A New Yorker in Hollywood

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T10:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween to one and all of you! In celebration of this spooky holiday, I leave you with this thrilling video . May you eat lots of candy, watch horror flicks and carve jackolanterns. Also, here's a fun game that will test your horror film knowledge...

A Film Trifecta Weekend Part II: Marie Antoinette

2006-10-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night found me at “Marie Antoinette”, written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Truth be told, I was expecting to hate this film, but I didn’t --not at all. I respect Coppola as a woman and a filmmaker, but on a personal level, I’m not a huge fan of her work. I found, “Lost in Translation” to be largely overrated. While I appreciated the hip soundtrack, and colorful imagery, and found Bill Murray’s performance to be quite charming, I could not abide the protagonist, Charlotte (Scarlett Johanssen). Friends of mine rallied on her behalf, touting her search for answers, and justifying her malaise with life, but I found her attitude to be asinine. She was a perfectly healthy, attractive, smart, articulate woman, who was all “woe is me” because her husband had a busy professional career, and she was still searching out hers. All her longing gazes out her hotel room window, and pensive stares at the Japanese cultural phenomenons surrounding her, left me feeling annoyed; I just couldn’t muster up any sympathy for her plight.

There were similar moments of quiet thoughtfulness in “Marie Antoinette”. Only instead of gazing out at an urban sprawl, Marie daydreamed out of the window of her horse drawn carriage. Like “Lost in Translation”, “Marie Antoinette” was a young woman’s coming of age story. But unlike LIT, I actually thought Marie had something to feel gloomy about. True she lived in the royal opulence of Versailles, but she was also forced into a political marriage at the age of fifteen, constantly harassed about producing an heir for the nation, and forced to abide a silly amount of pomp and circumstance on a regular basis.

Sure, I get it, “poor little rich girl” right? But though she lived in the lap of luxury, while peasants starved to death, (which was of course horribly unfair and indicative of the pitfalls of a royal system), –it wasn’t her fault, and her emotional trials were real. Coppola adapted the screenplay from a recent biography of Antoinette, so it seems that historical accuracies were of importance to her. The film had a very realistic tone to it –it looked like everything was shot with natural light, and there was a rawness and grittiness that served up an interesting contrast to the stunning sets and magnificent costumes. For if Marie Antoinette was anything, it was certainly visually impressive. Upon leaving the theatre, my friend said that it was like reading a magazine for an extended period of time, and indeed I felt a bit like I had just swallowed up a September issue of VOGUE in two and a half hours. Kirsten Dunst must have worn, literally, at least a hundred different costumes during the course of the film, while sampling two hundred pairs of shoes.

Adding to the sensation of a visual feast, were the numerous pastries featured in the film. Marie had a tremendous fondness for them, though the film posits that the infamous line of “let them eat cake” was merely a vicious rumor. Whatever pastry chef was hired to design the bevy of sweets consumed by the royal party should win an Academy Award. I got a sugar rush just from watching the film, and my mouth watered at the sumptuous raspberry tarts, strawberry lady fingers, pink frosted cookies, and cherry red cakes. There were a multitude of pretty and pink montages in the film featuring, dresses, shoes, sweets and champagne. I would wager that every twelve year old girl who sees this movie is currently obsessed with it.

The 80’s rock soundtrack added a further layer to this historical portrayal of teen angst, and somehow, worked, even as it was interspersed with the different operatic pieces in the film. You definitely have to give kudos to Ms. Coppola for having her own style and sticking to it. She made many deliberate choices with this film, and the end result was a tone which was disarmingly girly. But for all of it’s refreshing auteurism, there wasn’t much story to go by here. There was little greater historical context in the film, and it insulated itself primarily to the palace grounds, and in turn, the internal grievances and joys of Marie Antoinette. There was not a lot of traditional plotting going on – storylines were brought up but never resolved, characters faded into the woodwork for no apparent reason, and many a scene was put to celluloid merely for the sake of themselves. For all its prettiness, Marie Antoinette was like a meandering walk without a destination. While Kirsten Dunst imbued the character with an earnest sweetness and innocence, I wasn’t sure what sort of journey I had watched her take. Her life endured changes and woes, but the overall narrative stroke, seemed to imply merely, that like anyone else, she had the capacity to acclimate. Though the film spent a lot of time focused on the unconsummated marriage between her and Louis XVI, she finally fathered his child, we saw little private interaction between them. They continued to have more children, but the context under which they were conceived was left unexplored. Marie’s affair with the dashing solider was also left largely unresolved. Did her husband know about it? What did he think of it? What ever happened to the solider? Why did their affair end? How did she feel about it ending? I would have liked to have seen some of these things played out on screen. Sometimes, you need more than a thoughtful pretty face fogging up a window pane to melancholy music.

(Forthcoming "The Prestige"...)

A Film Trifecta Weekend (Spoilers Galore) Part I

2006-10-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

This weekend, after what seemed like an eternal void at the cinema, I took it upon myself to go see, not one, not two, but THREE films!

I’ll start from the ground up.

Friday evening, I went to see the Grudge 2, which currently has a whopping rotten tomatoes tomameter rating of 8%. I believe that Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post said it best, when he described the Grudge 2 as “a movie so bewildering and impenetrable that I believe it siphoned off a good 40 IQ points.”

I’ve certainly done my fair share of ranting here about the bevy of poor quality horror films that we’ve seen in the last few years. But, at the risk of hyperbole and redundancy, I currently hold the following to be true: The Grudge 2 defies logic and coherency to the point of oblivion. There is no narrative through line. There is no continuity. (There is no Dana, there is only Zool). What there is, however, is a multitude of shot after shot of swarming straight black hair overtaking characters at random and filling up the screen for about ninety minutes or so. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream.

The plot(s) is as follows. American girl Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) flies to Tokyo, at the bidding of her mother, to collect her sister, Karen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who has had a nervous breakdown. If you saw the first Grudge, (which was mediocre at best) you will recall Karen, as the main protagonist, who found herself drawn into the violent web of mystery surrounding “the most haunted house in Tokyo”. After learning the secret of the house, (a husband murdered his wife and child in a jealous rage, after learning she was in love with another man) Karen was confronted with its “evil” and attempted to burn it down, killing her boyfriend in the process.

Cut back to the Grudge 2. Aubrey shows at the Japanese hospital to find her sister seriously disturbed and spouting nonsense. Her sister, then promptly falls to her death, forced off the hospital roof by a ghost (the wife in the house who was killed by her raging husband). Aubrey, scared and alone, befriends a young male journalist who has been tracking the story of this mysterious house. Immediately they begin conversing in cryptic meaningless phrases like “I’m afraid.” “I must find out the truth.” And “How do we stop it?” i.e. they speak without actually saying anything at all. But that’s OK, because thankfully we have two entirely independent plotlines, with which to bang our heads on the theatre seat backs by.

The second plotline revolves around three teenage school girls (with scandalously short uniform skirts to match), who go into the haunted house as –a joke, or –to “check it out.” Their motivation is ultimately unclear and irrelevant. Two of the girls are popular, but the third is not, and as horror film procedure would have it, the two prettier, socially successful girls, force the dowdy girl into the closet. While in the closet, the dowdy girl gets stuck and has contact with the ghost of the house. Unbeknownst to them, the two “pretty” girls were exposed to the evil of the apparition as well, and so all three end up being haunted by Miss broken neck long hair(the ghost).

The third plot line is perhaps the most baffling of all. Back across the big pond, in Chicago, Illinois, we observe the happenings of an American family. A father with a teenage daughter and pre-teen son, has just invited his girlfriend to move into their apartment. We become acquainted with the cheery cheerleading teen, and her Lolita neighbor friend, as well as the general family dynamics. Pre teen boy resents Dad’s girlfriend, Dad’s girlfriend is nervous about making good with the kids, and so on. One night the preteen boy spies a dark figure being led down the hall by two of his neighbors. After that, things start to get weird. People aren’t acting like themselves, and strange visions and sounds make themselves apparent. What on earth could be happening to this family? Unfortunately, you never end up giving a good God damn.

Now keep in mind that the three different plot lines I’ve just summarized, are all intercut with each other willy nilly. The end result is a film that has the continuance of a furniture building manual from Ikea. Characters die, others vanish into the ether, pulled out of the space time fabric by the ghost, while others try to “fight” against the rage. One particularly bizarre subplot involved Aubrey tracking down the ghost’s mother to speak to her about her daughter. It is there we learn via grainy flashback, that when her daughter was a child, she used to perform exorcisms, and force her daughter to swallow the evil spirits. Why would she do such a heinous thing, you might ask? Who knows, I doubt if the filmmaker himself does. Nevermind the fact that this woman is spilling out her deepest darkest secrets in perfect english to Joan of Arcadia. Let’s not even bother to try and explain that.

What I want to know is --why would the writers throw in this haphazard factoid to basically turn the concept of the entire franchise on its head? Impossible to say. Isn’t the whole point, as indicated by the title, that when someone is killed in a horrible rage, that “rage” haunts things forever? When did the franchises M.O. become that little girls who witness exorcisms have spiritual baggage?

The big “reveal” at the end of the film, is that the dowdy school girl who is tormented by the ghost in Japan, is brought back home to her parents in Chicago. Voila! She lives in the very same apartment building as the American family, and was in fact the same mysterious figure wearing an oversized hoodie that the little boy saw walk down the hall. The problem was that, this reveal didn’t serve much purpose. Not only was it obvious and predictable, but it failed to provide context or even link all the storylines, which is what well done reveals typically too. It was the missing piece to a puzzle that still didn’t create a cohesive image. The reveal in The Grudge 2 was a protracted justification for tying together two halves that didn’t make a whole.

There were definitely some frightening moments in the film, and I probably jumped more than I’d like to admit. One of the most disturbing moments for me was when the perky cheerleader popped over to her friend’s apartment, who had fallen under the grudge’s curse. The friend proceeded to chug an entire gallon of milk, and then regurgitate it into the same container. Icky. Also, for all its unoriginality at this point, I still get creeped out my the staccato movements of the ghost with her double jointed limbs and snapped neck.

These movies are most disappointing to me because while they capitalize on clever concepts, conjure up horrific images and moments, and are pretty adept at creating an atmosphere, they lack the quality of story and characters to see them through. In terms of setting a mood, and establishing a visual style, Japanese writer/director Takashi Shimizu clearly knows what he’s doing. But what’s particularly incendiary about The Grudge 2 is that not only does it fall into this category, but it’s nearly impossible to watch. It’s a confounding viewing experience, where one is denied the simple viewer’s pleasure of getting lost in a story --because there truly isn’t one. It is a nightmarish assembly of non-sequesters, a ninety minute music video that’s set to creepy violin tunes. And let’s be honest –there’s a reason why videos are only three or four minutes long at most….

(forthcoming Marie Antoinette…)

The New Yorker remerges (for the time being) a little LOST but not worse for the wear...

2006-10-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time folks. And I can’t say I haven’t missed this little party called blogging because I have. Now, let’s get down to business.

1) LOST

Two episodes into the new (third) season my head is spinning and I barely recognize the show. Probably, because at times, it feels like a COMPLETELY different show. New characters, new locations, new scenarios, new storylines. I supposed that’s all well, good, and expected for any intelligent and creatively done show that evolves over seasons, but something is amiss. That wonderful vibe that they captured in the pilot, and first season, and less so but still in the second season is gone. A bunch of strangers from all different walks of life who are banded together under the same banner of “let’s not get eaten by polar bears” and “lets get off this crazy island” and “what the hell is going on in this crazy island.” That was something special, and in the construct of LOST it felt new and refreshing.

Cut to this season. The season premiere only dealt with three of our characters, Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Now I love Sawyer, and Jack is alright, though teetering on the bland side, but Kate seems to have descended even further into the territory of the vulnerable hot piece of ***. (On a side note, how Raiders of the Lost Arc was it when she came out in that dress and sat down in front of Henry Gale and the full spread of food. It was Marion and Belloq all over again, though not as classy or exciting.) But I missed the rest of the castaways and that feeling of “teamwork” as they all worked together to solve one problem or another. But let me back up a minute here. It goes without saying that the teaser for the premiere was meant to be another shocker, like last year’s reveal of Desmond in the Hatch. And truth be told, I was surprised by it. I didn’t expect in the slightest that the “earthquake” was actually the Oceanic flight plummeting down from the sky. Nor that the seemingly idyllic community was located on THE island. It was jaw dropping to be sure. But a variable had changed for me –I didn’t care as much. I didn’t really care because I knew, or at least strongly suspected, that the reason behind this village, the rationale of the Others and their motives in going after the survivors, none of that, was going to be explained succinctly for at least another I don’t know, one to two seasons, --if that. It’s like the Russian dolls that stack inside one another seamlessly without end, until finally you get to the last wooden figurine, and realize, that it’s only a smaller version of what you started with, and is hollow on the inside.

I guess that’s my biggest fear for LOST. That they’re never going to answer the questions, and that they’re only to going to keep on generating more and more, defying logic and rationale at every turn. Let’s take a look at for instance, last season, when Michael was brought to the Others shantytown, where they lived in little tents and dressed in rags. Later, Michael would lead Jack, Kate and co. back down there, and they would attempt to enter yet another hatch which, as it turns out, didn’t exist. The metal doors merely masked a granite wall. In this week’s episode, one of the Others mentions to Henry Gale hurriedly, (in what I believe to be a huge writer’s oops!), “But they found the decoy village!” Gale responds, ever stolidly, “That’s exactly what we wanted them to do.”

I think I actually laughed out loud at that moment. Really? It’s exactly what you wanted them to do? Why? So Hurley could turn back and tell the other survivors what he’d seen here. And what kind of an impression would that make? “Hey dudes. It looked like they had a Hatch, but actually, --looks like it was fake or something…oh yeah and they took Jack, Kate and Sawyer too.” First of all, Hurley would be in a panic about the fact that his friends were taken, --the least thing on his mind would be the fake door. And even if he did discuss the “fake hatch” opening with the other survivors, that doesn’t necessarily reveal the village as a “decoy village.” I can’t deny that I’m curious as to the possible valid explanation for the “decoy” village. I’m interested to see what they come up with, because it sure seems like an awful lot of work on the part of the Others, towards an end which remains a mystery.

After watching the first two episodes in this season, the question that resounds with me is, is this season really going to become about human behavioral studies and experiments? Them trying to break Jack’s psychological resolve, and manipulating Sawyer and Kate into getting romantically involved, only to play them each off against one another in some bizarre sort of love triangle? Whatever it is, I hope they at least cut to the chase, because watching Kate and Sawyer break rocks, even under the threat of electric shock? Not interesting. Also, it was not at all a shocking reveal that Kate and Sawyer were being “watched” by Henry Gale via monitors when they were speaking to one another at night back in their cages. Of course they’re being monitored, that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point. If Sawyer and Kate themselves don’t realize that, then they are idiots.

In this week’s episode, I liked Sun and Jin’s flashback, in part because it actually gave closure and answers to their storylines, and also because it continued to give more depth to their characters. I thought it was great that Sun shot the woman on the yacht, I definitely didn’t expect it. I liked the idea that the Others are so sure they know the survivors, and yet Sun proved them wrong. What I did find disappointing was Sayid’s “plan”; it made no sense. So Sayid hoped to start and fire and attract the Others via smoke, so that he could kill them, and then hopefully somehow learn where Jack had been taken? This plan also entailed “tricking” Jin because once Sayid started the fire it would be “too late” to turn back, (Wha? Why?). Not only that, but Sun was left by herself, on the boat, which was a good two hundred yards away. Sure he told her where the gun was but if he (or Jin) was really concerned about her safety they’d have her stay close. Even if in the past LOST has dragged its feet in divulging the island’s secrets, it has always typically been good at creating interesting episodic action and adventure plots. But the plotting of some of this second episode at times just felt lazy and sloppy. One of the last scenes of the episode where Henry Gale comes into Jack, felt particularly so. It’s already been made clear that the Others know what’s going on in the outside world, they have contact and communication with it, --hence how they know so much about the survivors. So for Henry Gale to come out and recite the occurrences of the past two months in 2004, was no real surprise. (Also, the Boston Red Sox winning the world series clip/gag is OLD) Then there was more of the classic cagey talk, where words are coming out of the characters mouths, but in effect, NOTHING is being said. (Paraphrasing) Henry Gale: If you cooperate with us, we will help you get home. Jack: Cooperate with what? Henry Gale: We’ll tell you when the time is right. Grrrrrrrrr. I’ll bet you will Henry.

I know what some of you are thinking. “Stop complaining, and just stop watching it!” But I can’t –for several reasons. It’s like the boyfriend that your friends tell you to dump, but you just can’t let go, because deep down you know you still have feelings for him. I love LOST. Or at least I did. I’ve been disillusioned for sure, cheated by it, annoyed with it. But I can’t let go, or at least I’m not ready to. I still care enough about these characters that I plan to tune in to see what happens next, and I do want to see how they wrap everything up. But my care is dwindling, and never more so than with the start of this season. I’d like a little payoff please. A little light shed on the truth, and answers that don’t feel like more questions. I’m frustrated and I want my old show back.

I miss Danielle Rousseau.

Heroes review forthcoming….

The New Yorker Returns (Along with Superman)

2006-07-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

In this media blitz era of comic book characters and superheroes, an interesting trend has come about in Hollywood: the revival of the dead Superhero franchise. Last summer, Batman Begins was the official advent of this phenomenon, and though it was hard for me to swallow any other vision besides that of Tim Burton…art deco Gotham, Keaton and all; it was ultimately hard to disagree that the film had a new and fresh take on the Batman universe. Where there was once glamour puss photographer/journalist Vicki Vale, there was now social adjudicator Rachel Dawes. Where there was once a sleek, sculpted Batmobile, there was now a rough converted military tank. Not only was the scenery different, (new Gotham, new Bat cave), but mythology changed as well. The Joker didn’t kill Bruce’s parents –a poor underprivileged soul did. New themes and new plot lines were developed for this new retelling that were unique to Christopher Nolan’s interpretation, and weren’t at all derived from the previous incarnation of the film series.

Not so for Superman Returns. From the very beginning, it seemed that the Superman franchise wished to connect itself to the success of the former films –at least the two good ones. Superman Returns purportedly takes place between Superman II and Superman III. Whereas the new Batman film wanted to wipe the slate totally clean after the calamitous Batman and Robin, the new Superman film wanted us to forget the lackluster Superman III, and embarrassing Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, while honoring the legacy invented by the first two films directed by Richard Donner and Richard Lester respectively.

Superman Returns was one big giant homage by Bryan Singer to one of his favorite movies of all time. It was almost like a fan film, albeit one with an exquisite production value. He seemed to make it no secret that he wanted to capture the flavor of the original film. After all, he cast Hollywood newcomer Brandon Routh, who is in both appearance and voice, incredibly reminiscent of the late, great Christopher Reeve, and the similarities didn’t end there. The villain in Superman Returns is Lex Luthor, who was played brilliantly by Gene Hackman in the original two films, and given a funny, but very similar (though not as spectacular if you ask me) turn by Kevin Spacey in this film. Instead of Valerie Perrine’s Miss Tesmacher, there was Parker Posey’s Kitty Kowalski –but again, the roles were very similar: they both had an ambiguous romantic relationship with Lex, they both swooned at Superman’s charming good looks. And they both felt guilt at what Lex was planning, and did their part to try and stop him.

I know, I know, I shouldn’t be comparing, right? But if you don’t want me to compare the two films, don’t strike as many of the same beats as the original aye? Like using the same sound design for the “voices” that Superman can hear in his head courtesy of his superhuman auditory sense. (which is admittedly a simple, though great sound effect.) Or the use of Marlon Brando’s image and voice as Jor-el, or the moment where Superman and Lois soar through the air together, or Lex’s speech about creating a new coast and prime real estate, or the use of John Williams original score…this wasn’t a reinvention, it was a remake! And that’s OK. But even as a revival, I think Warner Brothers and Singer would have been wiser to do a little more remodeling. If they’re just going to spout out a couple more of these without a big change in tone or concept, I have a funny feeling it may start to get old, and feel done, rather quickly.

Nevertheless, let it be said that I enjoyed parts of this film immensely. I saw Superman Returns last Tuesday night, at the first possible screening at the Grauman’s Chinese theatre in Hollywood with a packed and raucous audience. Rumor has it that Bryan Singer, the man of the hour, was there as well. It was impossible not to enjoy the film in this crowd. They were cheering, laughing, and hooting at every turn, and I couldn’t think of a better group to see it with then the one there that night.

For all the teasing I throw out about Bryan Singer and his Blue Tights Network and questionable history of photo shoots, the man is undeniably talented. He is truly a visual artist and there were some absolutely breath taking shots in this film. The various shots of Superman hovering above earth, with the celestial galaxies surrounding him were gorgeous, the sequence when he takes Lois up in the air, and the scenes of his flying around Metropolis were stunning. One thing that can be said about comparing the original ’78 film to this one is that the capacity for special FX has grown tremendously…and it shows. As in the first Spiderman, there was a shot or too where Supes looked a little rubbery, but overall I was agape at how good some of the action sequences looked, (the plane sequence was cool) as well as his flying of course. I LOVED that shot where the bullet hits his eye, and crumples. I also thought that Singer’s visuals managed to capture the sensibilities of comic book art, while remaining cinematic. As I watched certain shots and set ups whiz by, I could picture what the comic frames would look like in my head. The overhead underwater shot of Lois, Richard and Jason pounding on the porthole of Lex’s boat as it plummeted under water was one of several of these moments.

Speaking of Richard, Lois’ fiancé, portrayed by James Marsden –I liked him. Marsden handled the role well, with what he had to work with, but beyond that, I liked the way his character was drawn. I liked the fact that he was a normal genuine guy, who was naturally a little jealous of Superman, but was hardly malicious about it. The love triangle that developed between Lois, Superman, and Richard was a good one, because it actually made for Lois having a hard choice. There is no convention that I hate more in Hollywood films, than when the leading lady (or man) is seriously dating or about to marry someone who is a complete a**hole. Then the romantic lead gets to swoop in and shake them to their senses about what a complete imbecile they’ve been in love with this whole time. It is the stupidest, most trite and most ridiculous convention ever. But since Richard is actually a decent guy, Lois faces a crisis of faith instead of an easy decision. I thought this was a good choice on the part of the screenwriters. I also liked the inclusion of “the kid,” Jason. His presence not only upped the stakes between the Lois/Richard/Superman dynamic tremendously, but he also created a nice mirror for the relationship that Superman-Kalel had with his own father, Jor-El. I liked the whole “father becomes the son, becomes the father” thematic motif that ran through the film. I also thought that the filmmakers were wise in only having Jason perform one “superhuman” stunt. Having him suddenly and literally fly into action would have been too much, but having him use his strength to save himself and his mother only once was also a clever way of ultimately revealing who his real father was. I have to say for me, the saddest/cutest moment of the film was when Jason showed his mother, Lois, the drawing he made detailing, “Superman, Daddy, Mommy, Me” --this poor child is in for a rude awakening.

I’m not typically a big fan of Kate Bosworth, but I thought she nailed Lois Lane as a smart, bookish, romantic type. I liked the fact that they tried to make Bosworth look a bit mousy (as possible as it is to make Kate Bosworth look mousy…), because the idea for Lois has always been that Supes, who could have any woman in the world, doesn’t go for runway model, but for an earnest, quirky, news reporter. The only thing that struck me about Bosworth, and Routh as well for that matter, is that they seemed a bit young in their respective roles. Christopher Reeve was twenty six when he took on the role, and Margot Kidder was thirty, but both channeled more maturity on screen than the twenty six year old Routh and twenty three year old Bosworth. Bosworth’s age in particular troubled her role, because she was made to be Pulitzer prize winning, established career woman with a five year old child. At twenty three? I don’t think so… As much as Routh was a ringer for Reeve, I do think he was a good casting choice on Singer’s part. It was important to get an unknown in the role, and I thought he brought a novel and endearing goofiness to his moments as Clark Kent. Spacey and Posey had great chemistry together as Lex and Kitty, but it still came off like it was trying to recapture the Lex, Otis, Tesmacher tomfoolery of the ’78 version –at which it did not succeed. I don’t care how silly it might be, but Ned Beatty and Gene Hackman’s shtick is unforgettable.

I do think the film could have been trimmed a little. At two hours and thirty four minutes, it started to feel a bit long by the middle of the third act. I could have done without the whole “Superman is Dead” portion of the film, where they brought him into the hospital, etc. For a second there, I thought things were going to get really interesting, and they were going to kill him off so that they could deal with his various incarnations in the future installments of the franchise, but then I thought better of it, realizing the studio themselves would have sooner died then let that happen.

I had a lot of fun watching this movie, and something tells me that I had such a good time for the same reasons that Bryan Singer enjoyed making the film. With a cultural icon like Superman, it’s hard not to break into a grin when you see him take flight in the air. His is a story that’s become so familiar to us –living in Metropolis, working as Clark at the Daily Planet, furtively pursuing Lois Lane. I can’t imagine how fun it must have been to play around with all the imagery, and while you’re at it, pay homage a plenty to the original film that gave Supes his birth on the big screen. Because Singer is a good film maker, the film had strong moving parts. It had a solid cast with solid performance, the FX looked great, the emotional moments were well directed. As for the script, I thought it was strong in that it took the time to develop its characters, and layer in humor and drama in equal measure. But I did think the overall plot was a bit too similar to the original film. In fact, originality was the biggest thing lacking from this film. Even if there wasn’t going to be a new take on the Superman character, I would have liked to see something that was a bit of a departure than the traditional “Oh No Metropolis is in trouble, Superman will save the day! Better keep that kryptonite away from him!” The story felt so familiar, but maybe that was the point. Maybe Singer was just looking to give an old tried and true friend a bit of a face lift and a welcome back celebration. If that’s what it was he succeeded indeed.

Trailer Round Up

2006-06-13T23:17:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I graced the apple trailers site , and I thought i'd check out some of its new fare to see what might catch my eye.

Ratatouille

I haven't even gotten a chance to see Cars yet, but already I find my fancies tickled by the trailer for the next Pixar installment, the tale of a rat who lives in Paris, and is also a culinary snob. It looks cute, and the design as ever looks marvelous. I love the way they did the cheese and the big panorama of the city of paris. I also think the freeze frame of our rodent friend in mid air is pretty amusing.

Wicker Man

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this trailer . Another missing/tormented little girl horror flick? Really? Haven't there been at least three or four every season for the past few years, but none of them have done well? Silent Hill was dreadful, An American Haunting I did not see, but did not do well, nor was it exactly critically acclaimed. I think the Ring was the last film to do the creepy little girl thing right. And seriously what is up with Nicholas Cage being the busiest man in Hollywood? He is in more movies than any other big star. He has a movie coming out every month, it is absolutely insane. His trailer for Ghost Rider, is a whole different issue entirely, which I'll get into in a moment, but I can barely believe he agreed to do this film. The only thing that could be potentially promising about this is the wierdo, eerie coven of witches. The other head scratcher on this film is the director. How the hell did Neil LaBute end up on this job? This is teh guy who favors small, psychologically disturbing films like In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things. Suddenly he's directing a big budget horror film starring Nicolas Cage. I wouldn't call it selling out exactly, I'd just call it a strange match of artist and material.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

OK, I admit, I fell for the ridiculous marketing gag of this film already, which is that they only run the trailer from 10 PM to 4 AM. I scoffed at this when I first went to check out the trailer in the morning, and laughed about the fact that they would be so silly as to put something like this on their site to start generating chatter. But I will say this for it --mock it as I might, I did run to my laptop right at 10 PM to start downloading the darn thing. Now, surprisingly I actually thought the first remake was entertaining. Naturally it did not even approach the original in terms of its fright factor and style --the first one is just an anomaly of its circumstance, the low budget and gritty style combinging to create almost a documentary like feel. Howver, for a Friday night popcorn muncher I thought this remake had some scary moments of its own (the scene where Biel steps into the trailer of the two old women comes to mind), and kept me engaged throughout.

Ghost Rider

Now, I'm not familiar with this particular Marvel comic and I'm not one for biker culture either, so this trailer did not do a whole lot for me. And again, what is with the Nicolas Cage? I think he's definitely put in some good performances over the years, but sheesh I don't exactly envision him as a superhero, and certainly not the man cast to fight the devil's son himself (as in Ghost Rider)

The New Yorker remerges and finally puts in her two cents on X-Men 3

2006-06-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive believe it or not. I know my absence has been longer than usual, but I’ve just started a new job and it’s been fairly time consuming thus far.

At this point in time, an in depth analysis of X Men 3 is probably pointless and beyond my capacity. But I will say this. I fall on the half of the population that enjoyed X-Men 3 The Last Stand. Now I realize that the constituency of people in my life are geekier than the general public, but the resounding chorus of those around me was that it was none too good.

Here's the thing. I've always enjoyed the X-Men films, but I’ve never thought they were particularly outstanding. Certainly in the realm of the comic book and super hero films, I don't think that either of the first two eclipsed Spiderman 2, Batman Begins, or the first two of Burton's Batman films. The X-Men movies are the sort that I really enjoy when I’m in the theatre, but will probably never think of again.

I’ve heard all sorts of complaints about this third flick – that there was no character development, that they killed off too many of the characters, that the script was cheesy and the FX looked bad. Let me attempt to sift through these one by one. I will agree with the character development gripe. Both Kitty Pryde and Angel were introduced in this third film, but neither one of them was given a lot of specific background and story arc. (Actually a different actress played Kitty Pryde in the X2, but if memory serves me correct, her role was fairly minimal..) We knew that Angel had a conflict with his father about his mutation, but that was about it. It would have been nice to see a little more of his internal struggle, as well as what it was that he enjoyed about his sparking white wings. As for Kitty Pryde, all she really did was look exceedingly young (was it just me, or did the actress who played her look about 12?) and share longing looks with Ice Man. HOWEVER, the inherent problem with X-Men in general, I think, is that there are just too many darn main characters to deal with within the constraints of a single feature film. The X-Men films could never do justice to a character the way Donner’s film did to Superman or Raimi’s film(s) did to Spiderman. The closest its come to really paying homage to a character is with Wolverine. The X-Men animated series, made more sense than the feature projects in certain ways, because at least it allotted more time for exploration of these characters. (This is also why the comics are so good, you get to see these heroes revealed over a course of several issues.) The other thing I would argue in regards to the character development, though I realize it’s a bit specious, is that the first two films were able to do most of the heavy lifting. They had already set up most of what we needed to know for the lynchpins of the series such as Wolverine, Dr. X, Jean Gray, etc. So, the filmmakers probably thought they could get away with less exposition in the third installment.

If you haven’t seen X-Men 3 by now, you’re either not going to or you’re going to watch it apathetically on cable. So here come they spoilers. In this chapter of our heroes, Dr. X, Cyclops and Jean Grey/Phoenix are all killed. Some people thought this was pointless, but I thought it was ballsy on their part. It raised the stakes of the game, and actually added some real surprises. And when was the last time a big summer movie actually took you off guard? I couldn’t believe that they actually waxed poor Xaviar-Picard. I did, however, think the tag ending with him speaking out of the body of the brain dead man was silly. I mean, after all, wasn’t this the last stand? Now suddenly Xavier could be alive and Magneto might get his powers back? Come on Fox, stick to your guns.

As for the complaints on the “cheesy script” I hear by present exhibit A.

“Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.”

Anyone remember this line? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Since when have the X-Men films been the pinnacle of screenwriting. Never, as far as I can remember. Even the second film, which many fans consider to be the best of the trilogy, had its flaws. Deathstrike was cool and everything, but did we ever really “delve” into her character, and did she get much of a set up? Not really. In fact, the only thing I can really remember about the second film was Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler, which was an exceptionally interesting character.

These movies have always been good summer movie fun, and truly a cut above the rest. I will agree that this was probably my least favorite of the trilogy, but I really didn’t think it was without merit. The main storyline, involving the mutant “cure” was apparently lifted from Joss Whedon’s X-Men comic continuity, and it was compelling. I liked the Jean Grey/Phoenix storyline, and the final resolution between her and Wolverine. The scene where she was going nuts at the end, and the water behind her was spiraling into the air looked amazing. I loved Wolverine’s final crawl to her as his mutant bio-mechanisms fought against the disintegration caused by Jean’s powers. Sure I would have liked to see more of Rogue, but at least we could count on Halle Berry’s performance to be as solidly mediocre as it was in the first two.

LOST Season 2 Wrap Up Part II – Theory Talk

2006-05-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Even though I just posted a huge piece LOST and the season finale, I still didn’t address everything that I wanted too. So here, for some lighter fare, I’ve put forth some comments and theories.

