosity of the 50s and 60s. I like the idea of the poor bastards being hurled into space and screwed over by the people who are ostensibly there to help them -- I explore that in my story, "Mission Control."
Anyway, I liked that little detail, along with the ship's computer, Mother, being all but nice and kind to her "children" among the crew. The mission's a setup from the outset, the Nostromo is intended to pick up the alien organism from the get-go. And I loved the voice for Mother (which you only hear on the auto-destruct sequence, as she counts down her own death with machinelike precision -- that moment always resonates powerfully with me. I like that detail, since it is just so inhuman and haunting). The voice for Mother isn't the typical sexy female computer voice, but rather, it's the carping, officious tone of a mean old matron -- you can just hear it. Again, Scott's attention to detail back then was wonderful, and yielded rich rewards.
Further, the age of the crew is a nice touch -- nobody's really young aboard the Nostromo. That is a great detail, this sense of mortality and age among a weary, worn crew. It wouldn't have worked if everybody was young and strong and pretty.
Also, I love how most of the crew smokes. In the close confines of a space ship (even a gigantic ore freighter), where oxygen is, at least in theory, at a premium, having them smoke was great.
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