1)The Hurley Bird – Was everyone as shocked as I was when the giant green parrot swooped down from a tree as Sawyer, Michael, Jack, Kate and Hurley made their way to the Others? And did the bird actually say Hurley’s name? I must have rewound this moment about six times on my TiVo and I still couldn’t figure out what was going on. As for the larger implications of this, I don’t really think there are any. This bird falls in line with the polar bear; some sort of funky zoological testing has occurred on this island. The question is, is it part of the Dharma Initiative? Or is it just another prop to make things appear as if the Dharma Initiative actually exists?

2)The Big Foot – Remember when Sayid, Jin and Sun were on the sail boat coasting around the perimeter of the island? They saw this classically sculptured enormous stone foot, with only four toes. Many of you have already pointed out the connection to Colossus, and the most famous of these was the Colossus of Rhodes, a tribute to the ancient Greek god of the sun, Helios. (The most well known myth about Helios is about his sun riding the sun chariot to his doom) There’s definitely some Greek mythology woven in here, between the foot and the name choice of Desmond’s lady, Penelope. As one talk backer aptly pointed out, Desmond could by viewed as a stand in for Ulysses, desperately trying to get home as he sailed the ocean. Whatever mythological and metaphorical implications the foot might have, the fact that it even exists is pretty huge. I can’t even begin to think how it ended up there…

3)The Walt Factor – There was so much going on in this two hour juggernaut, that I really didn’t even give much thought to Walt. There is still a lot of mystery surrounding what the Others did to him, as well as whatever special powers he might possess. I hope that even if he leaves the show (as the ending of the finale suggested that he might) that we will eventually learn the truth of his significance to the Others. An associate of mine, who shall be credited here as JBG, brought up some interesting points, weaving together clues that were scattered throughout the season:

“Remember in the Michael flashback episode, how Ms. Klugh asked him if Walt ever ‘appeared anywhere he wasn't supposed to?’ That was clearly an explanation of how he appeared to Shannon and Sayid. Remember how he (Walt) kept saying ‘don't push the button?’ “

I had completely forgotten about the fact that earlier on, survivors were having sightings of Walt. Is it possible that the boy is able to teleport? If so I wonder if once off the island, he would be able to teleport back… As for why Walt was telling them not to push the button, I’m uncertain. Clearly Walt knows something about the button that we don’t. But why would he urge them to not press the button and set free the electro-magnetic forces? Did the Others plant this message in his mind? If so, why would the Others want the button to remain unpressed. Wouldn’t they all be destroyed as well?

4) Jack, Sawyer and Kate – Seriously, anyone have any good theories on why they took these three? Do we think they are going to conduct some sort of bizarre behavioral experiment about males vying for female attention? Or is it much simpler. Does it have to do with how much they know about the island, and where they’ve been. I’m really clueless on this one.

LOST Season 2 Wrap Up

2006-05-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

My head is still reeling a little bit from last week’s two hour season finale of LOST. There was so much to take in and decipher. For whatever I’m about to dissect or analyze in the following paragraphs, let me just say that this was by far the most compelling of all the season finale’s I’ve watched this year. I was completely engrossed in everything that was going on, and though I had my frustrations, I have to say –the LOST writers have me in the palm of their hands. They are really building up to a larger mystery here and the suspense only continued to grow last night. A couple of questions were answered, such as the fact that the button actually has a purpose, and that it may have in fact caused the crash of Oceanic flight 815. But many more questions were put forth, about the island, the nature of the hatch, and of course the elusive Others.

First things first: Desmond. I’m quite fond of the actor, Henry Ian Cusick, who plays the role of Desmond. His character is interesting and I like the parallel of starting and ending this second season with his story. But I was a little confused as to why he was the central character in the finale. Book-ending aside, wouldn’t it have made a more sense if this episode was placed towards the end of the season, instead of culminating the season wrap up? I for one felt like we saw very little of several of the main characters in the show. The only central character who seemed to get a fair shake was Locke, everyone else, even Jack and Eko, was pretty limited to a few scenes with quick-paced dialogue. In this episode we learned a great deal about Desmond’s history –that he was a military man who also served time in prison (It’s a bit unclear as to whether or not his jail time was justified or now). We learned that he was in love with a wealthy woman, by the name of Penelope, whose father disapproved of him. Desmond’s flashbacks also covered some of his time on the island, and showed his old “partner” who lived in the Hatch with him, Inman. In yet another startling coincidence, Inman was the very same Colonel who bribed Sayid into torturing his former colleague in Iraq. But coincidences abounded in this episode. As it turns out, Libby, AKA Elizabeth, donated her dead husband’s sail boat to Desmond so that he could accomplish his race around the world. (I found myself wondering about the character’s timelines, and if Libby was at the mental hospital before or after she met Desmond.…) But for all this juicy back story, I found myself wondering, why now? Why the sudden return to Desmond? Sure it gave the season a nice symmetry, but I would argue that the primary story arc this season focused more on the Others than the button in The Hatch. Once the Hatch was revealed at the start of the second season, the urgency of the button pushing could only be stretched out for so long. It either did something, or did nothing, but either way, it didn’t present the myriad of possibilities and explanations that the Others did.

There were an innumerable amount of questions interlaced into Desmond’s flashbacks and story, and I have a hard time even postulating answers for them. Here are a few of them. What is Libby’s deal? I have a very unclear sense of her back story; she’s probably lied at some point, the question is about what. How did Inman end up in the Hatch? Are we to believe that there is some US military involvement in the Dharma Initiative or the Hanso Foundation? When Desmond was dragged into the Hatch from the beach on the island, were there several men in the yellow Hazmat suits? Or was it only Inman, and were the blurry images we saw, a product of Desmond’s hazy state of consciousness? What exactly did the failsafe –the key port underneath the ground level that the drunken Inman showed to Desmond, do? When the survivors on the island were shrouded in the shocking white light –was that a product of the button not being pushed, or of the failsafe being pushed?

And what of the big reveal of the episode/season? Based on the finale we are meant to believe that when Desmond didn’t push the button (after leaving the Hatch), the electro-magnetic surge that ensued caused Oceanic flight 815 to crash. But that just doesn’t make sense to me; in fact I have a feeling it’s all part of some big charade. Here’s why I don’t believe it. Everything that we’ve been building up to with the Others has indicated that they have fairly extensive knowledge of the passengers. Not only do they have their names, but they know exactly what each of them looks like, and it has been implied at various junctures that the Others had knowledge of these passengers, and maybe even of the flight before it crashed. But if the plane crashed because of some freak accident caused by a random action, or in this case, inaction on the part of Desmond, it doesn’t jive with the Others having pre-existing knowledge.

I had an argument with a friend of mine, who put forth the idea that The Others could have also orchestrated Desmond’s action at just the right time, via Inman, when they knew Oceanic Flight 815 was flying overhead. But I don’t buy this. Let’s retrace Desmond’s steps shall we? Inman has been exiting the Hatch for months, but Desmond is told he cannot leave, because he must press the button. Desmond is curious about going above ground to the surface, despite the fact that Inman warns him the air is unsafe to breathe, and dons a Hazmat suit every time he goes up. So one day Desmond watches Inman preparing to leave the Hatch, and sees there is a tear in the leg of his Hazmat suit. Suspicious, Desmond follows him, and discovers, not only that the air is breathable, but that Inman has been repairing his sail boat. This leads Desmond to question his entire purpose in the Hatch, including the button, and the two get into a physical fight. Desmond accidentally kills Inman, and horrified, runs back to the Hatch, where the button is approaching count down. Desmond lets it go to zero, and when he feels the powerful magnetic forces tearing through the Hatch, he panics and enters the numbers. Of course, he doesn’t press the button soon enough, and in the process Oceanic 815 is brought down.

Now, are we truly meant to believe that all of these little moments and actions were perfectly orchestrated at just the right time? It seems impossible. My friend argued that maybe Inman was in with the Others, and they lured him out at just the right time so he would be late in returning to the button. But how could they possibly know he would glance at Inman’s torn suit on that particular day and decide to follow him, after days of not doing so. Therefore in my opinion, only two things are possible. One is that the crash was really an accident. The second is that the reveal of the cause for the plane crash is not the whole story, and I have to go with the second. BUT, if the second clause is true, then this means, that the finale, basically answered nearly nothing. It confirmed the fact that the button has power, and gave a potentially false answer to the question of the crash. Though I liked the fact that Henry Gale was revealed to be the leader of the Others, --in fact it has come amazing implications (the survivors didn’t kill their leader when they had the chance!), it doesn’t really count as an answer to one of the millions of questions floating around in the ether.

I think that this season LOST officially entered Twin Peaks territory. Now, I’ve never seen Twin Peaks (crazy, I know), but I hear that during its short lived tenure(two seasons, I think), it dealt with the murder of Laura Palmer, a young woman in a small town. The primary driving plot of this show was centered on solving the mystery behind her death. Now, the show was cancelled before it got a chance to reveal its true secrets, and a couple years later a film set as a prequel was released to try and delve further into the mystery, (the film was Fire Walk With Me). Both the TV show and the film were endeavors of the quirky, if not enigmatic David Lynch.

Now, some people thought Twin Peaks was brilliant because it created a setting and cast of characters that were so fascinating, that the mystery behind the death of Laura Palmer became more of a backdrop for the show. In fact, I’ve even heard some Twin Peaks purists argue, that the show was better off because of the fact that the real truth behind Laura’s death was never unveiled. It was better this way, they contend, because each person could think up their own answer to the ever looming questions.

Again, I’ve never seen Twin Peaks, so I can’t really put in my own two cents about this specific show. But I fear that LOST is entering this dangerous territory, where clues that have been laid down since the show began, will ultimately be forgotten as the story forges ahead, intent on weaving more and more of a tangled web of plotting. Will LOST’s questions ever be answered completely? Will all these pieces add up to a cohesive whole? And if they’re never answered, is that OK, because ultimately it is a story about humanity playing itself out in a cultural vacuum? At the risk of sounding like an impatient, ignorant, MTV-generation American, I say the secret does matter. It matters, and I think it should be told. This show hasn’t been framed to be a strictly Robinson Crusoe like tale, or a mere inter-personal drama. It has been set up from the beginning as a true mystery, and as such, I do believe it has an obligation to its audience, to reveal the unknowns. To be frank, I don’t think it has strong enough characters to simply carry on its story without the mysterious elements. Locke is by far, in my opinion, the best character, and Sawyer is great. But the rest of them sort of fade away into one-notedom if you ask me. Don’t get me wrong, they all have their moments, but there are so many of them now, that they don’t get as much attention and development as they did in the first season.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I found the finale to be one of the more compelling couple hours of Television I had seen in quite some time. And you can bet your bippy that I’m going to be clawing at my set come next fall for the season premiere. But I feel something that I didn’t feel last year after the first season. Last year I was genuinely engaged by the cliffhanger of the Hatch. Some people were annoyed by it, but I wasn’t. Between the Black Rock, Rousseau kidnapping the baby, and the others showing their faces, I felt there was action aplenty. But I felt differently about this finale. Maybe, it’s gotten a little old?

It’s one thing to have a cliffhanger, like wondering whether or not Michael and Walt will be saved, or will ever appear in the series again. Or why the Others were specifically interested in Jack, Sawyer and Kate? But the bottom line is, we still know very, very little about what the heck is going on here. OK, so one of the observation hatch was a set up (their logs ended up tossed on the ground). The outside world does exist, (as proven by the Russian guys monitoring electro-magnetic activity at the behest of Desmond’s girlfriend) and this is not a post-apocalyptic or purgatorial affair. The button in the Hatch does something. The crash MAY have partially been explained. But we still don’t have a cotton pickin’ clue as to what the Others are really about, what the Dharma Initiative is, how the Hanso Foundation plays in, and if the oodles of coincidences are really anything more than just coincidences. But hey, it worked didn’t it? I mean here I am pondering paragraph upon paragraph as to the meaning of it all. I think next season will be very telling as to the direction that the show will go in. This season really felt like a stretch, in terms of how far they could spread certain isolated incidents into an entire year’s worth of show. I’m hoping the third season will be pivotal.

An Update from the New Yorker

2006-05-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Just a quick word here to let you all know I'm still alive and kicking. My internet at home decided to break this weekend, so I've basically been shut out from the outside world. Hey, if it's not one thing, it's another, right?

However, never fear, a LOST season wrap up is forthcoming, as well as a review of X Men 3: The Last Stand. But in the mean time, I simply ADORE this poster.

LOST: The Musical

2006-05-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm still processing the multitude of strange elements dealt with in last night's season finale of LOST. As I mull things over in my mind, here is a silly parody of the show that was posted up on You Tube today.

The New Yorker is quite possibly the last person on earth to see the full length Pirates trailer, but she loves every minute of it…

2006-05-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure why, but it’s taken me FOREVER to watch the full length trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest. For a while there, I was trying to access links that wouldn’t work, or trailers that wouldn’t download properly. But yesterday, at long last I saw it, and feel confident in saying without a doubt:

Pirates will be the biggest movie of the summer.

Now this might be old news to many a geek and movie buff out there, but there have been some other prime contenders for this top spot this season. Besides Pirates, I’d say the other three competitors for THE blockbuster summer movie of the season were/are MI3, X-Men3 and Superman Returns. Yeah, Snakes on a Plane has a ton of buzz, but it’s more a B movie triumph than a blockbuster affair.

MI3 failed to really thrill, both at the box office and with the fans. It was a fun, enjoyable movie, but it didn’t have that special something that drives the geeks back a second and third time. So far X-Men 3 is not getting much love from the critics , mostly, it seems, because of the R (Ratner) factor. As for Superman Returns, I think it looks fantastic, but everyone else I know is yawing at the trailer. What’s the one movie that seems to unite disparate groups of audience goers? Parents and children, men and women, geeks and non-geeks? Pirates. I’m not exactly sure what it is about this movie (well, actually I have an idea), but Disney and Bruckheimer have really struck gold (pun intended) with this one. Pirates achieves this fairly unique tone, unmatched by most other films out there. It’s a fanciful blend of genres, a comedic pirate fantasy movie. Like Indiana Jones before it, it took an antiquated genre (for Indy it was the adventure serials of the 30’s, for Pirates, it was the swashbuckling films of the 40’s and 50’s), and revamped it for a new generation. Now, I’m not saying Pirates has achieved Indy status, at least not yet. The Indy movies were incredibly tight and sleekly done, there wasn’t a moment of dead time. The first Pirates, however, could have afforded to trim the fat a little bit, but there’s definitely a similarity in tone between these films. Pirates also reminds me of one of my father’s old favorites, that I watch repeatedly as a child --The Crimson Pirate, starring Burt Lancaster as a jolly, mischievous pirate with a comedic sidekick.

Based off the trailer, Pirates 2 looks to be just as enthralling as the first, if not more so. Once again, it (naturally) takes place in the Caribbean, and I’ll take a moment here to point out, that another wonderfully refreshing element of this franchise, is the location. So often I think pirates and battleship epics have been associated with Europe and other cold climate destinations. But there’s something about the fact that these fantasies unfold over turquoise waters with palm trees and white sandy beaches in the background, that adds to the visual beauty and lively tone of the films. Johnny Depp seems as loopy as ever as he reprises his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, and Orlando Bloom as Will Turner, seems to have picked up a bit of girth, looking even manlier for the second time around. It seems that Elizabeth (Keira Knightly) has decided to try her luck at the Pirate career path, which is an idea I’m fond of, and I’m pleased that Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook (the two wacky pirates) have returned for the fun as well. It’s certainly impressive that Disney has been able to keep everyone on board for all three installments of this trilogy. Not only does it have gangbusters casting, but Gore Verbinski has returned to direct, and Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio wrote the script as well. Elliot and Rossio’s scripts are great pacey fun with imaginative set pieces that don’t leave their characters in the dust in the process. I think Davy Jones and his sea creature minions look great; wonderfully detailed and inventive. I also love the fact that some sort of enormous octopus is involved in this film; the shot of the ship ensnared in the tentacles of the octo-monster is amazing.

Only forty three days and counting!

LOST; the endgame approaches

2006-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know I’ve been delinquent on my weekly LOST recap, but I went away for a few days and was without computer access. I am back now, albeit exhausted from my travels, but I will try and piece together a slapdash entry for last week’s LOST episode.

I had read in some foolish spoiler heavy magazine article that last week’s episode, “Three Minutes” would be driven by a Michael flashback. I was both pleased and relieved when I saw that (like Claire’s before him), his flashback centered on events that had taken place on the island, namely his time with The Others. As moving as I found the first episode that depicted his situation with Walt, by the second time round, things were feeling recycled, and I don’t think I could have sat through yet another rehashing of his attempts at trying to retain custody over his son.

I wasn’t really sold on the first fifteen minutes or so of the episode. They were showing a fair amount of footage from past episodes, and I was worried that it was going to be chock full of things we’d already seen. I did, however, like the way that the timeline was woven together, and that how, for instance, we learned that Michael was standing in the jungle with the Others when Kate was captured, and the Sea Billie had a standoff with Jack, Sawyer and Locke. Things started to get really interesting when Michael was brought to that strange beachside shanty town filled with filthy looking Others and slipshod tents. They shot Michael up with something right away, and I wonder if it was a drug that was meant to alter Michael’s psychological state, or if it was actually more of this “vaccine” business that’s been bandied about for two seasons now. Speaking of unmarked vials and syringes, what the heck was up with Charlie giving Claire that case filled with “medicine.” Though I think the fact that Charlie shot himself with the drug will surely play out in the future, I thought it was a bizarre mechanism to use as the thing that will win Charlie’s favor back with Claire. It was insane enough that Claire was grateful for it. Who in their right minds would shoot their baby up with an unknown substance. “Oh Gee Chahlie, thanks for this random chemical that might kill my baybee.” Her fears should not necessarily be allayed by the fact that Charlie claims he’s taken it without ill effect –that hardly counts as a proper medical trial. It harkens back to that muddled episode a couple months ago, where, convinced that her baby was “sick,” Claire sought out to find the “medicine” –I mean it’s all so ridiculous, and for now this plot line just annoys me.

When Michael was sitting on the beach and one of the Others mentioned a “her”, I half expected the French Woman to come out and expose herself as a traitor. Of course we all know by now, she didn’t, and instead a solemn looking woman, (did we even get a name for her?) emerged from the tent and started grilling Michael about Walt. The most terrifying and revealing moment in this episode came during the scene when Michael and the woman spoke in her tent at night. The degree of information that the Others have is startling, and I still haven’t cracked one good theory as to why they are interested in some survivors more than others. The woman bribed Michael and promised him that Walt would be returned to him if he set the artist formerly known as Henry Gale free, and bring back a few others from the camp. But what is the significance of the specific group comprised of Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Hurley? Why not Sayid? (He’s physically fit and could pose a threat to them.) Why not Sun? (She’s pregnant.) There doesn’t seem to be any common denominator among the four that were chosen. There’s also the fact that the woman knew all of their full names. I guess it’s possible that Ethan had stolen the passenger manifest and passed on the survivors names to his cohorts, but here’s the other thing to consider. Clearly this woman, and the Others, must not only have the names of the survivor, but must know what they each look like –otherwise how would they know that anyone who came with Michael was not who they said they were. While discussing this phenomenon with a friend, he reminded me that in the episode “The Other 48 Days,” it had been revealed to Ana Lucia that there was some sort of list, and that the tail end survivors were somehow being systematically picked off by the Others, and not by random either. Could this relate back to the “good” and “bad” folk as well?

My question is, how is all this possible? There is some mighty big conspiracy going on here, but I’m not sure what it is. As I see it, there are only a couple possibilities. The first is that there are surveillance cameras on the island that have yet to be revealed (somewhere in the forest and the beach, etc.). It is possible that the Others could be using video surveillance cameras in the hatch –it occurred to me all the people the woman requested Michael to bring have spent significant time in the Hatch. However, this doesn’t explain how the Others knew which survivors they were capturing from the tail section group. All signs seem to lead back to the fact that The Others already knew who these passengers were before they even boarded the plane. It’s also apparent that the Others are much more high tech than they appear to be. I’m curious as to where their actual headquarters is. Is it in another hatch? Is it on another island? When Walt was brought into the tent, he said something along the lines of, “They’re not who they say they are” or “They’re not what they seem” so clearly the theory of the Others as some larger conspiracy has now been officially solidified. But if The Others really are just a bunch of scientists playing dress up, what’s the point? To play mind games with the survivors so they can observe their responses? I’m still holding out for the idea that some of the Others (such as Alex, Rousseau’s daughter, and maybe even Henry Gale) have been coerced into the group against their will.

On a brief aside, Sayid is the man. I love that he was the one that picked up that Michael was not acting himself. I can’t wait to see how this whole scenario plans out between Michael, the Others, and the survivors. There’s also the matter of the sail boat that comes to shore at the very end of the episode. My guess is that it’s going to be empty, but the survivors find some sort of momentous clue on there which tips them off to the bigger Others conspiracy.

I’m very much looking forward to the season finale of this show. Last year’s finale was terrific, and there’s a tremendous amount of hype that this finale is going to top it and more. I will say this though. I have a really funny feeling about the direction this show is going in. I smell some sort of multi-national corporate scam, and more and more I feel that all the survivors are connected by some piece of history shared by their parents/ancestors. I really hope it doesn’t turn out to be just a geo-political conspiracy though. Last week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly had the LOST cast members on the cover and did a huge expose on the show. They mentioned a common rumor in the feature article that the head exec over at ABC discourages the writers from playing up the sci-fi elements in the show. If it is true, it’s a pretty odd thing to do, considering that the show draws pretty heavily from the science fiction genre. I’ve always been more interested in the episodes that incorporate the mysterious and fantastical over those that played more like an hour of straight drama. I am dying to know how all this Hanso Foundation and Dharma Initiative stuff ties up, I just hope these boys can pull it off.

Bye Bye West Wing

2006-05-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched the West Wing Finale, which aired this past Sunday night. The show ran for seven good long years, and spanned the two term fictitious presidency of Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen). The last two seasons also delved into the presidential election and saw it through from primaries to inauguration.

West Wing was one of those rare shows that had about as good a run as a TV show can hope for. It had several sustained quality years, but wasn’t dragged in the dirt like many a respectable show because the network didn’t try to suck as much mileage out of it as possible. Granted, some of this was due to the fact that logistically it wouldn’t have been believable to extend the Bartlet presidency. But in theory, they could have continued on with Matt Santos as president. That however, would have been a mistake, and I’m glad they didn’t go there.

Many people wrote off the show a couple years back when creator Aaron Sorkin left to go work on other endeavors. But I stuck around to watch the last two seasons, and I’m glad I did. Yes, the show morphed a bit, but not in a negative way, and the quality did not decline. The fast paced dialogue and quick wit of the characters remained, and I thought it was fascinating to watch the campaign trails of Matthew Santos and Arnold Vinick unfold. Say what you will about the insidious politics spouted by the show, but I thought they created a real and sympathetic character out of Republican candidate Arnold Vinick.

I can understand why West Wing wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, particularly if one’s political viewpoints did not align with those espoused by the administration depicted on the show. But I think the show surpassed any limits its political tone might have implied by creating something of outstanding quality. Week after week it presented intelligent, well written, well acted episodes, that raised the bar for network television. The show succeeded not only because it presented important and interesting issues in a polished manner, but because it had created a cast of memorable and dynamic characters. Bartlet and his family, CJ Craig, Josh Lyman, Toby Ziegler, Leo McGarry (John Spencer RIP), and on and on. They also consistently brought on fresh faces with interesting stories behind them, like Janeane Garofolo or Mary Louise Parker for instance. The show was able to sustain itself for as long as it did because it creating compelling characters that had unique relationships with one another.

Even though I know it was West Wing’s time to go, I will still miss it. There’s not exactly an excess of smart television out there, and The West Wing leaves some big shoes to be filled.

Oh Poor Poseidon

2006-05-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Poseidon only brought in $20 Million at the box office this weekend, not too pretty considering it had a budget in the range of $150 Million. It didn’t even make the number one spot, and was surpassed by MI3 in its sophomore session. People have been mocking Poseidon for weeks now, maybe pun upon pun and predicting the depths that the disaster action flick would sink to on its opening weekend. I for one had no real expectations about the film. OK, I mean I had seen the trailer , so I knew it was going to be goofy. But it’s been years since I’ve seen the original The Poseidon Adventure, and I only had vague recollections of the 1972 picture going into the remake.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, and missed the trailers, the concept couldn’t be simpler. A large ocean cruise liner capsizes in the middle of the ocean. A few survivors band together and make their way through the ship, as they attempt to escape through the top of the boat. (The boat has flipped, so the bottom is now on top, etc.) The cast of characters is a rag tag group of people from all walks of life. There is Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell), a former firefighter and New York City mayor. His daughter Jennifer, (Emmy Rossum, the lead in the feature film version of The Phantom of the Opera), has just gotten engaged to her boyfriend, Christian (Mike Vogel), much to the chagrin of her overprotective father. Richard Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), an architect, who has just been dumped by his long term life partner, which renders him fairly weepy for most of the film. Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas), a former Navy officer who is “only in it for himself”. There’s also Maggie (Jacinda Barrett, that’s right, cast member of Real World London), a young single mother travelling with her ten year old son, Conor (Jimmy Bennett) and Elena Gonzalez (Mia Maestro), a funky Hispanic girl who is on her way to New York to visit her brother in the hospital. There are even a couple more, but I can’t bear to rattle anymore off. Actually I can manage just one more. Fergie of Black Eyed Peas fame, made a cameo of terrifying proportions. For those of you who are dubious about going to check this one out, it might be worth a rental just for that.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that character development was kept to a minimum, and the emotional moments in the film were played up extravagantly to make up for the fact they tentatively came out of no where. There was a lot of furniture chewing going on here. The Visual FX were a mixed bag. Every piece of exterior scenery in this entire film was done with CGI, it was all shot on sets and green screen. So the sky, the water, the clouds and the exterior of the boat were all animated. The seams were definitely visible at the beginning of the film, when the boat was cruising through the ocean in daylight. Luckily, night fell pretty quickly, and the interiors of the boat, which were shot on a sound stage, looked decent. The sequence of the boat over turning had some mildly entertaining moments, and I thought the FX of the Poseidon under water didn’t look half bad.

Here’s the thing about Poseidon. This was not, by any stretch of the imagination a good film. But it wasn’t that bad either. It was what I like to call a benign blockbuster. I didn’t hate this movie. I was bored at times, and laughed inappropriately at others, but out of the last couple years of summer doozies, this was not the worst by far. There just wasn’t a lot to hate. Poseidon was straightforward in its presentation, it didn’t pretend to be anything that it wasn’t. There were probably only about ten minutes of movie before the “rouge wave” came around and knocked the cruise liner ass over tea kettle. What followed was a series of action set pieces. The survivors crossing an elevator shaft on a piece of sheet metal. The survivors traversing the width of a humongous ballroom on a makeshift zip line. The survivors battling fiery explosions and rushing water at every turn. Of course not everyone makes it out alive, after all it is a disaster movie. But as suspected, a good number do survive and are happily rescued.

You can hate a film like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because if took a brilliant concept and botched it royally. You can hate Van Helsing because it was bloated and tried to created complications where there didn’t need to be any (I defy anyone who says they can explain the plot of that film in a cohesive fashion). You can hate Planet of the Apes because it defiled the original classic film. But you can’t really hate Poseidon for just being. Sure the original was better, but it wasn’t an unforgettable film. And we’re talking about a disaster movie here, one of the most unpretentious, what you see is what you get sub-genres in Hollywood. Think of Poseidon’s peers; Armageddon, Deep Impact, Volcano, Dante’s Peak, Earthquake, Twister, etc. I mean none of these films are exactly mind blowing feats of cinema.

To those people who have been decrying Poseidon’s name for weeks on end, I ask, what did you expect?

Friday Funny

2006-05-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure exactly why this makes me laugh. But it does.

The New Yorker proclaims today LOST Theory Day

2006-05-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Still not sure quite what to make of last night’s LOST. I could bellyache about how I wasn’t satisfied with Mr. Eko’s flashback, or complain that I thought that the pacing was too slow, but I have bigger fish to fry. Last night’s episode had some startling and perplexing implications about the larger mythology, and I'm in the mood to theorize.

Mr. Eko goes to visit the family of the daughter who has been miraculously revived, and has a conversation with the girl’s father, who also happens to be Claire’s psychic. Last season’s episode “Raised by Another” was one of the creepiest episodes aired to date. The insistence of the sinister psychic that Claire’s baby must not fall into the hands of “others,” and that she must raise it herself was unsettling to say the least. His sudden change of heart and urgency that she get on a plane to give her baby up in America, was disturbing when considering that the psychic foresaw the plane crash. As it turned out, she would be the one to care for the baby, which is what he had argued for in the first place. But last night when the psychic spoke to Mr. Eko, he confessed that he was a fraud, and much to the chagrin of his wife, fabricated his psychic readings.

There are a few different possibilities here.

1) The psychic didn’t know what he was talking about when he told Claire that if her baby fell into the wrong hands it could be disastrous. He told her that to frighten her, and then since he’s an unsavory character, he lined up some buyers for the baby in America, and was somehow going to get a back end fee for setting up Claire’s baby with the couple in the U.S. The fact that the plane crashed and the baby’s well being would later be endangered was all a coincidence. This is my least favorite possibility. The eerie premonition of the baby’s importance is completely deflated if it was all just some mumbo jumbo spouted by a second rate faux psychic. I suppose there is an argument to be made that there’s something still significant about the role that fate played in Claire’s trajectory. The psychic actually wasn’t a psychic, and didn’t know about the plane crash, but his suspicious actions led her to the island at any rate.

2) The psychic was lying when he told Mr. Eko he was a fraud. This, however, doesn’t seem like a viable possibility. There was no impetus for him to bring up his profession at all, no reason for him to lay himself out on the line to a priest he had just met. His confession of disbelief in miracles seemed like a genuine reflection of his regard for “otherworldly” matters.

3) The psychic does in fact have the gift of sight, but he does understand it or believe it, and chooses to be cynical about his abilities, chalking them up to lucky guessing and coincidence.

Whatever the case may be, this scene laid to waste the crux of a solid episode from last season. I like it when inexplicable and potentially supernatural elements converge via the survivors on the island. Claire’s baby has a loaded future, Walt has special powers, Locke was miraculously healed, people continue to have visions on the island, etc. But now more than ever the show seems to be leaning towards a more specific scientific reasoning for everything, which I find remiss because I liked the whole “magic island” feel.

Also in this episode, Mr. Eko and Locke discover the pearl station, another piece in the Dharma Initiative puzzle. There, the two men discovered a monitoring station which had active video surveillance of “The Hatch” and another Orientation video. The video, much like the first one found by Eko earlier in the season, detailed the tasks to be fulfilled at the Pearl station. The men on duty are meant to record what they saw in the hatch in simple logs and then send them (via messenger tubes) to a central command of sorts. The video instructions did not give much explanation for the purpose of their duties, only that they must be completed. To complicate things, the station looked empty and unused, as if no one had been working there for years.

Here are some of my theories.

1)The island was once the sight of some grand scientific experiment perhaps funded by the Hanso Foundation that went awry. The leaders of the Others were once the executors of the experiments, but after “the accident”, they run wild and crazed through the jungle. They have now also absorbed the former test subjects into their group, and order them to do their bidding. So contrary to what I’ve said before (but in agreement with certain talk backers here) the Others are in fact comprised of two groups of people. Those who used to run the Dharma Initiative, and those who were the Guinea pigs. Just what this terrible event was, I’m not sure, but it might be that they lost control of the elements they were trying to harness such as the electro-magnetic forces and the biological components.

2) The experiment is on going. The Dharma Initiative is bogus, and the pearl station was nothing more than a staging prop, something to make the survivors believe that they are at the site of a failed testing ground. The orientation video tapes and equipment were purpose planted with the intention of being found. The Others are all just actors who use costumes (see fake beard) and technology to manipulate the survivors into thinking there is some rhyme or reason to the things that they find on the island. Everything is a part of the facade, the Black Rock, the Hatches, even Rousseau is cahoots with them. They even kidnapped Claire knowing that she would eventually have flashbacks and remember exactly what they wanted her to remember. This is why the medical hatch was abandoned when Claire, Kate and Rousseau went back to it. It was nothing more than a fake set. The coincidences and connections among the survivors exist because…well, I’m not exactly how that would fit into it. Maybe they are all unique in some way, or are drawn to each other for a certain reason. Maybe it’s a six degrees of separation thing, or maybe their ancestors were all involved in some crazy WWII scheme, who knows. I’m not sure how I feel about the experiment within an experiment thing however. If one was conducting a behavioral study on humans in an enclosed environment, why would the cover up be so close to the actual truth? It could be considered reverse psychology, but I’m not sure.

That’s all I got for today. Anyone have a better idea?

The New Yorker makes a bashful confession

2006-05-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Moments after mocking a fellow geek and friend, I purchased Bad Twin , the LOST tie in novel released this month. Written by fictional author Gary Troup, who was on Oceanic Flight 815, the book is the published incarnation of the manuscript that Sawyer was reading in last week's episode. Hopefully, the book will include the last pages of the novel, where as Jack threw the last few pages of the manuscript into the fire to get Sawyer’s attention.

This is a little embarrassing I know, and I shouldn’t be falling for it, but I just can’t help myself. The novel, which seems to be a noir pot boiler, must surely contain some sort of clues or thematic links to upcoming events in the TV show. What I want to know is, who is the poor schlub that had to crank out this 256 page mystery and not get any of the credit for it?

Oh who am I trying to kid, I would have taken the job in a second…

Full Length Lady in the Water

2006-05-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was alerted yesterday by a cohort of mine, that the full length trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s next film, Lady in the Water has hit the internet.

I’ve been dubious of this project since I first blogged about it, over a year ago. The teaser for this thing was a geniune head scratcher, but after catching more glimpses of the film, my uncertainty has been replaced by genuine curiosity.

I will say this, the new longer trailer makes the film look far more promising that the initial teaser did. Shyamalan has always had a way with the camera, and there are a couple of shots in here that are stunning. The overhead shot of the swimming pool at night is terrifying, and I also love the later overhead shot with the tenants standing around it. (If you pause your quicktime and use your arrows to scroll through the frames in slo mo, there is something white in the water….mayhaps the lady!) I was intrigued when Paul Giamatti’s character was shown finding the circular portal while under water. I’m fond of the idea of a doorway to another world resting at the bottom of a swimming pool in a dreary apartment complex. Also Bryce Dallas Howard, who I thought was quite good in The Village, seems like a near perfect casting choice for the sea nymph role here. She has this eerie haunting beauty that makes her look other worldly. As for Giamatti, this isn’t exactly his typical sort of movie he always puts in a good performance. It’ll be interesting to see him in a genre piece.

What I’m not so sure about are those creatures that threaten the sea nymph and her people. Are they actual wolves or fairy tale monsters? Or maybe it’s just some of the neighborhood kids running around in furry costumes and scaring people in an attempt to keep their community intact. (I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

Beyond whether or not the conflict of the story in LITW will work, the more important issue lie in how it will affect Shyamalan’s reputation as a film maker. I have a tremendous amount of respect for this man and his work. Besides Sixth Sense, which was universally lauded and loved, I was a big fan of both Unbreakable and Signs. But Shyamalan’s popularity seems to have faded as his films have gone on and took a sharp plummet after The Village. (Many hated The Village, I wasn’t one of those people, I thought it was misguided but OK) It seems that LITW will seal his fate. I’m almost as curious as to what the general audience reaction will be as I am to see the movie itself.

The real looming question here is, will there be a twist ending? It is Shyamalan’s wacky twist endings that have become his signature trademark over the years. All of his recent works, with arguably the exception of Signs, have had a big reveal at the end. But what was once considered genius (in Sixth Sense) became perceived as a gimmick (The Village). I think the biggest surprise Shyamalan could give his fans here is to forgo his traditional ending, and rely solely on his masterful storytelling.

Summer Is Here: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3

2006-05-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

As I giddily walked into the Cinerama Dome this weekend with my compatriots, I felt ready and eager to start the summer movie season. It's not that I was dying to see Mission Impossible 3. It's that I was dying to celebrate the kickoff of my favorite movie time of the year. Most people count off the days on their calendar till the fall and winter arrives, when the "award" films start hitting the theatres, but not I. I await with baited breath for the first big blockbuster in May to signal the slew of monsters, car chases, and super powers that are unleashed by the studios every year without fail. Every summer promises to be bigger than the last, and though that that's not always necessarily the case, it's always fun to suss out the line up and hope for the best. As an adult, summer movies are one of the last things we can cling to that reek of childhood. Gone are the last days of school, and the sweet sensation of finishing your last final and walking out into that warm summer air. Lining up on the street each balmy Friday night of summer and munching on popcorn reminds of being a kid again. We all need that escape from the drudgery filled reality of our lives.But enough sentimentality, and onto the movie. I walked into MI3 with mixed expectations. I liked the first one, but couldn't abide the second one. I thought the trailer was well done, and I'm a big fan of JJ Abrams, but I still wasn't convinced that the movie was going to be any better than bearable.

I was pleasantly surprised. MI3 had great action sequences, a fun cast, and cool spy gear. I realize I'm not talking about anything to revolutionary here, and while I do believe that summer movies CAN have depth, MI3 wasn't one of them. But that was OK by me, because I think it completely succeeded in its endeavors.

The movie goes something like this. IMF employee Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is engaged to Julia (Michelle Monaghan), a lovely nurse. Ethan no longer goes out on missions, and chooses to train new faces instead. When his superior, John Musgrave (Billy Cruddup) asks him to go on a mission to rescue junior agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russel), Ethan agrees against his better judgement. Ethan teams up with his old buddy Luther (Ving Rhames), and attractive newbies, Declan (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and Zhen (Maggie Q). Together they travel to Berlin where Lindsey has been abducted by master mind black market criminal, Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Their rescue mission doesn't go as planned, and when the team returns to IMF headquarters, Ethan does a little research on Davian. With the help of tech guru, Benji (Simon Pegg) Ethan learns that Davian is about to acquire a top secret piece of merchandise known as the rabbit's foot. Ethan and his crew head back over seas, this time to Rome, where they intend to capture Davian and acquire the rabbit's foot. Ethan conducts these operations without the knowledge and approval of IMF head, John Brassel (Laurence Fishburne). The rest of the movie tracks Ethan and co. as they chase Davian and the rabbit's foot. Along the way, Davian kidnaps Julia, and the stakes are raised, as her life is now added to the equation.

First off, did anyone notice the INSANE cast list I just rattled off? The most impressive element of this movie might just be the fact that Abrams corralled all these different actors under one title. I enjoyed the diversity of the casting, but at times couldn't help but notice the looming spectre of globalization, as Asian super star Maggie Q fired guns next to UK film star Johnathan Rhys-Myers, and so on. Still, I'm not complaining, I enjoyed the myriad of hot shots, and it was nice to see Abrams bring in some of his old standbys like Keri Russel and even Greg Grunberg for a lil cameo. Everyone put in a solid performance, which comprised mostly of looking really suave, and even Cruise, who wears a little thin recently, delivered. Actually my favorite description of his performance was written by Todd McCarthy of Variety, who put it brilliantly when he said Cruise was "determined to give a persuasive human impersonation of a Ferrari." I really couldn't have said it any better myself.

The thing about this movie was, there wasn't really much of a story. It was just a series of missions attempting to retrieve someone or something. The first mission was to bring back Agent Farris, the second was to arrest Davian, and the third was to rescue Julia. The issue of the rabbit's foot was secondary, because even though it was a necessary plot mechanism we never find out what it is, or what it's remotely about. Not only does the rabbit's foot remain a mystery, but Davian as a villain, remains pretty vague and ambiguous; he's a "bad guy" in the broadest sense of the term. We learn early on that he traffics in information and illegal goods with subversive foreign governments. Davian is sadistic, he enjoys torturing people, and does not value human life, but his ultimate goals remain evasive. Does he want to take over the world? Infect the human population with a deadly virus? Or does he just enjoy crime for the thrill of it, and to maintain a luxurious lifestyle. I think the filmmakers were trying to say that it doesn't matter, and that any explanation would sound ridiculous, so why not for go it. Still, while it was fun watching Phillip Seymour Hoffman take on a role like this, I would have liked to see him have a little more to work with.

The script was definitely on the lighter side, as in not too much dialogue. There was a lot of action, A LOT. My favorite part of the film was when Ethan and Co. broke into the Vatican to snag Davian. I enjoyed watching the agents use their high tech gadgetry in heist like scenarios, more than the machine guns firing into an explosive abyss. Don't get me wrong, the first action sequence in Berlin was incredible, both the stuff on the ground and in the air. But by the time the highway sequence rolled around, with the missile launchers and overturned SUV's, I was starting the flinch a little bit. The style of this action sequence in particular that one, was very harsh. It had that shaky hand held camera work, crazy angles, and mile a minute cuts. You blink and you loose about a thousand frames. The gritty filters and constant movement was too much even for me at times, and I'm normally not sensitive to that sort of thing. I also found the base jumping from the tippy tops of Shanghai sky scrapers preferable over the blitzkrieg of gunfire.

I liked this movie. It's hard not to smile when you see Cruise and co. in their best Armani sunglasses coasting on a motor boat in Rome; it inevitably emotes "cool". There was a nice light hearted feel to much of the film, and even some humor, provided primarily by Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg. JJ Abrams did a fine job directing the film, both in capturing the right attitudes from his stars, and choreographing visual sequences. But I didn't love this movie, because there wasn't much to love. The heart of MI3, which was meant to be Ethan's love for his fiance/wife Julia, served to sell the action in the movie, but wasn't dimensional enough to make him a true protagonist. Action movies, like any movie, can have emotionally resonant moments: think Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Those felt like movies about actual people. MI3 though quite enjoyable, felt like a movie about celebrities and explosions.

Of course a little FX driven escapism never hurt anyone, and I think it was a pretty good kickoff to the summer movie fair. Mmmm, I can smell the cotton candy in the air already…

Lucas Redeemed!!

2006-05-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

I just read an article on MSNBC this morning announcing that the original three Star Wars films are to be released on DVD in their original formats! That means no special edition hoo haa! Hooray!

Goodbye wormy looking baby Jabba, farewell Gredo shooting first, and welcome back original Jub-Jub ewok ending. I am thrilled beyond words. Up until now I’ve had to get by on DVD burns of the original laser disc editions that a friend of mine got off Ebay. The quality was passable, but it was disappointing to go without the original DVD cover art and special features. For a long time I held out and refused to buy the Star Wars Special Edition DVD box set when it was released in the fall of 2004. Finally this year, I received it as a gift, and resigned myself to the fact that the original films were never to be released in my lifetime. Others may have suspected that this was not true, but I had lost all hope. Lucas made it very clear that he held the final answer in the matter, and that he wasn’t about to budge

Some may complain that this is just another ploy on behalf of Lucasfilm to make more money, but I disagree. I think that finally things are being handled as they should have been all along. Whether or not the Special Editions should have ever been made is a separate issue. Now that the Special Editions do exist, it is only fair and just that both editions be availible to the public.

For me, the moments I’ll be most happy to see in crystal clear DVD format are the original songs of Jedi. The original tune that the band play’s in Jabba’s palace is way better than the loopy, pyschotically upbeat song that replaced it. The rousing Ewok song at the celebration in the end is also far better than the new age laser rock of the S.E. I’ll also be pleased to see Sebastian Shaw’s kindly spectral face next to Obi-Wan, as opposed to Hayden Christenson. I never understood why he changed that.

HUGE LOST! (spoilers)

2006-05-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last night’s episode of LOST had some crazy stuff happening all around. Michael resurfacing from the Jungle. Henry Gale leaking out more information about his people and his “mission.” Ana Lucia’s flashback revealing that she spent some QT with Jack’s father. Ana Lucia and Sawyer getting it on (oo la la), and of course the grande finale where all hell broke loose in the hatch.

First, a look back on Michelle Rodrguez’s character, Ana Lucia. When the episode started and I realized it was going to be another flashback for her I was excited. I know I’m in the minority here, but I liked this character. She was something new and different, a female, hispanic cop with an attitude. I know a lot of people felt that she was very one note, and just angry and tough all of the time. But I think that last night more than ever, revealed that she had a heart and soul and wasn’t just programmed to be tough 100% percent of the time. In particular, I liked unlike Kate, who’s painted as being a saint even though she’s done some terrible things, --Ana Lucia’s nature was dealt with in a frank fashion. Yes, she had done some bad things, and made mistakes, but she didn’t put on a sweet face at every turn. With her it was what you see is what you get.

Now as for the whole coincidence of her meeting up with Jack’s father and jaunting off to Austrailia, --I wasn’t that crazy about it. Yes, there was a neat parallel about the fact that Ana met Jack in a similar fashion to the way she met his father –at an airpot bar. But it was a bit of a stretch that “Tom” would ask her to come to Australia to be his body guard. It would seem more likely that a man of his age and situation would be more interested in having a fling from her, than seeking “protection”. Though the fact is he was probably just lonely and wanted some company, it was still an odd way to frame it. From an abstract perspective, I like the idea of two lost souls travelling to Australia to drown their sorrows, (after all Australia is historically THE place to start a new life). But if didn’t exactly make for a very exciting or action packed flashback. I do think the coincidences are getting totally out of hand at this point. I mean the tidbit where Jack’s dad opens the car door onto Sawyer was just too much –I nearly laughed out loud.
They’re going over the top with these connections and I find myself more and more suspicious of the reasoning for all of it.

Alright, onto Henry Gale; he alluded to some interesting things this episode. He seemed to know all about Ana Lucia and Goodwin, the Other that Ana had killed. The question is how? Do the Others have some sort of advanced surveillance system (maybe the black smoke) that watches all of the survivors all of the time? What’s more is, Gale implied that the Others had passed some sort of moral judgements on her and the other survivors. Ana is a bad one, and Locke is a good one. Could this be true, or was this just Gale playing more mind games with everyone? Locke made a good point when he asked Gale why he tried to kill Ana Lucia, but he didn’t kill or hurt him when he had the chance. I was also curious about Gale’s apparent mission to bring Locke back. Locke has certainly had a strong connection with the island and it seems the Others might know about it. The idea that the Others are watching them, and seem to know and document their behavior, certainly adds a lot of creedence to the whole “experiment” theory. Did anyone catch the commercial for the Hanso Foundation? I had to rewind my TiVo to catch it, and I didn’t call the number, but check out the website . Lengthening life expecatancy? Studies on exotic animals and mental illness? Curing detrimental diseases? It’s all leading to some unveiling of a science project with a grand design.

As for the big shoot out at the end, I must confess, I didn’t see it coming. When Michael came out of his “sleep”, he seemed frazzled and disoriented, but certainly not furtive, let alone psychotic. I bought what he said about the Others having minimal living standards, and few weapons. But now that we know he’s got a screw loose, who knows how much of what he revealed about the Others is true. Is he setting up all the survivors for a big trap? And this is the other thing, why exactly did Michael kill Ana and Libby. It seems to be the general consensus that he only killed Libby because he was startled, and initially he only meant to kill Ana. Did he strike up a bargain with the others? Did they tell him if he let Henry Gale free they would give back Walt.? But if that were the case, he wouldn’t necessarily need to have killed Ana –he could have just knocked her out, or waited until the Hatch was empty. Maybe it was that the Others wanted specific revenge on Ana for killing Goodwin. This is the other thing, it’s sort of interesting that the two actresses who have recently had some trouble with the law , were the ones who’s characters were eliminated last night. Definitely all food for thought.

There is of course, also the issue of the “sickness” which Rousseau has referred to oft. In the past she has claimed that all her fellow crew members became “infected” and killed one another. Is it possible that Michael has gotten sick, and if so is it a biological virus, or psychological decompensation? I was a bit annoyed that they showed Michael alive and well in the scenes for next week’s episode. It would have been much more a cliffhanger if we were unsure that he had made it as they fade out just as he shoots himself. We can only assume that Henry Gale is now either gone or dead. My gut instinct was that Michael killed him, on order by the Others to make sure no more information gets leaked out. But on second thought if Michael was fufilling his part of the deal on behalf of the Others, it was more likely that he set Henry free.

Holy Hijinx Batman, the new Superman trailer is up!!

2006-05-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ok. Must control breathing….must type out words….

Just finished watching the full length Superman Returns trailer , that was posted on Apple Trailers today.

It is without a doubt, amazing. I thought the teaser was incredible, with its majestic images, flashbulb storytelling, and original Marlon Brando voice over, but the trailer surpasses it. The teaser’s quick cuts lured us to the edges of Superman’s world, and touched upon pivotal moments of his character. The trailer gave a complete vision of what this world would be like.

First of all –Lex Luthor. Kevin Spacey looked just the part with his shaved, polished head and smug smile. I still think it will be near impossible to surpass Gene Hackman’s performance from the original Richard Donner film. Hackman’s zealous characterization of the villain was unforgettable, and his comedic repor with Ned Beatty’s, Otis was hilarious. Still it seems like Spacey’s Lex is going to be just as spunky and smart alecky –the scene where he tells Lois to repeat what she said is cute. As with Lex Luthor’s role in the ’78 version, --no one will ever be able to trump Jackie Cooper as newspaper boss, Perry White, --he was just too perfect. But I trust Frank Langella will do a good job –I like his delivery of dialogue in the trailer, and I thought he put in a solid performance in a similar role as William Paley in Good Night, and Good Luck. Even Kate Bosworth, who normally doesn’t strike my fancy, puts forth a sweet, almost bookish Lois Lane. I like that they stuck to Lois’ originally brunette coif, and conservative outfits. I had no idea that Lane’s subplot involved her getting married and having a kid, but I think its definitely an interesting way to go, so long as they steer clear of a lot of goofy kid jokes. As for Brandon Routh. He couldn’t look more the part. It’s almost eerie how closely he channels Christopher Reeve from the original films. Routh has piercing eyes and a handsome face, but only time will tell if he’s really got the acting chops to make the performance resonate. I’m certainly hopeful from the glimpses of his expressive features in the trailer that he will be able to cut the mustard.

The camera work and VFX for this film are artistically done, it ‘s all very impressive stuff. The shot of Superman hovering above earth in space, with his cap fluttering into the darkness is gorgeous. The framing of the shot takes the sensibility of a comic book panel and gives it a cinematic twist. Clark Kent’s giant leap into the lush green cornfields, is equally stunning. The flying looks great, and I love the dark hushed art deco flair of the buildings in Metropolis. That shot of the people standing in the street and looking up at the sky, which was in the teaser, still gets me everytime. The shot Superman and Lois floating up in front of the revolving Daily Planet globe is very fetching. I love that they are keeping the original John Williams theme, though Williams himself did not score Superman Returns, and I’m curious to see, or rather hear, what the composer decided to do for the rest of the film. Luthor’s ship on the water looks a little off, but the sequence with the Superman and the fierly plane among the clouds is bound to be memorable.

As far as trailers go, I thought this one was really sleekily done. The editing, the timing of the music, and the shots. It was all pitch perfect. Spiderman 2 still remains my favorite of the recent comic superhero films but based off this trailer, I think Supes might give Spidey a bit of a run for his money…

I am REALLY excited for this movie. Fifty nine days and counting!!

Sopranos Hits Its Stride

2006-05-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t so long ago that I was bellyaching about the slow, strange pace of The Sopranos this season. It wasn’t really until the fifth episode, “Mr. and Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request” that things started to get interesting for me. Tony was released from the boredom of his bizarre coma world and began to face the reality of the power vaccum that had been created in his absence. The disintegration of Johnny Sac’s image coupled with Tony’s own fears about his personal weakness made for an important and compelling episode. Of course the biggest event of the episode was the run in between Vito and a couple mobsters at a gay club. I thought the episode was good, but portions of it dragged a bit; still I felt hopeful about the future of the season.

The sixth episode “Live Free or Die” continued to give us a payoff after a season and a half worth of build up on Vito’s secret. The Vito subplot really exhibits the power and cleverness of the Sopranos writers. I for one, am putty in their hands when it comes to their portrayal of characters. I never really liked Vito before this season, most likely because the writers didn’t want me too. He was made to look like a mean spirited, sneaky guy who would kill family if necessary and stab his boss in the back. Even when they threw in the seed for Vito’s preferences last season, it still wasn’t in the context of making him a sympathetic character. A few episodes back he was plotting ways to sneak extra money while Tony was in the hospital. But somehow in episode six, Live Free or Die, I suddenly found myself rooting for Vito. Once outed, Vito was in a very compromising position, and this added a dimension of vulnerability and despair to his character. Whereas two weeks ago I wanted to kick him for trying to withhold collection money from Carmella, I was now suddenly hoping that he could find peace and quiet in the New Hampshire countryside. There was something strangely touching about watching him discover what life could be like if he lived in a more tolerant community.

Last week’s episode “The Luxury Lounge” had some great scenes, but was a mixed bag for me. I loved the plot with Artie, in part because I just think he’s a great character, and I like that he’s been around since the beginning of the show. Artie is such a melodramatic and tortured guy, and yet he’s a chef at a resturant, not a mob boss. He has such a unique relationship with Tony, and the juxtapositions and collisions of their two worlds are often humorous and even poignant at times. I also like Benny’s character, played by good old Max Casella, who I will forever associate with Doogie Howser, Ed Wood, and of course Newsies. (By the way, while googling Casella, I came across some Newsies fan fiction …who knew?) The conflict between Benny and Artie played out unexpectedly; I really thought Artie was going off the deep end when he went to Benny’s house to confront him about the credit card scam. Yet again Tony intervened to save Artie, but I’m curious to see how this new tension resolves itself in the future. The portion of the episode that I wasn’t crazy about was Christopher’s “business” trip to LA. Sometimes when the Sopranos go to Hollywood it’s fun and funny, but at other times it’s forced and smug. I thought this episode was one of those latter occasions. It was funny to see Christopher foisted onto Ben Kingsley with his pitch, but the idea of the luxury lounge itself seemed pointless. Sure, rich people get all sorts of things for free, and it’s a bit ridiculous and annoying, but what did that have to do with anything? Christopher’s enthusiam for the merchandise handed out was curious because one would assume he could nab any of those fancy watches or fashionable sunglasses when they fell off the back of the truck. The scenes of Christopher in LA, were surely meant to show that his addiction problem was on the rise again and to plant the seeds of conflict between his mob business and movie business. But by the fourth time he had an awkward run in with Ben Kingsley it got a little old. A good episode, but I wasn’t enthralled by it.

Last night’s episode “Johnny Cakes” was the best episode of the season by far, and in my mind, the strongest in quite some time. There were so many elements coming into play here, so many vital moments and decisions for characters and themes woven in with each other seamlessly. First off, I loved the underlying motif of globalization that ran through the entire episode. The scene with the men from Tony’s crew in the would be Starbuck’s and the issue of the Jamba Juice buyout were great because they reflected not only the current changes in our society, but the way that these changes might affect the mafia. After all the mob could be considered one of the oldest mom and pop institutions around. Throughout the episode Tony was faced with a bevy of important decisions, critical to the direction of his character. The fact that he walked out on Julianna, the real estate beauty, was huge. Never in the history of The Sopranos, has Tony’s conscious really kicked in over his perpetual unfaithfulness to Carmella. Sure he’s felt some guilt in the past, but it’s never stopped him from acting on his impulses. The temptations for Tony in this episode were neatly layered over one another. He had the choice of cheating on Carmella, and forgetting not only his marriage vows but all the recent outpouring of love and support she has given him; he chose not to. But Tony didn’t get away completely clean. When faced with the choice, by the same woman, to give up part of the culture and heritage of his neighborhood for some extra cash, Tony was torn, but eventually gave in when the monetary compensation was great enough. Both these choices were ones that resonated with the very core of who Tony is. As he struggled with what was right and wrong, he also had to watch his son AJ do the same. In this episode we saw more of AJ’s tough guy posturing and rude antics, but we also saw the underbelly of what drives his behavior. It was interesting to see AJ at a club, meek and inexperienced, feeling that the only thing he had to trade on was his family name. His attempt to kill Junior was pathetic, but also sad, and the scene that followed in the parking lot after with Tony was moving. There they were, father and son standing in front of one another. AJ wanting to be like his father, and do right by him, but Tony wishing to eradicate the traces he saw of himself in his son. His desire for AJ to be a “nice guy” –not one immersed in the crime underworld was made tragic in the face of his realization that AJ probably would not be able to escape the lifestyle he, himself had led. Vito too, was faced with huge decisions, as he struggled with his identity, unsure of how to deal with his feelings for another man. The better things get for Vito, the more I clench my teeth, because it seems like an inevitablity that he if he does find true happiness, it will be only a matter of time before he is hunted down and killed by his former friends and associates.

Overall I thought it was a terrific episode, and it seems like things are really starting to get rolling for the grand finale.

More Marvel, More Superheros

2006-04-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

Today, The Hollywood Reporter posted an article about the huge new slate of superhero films that Marvel Films plans to churn out starting in 2008. This panoply includes, a sequel to the 2003 release of Hulk (which I thought Ang Lee turned into a visual stunner, even though everyone else on the planet seemed to hate it), an Iron Man film to be directed by Jon Favreau, an Ant Man film written by Edgar Wright (writer/director of Shaun of the Dead), and a Captain America film, among others.

I’m all for comic book movies, but I’m curious about how this pack of films will do in the near future. Like anything else in pop culture, superheros have waxed and waned over the decades. In ’78 when the original Superman was released, it was a huge hit, and spawned three sequels, which all declined in quality bit by bit after the first entry. Tim Burton’s Batman in ’89 launched the caped crusader craze which was to last through the 90’s before petering out in ’97 with the infamous Batman Forever. In 2000, the first of the nouveau superhero films hit with Bryan Singer’s X-Men, and since then it seems that a superhero cinema craze has hit like never before. This decade, I think in retrospect, will be known as the decade of the superhero. The past six years have seen three X-Men films, two Spiderman films, a Hulk film, a Punisher film, a Daredevil film, an Elektra film, a Fantastic Four film, and the revitalization of the Batman and Superman franchises. Not to mention the various sequels for these films that are already careening down the pipeline to a theatre near you. Soon to be releases include another Spiderman, another Batman, Wonderwoman, and now, the multi-picture barrage of films from Marvel.

It seems to me like it’s only a matter of time before the public gets burnt out on all this. There will be a superhero backlash as people tire of accidents involving radiation and hi-tech gadgets. Or will they? Are the basic components of the superhero genre so universal –so relatable, that they remain invincible? Even when the comic book/superhero movie market dies down, it only seems to do so for a couple of years before it starts up again. It’s true that people never seem to tire of the summer Hollywood blockbuster formula. But there’s also a certain “special” quality that I think is attached to this genre of films, an originality; dare I say magical at the risk of sounding foolishly sentimental. I would hate to see the superhero film become so ordinary and commonplace that it is as predictable and formulaic as your average studio romantic comedy or thriller. I’m sure many would argue it’s already too late for that, that the superhero film has been normalized into the swill of mediocrity that floats through our cineplexes. It’s true there have been some doozies. Fantastic Four and Daredevil, to name a couple, were both pretty dreadful. But the X-Men and Spiderman movies have managed to keep their heads above water, and at times achieve greatness (at least for now, knock on wood).

The films described in The H Reporter article make mention of some promising elements. In particular I like the description of the take on Captain America for the feature film:

"He's a Norman Rockwell character who is faced with today's America and is forced to look at his own past, things in the '40s that weren't necessarily what they were cracked up to be, and also how today's country may be different than it looks,"

I like the fact that they intend to imbue a character whose name implies blind optimism and nostalgic patriotism with some introspection about his own values. It’s things like that which differentiate the best of the superhero films from action films with elaborate costumes

But there are other pieces in the article which make me scratch my head a bit. For instance, when did Jon Favreau become the go-to Superhero/sci-fi director around town? Don’t get me wrong, I think the guy is a funny actor, and I thought Elf was cute, but now all of a sudden he’s directing John Carter of Mars, and Iron Man. Was it all that “buzz” from his last feature directorial effort, Zathura? I find that hard to believe because that movie, though not necessarily Favreau’s fault, was pretty bad. The Nick Fury film, will be adapted by screenwriter Andrew Marlow, who aso wrote Hollow Man and End of Days. Egads. I guess it’s good that Marvel is trying to bring in some fresh blood into the world of superhero films, who may incorporate the sensibilities from their other work into the adaptations. But I will say that after reading the article, it evoked an image of the Marvel films world as being a gigantic boy’s club; not a single female writer, director, or producer seemed to be involed in any of these films. Harumph. I for one think it would be interesting to see a woman's take on some of these iconic characters.

I’m sure I’ll see most if not all of these films when they’re released. That is if the superhero bubble hasn’t burst by ’08…

Silent Hill: A Quiet Disaster

2006-04-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

The film Silent Hill came in at the top spot of the box office this past weekend, grossing just over twenty million, exceding studio expectations. It preformed better than the last two recent horror outings, The Hills Have Eyes remake (which came in at #3 opening weekend with $15 mil) and Slither (which came it at #8 opening weekend with just under $4 mil). I didn’t see Slither, but I did see the Hills Have Eyes, and though no great masterpiece it was about a hundred times better than Silent Hill. I’m pretty baffled at how Silent Hill did so well among audiences. Granted, the film had a bit of a built in fan base, as it was based on the popular video game series. I read up on the original incarnation of Silent Hill, and it seems that it was widely regarded as one of the most disturbing and frightening horror video games on the market. Since the release of the first game in 1999, three sequals have followed, as well as graphic novels and comic books. Reviewers and fans alike have praised the “cinematic” qualities of the SH games and it was apparently only a matter time before it was adapted to a feature film.

It’s difficult to summarize the film, because, more so than other recent horror films, its convoluted mythology not only defies logic and reason, but spits in the face of even the quirkiest non-linear storytelling. In fact, Silent Hill is so inconsistent and bizarre, it lends itself more to the fantasy genre.

The film begins with a young girl, by the name of Sharon, having a sleep walking episode. She has run out into the dangerous wooded canyons behind her house, and her mother, Rose, and father Christopher race frantically to catch her before she hurts herself. They find her, just as she is about to leap off a precipice; in her sleep induced daze Sharon keeps muttering “Silent Hill, Silent Hill, mommy….” I knew from this point, that the film was not going to be particularly strong. The script had just steam rolled right over character development and set up and jumped right into a ridiculous scenario. Little did I know, just how bad things would get. Apparently this was not the first time Sharon had exhibited such strange behavior, and after the latest episode, Rose decides she must sneak off with Sharon, behind her husband’s back. Rose intends to take her daughter to, Silent Hill, an abandoned ghost town, where she hopes to uncover the mystery of the connection between the town and her disturbed daughter. On their way, Rose stops at a gas station, and a female cop becomes suspicious of Rose and Sharon (there is no real reason for this, she just does). The cop decides to follow them and they head towards the deserted road to Silent Hill. When the cop pulls her over for speeding, Rose is afraid she might foil her plan, and guns the accelator. When Rose sees something strange in the road, she swerves to avoid it, and looses control of the car, crashing it and loosing consciousness.

Already, nothing makes sense. If Rose really wanted to investigate an old ghost town because she thought it might hold the answers of her daughter’s fate, she wouldn’t need to bring her daughter with her, and certainly not at the dead of night. There is also no reason why a cop would be suspicious of a mother and daughter travellling together, nor logic behind Rose desperately running away from a cop the way she did. But all of this is just expository claptrap meant to get the pertinet players to the locale of Silent Hill. One would assume that once they get there, things would improve; perhaps there would even be a real story to follow, but this was not to be the case. When Rose wakes up in her car the next morning, the road and town are shrouded in fog. The flurries of snow that drift down to the street reveal themselves to be ashes. As Rose gets her bearings she realizes that Sharon is gone. The rest of the movie involves Rose trying to find her daughter who has disappeared into the deserted town of Silent Hill. The cop that was following Rose shows up a little while later and agrees to help find her daughter.

Silent Hill succeeds at creating a nightmarish landscape with startling visuals and an unsettling atmosphere. A good portion of the first half of the film has little to no dialogue, and just involves Rose running through gruesome locals in the town. The camera work evokes a video game style, and at times also strays into music video territory in that it relies solely on stark images and sound FX to set the mood and tell the story. Perhaps the most terrifying element of the film, are the periods of “darkness” when the town’s demons come out. Every couple of hours in Silent Hill, an air raid horn sounds, and the terrain of the town corrodes and changes. Everything gets dark and horrible monsters begin to roam the streets and buildings of the town. In particular, a demon with a huge black triange for a head, adds to the feeling of a hellish Alice in Wonderland. There were a few moments where I was just completely taken in by the visuals. One bizarre sequence towards the end of the film struck me in particular. Rose is heading to the basement to confront the demon about her daughter and has to pass through an army of faceless, contorted corpses that resembled female nurses. The monsters appeared to be frozen, but would begin to move the moment they were exposed to bright light. As Rose walked past them with her flashlight she had to inch past the wriggling ungodly creatures. It was creepy, but cool at the same time. Though these two minutes did little to justify the price of admission.

The moments of visual artistry, expertly created by director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf) remained blips on a radar screen of the boring and incomprehensible. The movie was long, about two hours worth, and with its paltry storyline felt even longer. While nothing of consequence happened in the plot during the first hour and fiften minutes, the last thirty minutes or so were jam packed with flashbacks and “now you’ll know the truth” monologues which drowned out any sort of pacing and atmosphere (albeit slow and uneventful) the movie had achieved.
I felt exhausted after I saw this movie. In part because it was too long, and in part because it was a struggle to make heads or tails of what was going on but mostly because to me Silent Hill is indicative of a larger problem. I would rather see a film devoid of any potential or style, which is just completely abysmal, that watch a potentially interesting concept and unique style be botched into oblivion. To me Silent Hill was just another one of these failed efforts, a film that might have been good, but ended up being really bad. It could be that there were too many cooks in the kitchen, or that the editing was mishandled, or that the script was constantly reworked until it made no sense. It may have hit the goldmine at the box office, but after the money’s raked in, I doubt we will hear from Silent Hill again. That is, until the sequel….

Star Trek is Back!

2006-04-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Oh thou Star Trek feature film, how I have missed thee. For many year thou provided us with solid sci-fi action adventure films that were at best entertaining and exciting, and at worst…., well sort of boring.

After the last ST film outing, Star Trek: Nemesis, I doubted if the film franchise would ever be resurrected. However, this morning, I read that Star Trek films will be making a comeback , this time helmed by J.J. Abrams, of Alias and Lost fame. The new film will apparently take place when the Kirk generation was in Starfleet academy, and will not use any of the cast members from the various TV series. This will be a first for Star Trek, which has always taken the crew members right off the bridges of their shows, and used them as the primary cast for the films. I have seen every Star Trek film, and frighteningly enough, most of them in the theatre. Shall we take a quick stroll down memory lane?

1) Star Trek: The Motion Picture 1979
I was an infant when this was released, but when I finally did see it, I almost fell asleep like a baby. It’s a classic in its own right, but it’s also kind of boring. I feel obliged to like this film more than anything else, simply because it was the first Star Trek film. I only have a vague working knowledge of the plot. Seems Kirk and the crew go on a very long, slow voyage to find some sort of destructive alien force. Doesn’t it turn out to be a satellite or something? Who knows.

2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn 1982
Considered to be the strongest film in the Star Trek franchise, this film uses a plot line and character from an Original Series episode. Kahn, an evil, crazy warlord who was banished to planet LB4-26 by Kirk years ago, resurfaces and takes revenge on Kirk and the enterprise for the suffering he endured during his exile. This film has many unforgettable moments, including, the worm burrowing it’s way through Chekov’s ear, Kirk yelling “KAHN!” at the top of his lungs, and the somber moment when Spock sacrifices himself for the ship saying “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Wrath of Kahn is probably as good as it will ever get in the world of the ST movies.

3) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 1984
I remember seeing this in the theatre and being thoroughly confused about how Spock, who I thought had died, was suddenly up and walking around as a teenager. All suspect plotting aside, while this movie is an odd numbered one, I think it is one of the most lambasted without reason. I actually have a huge soft spot for this movie, because I like that Kirk and his crew become outlaws and literally “steal the enterprise” to go find Spock on genesis. I like that McCoy is half in the bag for the whole movie, and Christopher Lloyd is awesome as the Klingon commander. “Get out!!!! Get out of there!!!!”

4) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home 1986
I remember lining up outside the theatre to see this on a Friday night with my Dad. Voyage Home is one of the most random and arbitrary entries in the franchise. It picks up right where the third film left off, where Kirk and crew are stuck in a Kingon Bird of Prey and trying to get back to earth. However, when they do, a giant probe begins to attack the planet. The Enterprise crew discover that the probe is sending signals to earth that are actually akin to those made by Humpback whales which have been extinct for years. The crew goes back in time to San Francisco in the 80’s to take two humpback whales back to the future so they can save the world! It’s absolutely insane, but the filmmakers pull it off because of how silly and lighthearted everything is throughout. It’s a comedy and a pretty enjoyable one at that.

5) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier 1989
I remember the day I saw this, I did a double feature, and saw it back to back with Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. This is probably my least favorite of all the ST films. They tried to retain some of the comedy of the fourth film, but it felt forced. I wasn’t buying into the whole Uhura and Scotty romance, and the general point of the film escaped me. They found God, only to have him die?

6) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 1991
Yup, I saw this one in the theatre too. This is another one of those ST films which is oft forgetten, but is one of the more solid of the bunch. This film has the feel of a political thriller, which I like. Kirk and company must try to stop a conspiracy that will hinder a treaty between the Klingons and the Federation. I thought Iman was a nice addition to the cast as an alien love interest to Kirk, and the finale at the Federation is well done too.

7) Star Trek VII: Generations 1994
This was one of the hugest releases in Star Trek motion picture history. I remember being incredibly excited about Generations, because I was such a huge fan of The Next Generation, and I was thrilled they were entering the movie franchise. In many ways this was a movie for the ultimate Star Trek nerd. It doesn’t get much bigger than Jean Luc Picard meeting up with James Tiberius Kirk. But as momentous as it was for the two men to chop wood together, and for Kirk to die, I still wasn’t sold on the movie. The concept of the Nexus “energy ribbon” was interesting, but not executed that well, and Malcom McDowell as the villain, chewed the furniture, but not in a good way.

8) Star trek VIII First Contact 1996
I actually missed this one in the theatre, not sure why –possible I was in my teenage nerd denial phase. At any rate, I have since seen it in a theatre, and it is fantastic. Picard and his crew are attacked by the Borg and discover that they intend to go back in time to stop an important historic event. It is the moment that a man named Cochran invents warp drive, and through his accomplishment leads to the first extra terrestrial contact between man and another race, in this case the Vulcans. The story is a clever fusion of a time travel caper, and a Borg take over plot, and the Queen Borg was a terrific villain. It is by far the best Star Trek movie done with the TNG crew.

9) Star Trek IX Insurrection 1998
I was back in the cushy theatre seats for this one, but unfortunately over much ado about nothing. This film marked the final downturn of the Star Trek franchise as far as I’m concerned. While it was fun to see the TNG folks back in uniform and running around again, I wasn’t particularly interested in the plot. Insurrection was about a utopian society under threat by members of the Federation who were on the verge of violating the prime directive by interefering with the society’s culture. Picard is outraged and stages a rebellion to help them with his crew. While I though F. Murray Abraham put in a good performance (one that was slightly reminiscent of Llyod’s Klingon Commander), it was not enough to bouy this feature out of the “extended episode” syndrome that weighed it down.

10) Star Trek X Nemesis 2002
Neutral zones, and Romulans and clones, oh my! I saw this one opening night at the Chinese theatre, which was fun because of the people watching, but this film was the death knell of the Trek movies. It wasn’t that it was so bad, it was more so that it felt uninspired, and no one, particularly Picard and crew seemed excited about being there. If they can’t get excited, how can I?

I don’t think that the Star Trek saying “The odd numbered films are bad, the even numbered films are good” has much validity anymore. So I’m not too concerned about the fact that this next film is #11. I like that JJ Abrams is bringing fresh ideas and thought into the franchise, but like any protective mother, I have my fair share of concerns. Pumping new life into the Star Trek mythology will be a good thing, I just hope he doesn’t try to make it too “cool” or “hip”. I think that part of what has made Star Trek work over the years was that it was not self conscious about the fact that it had goofy looking aliens or pseudo-scientific terminology. The creators knew it was geeky, but embraced that element about itself. I think that when Star Trek has tried to “modernize” and “mainstream” itself, as with the last TV incarnation Enterprise, it looses its originality, and just becomes like any other bland space adventure. But at this point, I don’t think the Star Trek franchise has anything else to loose. Good luck J.J.

Who Watches the Watchmen

2006-04-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve read some comic books in my day. When I was in my teens, I used to sneak into my brother’s room and steal the comics my father had bought for him. I spent many a Saturday afternoon reading about Superman’s death and his four different incarnations and the adventures of the X-Men and Spiderman. I was enthralled when the Marvel characters fought DC characters in the last battle of the Universe, only to be fused together in the Amalgam series, i.e. Darkclaw and the like. But until a couple weeks ago I had never read a graphic novel cover to cover. I had flipped through Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and gone to see various feature film adaptations of Alan Moore’s work, like League of Extraordinary Gentleman, but it had never occurred to me what a startling medium the graphic novel could be.

Yesterday I finished reading Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. An old friend of mine insisted I borrow his copy about six months ago. When I asked him what the book was about, he refused to give any details and only insisted that I read it as soon as possible. “It’s the way the story is told” he said. During the many months that the book sat in my magazine basket, others expressed their adoration for the work, and told me how much they envied that I was getting to read it for the first time. In the end it was V for Vendetta (based on the graphic novel written by Alan Moore) that finally lit the fire under my carriage to read Watchmen. Though I thought the film was flawed, I was so impressed with the ideas and the story, that I was inspired to read some other of Moore’s works.

The book is broken up into twelve chapters, a chapter for each hour around the clock, and each is about thirty or so pages long. At almost 400 pages, the novel is no quick newstand read. It is as dense and as intricate as any literary novel I’ve read in a long time. Watchmen is a brillant work on so many levels and for so many reasons. Moore’s intimate understanding of the “comic” medium and the entrenched mythology of its characters is displayed in the depiction of the hereos of this novel. One of the things I loved most about this book was the organic fashion with which he approached the concept of the Superhero. In the world of Watchmen, superheros started out as vigillantes in the 40’s and 50’s fighting crime for a variety of personal reasons. Some of these men and women had ideals of moral superiority, others felt genuine chagrin at the crime rate, while others gained gratification from donning an anonymous identity and operating above the law. Moore takes the established pop culture phenomenon of the Superhero and deconstructs it; illustrating what it’s like to be behind the mask, as well as the larger societal implications of their existence.

Watchmen asks the questions that I never asked myself as a kid. What does it really mean that Superman flies around Metropolis capturing whomever he pleases whenever he likes. Does he ever make mistakes, and who steps in to correct him if he is wrong? In the historical timeline of Watchmen, the U.S. government eventually enacts legislation to halt Superhero activity because it was getting out of hand. Moore blurs the line between the concepts of vigilante and Superhero. Though each word evokes vastly different sentiments and imagery, Moore forces us to look at their similiarities, give or take a pair of colored tights. By turning the comic book world on its head, and humanizing his Super Hero characters, the standard camps of good and evil are stripped away to reveal moral ambiguity and a dissolution of boundries between the heros and villains. As the story goes, the first generation of heros joined together to form the Minutemen. But this organization was no Superfriends or X-Men and tensions and conflicts eventually split the group apart. Moore questions, realistically, what would really happen in a world where any human could operate above the law, and let their own personal emotions and judgements cloud their behavior.

But as much as he shatters the pristine and sacred image of the superhero, exploring the dangerous fallouts of such a mythology, he does not subvert it to tout the benefits of institutional government either. Looming above all the action in Watchmen, is international nuclear brinksmanship. With Nixon as President, and Russia invading Afghanistan, the U.S. media is constantly bemoaning the threat of WWIII. Though the government ultimately curbed the power of the heroes, it too was a dangerous juggernaut, that could neither quell its own civil unrest nor properly resolve the escalating issues abroad. There are no easy answers here, no final solutions, rather a complicated ethical landscape in which only the reader can attempt to gauge what is the fairest trade. As grandiose and pretentious as it might sound Watchmen tackles philosophical quandaries surrounding humanity and his future.

The other wonderfully unique aspect of this graphic novel, was the different mediums that Moore used to tell the story. While the traditional “comic book” panel style was the dominant mode of the book, at the end of each chapter, Moore would include “found” artifacts. These included pages from books written by characters, magazine articles, newspaper interviews, and letters of correspondance among other items. They added a richness and depth to the story, giving the world of the Watchmen a heightened and painstakingly detailed reality. Not every piece of information divulged in these snippets were logistically vital to the general plot, but they often enhanced either individual characters or thematic elements of the story. Among these pieces of “found” material, there is a running comic book within the comic book of Watchmen. The comic book tells the dark story of a man who is shipwrecked by priates, and desperately tries to make it back to his hometown before the wretched criminals can pillage it and kill his family. This comic book is read by an ancillary character throughout the book, and fragments of the language and imagery of the comic are woven in piecemeal throughout the book. The result is masterful poetic juxtaposition of storylines and themes; the meaning of the comic and the graphic novel resonate within each other magnificently.

Watchmen was written lovingly and with care. It touched upon philosophical issues and moral conundrums in a sophisticated and artistic way. It posed questions about the existence of man in the universe and the justification of sacrifices. But it also provided a suspenseful mystery, and a touching and at times funny look at the secret life of a superhero. After reading this graphic novel, I was left with mouth agape at its beauty and truth.

Little Jurassic Park

2006-04-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly a fan of the David Spade Showbiz Show, though I have it foisted on me from time to time. However, recently, Spade screened an absolutely brillant low budget recreation of the theatrical trailer for the first Jurassic Park, done by the Neistat Brothers . Spade challenged the filmmakers to recreate a the trailer for a film using a few paltry items: little plastic soldier men, a toy dinosaur, and some paper and markers. The Neistat brothers decided to go with Jurassic Park, probably because they figured the plastic dinosaur was a gimme. The remake trailer uses the audio of the original. The description of this little project, probably makes it sound like one of the zillion cheap trailer/movie ripoffs that flood the internet everyday, but this one is really funny. When the video aired on the showbiz show, Spade showed the remake trailer first, and then played it again, side by side to the original trailer. The similarity is remarkable, and I suggest rewatchting the original Jurassic Park trailer .

(The trailer should be on the top row of videos, its title is "Little Jurassic Park")

Scary Movie 4

2006-04-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that this weekend greets the FOURTH installment of the Scary Movie comedy franchise. Now I’ve never seen any of the films, nor do I inded to see SM4, but I have to confess I laughed out loud a couple times during the trailer . In particular, I found the very last segment of the trailer, involving the overly enthusiastic guest on a faux Oprah talk show to be fantastic. I’m usually not into the whole celebrity bashing thing, and try to steer clear of it on this blog, but I found this too funny not to share with others. If you haven’t see the trailer yet, it’s worth the it just for the last five seconds.

Healing and unexpected apparitions in last night's LOST

2006-04-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

…and then in one single bound, Lost broke its streak of promise and momentum to return to the slow and boring. I think that Rose and Bernard are cute as much as the next guy/gal, but come on, an entire episode devoted to them? Too much. While these characters have provided a nice little runner throughout, they are definitely not engaging enough (I don’t think) to merit an entire episode based around them. Last night’s episode was just a product of the problem with the flashback format. Since the flashbacks have generally become framed around doing a big reveal on a piece of a character’s life, there are only so many you can do before:

a) it gets ridiculous, because the person has too many “secrets” and reveals

OR

b) no big reveal is made during the flashback at which point the flashback itself and the episode coast into the doldrums.

I mean isn’t something amiss if two ancillary characters, who’ve probably only had three or four meaty scenes througout the entirety of the show, are now suddenly getting flashbacks? As I said before, Rose and Bernard are endearing characters, and they were a good device for raising the emotional stakes of reuniting the two groups of survivors, but I didn’t think they have the presence to carry an entire episode. B plot sure, but not an A plot. I wasn’t even crazy about the way their relationship evolved through the flashbacks. One minute the two are meeting each other in a snowy alley way. The next Bernard is proposing to Rose. OK, I get it, they didn’t have time to display their entire courtship. I was just curious as to why the writers decided to make their marriage the result of a whilrwind romance. I thought the idea of the faith healer was interesting enough, and I liked the fact that Bernard was so committed to trying alternative methods to medicine to cure Rose. But when you think about it, isn’t Rose’s reveal of having cancer and being healed just a thinly veiled repetition of the Locke paralysis, miraculous recovery instance? I mean the episode addresses head on that Rose and Locke are both aware of the mystical healing powers of the island. Not only that, but that Rose knows what the island has done for Locke, which I did think was a neat twist, since no one else seems to remember Locke in his wheelchair. Still, this isn’t really new information. We already knew the island had strange healing powers, and now we know that it can cure cancer as well as paralysis. We don’t even know yet why exactly Locke was unable to walk, --it could have been the result of an accident, or the side effect of a debilitating illness. Who knows. Also didn’t Rose’s moment with the “faith healer” seem strangely similar to the moment that Claire had with her psyhic? I suppose this was an intentional coincidence but it could be easily mistaken as lazy writing.

I felt totally jilted by the fact that last week’s previews had made it look as if something actually happens this episode regarding the Henry Gale plot. I still think the fake Gale element is a great storyline, but they are dragging it out for far too long. Any survivor who knew what and who he was, would be down there 24/7 trying to pump him for answers and information, and that would be the sole focus of anyone’s time. As for the Jack and Kate spark, I’m a much bigger fan of her with Sawyer, because I think they have better chemistry with one another. Besides, even though Sawyer can be mean, Jack has proven to be pretty devoid of any sense of humor or light heartedness –therefore making him less likeable, at least in my book. Also, while it compelling to create tension between both Kate and Jack and Kate and Sawyer, I think it ultimately diffuses the build up for any one pair to get together, i.e. Scully & Mulder, Riker & Deanna (Imzadi), etc.

I was, however, glad that the rustling in the leaves that interrupted Jack and Kate was not a mere boar or puff of black smoke, but Michael finally returning from the island of temporarily abandoned characters. Once again, next episode looks both fascinating and action filled and I cannot believe that we will have to wait until May 3rd to see it. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, two Lostless weeks coming up in our midst.

Apparently, there are only three new episodes left in the season. Rumors have it that we will find out before all ends the cause and reason for the plane crash. My guess is that the season finale will lead up to this information but then stop short in a cliffhanger, so that we must wait over the long, hot, cruel summer for the truth to be divulged next season.

FOUND!

2006-04-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Thank Goodness it's about time!!

More to come on this later....

The New Doctor Who

2006-04-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

I don’t have a very good excuse or reason for my poor working knowledge of the original Doctor Who. The show is about as big a legend as you can get in Sci Fi Television history, having an original run that lasted from 1963 to 1989. I have only vague memories of episodes aired on PBS when I was a kid. I remember the phone booth, and its crazy interior which always looked like the quintessential mad scientist’s laboratory. I remember crazy creatures, including a giant alien head suspended in fluid and encased in humungous cylinders which gave me nightmares for weeks. And of course I remember the famous stripped scarf. Still I don’t think I saw enough episodes in their entirety to get a really good idea of what the show was like.

In 2005, the BBC decided to revive the show, and has since produced two seasons to much critical acclaim. I'm not sure how much this newer version differs in concept from the original, but the idea behind Doctor Who is pretty simple and allows for a variety of plot lines. Doctor Who is an alien, the last of the Time Lords, who can manipulate time. The DR. flits around the galaxy and greater space time continum in his jaunty British telephone booth, encountering all sorts of adventure along the way. The U.S. owned Sci Fi channel started running episodes of the new series a few weeks ago, and I’ve finally had a chance to put a dent in the stash that I have saved on my TiVo.

The pilot episode “Rose” centers on Rose Tyler, a young woman who works in a department store and becomes embroiled in an attempt by plastic compounds to take over the world. Sound bizarre? It is. The introduction to this plot line entails Rose looking for her pal in the basement of the store, and being ambushed by walking mannequins or “plastics.” While creepy in concept, I wasn’t crazy about this sequence because a) the mannequin thing has been done before b) the FX were pretty bad c) aren’t mannequins made out of wood? Rose is rescued just in time by the dashing, leather jacket clad “Doctor” played by Christopher Eccleston. Eccleston gives a pleasantly cocky, constantly amused vibe to the Doctor which makes him quite charming. Rose, played by Billie Piper, a teenage British pop sensation, was sort of Vanilla, and I wish that her character had been defined and expanded a little more. I do realize that it’s only the pilot, but I don’t think they provided a good enough explanation for why Rose got on board with Dr. Who at the end of the episode. Sure she likes adventure, but she doesn’t seem significantly bored or unhappy with her London life, her mother and boyfriend certainly seem to care for her. Her tinge of malaise was not enough to convince me she would join some alien in a time traveling telephone booth. The chemistry between the DR. and Rose was OK, but to be honest, I’m am so OVER the forty two year old men running around with the twenty two year old women. Ew. I wasn’t crazy about this episode. I liked the idea that all things plastic on earth were coming to take their revenge on humans after decades of melting and molding, but the mannequin take felt stale, as did the shoddy attempts to throw in some back story for the DR.

Even though I wasn’t sold on the first episode, I was eager to give the show another chance. I liked the second episode in season one, titled “The End of the World” much better. It was able to spend less time establishing everthing, and could jump right into a more adventurous storyline. This episode picks up right where the first one left off, with Rose running inside the phone booth to join the DR. Once inside, Rose challenges the him to take her someplace really dangerous in time. The DR. decides on five billion years in the future, moments before the earth will be annhialated by the expanding sun. The DR. and Rose arrive at a sleek, futuristic space station where affluent members of the galaxy are gathering together to observe this significant event. I liked the way everything looked in this episode. The interior of the station was stark and white, like an overly sterile museum, and what the show lacks in VFX it makes up for with its creature design. I thought there were some neat looking aliens on board the station, and the designers used a nice mixture of puppets, make-up, and CGI to create a unique blend of folk. From what I hear, Doctor Who was known over the decades for its impressive array of aliens, and this new incarnation of the show seems committed to the same endeavor. There were tree people with bark like skin, blue humanoids with no hair, and the last reamaining human, who had been reduced to a stretched sheet of skin after countless surgeries. The tone of the show blossomed in this episode as it balanced and melded several themes and styles. The DR. and Rose addressed the somber and sobering fact the world does actually come to an end in their understated dialogue. We also learn that the DR. is the last of his kind, and that his planet and people were oblitterated years ago. Yet even with these serious facets the hour glides by because of all the humor and quirkiness that’s inserted throughout. Somehow the show manages to transition from a pensive look at what the future of the universe might bring, to the DR. bopping around to Soft Cell's Tainted Love blaring out of a 50’s jukebox. There’s a cheesiness at work here, but it does in fact…work. It allows for a measured equation of intelligence and humor which has pleasing effects.

I’m curious to see what the rest of the episodes are like. After a troublesome start, I think the show might turn out to hold some sixty minute sci-fi treasures after all.

My Imaginary LOST Recap (spoilers)

2006-04-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

So much to talk about in last night’s episode of LOST, yet so little time. I’ll go with the headlines. I knew Dave was imaginary before he was even on screen. You might want to call my bluff, but from the moment Hurley’s doctor said “Well I’m not Dave’s doctor, but I think he’s a negative influence on you….”, I knew. No doctor would ever speak in such a way about another patient at a hospital. He’d find a more diplomatic way to phrase it, but he was obviously trying to allude to his disapproval of Hurley and his imaginary friend.

Also, Hurley’s issues with his weight and eating, were too on the nose. The writers took a character who is overweight, and linked up his deep personal issues to….food and being overweight. I felt cheated by Hurley’s whole speech about “I eat to punish myself!”, which I’ve heard about a hundred different ways in ABC afterschool specials. I wanted something more about Hurley’s character, something different, but I was disappointed by the “deep, dark” secrets of his past. We already knew he had spent some time in a mental hospital, and yes, it was neat to see him in this environment, but Dave felt like a cop out to me. He was just a bald personification of Hurley’s Id whose conversational repertoire was limited to chicks and food, a variation of a little red devil sitting on his shoulder. See, if they wanted to make it REALLY interesting, I think they could have gone with TWO imaginary figures; one representing his suppressed desires, and the other representing his responsible conscience. That would have thrown us off the scent that Dave was fake, and it would have given more dimension to Hurley’s character. As for the “accident”, and reason that Hurley ended up in the hospital, I was not a fan. He walked onto an over crowded deck and sank it, unintentionally causing the death of two people? Nope. Not buying it. I spoke to an associate who said he liked the fact that Hurley’s accident was connected to his weight, but I didn’t because it made everything too one note. It quickly became an instance of “oh look the fat character is sad that he’s fat, and everything that goes wrong in his life is somehow related to that”. I wanted Hurley’s craziness to come from somewhere else besides his food issues, and his guilt and inner turmoil about his weight.

Dave’s theory that Hurley had made up the entire island, was interesting, but would have flown better if presented earlier in the run of the show, --like last season. At this point, we have pretty much iron clad proof that the events in the island could not all be going on in someone’s mind. There are too many different storylines, and events that have happened that other characters are unaware of. The scene on the cliff was eerie, and I liked it when Dave plummeted off the rocks into the brewing sea, but ultimately they weren’t able to sell it as enough of an alternate theory.

I thought it was cute that they tried to further develop the bond between Libby and Hurley. Libby is a little on the bland side, but a likeable enough character, and it was nice to see Hurley get a real confidant. However shocking the final reveal in the mental hospital was, I’m not so sure I like the implications. First off, it’s more of that “everything’s connected, there are no coincidences” hoo haa, which I can’t help but feel is the story equivalent of quicksand. The deeper and deeper these writers get, the harder and harder it’s going to be to come up with a relevant and solid explanation for why this connectivity exists. Secondly, Libby’s slightly evil look when she walked off frame holding Hurley’s hand (just before they cut to the hospital), made me think that her intentions are false, and she is tricking him somehow. Can’t the poor guy get some genuine affection? Hurley wasn’t in the hospital that long ago, perhaps only a couple years before the show started and Libby has asserted herself on the island as a professional psycho-therapist. Which leaves a few possibilities open to explain her character’s behavior. (1) Libby is lying about her profession and who she is. She is still mentally ill and is plotting some kind of scheme. (2) Libby was in fact in the hospital, but somehow in the relatively short period between her time in the hospital and the moment she boarded the plane, managed to get her stuff together, recuperate from her mental illness and become a certified therapist. (This seems highly unlikely) (3) It was not Libby who we saw in the mental hospital, but her twin sister. The reason she went into the psychology field was because of her sister’s struggles.

As for the scenes with the fake Henry Gale, my eyes were glued to the screen. This plot line has really grown on me and I think it’s leading to some potentially interesting reveals. I like his confession about not typing in the numbers, --though I suspected as much that nothing would happen without constant monitoring of the countdown. I like the actor who plays Gale, and I think the writers have shaped his character nicely. I enjoyed this portion of the episode a great deal.

From the looks of the preview, next week’s episode is more Henry Gale material, which I am excited about. I like the idea that they may try to trade him in for Walt, but would somebody please tell me where the hell Michael went, and why no one even seems to give a damn that he’s vanished?!

Third time's a charm? (Tagline of the week courtesy of Tokyo Drift)

2006-04-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this New Yorker, is quite out of the "loop" --she didn't even know that the Fast and the Furious franchise was approaching trilogy status, until about fifteen minutes ago. Yes, you read correctly, TFATF's third installment is being realeased this summer, titled: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The trailer for this unstoppable string of sequals, was just posed on the Apple Trailers site, a few days ago, and I confess after watching it a couple times, I feel a bit flummoxed.

See, I never saw the original TFATF, because, well, it didn't grabbed my interest. By the time the sequal, 2 Fast, 2 Furious rolled around, I refused to see it out of principle. Rarely does a film title come along that invites ridicule upon itself so openly. There was many a joke traded that summer among my circle of friends about who was 2 fast and furious for their own good. Though I never saw the film, I saw the trailer for it many a time, and thankfully the image of Ludacris yelling "FIRE 'EM UP!!" whilst a comb lay resting in his luxurious afro will probably remain in my memory for all of eternity.

But now this? A third one? I can barely believe it myself. And yet...and yet, I can't help but feel that if ever there was a chapter in the TFATF epic that I would actually see, this would be it. There are a variety of reasons for this I'll admit, among them the fact that I'm a huge summer movie enthusiast. There is that slight, slim possiblity that this could be an ejoyable and well done action movie right? Well, I know, most likely, not. But still I'll gladly pretend that I have optimism for the film if it'll cover up the truth that this looks my kind of a guilty pleasure. I like cars, I like Tokyo, and I like Lucas Black. So really, when its framed that way, it's sort of a no brainer for me. And at the very least between the hyper neon urban landscape and the outrageous Tokyo youth fashion, the exotic locale should add a refreshingly stylish element to the film. I'm also immensely amused by the driving anomaly referenced in the film's title, which seems to entail, car's "drifting" or hovering sideways, and lining up with the road horizontally. It's absurd, and I'm hoping it plays a LARGE role in the plot.

Realistically speaking, this film will probably be pretty bad --and not bad in a Basic Instinct 2 kind of way, more like bad in a Tomb Raider 2 sort of way. Still, I'm curious to see what all the fuss over this franchise is about.

Besides, you have to love the tagline....

"Speed needs no translation."

Classic.

You will not believe what the New Yorker saw this weekend

2006-04-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

This weekend, the sci-fi horror flick Slither, starring Firefly veteran Nathan Fillion opened at theatres nationwide. This was the movie that for all intents and purposes I should have seen. I wanted to see it, had planned on seeing it. But due in large part to the strong coercion of an associate, I ended up seeing Basic Instinct 2 in a packed theatre on Friday night.

From the moment the movie started, it was clear that us audience members were in for some spectacularly sleazy and ridiculous fun. For the first hour and ten minutes or so I was consistently enthralled by the grotesque, depraved, nonsensical plot that I could barely believe was unfolding before my very eyes. Writer Catherine Tremell has swooshed upon the London scene, bedding every attractive and well to do person in town, and leaving a lasting impression on all that she meets, especially psychoanalyst Dr. Michael Glass. When Tremell becomes a prime suspect in a murder case, Glass must “analyze” her, and he discovers that she has a severe case of “risk addiction.” (By the way, the original title of the film was Basic Instinct 2: Rick Addiction). When Tremell is acquitted of the initial murder charges, Glass takes her on as a patient, but becomes increasingly suspicious as people around them begin to die. He’d turn her in, only he is so seduced by her seductivity (read as brash, abrasive trucker talk), and the two embark on a game of “cat and mouse”.

I’m going to stop summarizing now, because it’s making me turn red in the face. But be assured that there are lots of things to giggle at in this film. Everything from the dialogue, to the costumes (Stone wears some real doozies in this one, especially considering the context of her outfits), to the plot “twists”. BS2 also features what I believe to be the worst looking wig currently in Hollywood circulation. When this certain character walked on screen, and if you see the film I trust you will know who I am talking about immediately, the entire theatre broke out into loud guffaws and chuckes. (And no I’m not even talking about the courtroom scene with the traditional brit wigs, which looks a bit silly as well). However, I must confess that by the second act of the film I was feeling a bit winded. The film runs six minutes shy of two hours, and I think it would have behooved the film makers to shave it down to a neat ninety minutes, especially considering the reception that the film’s been getting.

Ultimately the biggest flaw of the film was that it vacillated between one that was trying to take itself seriously, as a legitimate thriller, and one that knew it was B-movie fodder and was therefore playing things to the max. For the most part, Sharon Stone’s performance was wonderfully ridiculous and over the top, she was playing it big, and she knew she was in something trashy (or at least this is what I’d like to believe). If she did in fact realize she was the vehicle of a scandalous ‘sploitationesque sequal than her heavy handed delivery was done at just about the perfect pitch. The problem was that not every other actor and actress in the film had this attitude. The male lead, David Morrissey, who played Dr. Michael Glass was actually trying to be “good”. It was as if most everyone in the cast knew what they were in on except for him, who was apparently fooled by his agent into thinking Basic Instinct 2 was “for real.” The tone of the film itself also started to loose it’s way towards the end, when it got caught up in things like “logic” and “tying up loose ends.” If only the filmmakers realized what they had on their hands, they would’ve known it was futile to bother those elements since they were already involved in such a goofy effort.

BS2 was bad, but in a very enjoyable way. However, if those who made it could have let go just a little bit more, it could have been even WORSE, and in turn better.

The New Yorker does her LOST recap thing

2006-04-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

This week’s episode of LOST, “Lockdown” was, in my esteem, one of the strongest episodes to air all season. There’s something about the character of John Locke, and the back story that they’ve created for him, that is heart wrenchingly tragic, moving and inspiring all at the same time. Locke is imperfect, and he’s makes mistakes. He’s gullible, and at times too protective of others. But he also wants to believe that in the end everything will turn out alright. Time and time again, we’ve seen people try to break Locke’s spirit, by cheating him, or lying to him, abandoning him, or discriminating against him. But despite all of these things, he still seeks the redeeming, and believes that happiness may exist for himself. It is the fountain of hope that springs from within him that makes him akin to a miracle both on the island and the show.

This episode really had it all. The flashback provided a solid lynchpin for the episode and there were actual events of intrigue unfolding on the island. I thought the storyline of Locke’s father faking his own death, and coming back for another con was both unexpected and interesting. It was also a perfect follow up to the previous flashback episode which established Locke’s relationship with Helen. The entire time I kept waiting to find out that his father had lied to him about the money, or that he was setting him up as bait to be killed by the henchmen. It was an interesting twist that in the end, Locke’s father did not technically screw him over, at least not with the scam. It was Locke’s own error in judgment and desire to make things right with his father that backfired everything. The parallel between the flashback and Locke’s present island experience was particularly poignant. As we learned about a moment in the past where Locke had to decide if he should trust his father or not, in the present Locke had to make the decision to trust Henry Gale, a man who was a potentially dangerous. In the past, Locke’s choice to take a leap of faith ended up being the wrong thing for him to do. I was both crushed and mortified when Helen did not accept his marriage proposal and drove away. Though Locke’s father did not cheat him out of the money or purposefully endanger him, he did commit an emotional betrayal by getting in the cab when his son’s life had just fallen into disarray. His father refused to take any personal responsibility for himself. It was heart breaking to watch Locke emotionally shattered in the past, being deserted by two people that he loved. But I liked the way it was mirrored on the island as Locke lay there wounded on the ground of the Hatch bleeding, and calling for Henry Gale. There has always been this paternal link between the island and Locke, and just as his biological father betrayed him time and time again, his “surrogate” father –the island has as well. The first time was when it let Boone die (who was in essence his surrogate son). This was event was set parallel to his father stealing his kidney. This second betrayal was perpetrated by the Hatch, which represents in many ways the heart and mind of the island, and literally came down on Locke when he was most vulnerable. I liked that Henry Gale came back to help Locke, and kept his promise not to leave him. It was also a nice counterpoint to Locke’s memory, because it was an instance where he took a leap of faith, and it ended up working out for him.

The Henry Gale plot took a very interesting turn this episode. I have to confess when I saw Sayid and Ana Lucia discovering the balloon and the grave, I really fell for it. I thought, well, he’s definitely not an “other”, he’s just some crazy guy who’s trying to manipulate the situation down there for his own benefit and enjoyment (which I still think would have been an interesting way to go). When Sayid pulled out the driver’s license belonging to the original Henry Gale I was shocked. Now that’s what I call a cliffhanger! I am absolutely fascinated to see what they end up doing with Henry Gale, now that they have confirmed he is an imposter. Clever move on their part to have Sayid dig up the grave so he could make the discovery. I thought the way they dealt with that whole end of the plot was ingenius.

Two more things. First, the woman whose home John Locke inspects in the flashback. This is the woman that Sayid carried the photograph of, the woman who he held prisoner and fell in love with. Now I know this is one of those “coincidences” that continue to build and build within the construct of the show, but I will honestly be shocked if the writers find a way to wrap all of these connections up in a way that makes sense and has real relevance. As geeks everywhere rack their brains, asking themselves “What does it all mean…?!”, I find myself scratching my head and thinking “I hope it all means something…” Second. The map that revealed itself on the hatch door when the lights go out, and the black lights flickered on. I think it’s nothing more than some scraggly mumbo jumbo meant to illustrate all sorts of connections between the Dharma Collective, Mr. Hanso, and various miscellaneous items, but I don’t think its anything more than a gimmick that they’re throwing our way, which won’t be addressed again for eons.

All in all though, a really great episode. It reminded me of the good old days of LOST. I hope they’re on a roll now till the finale.

Must they all jump the shark? (Sopranos included?)

2006-03-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

The Sopranos has always had so much going for it that other shows haven’t. Sure, it’s an HBO original series, and as such, can afford its fair share violence, language and sexuality. But these things aren’t what has made the Sopranos such a stand out series. The Sopranos has always managed the paradox of taking itself very seriously, while having the capacity to see humor in itself. It’s blend of drama and comedy succeeds because it exists in a world that (though built on certain stereotypes) feels 100% authentic and convincing. These characters reside in a mafia fantasy world, where the rules of living and working are completely foreign to us. But in spite of this, we are able to relate to it, to see the layers in it, because we come to know and love the characters so much. We buy into their actions and motivations, their hopes and their dreams. Who could a more unlikely hero than Anthony Soprano? And yet where is there a more layered, relatable, likeable character on Television? He is the dark horse everyman (and woman), struggling through the pitfalls of day to day life, that are rife with family, friends, work and obligation.

The Sopranos shows us criminals, men who have killed in cold blood, and yet makes us root for them, hoping they overcome their strife and stay out of prison, even though we know on some level we know they should be paying heavily for their sins. The richness of relationship these characters share with one another is what creates such a solid foundation for the show. Anthony and Carmella’s complex marriage, Anthony’s paternalistic and at times antagonistic mentorship of Christopher, Paulie and Christopher’s rivalry, and on and on. Each dynamic has its own bit of comedy and tragedy, with history that now goes back five, six seasons.

Though I can’t recall the interview or place that this factoid came from, it seems to be common knowledge among fans that, originally, David Chase, the creator of the Sopranos, had a four season arc for the show. However, the show was SO successful that the inevitable happened. When HBO realized just how much money and popularity they held in their hands, they wanted to extend the Sopranos glory, so in rolled the idea to extend the show two extra seasons, with a complete season five, and a two part season six. I think ultimately the show has suffered for it.

One can always make the argument that no matter what, a weak Sopranos episode is head and shoulders above “everything else on Television”, and to a certain extent that may be true. No matter what, the production value and acting are generally flawless. BUT, that doesn’t mean it’s any less frustrating as a fan of the show when a “watered down” episode comes along, where not much happens, and the resolution of larger storylines are postponed or even forgotten. I’ve heard some folk talk that they think the “water down” trend began very subtlely in season four, and while there might have been an episode or two I wasn’t crazy about, things didn’t really start to wane for me until season five.

This season, for the first time, I have been watching the new sixth season week to week as it airs on HBO. Normally, I watch the entire season over the span of a week or less, gorging myself on three or four episodes at a time. Maybe it’s my new viewing style, or maybe it’s my faded memory of the fifth season, but whatever the case may be, I find myself loosing patience quickly. The season premiere was interesting, no question. It was undoubtedly shocking when the member of Tony’s crew who wanted to move to Miami, ended up killing himself. Especially since if followed an episode’s worth of build up on the subject of him potentially doing something drastic to make his move happen. Some found this old “switcheroo” to be brillant, regardless of whether or not it ends up coming back in the season. But it’s my feeling, that if this suicide does not play out somehow before the show is over, it will have been a complete waste of time.

Junior shooting Tony was huge –it completed the one-two punch, (first the suicide, then Junior’s crazed behavior) of the episode. If it’s one thing the Sopranos has always been able to make me do is to gasp out loud, and I did so twice that night. But I haven’t been crazy about the direction the show has been going in since then, i.e. the last two episodes. While putting Tony in the hospital was a bold and daring move, and his dream world had some interesting elements, these scenes began to drag and become tiresome. The second episode, which comprised, of basically just Tony wandering around a bizarro LA, and his family members crying and talking to him at his bedside, felt decidedly UNSopranos. While moving at times, it also bordered on sentimentality, and I found Kevin Finnerty and his briefcase to be heavy handed. I liked that Tony’s real life pierced the hallucinatory coma, like the fact that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (Junior’s disease), and the obvious issue of confusion his identity and his future (I’m 46 years old, where am I going in my life?). But it just kept going on and on. Yes we get, Tony has lost his way in some bizarro spirit world, and he doesn’t know who he is. Overall the scenes with Tony in his coma/dreamscape felt stifled, and drawn out.

In this Sunday’s episode, I was fascinated by how quickly his underlings and “friends” were eager to move in for the kill, and push him and his family out of the way. It was intriguing to see what happened in the wake of this newly formed power vaccum. I also liked the idea of Carmella going to Dr. Melfi instead of Tony –though it’s unclear how long that might last. But even with these pieces of new intrigue, I couldn’t help but feel that the episode dragged. It’s difficult to put my finger on, there wasn’t one particular thing that I found egregious, it was more of an overall feel. And just when I thought things finally were starting to get interesting, Tony wakes up, and it would appear that things start to go back to mob business as usual.

Which begs to ask the question, has The Sopranos jumped the shark? I think the answer is yes. As excited as I am to see it back on the air, I do think it has run its course a bit. I’m not sure what else they have left to do and where else they have to go. For all our sakes I hope I am wrong. Is it an inevitability that all shows, even those that don’t deal with the politics of network televsision decline before their finally taken off the air? It’s a question I know I’ve asked before. But it’s sad to see that even the sweetest of things can grow a little sour. Oh but it’s still head and shoulders above ANYTHING else on TV, my detractors might say. Yeah, …but it still used to be better.

Tagline of the Week: Courtesy of An American Haunting

2006-03-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

It’s not typical that a horror movie slips under my radar for very long. Typically I have an inkling of current horror films at least a few months before their release date. However, every now and again something does slip through the cracks. The trailer for An American Haunting, which will be released on May 5th, was just posted on the Apple trailer site a couple of days ago. Not only had I never heard of AAH funtil today, but I had never even heard of the infamous incident upon which the film is based. AAH recounts the story of the only recorded death caused by a spirit in U.S. history, which occurred in the early 1800’s. The trailer paints the event as a phenomenon as widely studied as the Salem Witch Craft Trials, and perhaps it is, but I would be surprised. I am so jaded by trailers that volley for the title of being “the most historically significant.” After all, it’s a movie, not a documentary, not a non-fiction book, and when studios always use a film’s faux factuality to market it, I’m always annoyed.

I’m well aware that films within their genres are forced to repeat the same sorts of stories over and over again, but the terrorized/possessed young girl subgenre is one which I have had just about enough of. Wasn’t it only about six months ago that The Exorcism of Emily Rose was released? It was a film with an interesting take, (melding horror with courtroom drama), but one which lacked the characters and storytelling to make it really memorable. From the looks of it, An American Haunting, appears to have a similar storyline to TEOER. It is about a young teenage girl in the rural early post-colonial U.S. who is haunted and possesed by “something evil.” The set pieces that follow are ones which have been made unforgettable by the mother of all possesion films, The Exorcist. The rolling of the eyes into the back of the head, the blankets being pulled back by the spirits as the child sleeps, the hurling of crucifixes across the room ---all of it feels very routine. I think that doing a film that deals with “demonic possesion” is very difficult, because of the inescapable shadow of the Exorcist. Some people find The Exorcist to be laughable and silly, others find it to be profoundly terrifying. I fall into the latter category. Up until fairly recently I had only scene snippets of the most famous sequences with the head spinning and the pea soup, so it was easy for me to brush it off. But once I had seen the film its entirety, I could not do so any longer. The Exorcist is effective because of the depth of its characters, the thematic undertones, and the questions of faith and inner demons. It is terrifying because of the questions it makes us ask about ourselves.

Somehow, I have a feeling that An American Haunting is not going to be a film with that sort of sophistication. The film was directed by Courtney Solomon, who also adapted the screenplay from a book by Brent Monahan. Solomon’s latest claim to fame (or unfame as it were), was the Dungeons and Dragons feature film which was released in 2000. I actually saw Dungeons and Dragons. In the theatre. Please don’t ask me why. While I’ve since blanked most of it out, I have a vague recollection that the storyline verged on the painfully boring, and I recall laughing at moments that were supposed to be “poignant”. Along with a filmmaker of questionable taste, the film has another bizarre element, which I think will hamper it, instead of help it. The film is a period piece, but not entirely so. According to the trailer, the haunting which transpired in 1818, “is happening again”, and we are introduced to a young woman who lives in present day U.S., who is also being terrorized. It would appear that the film tells the stories of both these young woman, as they struggle with the evil pursuing them. Call me a pessimist, but I think it would take a lot of finesse and class to properly cut between two stories that take place almost two hundred years apart. Very few films are able to pull this sort of thing off, The Hours being one of them, and that film was a multi-narrative piece which told its stories in big chunks. It was not promising that even the way the trailer was done was clunky, the modern footage at the beginning and the end felt slapped on and disorienting.

The only thing which gives me any pause at all is that it does have some big names in the cast. Both Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek are legends in their own time, and I’m intrigued that they would both do such a film. Still the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me it was probably just a paycheck for them and there aren’t hidden redeeming qualitites to AAH.

Judging by the trailer, this movie has such a predictable and boring trajectory. Girl in the past is haunted, hauting escalates, she is possesed, and then dies. Girl in present is haunted, she too is possesed, but she does something to stop her eventual death and somehow free the spirit of the girl from the past whose spirit has been in eternal torment.

The tagline of this one is “Posession knows no bounds.” In a way, I find it quite fitting of the project. Because these posession movies keep on keepin’ on no matter what the quality.

There however two fortes to An American Haunting. The first is that the acronym for a horror film is AAH(!). The second is the poster, which I think has a eerily beautiful design.

A pregnant pause; this week’s episode of LOST

2006-03-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

By now, it’s becoming old hat. LOST airs a new episode, and then I proceed to rant and rave about all the plot holes, the lagging pace the show has taken, and the illogicalness of it all. I lament about the drop of quality between the first season and that of the current second season. Remember those early fan boy theories last year about the characters were really in purgatory? Well unlikely as it might seem, it’s certainly what it FEELS like to me these days.

And then I had a change of heart. I realized what the cure might be for my LOST blues, and though I may be speaking to soon, I think my whining and complaining might diminish to a dull roar. You see, if I race to the TiVo every week expecting the best show on Television to give me my fix, then I will be sorely disappointed. BUT, in turn, if I take it off its pedestal, and it simply becomes another show on my season pass roster, then the monumental expectation dwindles and I watch it with the same sort of apathy that I might watch a show on the food network. Sometimes they’ll make a dish I like, sometimes they won’t, but either way it was a decent bit of entertainment.

I will now attempt to write an even-handed, not fanatical review of this week’s episode. Ready? Here goes:

This week’s episode, of LOST, titled “The Whole Truth”, was a matter of fifty-fifty for me. There were two major storylines in the episode. The primary storyline focused on Sun and Jin, who were on the outs most of the episode. Concerned about leaving Sun alone after her kidnapping, Jin forces Sun to stop tending her garden and return with him to the beach. When she refuses, he pitches a fit and rips up her garden. Sun is angered and upset by his behavior, and as she walks along the beach she begins to feel faint. She discovers she is pregnant but is hesitant to tell Jin, because, as she tells Jack, it’s complicated. Turns out that back in Korea the couple tried to concieve consistently, but were unable to get Sun pregnant. After going to a fertility specialist, Sun is told that she is infertile and it is impossible for her to have children. Of course it turns out that the doctor was just lying to save face with Jin in the office, and he later confides to Sun that Jin is the one who will never be able to have children. We also learn that Sun had learned how to speak English from the handsome hotel heir who led her to Jin in the first place. There is some romantic tension between the two of them, but it is ambiguous as to whether or not Sun and Hotel boy actually had an affair. While there were some poignant moments in this storyline, I ultimately thought it was fairly inconsequentail to both the characters and the overall storyline. We’ve already known that Sun and Jin had big problems in the past, and that she was ready to leave him. Both these facts were only reiterated by the episode last night. Rehashing personal issues which were revealed in previous episodes seems to be the new calling card of this season. The fact that Sun is pregnant is supposed to create a conundrum because while Jin could not “technically” be the father, she swears that she has not been with another man. This means one of two things. Either Sun is lying, or the island is working some sort of “magic” on her. Well, correction, there are three possible truths I suppose, the last being that Jin really is the biological father, and it is a miracle. Any way you slice it, I don’t really care what the answer is, and I don’t see how or why the audience should. As one faithful reader of mine pointed out a while ago, at the rate that the show is going, there would need to be about twleve more seasons for us to actually see the baby be born. Secondly, even if she was cheating on Jin, it’s not that huge of a reveal, because we knew she already had every intention of leaving him before the plane crash. I’m not exactly sure what getting pregnant does for her character. She didn’t seem particularly passionate about having a child one way or the other before the crash. As for the possibility of the island voodoo, if it is some sort of magic virus baby, I just hope it pays off before a decade passes. I did, however, think there were some good moments for Jin’s character in this episode. His rage in Jin’s garden, and his subsequent replanting and repairing of it, gave him two good counterpoints for his feelings for Sun, and the way he operates. It gave some emotional vibrancy to a character, who is not exactly a man of many words. My favorite scene for him, was actually the moment when he reminds Sun that he can not understand what anyone says on the island, and that he has no friends. I liked that little segment where he was listening to Bernard and Sawyer speak and all he heard was jibberish. As an english speaking viewer, I think it is easy to forget what the entire island experience must be like for Jin, and how frustrated and isolated he must feel at times. I liked that this episode reminded us of that.

In regards to the episode’s flashback, I did think it was a little sloppy that the flashback was directly related to the action on the island, when the writers on the show have become famous for the indirect connections between flashback and current story. Juxtaposing Locke’s struggle with the relationship with his father in the past, with Locke relationship with Boone and struggle with the island is brilliant, because the connection is not overt, but emotional, and the thematic underpinnings are quite moving. Watching Sun try to get pregnant, and then get pregnant, is well, linear and somewhat boring storytelling, considering this is a woman who seems indifferent to the matter.

The second piece of the episode relayed the continuing issue of the balloonist Mr. Henry Gale (of OZ???), as Jack and Locke try to determine if he is a goodie or a baddie. We watched Locke seek out the interrogation expertise of Ana Lucia, who in turn, spent some time with Mr. Gale in the locked cell trying to figure out just what he was about. There’s something about the scenes between Henry Gale and the other survivors that I really like. I find myself looking at the scenario from all the different perspectives. Say Henry Gale is innocent, and his balloon really did crash in the jungle. He must think the survivors are a bunch of savages, and hold his breath every time the door opens. What kind of freak will enter this time? A former soldier with a propensity for torture? A priest ready to confess his sins? An ex-cop telling him to fess up or die? Yet it’s only natural that the survivors are cautious. Henry Gale could be bad news. He could be an infiltrator, another Ethan. There’s a power dynamic between Gale and the survivors that’s delicate and curious. On the one hand the survivors have all the power, because they hold him in captivity, allowing him food and water when they deem appropriate. But on the other hand, Henry Gale holds the power of his truth over them. He holds the power of suggestion, or insinuation. He can slip all sorts of thoughts into their heads which may sit and reverberate off the walls of their minds late into the night.

Be it through the power of her feminine charms, or from just “asking nicely” Ana Lucia gets Gale to draw a tentative map of where he thinks the balloon is. Covertly, (though I’m not entirely sure why they keep it so secret), Sayid, Charlie, and Ana go in search of the balloon. As they tromp through the jungle, they have petty arguments about who should hold the gun, and how thoroughly they should search, etc. I liked this particular selection of characters, because in many ways it was a group of some of the more miserable, outcasts types on the island. The others on the island don’t view Sayid as an outcast, but his emotional state of grief probably makes him feel like one; the death of his lover having rendered day to day activity futile and grating. Charlie is still a bit of a pariah from his stunt with the baby a couple days (weeks) ago and since she’s been on the island, Ana Lucia accidentally caused the death of two people, so she’s not feeling too popular either. It’s an interesting mix of folk, and a nice change from the constant John and Locke show. There was a certain disgruntled tone and attitude about those scenes, a grim moodiness that I thought was all too fitting. I think at times the show’s tone can slip into a humanity inspired giddiness, and while I understand that all folks wouldn’t be depressed ALL of the time, the grumpiness is, I think, considering the circumstances, to be expected.

I liked the line from Ana Lucia, where she says “Jack and Locke are too worried about Locke and Jack,” and I do like the slow burn that continues to grow between these two men, though their behavior towards each other can border on erratic. I also really like the last scene where Henry Gale sits with them having cereal and theorizes about what he would do IF he was an “other.” He’s certainly screwing with their minds, and I think that it might be even more interesting if he wasn’t an “other,” but was just a sick, crazy guy, possibly trying to vie for power himself.

So all in all, terrific episode? No. I liked some parts more than others, but it was good enough for just an ordinary TV show.

See that was pretty non-dogmactic, right?

R for Review (of V for Vendetta)

2006-03-21T18:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, the most difficult thing about watching a movie is observing tremendous potential be squandered. V for Vendetta wasn’t bad. In fact it was pretty good. But it could have been great, maybe even fantastic. In a post a couple days ago, I remarked on how I couldn’t really figure out the main gist of the story from the trailer. Now, after having seen the film, I understand why. The story, was adapted from the Alan Moore series, which was eventually compiled into a graphic novel, and it is one of complexity and detail.

Natalie Portman plays Evey, a young woman who lives in a small studio apartment, works at a Television station, and generally abides by the laws of her totalitarian government. At the start of the film, Evey has snuck out past curfew, when she is stopped by “fingermen”, --the corrupt secret police of the government, who begin to assault her. Just when things are starting get really ugly, the masked crusader with a propensity for Guy Fawkes, V, jumps in, knives the fingermen, and saves Evey from a grim fate. So begins the strange relationship between V and Evey. V dazzles her with a display of explosive pyrotechnics, that destroy government property and are set off to rousing classical music. Evey is both apalled and amazed by this man who embodies so much gall and ruthlessness. While Evey is at work the next day, V infiltrates the TV station and hijacks the control room. V then broadcasts a mission statement, urging the British public take action at the conspiracy wrought by their dictator and government. He makes a plea for every citizen who values freedom to join him next November 5th to take Parliament down by storm.

This moment is the launching point for the entire film. When Evey saves V from being captured by the police in the station, she is knocked unconscious. The next thing she knows she is in V’s underground lair, a charming clutter of books, antiques, artwork, and other collectibles. It is here, where things become a little diluted for me. V informs Evey that she is not allowed to leave, because he would compromise both of their identities and safety. While she is a bit flummoxed at first, she also seems perfectly happy to admire his jukebox, and eat the delicious eggs in a basket he has cooked for her. We see a couple more scenes of the two of them “hanging out”, watching films and the like, and inevitably hear of Evey’s past. Evey came from a family of political activists; her father was a writer, and both he and her mother were involved in protests against the government. They were both killed by the military police, and her brother was a victim of the “St. Mary’s” virus –a horrible pandemic that struck a children’s school, and part of suspected bio-terrorism. Evey tells V that she wishes she wasn’t afraid, but she is, all the time. This is supposed to be the crux of Evey’s character, her past, and her fear of the future. But if so, it wasn’t conveyed very well in the film. Evey was one of the protagonists in the film, but ultimately I found her one of the less interesting, because the emotional journey of her character was muddled. At the start of the film Evey doesn’t seem to be distraught or scared. She listens to the proclamations of a tv political evangelist with a roll of her eye, and she certainly doesn’t seem too frightened to break the state enforced curfew. And what of her past? She doesn’t really exhibit emotional scarring from watching her brother die horribly, and watch her mother get dragged away by the police. As for her day to day life, Evey seems perky and coiffed at her job. I suspect that the filmakers wanted to intimate that Evey had beome a drone, content with the status quo, and unwilling to give much thought to the state of things in her country. But I don’t think they succeeded very well. Evey seemed too vibrant and happy–not apathetic, or scared, or resigned.

After a successful attempt to escape from V, Evey ends up at a former associate’s house, Gordon the Television host, with whom she had meant to dine with on the night she ventured illegally out of her house. Luckily for her, (and it does seem almost too good to be true) Gordon is one of the good guys, and gives her a spot of tea telling her she can merely stay at his place as long as she likes. When the police break into Gordon’s home for a seditious Television broadcast, Evey is “black bagged” and the next thing she knows she is in a prison, where her head is shaved, and she must endure torture and near starvation. But every time the authorities ask her to give information on V, she refuses. This is supposed to be the turning point for Evey, a metamorphsis, from a scared sheep into an empowered political activist. While she is in the prison, her cell mate who is about to die, slips her fragments of her autobiography scrawled on toilet paper. We learn that her cellmate, a woman named Valerie, was seperated from her lover, and imprisoned for her homosexuality. The last thing Valerie writes to Evey, is:

“I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or laugh with you or get drunk with you. But I love you.”

It is a poignant moment, one which is meant to effuse one of the political statements of the film, which is that everyone is much the same, no matter our gender, age, orientation, religion, etc., and that this is what the governments wish to keep us from actualizing. And yet this gripping moment seemed to float out on its own, a piece that is meant to fall into the puzzle of the film, but doesn’t quite fit.

When asked one last time if Evey will give up information in order to save herself, she refuses and is suddenly let free. As she walks out of the prison she discovers that she has been in V’s home all along, and that he created this whole ruse to “rid her of fear” and “make her stronger.” Evey is livid; she is baffled and furious that he could have done this to her. V tries to calm her, telling her that it was the only way to set her free, and that now she had achieved the ultimate state of fearlessness. He takes her out on the roof, and as the rain pours down on her shaved head as she yells with emotion….yet, it is unclear exactly why. Again, what I think the filmakers were trying to imply within the context of the film, that only those who value their beliefs over their lives can truly be alive or effect change in their government. An interesting statement considering today’s political climate of 24 hour terrorism talk, yet muddy and unclear. I certianly don’t think they dealt with the fact that V had actually imprisoned and tortured Evey because “he loved her” and “had to.” This darker, sadistic side does not really jive with the rest of his character of protect the innocent, harm the guilty.

At the end of the film Evey pulls the trigger on the bombs which will blow up parliament. V has been killed, and she takes Stephen Rea’s character up to the roof to watch the explosions, just as V had brought her months before. When Rea asks her who V really was she says, “he was my father, my mother, my brother, …., he was you and he was me.” Again another piece of passionate dialogue, but I had a hard time believing the journey that Evey’s character had made to this end point, where she blows up Parliament. She left V after he released her from the “prison” –but where did she go? We don’t know. What was she doing? Was she out on the streets fighting the same battle he was? Unclear. Yet, she comes back after weeks or possibly even months, letting V pass the torch to her, and essentially becoming the new V. It just didn’t really add up for me.

I found V’s story to be more compelling than Evey’s. As V for Vendetta unfolds, we also follows the story of two detectives played by Stephen Rea and Rupert Graves, who are trying to locate where V’s hideout is. As the detectives begin to explore just what lays behind the masked figure, they also uncover a massive coverup on the part of the government. To me, this was one of the more interesting, albeit gruesome portions of the story. I was intrigued, learning about the test facility where V was shot up with drugs and tested in an effort by government scientists to study the human immune system. Yet V’s victimization by the hands of the government was only part of a larger conspriacy that they had orchestrated which culminated in the coming to power of the dictator and the military police state. At one point Stephen Rea’s character posits the question to his partner –if your government was responsible for the death of thousands in your nation, would you want to know? Again, another viable political question, and one that has resonance in our society, but it wasn’t properly woven in with the rest of the film coherently.

The other story that the V for Vendetta tried to tell, peripherally, was the story of “the people.” Throughout the film we saw shots of civillians in their home or local pubs watching various events on TV like the hijacking of their national channel by V, and the subsequent efforts by the tyrannical leader to quell any thoughts of dissent. Eventually we watch them take action against their government. This provided a neat little runner throughout the movie, and represented another political theme. The last moments of the film looked stylish (I loved the image of all the masked individuals running towards the armed men, and then taking off their masks all together), and were powerful. But they did not have the power that they could have had because it was yet another straggling appendage flapping in the wind, instead of an endemic part of the whole; none of it added up. This movie lacked the very thing that it espoused above all –unity.

First time director James McTeigue did a formidable job, all things considered. He has a great sense of visuals, and had dynamic camera work. The art direction was solid, and he seemed to have an intuitive sense about his actors. I think ultimately the biggest problem with the film was story structure. The film clearly came from an intelligent source and there was some poetic dialogue and some nice turns of phrases; the language was there. Only it didn’t mesh together within the construct of a larger story. I haven’t read the original source material, so I am unable to deduce just how difficult it might have been to adapt. But it would seem with this film, the writer/producer Wachowski brothers had vision, but lacked clarity. V for Vendetta had some great ideas, some striking images, and some solid performances. I was interested and engaged by the film because it was…good, but with some streamlining and restructuring, I believe it could have been remarkable.

New Yorker is ambivalent about new Cars trailer

2006-03-20T15:01:00.000-08:00

I saw the new Cars trailer online the other day and am feeling a little bit mixed on the matter.

I was immediately struck by the beauty of the artwork portraying the dusty, craggy mountain ranges surrounding Route 66. The landscapes are stunning, and in particular there is a shot of the red car driving through the tunnel towards a waterfall that is breath taking. Not that Pixar has ever failed to impress in the visuals department, but what I think is most astounding about them, is how they are able to create a unique stylistic vision for each of their films, while maintaining certain visual trademarks.

What I am not so sure of however, are the characters and the story. While the setting of the film is striking, the design of main character –the lil’ red racing car, is strangely cartoonish. While I think the characterizations of the different kinds of cars are funny, there’s something about it that also feels a little gimmicky about it. That technique of personifying inanimate objects and animals based on their appearance can be funny and clever, but it also seems like kind of an easy joke, and one that Pixar has definintely used before. In The Lion King, it was enough of a stretch for me to believe that Simba and Nala shared a romantic night together where they felt “the love”, but ask me to buy a race car and a porshe courting each other, and that might be just too much for me.

My feelings on Pixar varies greatly depending on the project. I think most of their short films are terrific, (my favorite is Boundin’). Features wise it’s a bit hit or miss. I certainly think they all look incredible. I love Toy Story, but not Toy Story too. I though Monsters Inc. was a terrific idea, but had so-so execution. I thought Finding Nemo was OK, but loved The Incredibles. Usually its about every other one that I really like, so they are actually due for a less than stellar entry. Nevertheless I will be at the theatre to admire their craft and precision.

V For Vendetta: Hit or Miss?

2006-03-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well here it is. After almost three months of lagging and unexciting film releases, the first, big “nerd” film of 2006 is released today. I am referring of course to V for Vendetta , the film starring Natalie Portman, written and produced by the Wachowski brothers and directed by their protégé James McTeigue.

V for Vendetta is one of those rare genre films that has slipped through the cracks for me. Granted, I never read the original Alan Moore comic, so I lack the connection that I have with other big comic book films like Batman, Spiderman, Superman, and X-Men. But I just don’t feel as much anticipation as I think I should for this movie. The first time I saw the teaser , I was certainly interested. Utter the Wachowski namesake, and I pay attention, I don’t care what people said about Reloaded and Revolutions. The teaser had an arresting visual style, and I was strangely drawn to the masked face of V.

I consider myself to be decently savy with the cinematic language, yet, even after watching the trailer a couple of times, I found myself unable to understand exactly what the movie was about. Remember the first trailer for the Matrix? It was very odd, with slo mo sequences, and voiceover that merely posited the question, “What is the Matrix?” While some people were actually inspired by this trailer, flocking to the theatres on opening weekend, I remained perplexed. I refused to go see it for weeks (I would of course eventually see it and become entralled) because I couldn’t get a grasp on what it could possibly be about.

I feel a bit of the same with VFV. Sure, I’ll go see it this weekend, but more so because there’s been a drought of good movies lately, and I’ll take my gamble on this one. But, I can’t really say I can make heads or tails of the plot. I know it takes place in the future, under some sort of dictatorial reign in the UK. So far, so good. There is a masked vigilante, V, who fights against the evils of the government. Natalie Portman plays a young woman, who is abducted and then….shaves her head and fights bad guys too? As you can see, this is sort of where it falls apart for me. I’m not one of those people who wishes to see everything in a trailer. In fact I hate the recent trend of revealing “too much” in the trailer, and spoiling the twists and turns of a film before you can even get to see it. In my opinion a good movie marketing campaign should be two fold. A teaser can be vague or primarily stylistic in nature. It is meant to pique the interest of the audience, and leave an impression or image in their mind. A full length trailer however, should provide a bigger sense of story. Whether or not it reveals the actual story of the film is not the point, the trailer in and of itself should tell a story, and be driven with a narrative. However, I don’t think the VFV trailer does a very good job of creating a story that will hook people in and reel them into the theatres.
I’m also curious to see how the film does at the box office. I think it could go either way for VFV. It could bring the fanboys out in droves and open very well, or it might alienate the population at large with its morose and eeris photgraphy. The film is hyper stylized, in a way that people might brush off as “too weird”, and as beautiful as she might be, I think even Natlie Portman will have some trouble overcoming the idea of “A girl with a shaved head? Ew.” The one sheet poster, while bold and artistic, is also a pretty bizarre image. Definitely not a safe choice on the part of the marketers, and I like that its not safe. But I also think it might make some people shy away from the film even more. Monday morning box office reports should be interesting.

Though I try not to pay attention to the critics before I go see any given film, I can’t help but take notice of the wave of positive reveiws for this movie. It fills me with some hope, because on first glance it seems like the type of movie that is difficult to be a darling with the critics. It is dark, political, and violent. So maybe there is some hope after all. I could use a good film right about now. Review forthcoming.

Indiana FINALLY gets the green light?

2006-03-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Could it be? Is it true? After four years of blurbs in the trades and rumors on Aint It Cool , Yahoo! News broke a story last night, quoting Harrison Ford from an interview with a German magazine, in which he said that the current draft of the fourth Indy installment had finally been OK'd by the powers that be, AND there was actual talk of pre-production. It was almost a year ago (last May), when I last blogged about the status of Indy 4, sparked by an announcement in VARIETY that Ford and Spielberg ha approved Jeff Nathanson's script of the project, and were awaiting word from George Lucas. Ten months later it seems that Lucas has warmed to it after all. The three men had made an agreenment years ago that they would not proceed with the project unless all of them were pleased with the script.

Now, there is no direct quote from George Lucas in the article elucidating upon his official approval of the draft. Well not directly anyways… Lucas' producing partner Rick McCallum alluded to the fact that both he and Spielberg were doing their own little tweaks on the latest draft of Indy 4. Lucas' role as a producer and story teller might be essential to that magical formula for Indiana Jones, but I have some concerns about his role as a writer…. I mean, for whatever visual masterpieces the recent Star Wars films might have been, they were certainly not, how should we say, the most adroitly written things in the world. Not only is Lucas apparently putting his one two cents in the actual drafting process, but he has always been the most finnicky about the written word of Indy 4. Both Ford and Speilberg had expressed interest in earlier passes, by the likes of Frank Darabont and M. Night Shyamalan, but Lucas had reneged on both, halting pre-production on the film in both instances.

That's right, Lucas, God bless him, has been the most discriminant about the quality and tone of the script. This from the man who wrote lines like “I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth. Like you.” And “I killed them. I killed them all. They're dead, every single one of them. And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals.” And of course who could ever forget: “Better dead here than deader in the Core. Ye gods, whatta meesa sayin'?”

Whatta meesa sayin', indeed. The fourth Indiana Jones film has a strong writing legacy to live up to, as the first three Indy films are basically how-to models for writing a terrific action adventure. Granted, I have never read any of these drafts, but Lucas' reasoning puzzles me. Darabont and Shyamalan eat your hearts out, Jeff Nathanson this is your lucky day. Yes, the writer of Rush Hour 2 and 3 beat out the writers of The Sixth Sense and The Shawshank Redemption. Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson has had an interesting career. After a short lived stint in TV, where he wrote for the show, “Bakersfield, P.D.”, he wrote a small independent romantic comedy, “For Better or for Worse” in '96, which was directed by Jason Alexander. Shifting gears yet again, Nathanson's next film project was Speed 2: Cruise Control, which I have actually seen in passing on Saturday afternoon Television. It is not good and borders on the nonsensical, chock full of comedic Sandra Bullock lines like “Jack, he was never the romantic type. For our anniversary he gives me pepper spray. PEPPER SPRAY. I think it's perfume. I end up in the emergency room.”

For a little while it seemed Nathanson was going to make his name with lackluster action sequals, when he followed up Speed 2 with Rush Hour 2. But then something strange happened. Rush Hour 2 came out in '01 and then in '02, Catch me if You Can was released, which Nathanson also wrote. How he made the jump from B action movies to Steven Spielberg, I'm not sure -but it's a heck of a transition. The story for Catch Me if you Can was intriguing enough, though Nathansan had the luxury of the stories of the real man and his autobiography to help him along. Apparently Speilberg really took a shine to Nathanson, because he hired him to write his next script, The Terminal. Inspired again, from a true story, The Terminal seemed to be widely regarded as one of Spielberg's weakest films in years, and for me, a large part of the problem lay in the script. I thought the first half hour with Tom Hanks trying to accquaint himself with the airport and creating his new lifestyle there was endearing, but once Catherine Zeta-Jones' character entered the mix, it fell apart. Their love story was not believable in the slightest.

Yet the mediocrity of The Terminal was apparently not enough to dissuade Speilberg from hiring Nathanson a third time, to write the fourth chapter in the Indiana Jones legacy. But even Nathanson was not Speilberg's first choice to write the picture and from the outside looking in, it would seem sort of haphazard that Lucas would suddenly agree on the script. I suppose there's always the chance that Harrison Ford finally threw down the guantlet and said, “Look. I'm not getting any younger -let's make this thing, it's now or never!” Yet the idea of the boys getting back together to make Indiana Jones with whatever script they have in hand just because time is running out is not exactly reassuring. One can't help but wonder if they're settling. Especially, when one compares, even though one shouldn't, the unveiled screenplay to those of the three prior films. The first three films are filled with great action set pieces, clever banter and interesting twists. Let's take a look at what sort of people penned the original Indy trilogy.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, deemed by most to be the strongest of the three, was written by Lawrence Kasdan, a screenwriting Hollywood legend, who wrote the best of the Star Wars trilogy -Empire Strikes Back, as well as Return of the Jedi (yes the ewoks were a little too cute, but its still a great movie). One might compare Kasdan to Nathanson and think…Oy, what has the franchise come to. But lest we not forget that Kasdan in more recent years has also written The Bodygaurd, and the unforgettable Dreamcatcher (Dudditts!). Temple of Doom was written by writing team William Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also authored such respected works as American Grafitti and Radioland Murders. But they also wrote Howard the Duck, a film which I will defend to the bitter end, but which I must also recognize as flawed. The Last Crusade was written by Jeffrey Boam, who wrote solid genre fare like The Lost Boys and Innerspace, but also wrote Leathal Weapon 2 and 3. I find this factoid particularly interesting since Nathanson has written Rush Hour 2, and the upcoming Rush Hour 3. So maybe the series hasn't gotten too far off after all. All writers, even some of the best, have their misses, and sometimes writers with botchy histories, may breakaway from their past to impress. For all my postulating on how good or bad the next Indy film will be, it is impossible to say at this point. The right talent is involved, and as fans, all we can only hope that the enthralling image of that archiologist with his whip and his fedora will be done justice once more.

According to the Yahoo! article Spielberg's people have confirmed that “…this is certianly the closest where we've been in this whole development process.” Spielberg's next project is the Lincoln biopic with Liam Neesen, but there is hinting in the article that he may bypass that for a bit to do Indy 4 first. This means we could potentially be seeing the new Indiana Jones by next summer if they really fast track it…. Still, as I've said in the past, I'm not holding my breath.

A Scanner Darkly

2006-03-13T11:30:00.000-08:00

I adore this poster, and am very excited for the movie. I never saw Waking Life, though it seems the animation style is similar, no? The image on the poster is cool to begin with, the folk peering behind the venetian blinds reeks of noir, and there is something very hip about seeing Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Winona Ryder all in 2-D.

I'm debating whether or not I should brush up on the Phillip K. Dick book before or after I see the film...I may wait till after, since I don't even remember the ending.

Release date is July 7th. It's going to be a good summer for nerds...

Double Feature Baby!: A look at Ultraviolet and The Hills Have Eyes

2006-03-12T02:43:00.000-08:00

It had been years since I had committed a continuous block of time to go see a double feature at the theatre. But this past Friday I decided to buckle down and catch up with the genre fare out there.

UltraViolet whimpered into fourth place at the box office after it was released last weekend, just barely breaking the nine million mark. Ouch. A few weeks ago, I posted my first thoughts on Ultraviolet after I saw the trailer. I remarked on the similarities to Aeon Flux, another futuristic dystopian sci-fi female hero flick. Now after having seen both films, I can safely say, that yes, they are similar, but more so in their packaging than in their contents, and also that Ultraviolet is the weaker of the two.

The total running time for Ultraviolet is 86 minutes. Without the credits, it clocked in at total of an hour and twenty minutes of actual film footage. That’s shorter than your average Disney animated feature, and I can’t help but wonder just how much of its footage ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. The opening credit sequence is probably the best part of the movie, featuring a multitude of vibrant comic book art of the character Ultraviolet. (The film was not actually based on a Comic –this was just a gimmick chosen by director, Kurt Wimmer). After the artistic credits, things start to go downhill quickly, as we are plunged into the mother of all expository voiceover monologues. It goes something like this:

“Hi my name is Violet and you may not understand this world that is because several years ago a virus emerged and killed out many in the planet and it created a divide among the population, between the infected and the healthy and whereas before terrorism ruled the ages, now does disease. I was pregnant and had a husband once but then they killed him and infected me and now I am sick too with no baby and I must fight against the evil rulers who wish to kill out those of use who are infected you probably didn’t understand any of this or this world.”

Damn skippy we didn’t. The voiceover segment was accompanied by blurry visuals showing men in labcoats, people wearing face masks, and Violet (Milla Jovovich) becoming “infected.” Before my head to stopped spinning from the amount of information that had so ungracefully been shoved into my face, the movie launched into one of its many abrasive action sequences. Violet, or “V”, as her friends call her, is on a mission to retrieve a briefcase (that looks more like a futuristic Fendi purse) which supposedly contains an “antigen” that will wipe out the infected members of society.
V is able to get through the security checkpoints by altering her blood state with some sort of suppressants, and once inside blasts through about two hundred bad guys in order to get out of there alive and with the goods. Jovovich of course is as thin as a rail and has the muscle mass of a child in elementary school, but don’t let that fool you, because she can manifest guns out of thin air and wields a thin square blade with Asian looking cuneiform on it. Exactly how or why V uses the weapons she does is ever explained. One of the big flaws of this movie is that it takes place in a world with many of its own caveats, rules, and histories, but fails to draw the audience in and make it palatable. Even when writer/director Kurt Wimmer does tries to elucidate on certain facts of Violet’s world, he does so with some clunky throw away dialogue.

About thirty minutes into the movie, I begin to suspect something. The “infection” that is rampant in society is actually Vampirism. How do I know this? Well not because it was clear in any way shape or form, that’s for sure. V and her friends do not attack humans or animals, nor do they seem to need blood at all. They can walk around in daylight, and are not afraid of churches, garlic, or crosses. The only way that it’s possible to detect it is by the occasional sporting of the traditional set of fangs by some of the characters, some of the time. Characters do also mention Vampirism in passing, but its all incredibly vague. Exactly what the vampire virus does to humans is uncertain as well. Do these vampires have super human strength? It’s possible, though it’s never laid out that they have more strength than the uninfected folk they battle. They can certainly be killed just as easily. It appears only downside to being infected at all is a shortened life span. Other than that they look just as healthy and strong as can be. V has bouts of “sickness” during the film, but again, it is unclear as to how this is connected to her illness, and if its more so connected to the additives she takes to cover her “blood identity.” What I want to know is, what is the point of having vampires around if they don’t do anything that vampires do?

After Violet gets away with the stolen goods, she gets on her way to deliver the briefcase to her fellow infectees so they can destroy it. Despite a warning from her associate, curiosity gets the best of her and she takes a peek inside the briefcase. V is shocked to find that the briefcase does not contain any test tubes or lab reports, but a young child. (Don’t ask me how its possible for a smallish briefcase to carry a ten year old boy, because I don’t know the answer.) V goes in and confronts the gang of vampires she is working with/for, telling them she was lied to, that the briefcase held a hell of a lot more than an antigen to wipe them out. The head vampire tells her that this “child” has the antigen coursing in his veins, and that he must be eliminated in order to save those like them. V’s harsh, tough exterior falters, and she pleads on behalf of the life of the child. The vampires brush her aside and she leaves. As she walks down the hall we see that she has fooled the vampires, and stashed the kid in a corner! The rest of the movie is dedicated to following Violet and her half pint sidekick named Six, as they run away from the bad guys who are trying to recapture the boy. All sorts of reveals are woven into the haphazard story. Violet brings Six to a friend to have him tested and it turns out he doesn’t have the antigen to the infection in his blood. Then we find out Six is terminally ill. Then we find out Six is actually a test tube baby, a clone of the villainous Daxus who governs the bio-terroristic Garrison state, and is V’s archnemesis. Then we discover he actually contains the Vampiric virus and he will be used to reinfect the population so that Daxus can deepen his controlling grip over the society. None of it makes any sense, but in Ultraviolet, that’s par for the course.

Beyond its story problems, it was impossible to become invested in this story because of its lack of compelling characters. From the moment that Violet pleas with her fellow vampires to spare the life of the innocent child, it was pretty clear to me where all of this was going. Violet, who lost her baby when she became infected, was to reconnect with her maternal instincts as she developed her relationship with Six, fleeing like fugitives from the evils of the dystopia. While not an inherently faulty idea to explore its execution was quite poor. It was difficult to believe that the angular, cranky Violet was anything else than a depressed, embittered killer, and the film’s twenty second attempt at tapping into her past did nothing to shake this mold. I get the feeling that there might have been attempts to deepen Violet’s character, but that these were lost somewhere into the black hole of the editing room. The result of this heavy chopping was not only a two dimensional character, but a complete lack of continuity and coherence. There is a moment in the film where Violet is saved by a male friend, Garth, played by William Fitchner. Violet wakes up in a medical room and Garth says, “Well we didn’t think we could do it, but after four hours of heart surgery you have pulled through!” Frustrated, Violet, asks him why he bothered. Garth then looks at her with puppy dog eyes and says “Isn’t it obvious?” The film then immediately cuts to a scene of the two of them standing outside in the dark, and Garth asking Violet “But why do you keep people out?” Violet gives him some sort of surly answer and rides off into the moonlight. Now I assume here that at some point there was meant to be romantic tension between these two. I don’t necessarily mind that this was cut, but by God, if the filmmaker is going to change something like that, he needs to finesse it a bit better than that… Jovovich is someone who I think is capable of turning in a solid performance, but her portrayal of Violet was a labored endeavor. This was due in large part to the lack of material she had to work with in the script. Ultraviolet, like many films before it, was trying to tell the story of a superhero. In this case the superhero was the remarkably strong, fast, and resilient Violet, a vampire who did not require blood but was doomed to die at an early age. There just wasn’t nearly enough time taken to develop her character, be it by witnessing her past, or seeing her interact with other individuals. Her friend Garth was someone that she interacted with the most in the film, and their interactions were flimsy, fettered enterprises devoid of sincerity. Even the key relationship to the film, that between her and Six, felt empty and ill founded. Six might have been a child prodigy, but his gloomy eyes, lack of dialogue and dullard attitude did not exactly help justify why Violet would passionately fight for his life and connect to him so strongly.

You might think to yourself that the visuals for the futuristic setting of Ultraviolet were its saving grace…but they weren’t. You can’t tell this from watching the trailer, but the whole film was shot with these filters that created a hazy soft look that drove me nuts. They airbrushed Jovovich’s face so much, that at times it looked as though she didn’t even have a nose, just two petite nostrils floating in alabaster. The city where all of this unfolded looked like the cityscape of any U.S. city with a couple of large streamlined structures superimposed on top, resulting in an unappealing lack of congruity. The fight sequences were muddy and blurry, reminiscent of a young children’s ride at an amusement park where you can’t really see what’s going on and things are over before you know it.

Ultraviolet was lacking everything one might look for in a film going experience; story, characters, performance, and visuals. It wasn’t the kind of film that’s bad because it’s mediocre and unexciting, and it wasn’t the kind of film that was bad, but had enjoyable campy value. Ultraviolet was just bad; a sputtering, staggering, beast that should have been put out of its misery before it was released out of the gate.

After a grueling hour and twenty minutes, I was worried about sitting through another potential stinker. Luckily, in comparison, The Hills Have Eyes remake was at the very least, engrossing. THHE was directed by Alexandre Aja, who in 2003, gained notoriety with the French horror film, High Tension, which he wrote and directed and took the Sundance film festival by storm that year. High Tension has a radical twist ending which created a lot of hub bub among film geeks who seemed to be split down the middle about its effectiveness. At twenty seven years old, Aja appears to be one of these young hotshot directors, out to make his mark on the scene. Yet his eagerness to impress ultimately seems to get the better of him in THHE. (whatever the case may be, the man has written and directed two more feature films then I have –so don’t think I’m not munching on some humble pie as I type this blog).

The first half hour or so of the film is very well done. The suspense builds slowly and delicately, forming a house of cards that you know must inevitably tumble. While I haven’t seen the original Wes Craven ’77 version of the film, I’ve heard that the general story is quite similar. The film opens on the Carter family who are on a road trip vacation by way of a Bronco and RV. Ma and Pa Carter are played by the notable Kathleen Quinlan and Ted Levine respectively, are celebrating their twenty fifth wedding anniversary. Oldest daughter Lynne played by Vinessa Shaw, has brought along her husband Doug, (played by Aaron Stanford who also plays Pyro in the X-Men films, but looks completely different) and their one year old baby. The two youngest in the clan are Bobby (Dan Byrd) and Brenda, played by LOST’S Emile de Ravin. From the minute the film starts we get a pretty good idea of the family dynamic without being hit over the head with it. Pa Carter is a staunch conservative patriarch, and also a retired detective, which I thought was a cool occupation for the character, and Ma Carter a maternal, caring bordering on finicky presence. Doug, the son-in-law has plenty of reservations about being on the trip, because of his tensions with the in-laws, and his uptight nature, but wife Brenda does a pretty good job of soothing his frazzled nerves. Bobby is a sweet and loyal but insecure teen, and Brenda’s (de Ravin) character, with probably the worst set-up, is a stereotypical snotty and spoiled teen girl.

Straight off the bat we know who we’re dealing with, and the longer we watch them interact with one another, and handle their surroundings and situation, the more we want to yell at the screen for them to get the hell out of there. When the film starts, the family is pulling into a run down gas station to fuel up and stretch their legs. The owner, a bizarre and wizened old man, tells them about a short cut they can take to cut over to the main high way. At the behest of his impatient family, Pa Carter takes the short cut, and while on the bumpy, dusty, road, blows out all the tires and wrecks the SUV. The family is now stuck in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, with no other cars passing by, no cell phone service, and no signs of civilization to help them. I feel a set of shivers running up my spine just thinking about this as I type. While certainly not a novel concept for a horror movie, Aja is able to capture the isolation and vulnerability of the situation, and make us feel as though this could easily happen to us. He continues to build the tension in the rest of the first act and into the second act with by compounding small unsettling events. Doug and Pa Carter have decided to walk in opposite directions on the dirt road to find help, and Doug happens upon a crater filled with empty deserted cars that have been dumped there. Of course at this point, the audience generally knows that these are the cars of former victims of the mutants which live out in the desert. But Doug doesn’t, and we want to scream and tell him to find a car that starts so that he can pile up his family in it and save them. Back at the RV where the rest of the Carters have been waiting, Bobby has been trying to keep a handle on the family’s two german shepards, Beauty and Beast, who keep running off into the rocky areas of the desert. When Beauty runs away for the second time, Bobby is horrified to discover her body, mutilated and dismembered among the rocks. He is clearly disturbed by this, but at the same time does not want to panic his mother and sisters and so he stays quiet, nervously encouraging them to be cautious. Again, I found myself gritting my teeth and trying to will Bobby to come clean about the dog and evacuate the premesis. Though it is impossible for the family to escape their fate, you can’t help but root for them to do so. Meanwhile Pa Carter has made it back to the eerie gas station by nightfall, where he looks for the owner unsuccessfully, and instead stumbles upon evidence of the evil acts that have been going on in that desert. There is a horrible moment (and by horrible, I mean one invoking a sense of horror, not bad) where we see in Pa Carter’s face that he knows what lays in store for his family who are alone in the dark, back at the camp, and it is gut wrenching.

The first “attack scene” in the film, where the mutants finally descend upon the Carter family, is one of the most upsetting, terrifying, yet well executed scenes I’ve seen in a horror movie in a while. The scenario is structured in such a way that it is painful to watch the family in their panicked behavior, as you will them to get ahold of themselves so that they can save those family members who are still alive and in danger. The thing that struck me about this scene, was that though violent and barbaric in nature, Aja made the camera keep its distance, so that you could not necessarily see the sickest details, but felt the impact nonetheless. While some hardcore horror fans might classify this as “wimping out”, I was impressed by this because I’m the sort of person who doesn’t think it’s necessary to show a fingernail being torn off in front of the camera. Showing the back of the villain, and the scream of the victim, is sufficient and equally upsetting.

Everything up until this horrific climactic moment had me reeled in. I was engaged in the story, invested in the characters, and caught up in the moment. But as the mutants scampered away to their camp and the survivors struggled through the aftermath, things began to feel a little artificial. I think in part, this was due to the fact that two out of the three actors left were probably the weakest of the ensemble to begin with. I really liked Dan Byrd as young Bobby Carter, but Aaron Stanford as Doug seemed ill equipped to carry the rest of the movie (which was essentially what he did), and Emile de Ravin while realistically emotive of the horrendous trauma she had just been through, didn’t have terribly good chemistry with her brother. The scene in the RV immediately following the departure of the heathens felt forced and unrealistic. Ma Carter lay dying on the sofa, and the only one that seemed to give a damn was her son in law Doug. Brenda had just been horribly beaten and assaulted, but nobody seemed particularly concerned with her state.
With the family dynamic reduced to almost nothing, THHE deteriorated into a pretty standard horror genre film. What was alluded to before, was now shown in gory detail, and the serious, urgent verite tone morphed into a fantastical, campy affair. I think I can sort of understand the ideas that Aja might have had for doing this, --perhaps he wanted to show a shift from the gritty reality the characters had been based in to an elusive nightmarish dreamscape. Still, because the shift came in so late in the film, it did not feel organic, and I, myself, would have preferred it to keep its prior energy which felt more tempered and real.

Doug leaves Bobby and Brenda behind to man the camp while he goes in search of the mutant enclave where he believes his baby has been taken. Upon finding it, he discovers a ghost town which was left for dead after severe radiation from government nuclear testing permeated through it. The entire town is a dusty remnant of 50’s model homes filled with decaying mannequins and appliances. While I recognized this as a unique stylized choice on Aja’s part, it didn’t quite work. The mannequins seemed to clash with the miner mutant slaughterhouse and cannibalistic elements, and I understood the paradox of this, the 50’s theme wasn’t executed visually on a large enough scale to have the proper impact.

While at the atomic village Doug encounters some more mutants including an enormous man in a wheelchair, who looked like he stepped off the set of SNL after doing a Conehead sketch. The design for this particular mutant character was overboard with his triple chin and his Igor giggle. It was impossible to really be scared by this figure, and while he had some creepy lines, I wasn’t buying the make-up. In fact I would say one of the large weaknesses of this production was the make-up. None of the mutants looked particularly scary to me; one looked like a goofy Frankenstein, another a hare lipped version of Mackenzie Crook’s character from Pirates of the Caribbean. I felt like I could reach out and touch their puffy prosthetics, --they would have been better off casting some quirky actors and down playing the make-up, though I realize this would have put a whole damper on the mutant theme.

As Doug fights to save his baby, he must defeat one of the head mutants, a battle which evolved into an arduous, never ending fight, with tumbles through breakaway walls, and Doug getting bloodier by the minute. It is at this point that the film enters true gorefest territory with close-ups of fingers being lopped off, and pick-axes plunging into foreheads. Some people get a kick out of this sort of thing. I do not, and I was much more entertained when Aja relied on his mastery of suspense and tension.

In an incredibly bizarre moment of “meanwhile, back at the ranch…”, siblings Bobby and Brenda are once again thrown into terror when they realize that the body of their mother has vanished. When Bobby goes to investigate, he discovers a mutant eating the corpses’ remains, in the old gruesome red spaghetti guts fashion. I was more annoyed at this development than I was horrified, because the gut eating was the sort of old hat I had seen in countless Zombie flicks and b-movie horror fare. Beyond that was the inexplicable discrepancy in the appearance of this particular mutant, who did not look anything like the others, and did not appear to have any sort of deformity. With his long hair and trench coat he looked more like a renegade back up member of ZZ top than anything else. The non-mutated mutant chases Bobby back to the camp where he and his sister have set up a booby trap and the two blow the mutant and the truck and RV up to the sky. Right at this moment Doug appears with the surviving dog and baby in a comical hero stance through the licks of fire with over the top desperado music playing in the background.

When I say that Aja gets a bit ahead of himself, I believe that he is trying to prove that he can do it all, within the confines of this one picture. Aja, who worked on the script for THHE remake as well, also tried to infuse his two cents of political commentary within the film. One of his primary alterations to the story was to change the villains, from uncivilized homicidal maniacs who happened to live in the desert, to deformed individuals who were descended from people who had been exposed to massive radiation from the U.S. government’s atomic testing in the area. When he is conversing with Doug the Conehead mutant has a line which states that Doug and his folk created his people, and now they are suffering for it. I found this to be a thinly veiled commentary on the U.S. government having created situations in the world, and then having these “mutants” or “monsters” come back to haunt them or their people , i.e. terrorism, the situation in the Middle East. Again, while I commend the fact that Aja was attempting to inject some politics into a horror flick, it felt more tacked on than anything else. Aja wanted his American feature debut to be part suspense, part gross out horror, part social commentary, and part character study. I think the end result was a film that only succeeded in parts of these areas part of the time. I was completely sold on the film for the first half, but it lost me a bit in the second half. I was still committed to finding out the fate of the characters, but I thought it shifted gears a little clumsily, and lost the steady pacing of the first half. All in all it was one of the more absorbing horror remakes in the past couple years. More compelling I’d say than The Amityville Horror and The House of Wax. I only wished it hadn’t puttered out the way it did.

Every Once in a While...

2006-03-09T13:00:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while a trailer for a film comes along that defies explanation, logic, commentary. You sit and watch it perplexed, not only by the concept itself, but by how it is that such a film could even have been written, let alone produced and set for release.

Here is such a trailer...

Full Length Trailer for X-Men 3 is Up!!

2006-03-07T11:35:00.000-08:00

After a dazzling teaser for X-Men 3: The Last Stand, was released a couple months ago, yesterday the powers that be at Fox finally released full length trailer . Boy, am I excited!

Though perhaps lacking in the sort of character driven emotional journeys of comic book films like Spiderman 2 and Batman Begins, the X-Men films have always been solidly done and great fun to watch. I don’t care what anyone says about him, Hugh Jackman makes a great Wolverine, and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan battling it out as Professor X and Magneto is a casting dream come true. Not all of the other actors may be as strong, but none of them are actively bad, and besides they all look the part so much who can complain?

While I was dubious about the passing of the franchise from the hands of the foolish but talented Bryan Singer to those of the foolish Brett Ratner, it would appear that so far, so good. The camera work looks great, and film definitely seems to have a stylish element of its own. I love the shot of Angel flying out of the sky scraper, the line of mutants marching among the cars led by Magneto with Phoenix by his side, the section of the suspension bridge flying in slow motion through the air, and the mutant chase throught the concrete walls.

The script for this installment of the X-Men movies, was written by Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg. Penn worked on the story of X-2, and has also written Elektra (uh oh) Suspect Zero (never heard of it), and the dialogue for the Fantastic Four VIDEO GAME (interesting –didn’t know they hired official Hollywood screenwriters for video game copy). Kinberg was a writer on Mr. & Mrs. Smith (barf) and XXX: State of the Union (oh my). I know what you’re thinking, and believe me it’s crossed my mind as well. This does not exactly bode well for the screenplay of X-Men 3. Yet the screenplay for X2 was well done, and I’m hoping that Penn’s work from that film will carry over into this one. From the small glimpses we see in this trailer there is at least some continuity in the relationships between the characters, i.e. the love triangle between Cyclops, Wolverine, and Jean Gray and the dynamic between Wolverine and Rogue. I am also intrigued by the way that Kitty Pryde seems to come inbetween Rogue and Iceman’s relationship; mutant gossip, hooray! I didn’t notice any particularly egregious dialouge, except for maybe the line that Prof X says to Storm: “You of all people should know how fast the weather can change…”

Still, this trailer keeps me very optimistic. The culmination of this trilogy has been building towards a huge all and all out battle between the U.S. military, and each faction of the mutants, and finally it seems like this is what we are going to get. X-Men 3: The Last Stand will be released on May 26th, in what I hope will be an excellent kick off to the summer movie season of 2006.

Oscars Smoshcars or Has the New Yorker Become a Jaded Bitter Fool?

2006-03-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Last night’s 78th annual Academy Awards were a testament to just how vital TiVo has become to my life. I don’t think I would have been able to make it through the SEVEN hours of coverage (that’s one hour of pre-show red carpet, three hours and fourty minutes of actual award show, and about two hours of post show commentary and interviews), without making use of the fast forward button for commercials and stodgy portions.

Was it just me, or were the Oscars damn near unbearable this year? It’s true my opinion of them are often colored by how many of the films I liked in a given year were nominated, but I usually get some enjoyment out of watching the Hollywood royalty process out and about, amongst all the pomp and circumstance. But much this year felt forced and strained. Jon Stewart’s brutal opening monologue which fell a bit flat, was made ten times worse because of the chagrin radiating from the audience. I found it painful when the camera would cut to annoyed looks from the like of Keira Knightly and George Clooney in response to some of his jokes. I like Jon Stewart, --I think he’s a funny guy and the Daily Show is good, and all these things made watching him bomb in front of Hollywood’s cream of the crop torturous. Also the opening monologue seemed excessively long, and in fact lasted about fifteen minutes. Granted they had the opening video clip showing various former Oscar hosts turning the job down. There were several funny moments in this video, including Steve Martin’s silver haired children, and Jon Stewart’s dreams of waking up next to celebrities Berry and Clooney.

In fact the funniest moments in the show for me, were the pre-taped video bits. The lobbying for the best actress race, and in particular for the sound mixing race was hilarious. Yes, it was done in Daily Show’s psuedo-political format, but it worked and added a fresh, new feel to the Oscars.

What didn’t feel fresh or new about the Oscars were the four film montages that played over the course of the evening, with a range of generic themes like, “biopics are good, haven’t we done a lot?”, “Movies can tackle issues!”. “Film Noir is cool!”, and last but not least “Movies are better on the big screen, (so please stop buying Video Ipods and downloading movies on your computer)” Don’t get me wrong, I love a good montage when it’s done well, but this Oscars represented montage overkill. While I appreciated the gestures that the Academy was trying to make with some of these clips, i.e. honoring the stylishness of film noir, it seemed neither here nor there within the context of the show. I love the Film Noir genre, but I thought most of the montage was a jumbled mess of credits over a lot of poor quality clips without much direction or climactic build. There really wasn’t any particular reason to include this montage in there. No neo-noir films were nominated this year, the honorary award was not going to a director of noir films, nor was it any sort of special anniversary in the history of film noir. Even the justification that the theme of the Oscars this year was “the glamor of Hollywood” doesn’t really fly, because when you get right down to it, the genre of “film noir” was not glamorous. In fact it was the antithesis to glossy Hollywood musicals and sprawling gradiose westerms. These were low-budget, gritty, dark, fly by the seat of their pants productions, which didn’t even get much attention from mainstream audiences in the states, until French film enthusiasts coined the phrase “film noir”.

The “biopic” montage and “issues” montage were at least a little more applicable to the films that were nominated this year, but the “big screen” montage was another one that felt extremely general and disconnected from the rest of the show. Honestly how many more times can I see that clip of Henry Fonda from Grapes of Wrath giving his “wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat” speech, which might be poetic and moving, but has been in every movie montage ever. As has the Sydney Potier line “They call me Mr. Tibbs” from In the Heat of the Night, as has the music from West Side Story, as has the “I coulda been a contender..” speech from On the Waterfront. These films and moments are classic cinema. I get it. But when time and time again they are used they begin to loose their ardor and grow hackneyed. I don’t understand why the montages rarely include anything from the past twenty or so years of cinema. Without being updated with newer films, everything just feels tired and old. Which is what most of the show felt like to me.

As for the winners? I’ve already made my feelings on some of the nominations clear in previous posts. I still haven’t seen a couple of the big contenders, including Crash, so I can’t really comment to that. I was pleased with several of the wins, however. I was glad Wallace and Grommit beat out the tepid Corpse Bride for best animated film. I was happy King Kong won three technical awards, including visual FX, for its outstanding work. Whatever story problems it might have had, I thought Memoirs of a Geisha was absolutely stunning to look at, and I thought it deserved it’s awards in Cinematography, Art Direction and Costumes. I thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman was well rewarded for his acting work in Capote, and Resse Witherspoon was good enough in Walk the Line. And even though I STILL (and yes I’m embarassed to admit it) haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, I was content that Ang Lee took home best director, because based off his previous work I think he’s a very talented, competent director, and besides doesn’t he just seem like the nicest guy? Sure it would have been nice if Speilberg had won, but I also understand he can’t win EVERY year.

This wasn’t a very big Oscars for me. In the past I’ve gotten very wrapped up in the ceremony, either rooting heartily for one film to sweep or torn between a duo or trio of films I respect. I suppose part of it was that I was ill prepared this year, and didn’t end up seeing several of the nominated films in time for the show. But are these really the only reasons I was unexcited throughout? Is it just me, or was this particular Oscars fairly weak all around?

New Precedent Set on LOST

2006-03-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

For the first time in its short but complex history, LOST aired an episode in which the flashbacks experienced by the focal character of the episode took place after the plane crash on the island. Last night’s episode “Maternity Leave” used the format that we are used to, by honing in on one character –in this case Claire, and then cutting back to past events in flashbacks that are relavent to what the character is dealing with at the present. The only other episode that has broken the mold of “action on the island, story in a flashback” was “The Other 48 Days” which aired earlier this season. However that episode was more a snapshot of the tail section survivors and their experiences. While some could argue it was like one large flashback, I found it to be a fairly straightforward storyline, which just jumped through time to show the action on that part of the island.

“Maternity Leave” was not only unique because Clarie’s flashbacks took place on the island, but because they dealt with a secret we’ve all been dying to know since last year. We’ve all wondered what the heck happened to Claire when she was taken by Ethan, and finally after last night, we have some clue.

I think for anyone who has watched the show in its entirety, it was difficult not to be on the edge of one’s seat during at least part of this episode. I liked that they brought Rousseau back in a more logical manner than with the Sayid episode, and I liked that Ethan played a large part in the flashbacks. I also liked that fact that Rousseau’s daughter was woven into the plot (or at least a Red Herring for her character.) I myself, am not convinced the woman who helped Claire out of the bunker was Alex. Not to mention the fact I thought she looked much older than sixteen.

The most intriguing reveal of all to me about the episode was the moment when Kate went into the locker and discovered what appeared to be the props of the head “seabillie” who took Walt and challenged Jack in the jungle. We saw his worn cap, his beard and the “theatrical glue” he uses to stick it on his face. There are some interesting implications here, including the fact that the OTHERS may not be these savage tribe like people, but all part of the larger Dharma collective research group. I’m also glad that they finally wrapped up the scratches on Rousseau’s arm from Claire. I had forgotten about this whole story line and I think Rousseau’s choices here add an extra element of depth and contradiction to her character. She didn’t wish Claire to be harmed by the Others, and saved her, yet in her distraught state still took Claire’s baby to trade it into the Others for her own, Alex. While I had suspected Rousseau wasn’t trying to harm her, I’m glad this loose end finally got tied up.

I still can’t make heads or tails of the whole “infection” and “vaccine” element; and every time someone starts to go into particulars about it my eyes glaze over because none of it makes any sense. Claire’s insistence that she remembered “them” injecting her baby with something, and her vying to get the vaccine from “them” was patently ridiculous. Why would they do this? And why would Claire think they had a vaccine as well? How could they inject the baby when she was pregnant but not have the substance get mixed into Claire’s bloodstream? After all babies and mothers share blood, oxygen, and other bodily fluids. It’s unclear as to what the parameters of the infection, quarentine, and vaccine are, and so it all feels like garbled nonsense. Also assuming Claire didn’t know that the bunker was going to be deserted, how on earth did she really expect to get anywhere with the dangerous freaks who took her? And why would Kate go with Claire so readily? Did she really think that a single 9 mm would protect them, especially after everything she’s seen and experienced on the island?

I appreciate the fact that the writers finally wanted to show us what happened to Claire when she was taken, but the way they worked in into the episode felt somewhat forced and clunky. In a show which I had easily numbered as one of the best written on TV for a while, I find the overall quality of writing episode to episode declining a bit.

Still in an ocean of blah episodes, as least I could get invested in this one. I’m glad that they didn’t drop the story of the mysterious balloonist in this episode because I think it has interesting potential. The scene between he and Locke was interesting, and I like the balloonist’s meek comment on the power structure of the island. Though I wasn’t necessarily buying that Locke would express his anger by wrecking havoc in the kitchen afterwards. I think that Locke would have been a bit more controlled in his reaction, especially since it had just come up that the balloonist has good ears and can easily hear what is going on on the other side of his door. But I certianly like the idea that the balloonist is slowly and subtlely leaking out the poison of suspicion and mistrust among the other survivors until it becomes an all hell breaks loose Lord of the Flies situation.
I think it would be great to see some huge divide develop among the survivors, particularly since there are so many characters on the island at this point. While I I can see how this provides more fodder for story, it’s also easy to loose track of main characters entirely. I mean does anyone even care that Michael has vanished? Does anyone even remember? No one has mentioned his name in the past couple episodes.

All in all still a troubled episode, but at least one which I could sink my teeth into a bit. I really am curious to see what the rest of this season has in store; I’d love to see my sinking suspiciouns proved wrong and have them make some crazy revelations within the next five to eight episodes. I am also eager to see how and if the show’s flashback format will evolve and change in the future.

James Cameron to direct another Sci Fi Pic anon

2006-02-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

While taking in my daily dose of Yahoo! Movie News , I came across this article about film director James Cameron, and the announcement of an upcoming film that he will be helming. The project is called “The Dive”, which is based on the true story of two “free divers” Francisco Feraras and Audrey Mestre, and the romance which developed between them and culminated in their marriage. Sort of sounds like Walk The Line meets The Abyss.

However, it was not the announcement of “The Dive” that caught my eye. What I really got excited about was the film that Cameron will be working on before he tackles the bio-pic diver’s love story, Battle Angel. How this slipped under my purview, I’m not sure. Either I’m loosing my touch, or this next film is being kept, very, very hush hush. Apparently this past December, Cameron released a statement that he has begun work on the giant Sci-Fi blockbuster, Battle Angel.
The film will be written by Laeta Kalogridis, who wrote the Russian runaway sensation Nightwatch, who will adapt it from a well known anime graphic novel series by Yukito Kishiro.

Here’s a plot synopsis Cameron gave of the film in an interview with Comingsoon.net .

“…the story takes place 300 years after a societal collapse caused by a major war, but in that society, it's a technological dark age following a pinnacle of achievement far, far beyond where we are right now. So in a sense it's post-apocalyptic, but it's post-apocalyptic from a very high level. So now, you've got cyborg technology as just a way of life. People are augmented a lot as workers and so on, so being a cyborg is not unusual. The main character is a cyborg. She has an organic human brain, and she looks like she's about fourteen years old. She has a completely artificial body and she's lost her memory- she's found in this wreckage and she's reconstituted by this guy who is a cyber-surgeon who becomes her kind of surrogate father. It's a father-daughter relationship story that just has the most insane action that you can imagine. It will be PG-13 -- lots of blood, but it's all blue."

Sound bizarre? I thought so. I like the Frankenstein mythology built into the story of the protagonist, but I don’t really understand what Cameron means when he says “post-apocalyptic from a very high level.” As in civilization has been crushed but there is still a very high level of operating technology around?
Cameron has also said there will be fully CG animated characters, in the vein of Gollum and Jar Jar, but perhaps the most interesting tid bit of all is that it will be in 3-D. That’s right folks, we’ll be donning those goofy plastic glasses to see this pic when it comes out in 2008.

Cameron has gone to great lengths to show his passion for the film format that he has coined as cinema in “stereo.” His past two directorial endeavors have been 3D documentaries, Ghosts of the Abyss, and Aliens of the Deep. I saw Ghosts of the Abyss in an Imax theatre when it was released, and while it had some goofy narraration on the part of the amiable Bill Paxton, it was really impressive to see the sort of technology they had developed in order to film the wreckage of the Titanic in a way that had never been done before. The 3D element in GOTA did add a textured layer to the viewing experience, and it was especially clever because it made you feel like you were really riding side by side with the camera into the depths of the lost TItanic.

Conceptually, I think that 3D cinema can be really effective. Many people associate 3D with the sort of gag films that are at the Disney amusement parks where Jack in the Boxes are lurking at every turn ready to pop out at your face and make you yank your head back in your seat. Cameron definitely strays away from the gimmicky aspects of 3D, and wants to continue to expanding and pushing the boundries of the technique. However neat 3D might be, it is also the type of thing that works best in a vaccum. This probably sounds like a pedestrian concern/compaint, but there is an innate impracticality to 3D because of the necessary 3D glasses. I feel my cheeks burning red as I type this because of how nerdy it sounds, but as someone who wears prescription glasses on a regular basis, 3D glasses can be a real pain in the neck. You have to fit them over your glasses somehow, and they never fit right, and they can scratch your lenses. Even if you don’t wear glasses, you can still get stuck with a bum pair, one with smudged lenses, or cracked plastic. I think the downside of the progression of the 3D glasses from the flexible cardboard frames to unwieldy harsh plastic, is that you can no longer bring your own, as people would in the past.

3D aside, I for one am excited that James Cameron is getting back to his Sci-Fi roots. Remember James Cameron, the science fiction film director? He did some of the most memorable sci-fi films of the 80’s, greats such as Terminator 1& 2, Aliens and The Abyss? Since then he’s done some work as a producer on sci-fi films like Solaris, and the upcoming Godspeed, but it’s been about a decade since he actually directed one. It will be exciting to see the man who pioneered CG special FX to make use of it in a large scale after so much more progress has been made.

In Memoriam

2006-02-27T16:06:00.000-08:00

Darren McGavin 1922 - 2006

Perhaps best known for his role as the scrappy newspaper reporter Cark Kolchak in the TV series The Night Stalker, Darren McGavin passed away yesterday from natural causes at the age of 83.

McGavin did plenty of TV and film work in his day and his career spanned five decades. His most famous film role was probably that of "The Old Man" or "Dad" in the 1983 cult classic, A Christmas Story.

McGavin had a tremendous amount of spunk and spirit which he infused into every role he played. Beyond that the ever present twinkle in his eye, and the wryness in his smile made him both charming and funny; it was difficult not to like him the moment he stepped on screen. As his obituary in the LA Times mentions, one of the reasons his character, Carl Kolchak, was so memorable, was because even in grim and ghastly situations, McGavin maintained his sense of humor throughout. McGavin took the concept of the buffoon in a haunted house (see Abbot and Costello) and morphed it into a sort of post-modern, self-reflexive, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, that was neither jaded nor sarcastic but jovial and good natured. Kolchak was chasing after vampires and Gosh Darn it he enjoyed his work. He infused that role with a silly and goofy fun which would later be emulated at times by David Duchovney as Fox Mulder in The X-Files. (A show which creator Chris Carter has openly admitted was largely inspired by Night Stalker.) Darren McGavin's influence on genre TV and on pop culture overall will reverberate for some time. McGavin was one of the good ones and he will be miseed...

More, New, Sci-Fi TV headed our way

2006-02-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

Hot off the wire from yesterday’s issue of Hollywood Reporter , ABC has acquired a new independently produced series called “Masters of Science Fiction” and will air the episodes this upcoming summer.

The Series will be adapting famous well known science fiction stories and novels to fit the one hour tv format. But from the article it’s somewhat unclear as to whether these episodes will actually be strictly in sixty minute slots, or if they will be two hour endeavors. Some of the works that have been listed as probable adaptations are “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” by Ray Bradbury, “The Last Question” by Issac Asimov, “A Boy and His Dog” by Harlan Ellison, and “The Puppet Masters” by Robert Heinlein. Ray Bradbury is currently in negotiations to write the screenplay for one of these episodes, adapting his own novella, “Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed.”

Now how some of these novels and novella length works are going to be crunched into 40/45 minutes worth of actual story, I’m not sure. I’m particularly intrigued that “A Boy and His Dog” and “The Puppet Masters” were on the list since there have been feature film adaptations of both of those, and neither was particularly successful or well done. The 1975 version of Boy and His Dog starred Don Johnson, and is unbearably slow. The 1994 feature The Puppet Masters stars Donald Sutherland and plays like a lowest of the low B-movie horror flick.

There are a couple of other things that I find troubling in this article. The first is a quote from an IDT exec (head of the company that sold the show to ABC) who said: “ABC is the perfect venue for these interpretations of science fiction's seminal literary voices.”

It is? So just because ABC has a couple sci-fi shows on the air (Invasion, which is largely terrible, and LOST which is in a sophmore slump and is arguably a cross-genre piece) now it’s the Valhalla of all Science Fiction? Despite the tremendous ratings that ABC would allow the show to tap into, I would rather see an endeavor like this fall in the hands of the Sci Fi channel, who would be less interested in making it palatable to mass audiences, and give the projects some leeway to be as sci-fi as they like. I’m reticent to watch the influence that a mainstream machine will have on some of these more peculiar works.

This exec also confessed that “some of the content will be updated for the younger audiences while still staying faithful to the original material. Bradbury, for example, will move the setting of his book to a completely different solar system.”

The fact that the development executives already seem to be more concerned with the minutia of making it seem “hipper” and “more advanced” is worrisome. Shouldn’t they be more concerned about how they are going to fit a three hundred and fourty page novel (The Puppet Masters) into a one hour TV slot?

I think “Masters of Science Fiction” is one of those projects that has tremendous potential, but in the end will be an ultimate butchering of these classic sci-fi works. I wish I didn’t have such a pessimistic outlook, but with these circumstances I feel hard pressed to speculate otherwise. Why is it exactly that sci-fi adaptations get so easily botched? There’s not often a middle ground with these things; either they’re good, or they are wretched, there’s not even much room for mediocrity. (On a brief aside, I think I was one of the few people in the country who enjoyed I, Robot with Will Smith. While flawed, I thought it was a pretty good adaptation) Apparently the independent production company did a “Masters of Horror” series which they aired for one season on Showtime, and they are subsequently are doing a second season. I had never even heard of this series prior to reading about it here, so can not comment on the quality of it one way or another.

After a while, it gets painful to watch such good material be mishandled, and so I await “Masters of Science Fiction” with a measured amound of anxious anticipation.

New Yorker in Hollywood turns one year old!

2006-02-24T09:33:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear New Yorker in Hollywood, Happy Birthday to me!

Hooray! As of yesterday I have been running for this blog for an entire year. I can barely believe it myself --it seems like only yesterday I was reviewing the Jacket and doing a preview on The Island. My how time flies.

I just wanted to say thank you to all you folks who read this old thing. I hope I can keep you interested for another year to come.

Since it is my blog birthday, and everyone gets a wish on their birthday, I choose to use this event as an excuse to post my favorite picture on file ever...

Bryan Singer, here's lookin' at you kid.

The New Yorker recaps LOST, as the 15th episode of the season airs tonight

2006-02-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

***Correction, it has come to my attention that ABC is actually reairing the full two hour pilot tonight, and will be airing the fifteenth episode "Maternity Leave", next Wednesday.

Last season there were twenty four episodes of LOST, which includes the two parter pilot and the two parter finale –so it was more like twenty two original episodes. Tonight will mark the fifteenth new episode of LOST during its second season; so we’re past the mid point of the season and heading quickly towards the two thirds mark.

It’s no secret that I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with this show. I thought last week’s episode “One of Them” felt heavy handed and sluggish. It was once again an instance within the trend of trying to marginally expand upon information we already learned last season. First of all, I could not STAND the way they brought in Rousseau’s character for such a brief and irrational moment at the start of the episode. I actually love this character, but the fact that she had been gone all year, and then magically reappeared to tell Sayid about a prisoner she’s captured is ridiculous. Wouldn’t she have been caught if she had been lurking so close to camp, especially now that there are more survivors and they are more on their gaurd? If she is so terrified of the Others, wouldn’t she have just killed the guy in the net? If she was trying to ingratiate herself back into the favors of the survivors wouldn’t she have stuck around to take the credit for trying to protect them? They should have just had Sayid find the guy in the jungle on his own –why bring back Rousseau at all if they were going to shoo her away again so quickly?

Now I know what you little LOST minions are thinking. “Oh well, see it’s all going to pay off because…..blah, blah, blah” Because that is the battle cry of the LOST faithful “It’ll come back around.” “It’s all connected.” And sometimes it is, and sometime’s its great, but often the lines between the dots are too far apart. When you wait too long to spring your payoff you loose some of the effect.

But back to last week’s episode. We already knew Sayid had a history of brutal militancy and torture. OK, so now we know where its roots began –via the U.S. army. Not a particularly great revalation there, because the character’s emotional parameters remain the same. Sayid has the fortitude and the grit to carry out torture when necessary (as he did with Sawyer last season), but he hates himself when he does it, and more so he hates that he is able to do it. I don’t think this theme was especially enhanced in last week’s episode, there was just the added backdrop of his grief for Shannon which was a given. There was no climax in this episode, and if you think I’m counting that foolish moment when the Hatch’s countdown system suddenly started to go haywire, only to turn back, then you are wrong. That my friends is what we call, a cheap stunt, not a dramatic climax. I would have liked to see some real drama unfold with the man they found in the jungle. They could have built up the entire episode as a guessing game about that balloonist’s true identity. Have him momentarily escape or emotionally connect with another survivor, or something besides him cowering in front of Sayid. It was just ---boring.

Now a friend pointed out to me, that the Colonel who took Sayid and forced him to torture his captian, was Kate’s step father, whom she visited in the episode earlier this season after killing her real father. He noticed that the photograph the Colonel was looking at longingly in the truck, was a picture of Kate as a child. Isn’t it cool how everything is connected?! Isn’t just so clever how the lives of all the survivors are woven together! Wow!

Well extemporaneous cutesy B.S. like that will only fly for so long. If you ask me, at this point, the writers/creators are working to build nothing more than a tower of babble, where corners are malformed because walls miss each other, and certain construction plans are dropped all together.

I thought that this season got off to a rollickingly good start. The season opener which finally allowed us to delve down into the Hatch was terrific. The discovery of Desmond, the sole inhabitant of the Hatch, who knew Jack from another life was both shocking and intriguing. But already things were feeling a tad bit familiar. In the season premiere we learn about Jack’s miraculous surgical work with his future wife to be, Sara, helping her to walk again after a debilitating accident. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the theme and instance of someone regaining their legs after paralysis; i.e. Locke. But alright, I let it slide, ‘cause it was still a great episode, and because back then I too convinced myself it was all part of a master plan, that there were no coincidences on LOST.

In the second episode, we caught up with the folk on the raft, Sawyer, Michael, and Jin. The shark was exciting, and the dynamic of Sawyer and Michael is an interesting one, but the flashback, which revealed more backstory about Michael and Walt felt stale. It dealt with the court proceedings of Walt’s custody battle, and Michael’s eventual surrender to Walt’s mother outside of court. We got the gist of this situation last season, but what was emotionally poignant and riveting in the first season, began to feel like old hat when they touched upon it again in the second season.

The third episode dealt more with the hatch, and the constant countdown of the numbers, as dictated by the outdated computer. This as well as the discovery of the film by the Dharma Collective was very interesting, and while it opened a can of proverbial worms, I was fascinated by the direction the show was going in, suggesting the island might be the site of some sort of interdisciplinary scientific study. The flashback during this episode was one of Locke’s –and again in comparison to the episodes that focused on him in the last season was a little disappointing. Basically all we learned was that he had had a girlfriend and an anger management problem. OK, and? It’s right around here where I thought the season began to plummet. The episode titled “Everybody Hates Hugo” was the fourth of the season, and I thought it was weak. The connection they tried to draw between his being put in charge of the food and winning the lottery was forced and clunky. And nothing of consequence happened on the island.
Episode five? Sun and Jin’s backstory, which revealed the very first time they met. It was sweet and all, but I was more concerned with what was going on as Jin, Sawyer and Michael tried to cross the island with the other survivors. Obviously the reveal that there were survivors in the tale section of the plane was huge, but hadn’t this been hinted at all last season? Ana Lucia and her fellow survivors kept referencing “The Others’, but they are all loathe to talk about who or what they are. Everyone is cagey as hell.

In the next couple episodes, Sawyer’s gunshot wound becomes worse, and the Ana Lucia survivors get closer and closer to the Jack survivors. Shannon is also accidentally shot by Ana Lucia, and as shocking as this was meant to be, it seemed like a fucntion of a tactical career move on Maggie Grace’s part, not a story move on the part of the writers. Shannon’s final flashback was inconsequential at best. We learn she wasn’t always a gold digger, then she dies. The recap of the “other 48 days” had terrific potential, but instead felt rushed and haphazard, I would have liked to spent more time with these folk and their adventures on that side of the island. I find it hard to believe that they did nothing but sit and wait inbetween raids by the Others, while on the other side of the island, a baby was born, people were kidnapped, people died, a golf course was set up, people paired off, and huts were built, etc.

Episode eight. Virtually nothing happens on the island, as we learn that Ana Lucia was a cop with a vigilante streak. Her capture of Sayid was trite and lacked tension; we all knew they weren’t going to kill each other. Ana Lucia’s backstory was interesting and I like Michelle Rodriguez, but there was very little action going on in the present to accurately mirror her past, and the connection between the two was nearly non-existant.

Episode nine. The saving grace of this episode were the scenes between Locke and Mr. Eko. Their conversation about bible stories and the subsequent reveal of the missing pieces of film were enough to carry me through. But this was only the B plot. The A plot dealt with Kate seeing horses in the jungle, and us learning she killed her birth father, which is what caused her to be on the run in the first place. The backstory was unengaging, and the one big gasp-worthy event, --Kate and Jack finally kissing, was played oddly, and swept under the carpet too quickly.

Episode Ten. We learn about Mr. Eko’s past, and a connection is made between the body of the priest found in the jungle last season and Eko himself. This was a terrific episode. But even so, very little forward movement happened on the island. Eko faced off with the black smoke and proved he was not afraid. I really enjoyed this episode but it still didn’t move the island story forward.
Episode Eleven. Jack tries to stop Michael from dashing off alone to save Walt. I’ve already commented on this episode on this blog, but basically another redundant backstory (we’ve already seen plenty of Jack as miracle worker surgeon) and more stalling on the island. The brief run in with the Others accomplished nothing.

Episode Twelve. Charlie freaks out and think Claire’s baby is going to be taken away. Possibly my least favorite episode of the season. Again, we already knew that Charlie had issues with his brother and keeping his band together. We learned it last season. More melodramatic nonsense on the island, with no new information to move the story forward. I was not at all captivated by the tension between Charlie and Claire. Though it was cool to watch him be punched by Locke, I suppose.

Episode Thirteen. We learn even more about Sawyer’s history as a con artist. Even though this was another example to me of the show’s inability to introduce new facets of the character’s past lives this seasons, I still really enjoyed it. I thought it was structured cleverly, so that at first it appeared the episode was sluggish and then at the end you realized you had just been conned into thinking that. I liked that Sawyer took control of the guns and that Charlie had been involved. A solid episode, because although nothing was revealed about the island and its secrets, it did add an interesting change in the island survivor dyanamic, which I hope they keep.

And now we’re back with where we started. I guess I felt the need to go through all the episodes, because I’ve found that when I look back at them on a whole, there are only four or five episodes that I think were really great. That’s out of fourteen, so that’s only about 30% - 40%. Last year, I felt strongly about more than 50%, more like 70% of the episodes. In some ways I have become the junkie who just keeps going back for more, hoping they can recapture that high they used to get that was so amazing. I won’t stop watching the show, but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I used to. The writers have approximately eight more episodes to go. I hope they step it up. Although realistically speaking, my hypothesis is that they will drag things out till the season finale where they will end with another huge cliffhanger, having answered basically nothing all season, except what’s in the hatch. (And though we literally know what’s in the hatch, we still don’t know what we’re dealing with. Let alone the others.)

Basic Instinct 2

2006-02-21T14:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, who would have ever thought that one day the New Yorker would title one of her blog entiries, “Basic Instinct 2”. But then again, who would have ever imagined that they’d hear the phrase “Basic Instinct 2” in their lifetime?

The original film Basic Instinct was released in 1992. That’s fourteen years ago folks, a very long time, and a sizeable gap to have between films in a franchise --if one is even bold enough to use the word “franchise” in this context. The original film was an erotic thriller/murder mystery, surrounding a murder in which famous novelist, Catherine Tramell, is the prime suspect. Michael Douglas played detective Nick Curran, who was assigned to the case, and is charmed by the elusive Tramell. In all honesty, I’ve never even seen the first film in its entirety. I’ve seen certain famous scenes of course, and am quite familiar with the jist of it, but even so it was not self evident, that it had a vibrant enough story to be extended into another film.

Last week, I saw the trailer for Basic Instinct 2, and I confess I find it absolutely spellbinding. Aside from the fact that I feel embarassed for Sharon Stone (who spearheaded the sequal from the beginning), I am simultaneously apalled and delighted by the degree of cheap trashiness that radiates from each frame. I mean, it’s clear that MGM, and a handful of other production companies, spent some money on the film; so it isn’t so much a literal sense of cheap as a metaphorical one. The film does have a decent director for the film with a fair amount of experience, --Michael Caton-Jones has done City by the Sea, The Jackal, Rob Roy and Doc Hollywood among others. The supporting players in BI2, like David Thewlis, David Morrissey, and Hugh Dancy are all respectable and adept British actors.

So why is it that this trailer makes you want to grind your teeth in anguish and grimace in pain?

Since Basic Instinct was released those fourteen years ago, it has become the butt of many a spoof and joke by comdiens, TV shows, movies. It has become one of those pop culture entities that resides in the collective consciousness. People, such as myself, who haven’t even seen the film all the way through, know about the “ice pick”, and the Sharon Stone interrogation scene. For us, knowledge of the film came from parodies (Florence Henderson on SNL), and radio personalities, among other sources. We already know the film in the context of a joke. For there to be a sequal to the film, trying desperately to be taken seriously is almost unbearably ridiculous and not a little sad. As you watch the trailer, you have to ask yourself repeatedly if what you are watching is “for real”. You have to ask yourself if the filmmakers were aware of the irony of their project, if they realized the title of their film reeked of straight to video or premium cable after hours fare.

Because the bottom line is, why make it Basic Instinct 2? It appears the only returning actor is Stone herself, and I’m dubious if it relies heavily on unresolved plotting from the first. Was the character of novelist Catherine Tramell really so enigmatic and fascinating that she needed to have an extra chapter in her story. Why not just make a thriller set in London, starring Sharon Stone, and call it something else. I feel almost certain that this would do better business than “Basic Instinct 2.” The most awkwardly hilarious moments in the trailer to watch are those where Stone is mugging herself in the first film, by brusquely straddling a chair, sultrily puffing away on a cigarette or flashing her best come hither glance. Stone is making fun of herself, but she doesn’t seem to know it, and that is the craziest thing of all.

For whatever reason, I’ve watched this trailer more than a few times. It’s too good. It’s too bad. It’s too much.

When Nerds who have too much time on their hands get even more...

2006-02-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

A friend forwarded me this link today, (it takes a little while to load so be patient), and my jaw dropped when I looked at it.

It's not that that the feat displayed on this link did is so astounding. What's shocking is that somebody actually took the time and energy to do this, and that the result, while mildly amusing, is also pretty underwhelming.

See for yourselves. You may want to make use of the fast forward feature at the beginning.

He’s Back! (and by he, I mean Jason Voorhees)

2006-02-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

This morning, an interesting story on Yahoo! Movie news caught my eye. According to this article , the Friday the 13th franchise will, once again, be dusted off and reinvigorated, courtesy of none other than yours truly’s favorite Hollywood bad boy, Michael Bay! This will be the TWELFTH chapter in the saga of undead psychopath Jason Voorhees, but apparently will also be a “prequel” to the original Friday the 13th film.

I’m confused about the way that Bay and his merry band of cohorts over at Platinum Dunes are going to handle the plotting for this film. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Jason’s mother, Mrs. Voorhees, responsible for the murders in the original film? In a manner of speaking, the original FTT serves as a prequal to the series in and of itself; it tells the story of Jason’s origins. Will the new film be about some scary thing that happened to Mrs. Vorhees when she was at camp…in the 1950’s? Not that plot and logic have ever been mainstays of the FTT series, and at best the Jason Voorhees mythology is strained. In the first film, we are told that years before Jason had drowned at Camp Crystal Lake at the hand of a couple counselors. His mother, Pamela Voorhees goes on her slashing spree, seeking vengance for his death. However, in the second film, known merely as Friday the 13th: Part 2, it is revealed that Jason had actually survived the incident at the lake, and that he has been living as a hermit in the woods. (Go figure.) Jason had watched his mother’s bloody actions, and after she died, he continued her quest in a blind mission to slay sexually promiscuous teens everywhere.

Looking back on the FTT franchise as a whole it’s interesting to see the many different twists and turns it has taken. The original FTT was released in 1980 and was a huge money maker, considering it’s shoe string budget. As noted above, Jason didn’t really appear as a character until the second film, and didn’t even get his mask and saw until the third film, Friday the 13th: Part 3, which was released in ’82. Initially Paramount had intended to lay Jason to rest in 1984 with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, which incidentally starred Corey Feldman AND Crispin Glover. But when it did surprisingly well at the box office, in typical studio fashion, decided to resurrect the beast in ’85 with FTT: A New Beginning. In another bizarre trend of non-linear story telling, JV does not even appear in the fifth film. In A New Beginning, it is a copycat murderer, posing as the infamous Jason, that goes on a killing rampage of his own. In 1986, filmmakers tried to revitalize the series with Jason Lives, the sixth film, and one which favored better than the previous installment, perhaps because of its tounge in cheek tone. It is in this chapter of the saga that Jason is established as an undead/zombie type, though there is some debate among fans about this. Having died in “The Final Chapter”, Jason’ s corpse is exhumed, and accidentally reanimates when it is struck by a bolt of lightning. Paramount churned out two more films in ’88 and ’89, The New Blood, and Jason Takes Manhattan. (Jason Takes Manhattan being my personal favorite of the series, because it reaches new hieghts of ridiculousness in cinema.)

At this point the film count was up to nine, but Jason would still not be laid to rest. New Line Cinema purchased the franchise from Paramount, and in 1993, put out the first Jason film in four years (in the 80’s there was a new Jason film every single year, with the exception of ’83 and ’87). New Line’s release Jason Goes to the Hell: The Final Friday, seemed to be another attempt to close out this series with a bang, or at least an attempt at the beginning of the end. Jason dies (again) at the start of The Final Friday, and his spirit goes on to posses several characters throughout, and the film was maligned by many hard core fans. However, the film did end with a psuedo-cliffhanger; a shot showing Freddy’s arm grabbing Jason’s mask into hell. This laid the groundwork for the Freddy vs. Jason concept, which had many horror fans salivating over it.

But fans would not get to cheer at this celebrity deathmatch between the two monsters for another decade. The script for Freddy vs. Jason got caught in its own brand of hell, known as development kind, round these parts for years. In the meantime, Sean Cunningham, who had previously directed many of the FTT features, started working on another project, the tenth film, also known as Jason X, which was released in 2002. The most farfetched of the chapters yet, Jason X was set in the future on a spaceship by the name of Grendel (what a clever literary reference!). The movie proposes that Jason Voorhees had been cryogenically frozen and then accidentally thaws out while on board this ship. There he carries on with his usual sort of bloodletting, before being transformed into an a beefed up titanium robot. Like I said, story, and logical plotting don’t really follow suit in the FTT films.

The last time we were treated to the lovely sight of Jason’s bedraggled hockey mask, was in 2003, when after ten years of indecision on the script, Freddy vs. Jason, was finally released. In this last installment, Freddy manipulates Jason into being his fear monger on Elm Street as he tried to recooperate his own powers, but Jason takes the job two far. The two eventually duke it out over who gets to kill the kiddies. A fairly streamlined story, in comparison to some of the earlier ideas, including one which entailed “Jason being raised from the dead by a teenage girl using the heart of her dead boyfriend, to save her sister from a cult of psychotic teenagers who worshipped Freddy Krueger and were seeking to raise him from hell via a ritual sacrifice.” However, this concept was shelved after Columbine because it was deemed too controversial.

What I want to know is, how is it that this franchise has lived for going on twenty six years? What is it about the crazed undestructible JV, that audiences just can’t get enough of. I understand that the films have made a pretty penny in their day, but they’ve also had their fair share of financial failures. It’s ironic somehow, that just in way that Voorhees can never be killed off, the franchise itself refuses to die, and just keeps on going and going and going. Maybe the better question to ask is why people keep on going to see these movies. Has Jason really transcended the generation gaps to touch the hearts and minds of teenagers for the last two decades and then some? I myself, have never been a huge fan of the Friday the 13th films. I like horror films, and have a tolerance for foolish concepts in the sake of good fun, but the Jason films are just so redundant to me they have become unwatchable. Vorhees isn’t the only immortal killer on the block, and I myself have always been more partial to the Nightmare on Elmstreet films. I still find the original film, the horror classic Nightmare On Elmstreet, to be pretty creepy, and it holds up well over all; even the second and third films have some intriguingly bizarre and disturbing sequences. Also as a child, Freddy always seemed more frightening then Jason; he was a better concieved character. An undead child molester with horrible burn scars who can find and kill you in your dreams? Terrifying. Of course Nightmare on Elmstreet went on to beat a dead horse as well. New Line Cinema, who’s owned Freddy from the start, churned out a total of nine films about Freddy K. There’s something a little depressing to me that these two monsters Freddy and Jason, modern equivalents of enduring figures like Dracula and Frankenstein, have lasted for over two decades each. In part because neither of them has merited as many chapters to their stories as they’ve received and any originality they once had has vanished long ago. But also because Jason in particular, is so spectacularly unoriginal to begin with; he is the product of a studio afterthought more than anything else. Somebody needs to come up with new, better monsters.

According to the Yahoo piece, Bay is wasting no time with silly frills like screenplays and cast. Though the announcement has only been made today, Bay has promised New Line that it will be ready to be released by October 13th. That’s nine months to find a writer, get a script, hire a director, cast actors, shoot the damn thing, edit it and then have it readied for distribution. The more things change, the more things stay the same. It’s clear the quality of this prequel won’t stray from the bar set by the previous, or should I say, latter, chapters.

Torino helps NY’er navigate through boredom and more

2006-02-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

Every few months I get into a pop culture rut. A TV show I’m watching will finish its season or get cancelled, a few weeks will go by without anything exciting released in the cinema, and I’ll be forcing my way through a book that I don’t care that much about.

Such is the state that I find myself on this banal day in mid February, and up until recently my stopover in dullsville was seeming to have no end in sight.

That is until the twentieth winter Olympic games in Torino, Italy! Hooray!

Ever since I was a young child I have adored watching the Olympics. I during the Barcelona Summer Olympics of ’92, I taped hours and hours of footage on my parent’s VCR, watching it over and over again. I’m not particular either –Winter games, Summer, track and field, curling, speed skating, diving, --I love it all.
I don’t much follow professional sports, with the exception of Major League Baseball (go Mets!), and I have never been very athletically oriented, as I have all the grace and hand eye coordination of an earthworm. But perhaps it’s because of this very reason that I am so awestruck by the sleek, swift athletes that perform their sport with such precision and agility.

But it’s not only the wowee factor that I find engaging about the Olympic games, it’s the emotional undertow of what these athletes have at stake. I remember two years ago (in Athens 2002) watching Deena Kastor, the American, coming in third in the marathon. She was crying(with joy) the entire last mile she ran as she realized she was going to get the bronze medal. Kastor had not been favored to medal at all, and traditionally American woman have not done exceedingly well at the marathon. For her, winning a medal was a miracle. Last night, as I was watching the figure skating pairs compete, NBC did a piece on Chinese figure skating coach, Yao Bin. Bin, himself had tried his hand at competitive skating decades ago. In 1979, for the first time, China sent representatives to the World Championships of figure skating. Yao Bin was twenty one years old, and his female partner, Luan Bo, was only twelve years old. At the time, China did not have the monetary funds to send along a coach, and as it was their training and experience was limited. The pair literally pieced together their routine by looking at newspaper photographs of other skaters. Bin and Bo did terribly, literally becoming a laughing stock in Germany as they struggled to complete their routines on the ice. Yao Bin swore that he would not be defeated, and today he has become China’s leading skating coach; last night his team Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao won the silver medal –no one was laughing anymore.

These sort of sentimental underdog stories are the sort of thing that I eat up in the context of the Olympics. They are almost too sweet to be true –if we saw them wrapped up in the cellophane of Hollywood, we would chide them and call them hackneyed. And yet when we see the tear stained or determined faces of the athletes and the coaches behind them –real faces, we are inspired, or at least I am. What’s more is, the Olympic Games often highlight stories that prove the meaning the proverb, “it’s not all about winning.” In the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Phillip Bitok of Kenya, was the first athlete of an African nation to compete in Cross Country Skiing. Bitok was a runner who had taken an interest in cross country skiing through a Nike Olympic sponsorship program two years prior. During the ’98 games, Bitok became friendly with Bjorn Daehlie, a Norweigian world class Cross Country skier from who had won many a championship. On the day of Olympic competition, Bitok took twice as long to complete the course as Daehlie (who took home the gold medal that day). But as Bitok crossed the finish line Daehlie was there waiting for him and cheering him on; the two have been friends ever since. Phillip Bitok has returned to Torino this year to compete in the Cross Country Skiing competition. It is these sorts of stories about personal friendship and triumph that also make the Olympics so uplifting. Who could forget the story of the Jamaican bobsledding team, which made their debut in Calgary in the 1988 Winter Olympic games, and inspired the film Cool Runnings? (Feel the Rhythm, Feel the Rhyme! Get on up, It’s Bobsled time!) They didn’t win a medal but they’re quirky mix of tenacity and temerity made them a inspired and welcome presence at the games.

A lot of people have legitamite gripes about the Olympics. They point out that judges are sometimes paid off and that the athletes use performance enhancing drugs. There is also the valid concern that the international representation is stilted and many underdeveloped nations do not have the funds and resources to send their athletes to compete. Yet there is something about the fundamental ideology of the Olympic games that is irrefutably ambitious and progressive. The idea that groups from all over the world can congregate and peacefully interact with one another under the tenets of altheleticism is a hopeful one.

The Olympic Games may indeed have room for improvement, and the American Television broadcast is no exception either. I love the John Williams score which has stuck as the theme song of the Olympics since they were in LA in 1984, but some of the other pop and circumstance can border on the grating. There’s only so much running commentary from Bob Costas, who runs the gammet on everything from the temperature to the costume fit of an interpretive dancer during the Opening Ceremonies, that one person can take. In fact the opening short film that kicked off the first night of broadcast for the games was magnificently cheesy and overblown. Some of the voice over sounded like it might have been lifted from a loftily written high school essay, with phrases like “Since the dawn of man…” and “One has to go back hundreds of years to understand the origin of…”

And yet…

And yet, I love the Olympics. I can’t help myself. Every plot convention and sappy story that I eschew in Hollywood Studio films and average TV shows, I devour in the form of Olympic glory. I’m aware that I’m doing exactly what NBC wants me to do, when I get a lump in my throat watching a triple axle landed with perfection, or a fifty two year old woman get a decent time in the luge competition, but I don’t care. There is something about the Olympics that will always remain magical in my mind; when they are good, they are almost too good to be true.

Sentimentality packaged in real life?

I’ll take it.

The New Yorker asks: “What ever happened to Baby Harrison?”

2006-02-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

For those of you that have been largely hibernating from the cinema during these Pre-Oscar doldrums, you probably didn’t see Harrison Ford’s latest film, Firewall, this weekend. Heck, even if you weren’t, you probably didn’t see it anyway –the Warner Brothers release opened at the number four slot this weekend, and made a paltry $13 million.

That’s $13 Million on an opening weekend for a Harrison Ford Movie.

Yikes.

I mean this was no small independent film with a limited release in New York and LA only, it was a big cheese studio film which probably clost a pretty penny, and hit 2, 840 screens across the U.S.

OK, let’s forget the money for a second, because we also know that not every great movie does well at the box office. But the sad truth is, Firewall wasn’t a great movie, it wasn’t even a good movie, --in fact it was pretty poor.

Now I didn’t shell out any clams this weekend to go see it, but I did have the luck of being invited to a free screening a couple weeks ago. I had seen the trailer for it a few times, and suspected that the film could go either way as far as, fairly straightforward thrillers, with a hostage/kidnapp scenario thrown in, go. Sometimes these “protect my family member(s)” pot boilers can be pretty good (like Panic Room and Ransom), and sometimes they range from mediocre to weak (like Hostage and Don’t Say a Word {–“I’ll never teeeell”}).

In Firewall, Harrison Ford plays Jack Stanfield, a chief security officer at a mid- size bank. Jack is in the midst of dealing with a mildy annoying corporate merger, but other than that life is pretty good. He has a nice house and car, a supportive wife, two strapping kids, and a cute dog. That is until Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) comes into his life, fronting as a potential associate in a business venture, only to reveal himself as a sleek but brutal bank robber. As Jack slips into his car to head home for “pizza night”, Bill puts a gun to his head and shows him pictures on his cell phone of his daughter screaming. Jack is forced to drive home and discovers that Bill’s team of thugs has barged into his home and taken his family captive. Bill tells Jack that he will either help him rob the bank he works for, or his family will be killed.

The game’s afoot.

Bill’s thugs keep Jack’s family under house arrest, while Jack has to continue to go to work and pretend everything is normal, despite the fact that he is hacking into his company’s system to deplete several big time accounts of their funds. Of course every fiber of Jack’s being wants to fight against Bill and his master plan. So we witness a series of attempts on Jack’s part and subsequent foilings by Bill, as Jack tries to alert someone as to what’s going on but Bill keeps finding out.

Filmmaker Richard Loncraine (Wimbledon, My House in Umbria) tries to develop a real tension between Bill and Jack. He portrays Bill as a viscious and ruthless villain and Jack as the beleaguered protagonist who must fight on behalf of his family. But there was a much better Harrison Ford film, that captured this dynamic adroitly about fourteen years ago, and it was called Patriot Games. Except in that movie the tension felt much more organic, because the villain (in that case played by Sean Bean) actually had a reason to seek out a personal vendetta on Ford and his family. His younger brother had died in at Ford’s hand, and his desire for retribution was so great it drove him to bloodlust. While Bill in Firewall, had an objective, --to steal the money from the bank, we know so little about his background, M.O., or relationship to his thugs, that it is difficult to understand his behavior towards the Stanfield family. I kept asking myself questions as I watched the film, like –is this Bill’s first robbery? Where does he get all the fancy equipment that he uses from? Does he work for anyone? Unfortunately, very little background was revealed on the Bill Cox character.

There is a creepy scene in the film where Bill knowingly feeds Jack’s son cookies that contain peanuts in them. It had already been established that the young boy has peanut allergies and that Bill knows this. As Jack’s son begins to go into anaphylactic shock, Bill watches the family around him panic, and waits a beat before he hands over the epinephrine that will save his life. Bill seems quite the candidate for a psychopth in this moment, and yet throughout the entire film Bettany’s performance totters between that of a measured control freak master mind, and a sadist sociopath. That’s the other thing about this film, it had some dark moments, but studio and filmmakers alike seemed concerned about making it REALLY dark. There was certainly room to use the brutality of Bill and his cohorts to explore certain themes and elements, but instead a haphazard happy medium of a little dark but not too dark, led to a generic tone.

Generic is probably the best word that I can think of to describe this film; --there wasn’t a whole lot to laugh about, cry about, scream about, or gasp about. It was just there; fairly flat one dimensional characters and a predictable plot with lacklustre visuals. Harrison Fords preformance actually wasn’t bad. The knack that he showed in The Fugitive (a far superior film) for mixing his character’s vulnerability with steel like tenacity was once again visible in Firewall. Ford’s desperation and gruffness at the situation at hand felt sincere enough, though it would have been nice if his character had been a bit more well rounded. Jack’s goal of “I want my family back” gave him a one note pitch, and I think it would have behooved the film if we had seen more of what he was like when he wasn’t in this ultimate do or die situation.

While I enjoyed seeing Ford on the big screen, as I always do, –I couldn’t help but ask myself what he was doing in this movie. Why was the man who has become tantamount to the Hollywood sign itself in his iconography, ---the man who has toted the laser blaster of Han Solo AND the whip of Indiana Jones, starring in a second rate, boring as peas, thriller?

The last film that Harrison Ford was in that I genuinely enjoyed was Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath. Though WLB was predominantly a Michelle Pfieffer vehicle, I thought it an interesting and laudable choice for him. Ford played a villain, which was against type, and I liked the fact that he seemed comfortable taking a secondary role. But that film was six years ago, and his last strong film before that was Air Force One, and that was nine years ago. The man is a film legend, and I don’t understand why he keeps ending up in celluloid liabilities like “Hollywood Homicide” and “Six Days, Seven Nights”.

Would somebody just hurry up and make Indy 4 already?!

BloodRayne? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

2006-02-08T11:55:00.000-08:00

A show of hands please from any of you who have heard of or even seen the movie Bloodrayne . Apparently it was released about a month ago, on January 6th. I had seen posters and billboards while driving around LA, but I honestly thought they were promoting some new sci-fi/fantasy show on USA, or something. It wasn’t until I saw the trailer that I realized what a special little gem this was.

Here’s a brief descripition of the film from the official movie website :

“BloodRayne is a genre all to itself. It is packed with action, but it’s not an action film per se. It is a mighty adventure, but it’s not a pure adventure film. There are mythical and immortal creatures of great power and evil, but it’s not a typical vampire movie. BloodRayne crosses all genres. There is romance, adventure, action, drama and a raging battle of good and evil.”

(I think the person who wrote this copy could have used a Thesaurus. But moving on…)

“With an all-star cast, including Academy Award Winner, Ben Kingsly, Michael Madsen(Species), Michell Rodrguez, Meatloaf, and Kristanna Loken (T-3, The terminatrix), BloodRayne takes you to another place and time to experience a world where good and evil battle it out – with mankind as the very prize. “

First of all, I love that the credit they give to Michael Madsen is “Species”, --not Resevoir Dogs, or Kill Bill or even Sin City, but a b-movie creature feature that came out eleven years ago. Why didn’t they mention “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home” while they were at it. Secondly…Meatloaf? Yes, if you watch the trailer closely, you will see that Meatloaf plays some insane Monarch. You will also notice that the credits say “WITH Michelle Rodriguez”, don’t get me wrong, I like Rodriguez and everything, but has she really earned a WITH, I mean in the context of this trailer, it seems a step away from AND Michelle Rodriguez as so and so.

The website summary also left out poor Billy Zane, but does its best to committ to a rousing depiction of the film’s plot…:

“It’s 1723 and evil rules Eastern Europe. An evil Lord Kagan has so much power that no one stands boldly against him. No one would dare try. And as great as his power is, this Kagan has an opportunity to become utterly invincible. Three secret treasures, once united in his presence will give Kagan immortal powers of untold horror. But there is some hope. Throughout history there have always been those brave few who take up a cause for the good of mankind. The Brimstone Society is a small mighty group made up of just these kinds of men and women. They have banded together to car for each other and to make themselves the avengers of the weak. To smite evil where they can and to perhaps someday restore law and order to the rest of society. As these two forces converge, there are whispers across the land about a legend. “

Oh my God, I’m dozing off already. Is this a logline for a movie, or a brief history of fuedal social dynamics? And who would think to name a vigillante group after something found commonly in hell? But wait, it doesn’t end there…:

“A young and beautiful woman might harbor the secrets to defeat the mighty Kagan. Will Brimstone find her before Kagan does? If they find her, will she help them or go her own way? Even if she does help, will it be enough to defeat the evil armies of Kagan? And what is her dark secret that would make even Kagan fear her? Join us for this mighty adventure and immerse yourself! BloodRayne, all myth begins in reality!”

Well thank goodness for that informative plot synopsis, or I wouldn’t have had a clue about the movie based solely on the trailer.

The film’s director, Uwe Bol, is a German filmmaker, who’s last outing in the U.S. was the underwhelming “Alone in the Dark” starring Christian Slater and Tara Reid. Need I say more? Do you even remember what movie I’m talking about? Previous to AITD, Bol had directed a couple of severely under the radar indie horror flicks. But despite the notoriety that his work might or might not receive, he appears to get constant work. His profile on IMDB says he’s slated for five upcoming movies in the next couple of years. It’s perplexing.

Everything about this trailer is shocking, --the over the top voiceover guy, the terrible looking wig Ben Kingsley’s wears, the lackluster way the actors say their lines. The screenplay was written by Guinevere Turner, an actress/writer/director, who has done a lot of indie work, and who’s most notable piece of writing is the script for American Psycho. It seems that this was her first foray into genre work and well, ...it shows. Every possible cliché that exists in the heroine within a comic book setting was used here, from the leather bodice, to the castle and vampire backdrop fused with the kung fu-esque fighting.

BloodRayne was released by an independent distributor, but they have Universal doing their DVD release, so I’m assuming they are hoping to get some decent mileage out of that. Though heaven knows how. I might just be tempted to rent it to see Meatloaf in what is sure to have been an unforgettable performance.

“Cause I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that….No, I won’t do that…”

Silent Hill Scares the New Yorker

2006-02-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

I had never even heard of the film Silent Hill, until last night when I was scanning the Apple Trailers site , and this poster caught my eye:

Maybe I’m more skittish than Abbot in Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy, but there is something about this poster that really freaks me out. There’s lack of a mouth on the little girl for starters, and the glassy, piercing eyes that stare at you, no matter which side of the computer screen you move to.

Then I watched the trailer for Silent Hill.

At first the movie seemed to be going in a very familiar direction. A fetching young mother and her creepy raven haired daughter go on a lonely drive and run into a ghostly version of the daughter. Immediately I was reminded of Dark Water, The Ring movies, and the recent remake of The Fog. I think for now the whole ghost doppleganger theme has been a bit exhausted, and it seemed likely that the entire plot (as is often the case these days) was revealed in the first sixty seconds of the trailer. Mother and daughter end up at in a deserted town and get seperated. The Mother discovers there was some terrible tragedy in the town, and one of the victims looked just like her daughter. The ghost of the victim kidnaps the daughter so she can steal her soul to live again and the Mother must try to stop her before its too late.

Sound like a reasonably good guess?

I thought so too, but then the trailer took an interesting turn. For one thing, I think I was taken in by the visuals of the film. I love that moment where we see the Mother wandering through the fog, and she realizes that the snow flurrying down on her from the sky is actually ash. In general the production design seems to have good attention to detail and a penchant for creative landscapes. The director, Christophe Gans, is a French filmmaker who is probably best known for his feature “The Brotherhood of the Wolf”, which had some decent exposure in the U.S. I never saw Brotherhood of the Wolf, but I’d always heard great things about it, I’m curious to see more of Gan’s work.

While the action that takes place in the town of Silent Hill looks creepy enough, it wasn’t until the “Mother” played by Rhada Mitchell, went underground that things started to look really freaky and interesting. According to the mean looking woman in the trailer with the frumpy hair, it would seem that Rhada must literally go to hell itself to retrieve her daughter. Now this is an interesting twist, I thought. Typically the “Moms” in these films don’t leave the grounding normalcy of Planet Earth to go fight the montsers and dead people at the gate of Hades. The scenes in the underground have simple but effectively grim art direction, and that posse of twisted ash covered statuesque corpses that reach out for Rhada made me shiver. (In fact something about the images recalled City of Lost Children in my mind)

The trailer reveals the hellish sub-terranean industrial complex about two thirds through the trailer. I’m wonder how accurately the trailer reflects the proportions of the film itself. I’m hoping they spend a good amount of time with Rhada battling horrible ghouls and such; I’m always game for a good demon.

Why "When a Stranger Calls" doesn't call to the NY'er

2006-02-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

The top draw at the box office this weekend was Sony Screen Gems “When a Stranger Calls” which made a decent clip more that was estimated, and tallying in at $22 Million. Now to those of you who read my blog on a somewhat consistent basis, you may have been surprised to discover that I didn’t run out to see this movie and subsequently post its review on my blog. Under normal circumstances I would have, because, well, it’s what I do. I have seen all the other recent horror remakes from the past couple years, but I think this one was just the last straw for me; I couldn’t do it. It isn’t that the film’s plot doesn’t intrigue me –it does. In fact when I was younger I was thoroughly frightened by the 1979 original starring Carol Kane. Based on an age old urban legend, the film is about a young woman who is babysitting children one night and begins to receive threatening anonymous phone calls. The stranger on the phone keeps asking her if she’s “checked the children”, and after a while she gets spooked and calls the police. The police then notify the babysitter that the calls are coming from inside the house. In the original, by the time the babysitter has found this out, it is too late and the children have already been murdered. The film then jumos forward into the future when the babysitter is grown and has children of her own. The killer has been released from prison and he goes about terrorizing her all over again.

I’m not sure how the plot is dealt with in this remake, but based from the trailer , it seems as though the action takes place over the course of one night. So not only have they simplified the film to a veritable four hour game of cat and mouse, but everyone already knows the twist (that he’s in the house), and the actress, Camilla Belle, while most likely chosen for her looks and economical payrate seems ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE in the role. I mean bad, really bad, makes Paris Hilton in House of Wax look great, bad. No, seriously, watch the trailer again. When she says the line “Stop calling me you sick---“ she seems as scared as a whiny child in an Oscar Myer bologna commerical.

Still it makes me wonder if I’m loosing my stamina. Time was, I would have gone out to the movie theatres to see this sort of flick straight away. Have I become jaded? Am I loosing hope that there will ever be good genre stuff again? I hope not. I’m aching for something to jolt me out of these remake doldrums…

Defying the Impossible: Could Mission Impossible 3 actually be good?

2006-02-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

I would imagine that most of you saw the Superbowl TV spot for Mission Impossible III. Even better than the TV spot, in my opinion, is the full length trailer for the film. Now trust me, I am as surprised as you might be that I’m about to endorse this movie, but I have to confess I thought the trailer made the film look like a great, fun, summer blockbuster.

I have mixed feelings about the Mission Impossible franchise. I thought the first one was solidly enjoyable, and since it was dirceted by Brian de Palma before he officially went over the edge (Femme Fetale), it had a snazzy visual style, and was in certain ways as successful as a thriller as it was an action movie. While I think John Woo has a good handle on the action genre (I liked Face/Off), I thought Mission Impossible II was absolutely terrible. It was terrible in that Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life type of way; M.I. 2 it was just boring, confusing, and was nearly impossible (excuse the pun) to follow.

The thing about the Mission Impossible films that make me scratch my head is this: the films have gotten so far removed from what the original televsion show was, why not scrap the format and just make a generic Tom Cruise action film? The original show was very much an ensemble show, like the A-Team, yet Ethan Hunt seems to fly solo these days. The only other character who will have been in all three films is Ving Rhames, as Luther Stickell, hacker extraordinaire who helps out Hunt in a pinch. I guess in a way Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise’s character) has become a James Bond character of sorts. There are new women in each film, new missions and new villains. But after the second installment of Hunt’s adventures, the third one is going to need to be a heck of a strong showing to make up for it.

And so far the signs look promising. TV guru J.J. Abrams wrote and directed Mission Impossible III. This is actually Abrams’ first feature since 1998 when he worked on Armageddon; he’s spent the last eight years making some neat little TV shows you might have heard of -- like Felicity, Alias and of course most recently, Lost. I think Abrams is smart and I like the way he thinks. It might just be that he can put a creative twist on the standard action movie and Mission Impossible formatting. While Abrams is known for drama, he is also fairly adroit at injecting some good-natured humor into his work, and I think this franchise could benefit, after M.I. 2 which was particularly humorless. Certainly some of Abrams’ casting seems to be eclectic and unique which I take as a good sign. I am so excited to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman play the real “heavy” in a huge action film, and I love the snippets of him in the trailer; he radiates a brand of suave understated evil. The rest of M.I.’s cast also includes some old Abrams favorites like Keri Russell and Greg Grunberg, some indie veterans like Laurence Fishburnes, Jonathan Ryhs-Meyers, and Billy Crudup, and some new faces to boot.

In terms of action sequences I look forward to seeing the rest of that shot where Cruise is thrown by an exploision and nearly misses getting his head taken off with a missile. The film will be released on May 5th, 2006, kicking off the glorious summer movie season. Here’s to this year’s Opening Day being a great one.

Brokeback to the Future

2006-02-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

I found this to be very silly, but very amusing at the same time...

The New Yorker reaches the Dark Tower at last

2006-02-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

(If you haven't read the Dark Tower books, and are planning to do so at some point in your life, you may want to stop here as there are massive spoilers below.)

It is difficult for me to begin writing this, because it hasn’t fully sunk into my brain that I’ve finally completed all seven of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books. There are so many thoughts in my mind, so many things I feel like saying, and the effect of this is tumultuous and renders me speechless.

It was a week ago that I last posted an update on my journey. At that point I had completed King’s fifth entry, Wolves of the Calla, and expressed that though I was fully committed to this saga for the long haul, I felt that there had been a drop in quality between the fifth book and the previous four, or at the very least between the fourth and the fifth –the fourth still remains one of the strongest in my mind. Now that I’ve completed the saga, I no longer feel as certain about passing a judgement on the quality of the last three books. At first, I was dubious about the direction that I saw King veering the story in; it felt unexpected and strange. Books I – IV deal with Roland the gunslinger’s worlds of mid-world, end-world, etc. but not exclusively so. The traveling companions who form his “ka-tet”(or fellowship if it do ya) are “drawn” through magical portals between Roland’s world and New York City at various points in history. It sounds bizarre enough, but somehow King makes it work really well. He’s able to siphon in elements from “the real world” as we know it, through the characters that have been plucked into mid-world/end-world, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake. In the fifth book, King goes a step further with the surreal, by incorporating a character (Father Callahan) from one of his previous books ‘Salem’s Lot, into the Dark Tower. By Book VI, Stephen King has inserted himself into the plot of the sprawling story.

In Book VI, Song of Susannah, Roland and Eddie go on a tower related side mission to Maine circa 1977. It is there that they begin to piece together that Stephen King, who himself is ignorant of this, is their creator. Both confused and terrified by this prospect, Roland and Eddie go to confront King, who has the original manuscript of “The Gunslinger” (Book I) buried somewhere in a box in his basement. The idea is that if King doesn’t dust the book off and continue to write and complete the Dark Tower story, Roland and his world, as well as all worlds, will cease to exist. By Books V, we’ve begun to learn that there are a seemingly infinite number of parallel universes; there is universe where Co-Op City is in the Bronx, and another where it is in Brooklyn. But all of these worlds hinge upon the Dark Tower, and if Roland is not around to save it, then it will fall, and so will all of existence. Stephen King lives in the “keystone world” –the world that seems to be the most “real” –where things happen with a clang of finality, and nothing can be undone.

Confusing stuff I know, but as I was reading about the importance of Stephen King to the Dark Tower, and the reoccurring significance of the year 1999 in the story, I finally began to realize what was at work here. King was gearing up for the climactic and pivotal moment in the series, a moment which occurred in reality on June 19th, 1999, when King was hit by a minivan while on a walk and barely survived. My first response to King’s insertion into the story was that of a grimace and a sigh. I braced myself for some sort of pretentious, egotistical self-referential nonsense. And then, as I began to realize what he was doing here, I realized the simple brilliance of his decision. It was in fact true, that if King had perished from that car accident, Roland’s universe would have been shoved into a horrible limbo. The series would have been left half finished, at the end of Book IV, with Roland and his ka-tet straggling on the borders of end-world forevermore, or worse yet, unable to save the tower, and then unable to save existence. King makes Roland his friends his saviors on that fateful day, and there is a sort of beautiful reciprocity to it. Roland and his friends are able to glimpse into the future and discover that without their help, King would die on the road that day. They must save King from dying on this day or loose their universe. The idea, of a writer’s creations coming alive to save him, so that he in turn as their creator, can save them, is moving.

Now there are all sorts of time-travel type paradoxes and quandaries of logic that crop up with the way King executed things. How is it possible that Roland and Eddie could have gone back to ’77 to convince King to pick up the Gunslinger book and finish off the story? If King had never written the series to begin with, how could they have existed in order to coerce him? And how is it possible that Roland and Jake saved Stephen King in the middle of Book VII, when at that point in time, they (Roland and Jake) were actually still somewhere in the void of story between Books IV and V? But despite these contradictions, King smoothes things over because the idea that he is trying to convey is not necessarily that he created everything (Roland and the rest of ‘em), but that their story is funneled to him through Gan (God), and his job is merely to put it on paper. There is a neat little epilogue at the end of Song of Susannah, where King includes a “Writer’s Journal” of sorts –and he talks about how when he is writing about the Dark Tower, he’s not really thinking, he’s just…flowing. I thought this was a very adept way to fuse together the concept he was trying to sell in the book, with the way that writing actually feels when you’re doing it and it feels right; because one can loose a bit of consciousness and fingers may move with a mind of their own. My initial response that King’s insertion of himself into the story was just a cheap shot changed by the time I completed the books, and I really think King’s inclusion of himself worked well.

Structure and plotting aside, I was completely engrossed by these last two books. It felt as if there wasn’t a moments’ rest, only a fast and furious barreling of event after event and showdown after showdown until the very end. Book VI, Song of Susannah was the shortest installment since Book III, at about 415 pages, and I was able to finish it in about 24 hours. As great as I thought the plot twist of Susannah getting pregnant was, I wasn’t all that crazy about the way that Mia’s character (the mother of the chap which first manifested itself as another of Susannah’s split personalitiss) was reconciled. For a moment there I thought Mia was going to turn out to be Susan Delgado’s spirit who had been trapped in the underworld, dead but still pregnant with Roland’s unborn child. Of course as it turned out Mia had no connection to Susan; she was some sort of disembodied demon elemental type thing that was given human form and I found both her identity and her M.O. to be a little murky and confusing. Nevertheless she served as a great device. The relationship King established between Mia and Susannah was tension fraught yet organic. Surely one of the most horrifying scenes in all the series was the strange dual mother birth scene of Mordred, and the subsequent suckling, which ended in Mia’s death. Mordred. What a terrific name. It is no more than the condensing of the phrase “more dread”, but it has such a great and terrifying ring to it; if ever there was a name that could instill horror by merely being uttered, Mordred is it.

One of my favorite portions of Book VII, was the whole stakeout that Roland and his friends conceived to free the “Breakers” in Algul Siento. King’s description and elaboration of the lifestyle in Algul Siento, and the way he tied into Book V with the twins was elegant. I was completely riveted as the gunslingers took down the Taheen and the Humes, and at long last saved the beams radiating from the Dark Tower, thereby ensuring a large chunk of safety for the universe. Of course, it was also at this point in the novel, where the beloved ka-tet finely broke, and the first of the main characters, Eddie, died. As wary as I might have been at the appearance of Pere Callahan in Book V, I realized just how much I had grown to like him when he died at the beginning of Book VII. I found myself tearing up as I read about his final showdown in the Dixie Pig with the vampires and Taheen. I was sad to see Callahan go, but I was heartbroken about Eddie. If someone would have told me that I would one day read a Stephen King book and be crying through at least a third of the way through it, I would have laughed in their face. Yet, that is exactly what I did in Book VII, The Dark Tower. Over two and a half months, seven books, and almost four thousand pages I spent with these characters, --and to say goodbye to Roland’s ka-tet, Eddie, Jake, Susannah and Oy, was incredibly sad and difficult. I knew at least one of them had to die, and that most likely it was only Roland who would make it to the top of the tower, but all of their individual goodbyes one by one? It was almost too much to bear.

First Eddie was careless and was shot by a Hume. Then Jake, sacrificed himself to save the universe, by pushing King just enough out of the way of the speeding minivan so he would not be struck dead. I was sobbing like a child. For these were my friends too. My traveling companions, and to have to witness the broken hearts of those who remained was almost more painful. Reading those last few chapters where it was just Susannah and Roland and Oy was so sad and yet so dear. They still had each other, and went on through all their despair and exhaustion –for each other. The introduction of the poor, broken-spirited, but immensely talented Patrick the artist, seemed well placed and timed. They needed someone else walking the path with them, who was not carrying the same burden of their grief. Patrick added a nice dynamic to the group, as they broke past the snow and made it to the very last edges of end-world. I felt strangely about the premonitions that Susannah had to leave Roland and go rejoin with Eddie and Jake in some other universe, through another magic door. Part of me wanted her to stay with Roland, if at least to keep him company, and keep the semblance of their ka-tet. Yet I knew she too had to leave; and better that she vanished through a door than have to face a bloody death. Though maybe because of this Susannah’s departure was the most difficult to bear. Most painful because of Roland’s open desperation at her leaving him.

I thought having Mordred finally reveal himself, and charge towards Roland, only to be blindsided by Oy was perfect. As sad and heart wrenching as it was to say goodbye to precious Oy, the billy bumbler, it was so fitting that he died defending Roland. That he died doing exactly what Jake had probably whispered in his ear to do as he lay bleeding to death on the pine nettles in Maine.

And then down to almost the very, very end…. Roland and Patrick slowly making their way to the field of blood red roses, where Roland must met his final obstacle, to entering the Tower. The final battle with the Crimson King was great, still fraught with as much tension as ever, and I love the fact that it was Patrick’s artistry which ended up defeating the King, --not with a sandlewood handled gun, but a nubby pink eraser. And then… then….the Tower was his! The Dark Tower belonged to no one but Roland, and he raced down the path to it calling all of the names of his beloved who had died on the way, I cheered for him with tears streaming down my cheeks, all the while in disbelief the whole saga was at an end.

And it wasn’t. Next came the epilogue. Susannah on the other side of magical door she had dreamt about and made Patrick draw so it could become a reality. A snowy flurry day in New York City’s Central Park of some alternate universe where Nozz-a-la is drank instead of Coke, and Takuro Spirits are driven instead of Honda Civics. Eddie and Jake are brothers, and they somehow know they are supposed to meet Susannah in the park as she comes through the door. But it is not the jubilant reunion it might have been because Eddie and Jake don’t seem to remember her, they know there is a connection between them, and Eddie knows he will come to love this woman, but it is foggy and dreamlike. Not exactly a joyous reunion of the ka-tet. Yet what made me saddest is that even though these three will rebuild new memories with each other, they have forgotten about Roland, and the wonderful, terrible, journey they went on with him. To me this might have been the saddest thing of all.

And yet, it still wasn’t over. There was a second epilogue titled -- “Coda” (or closing). King starts it with a sort of whining warning about how the wise reader should not continue reading on, and simply stop and be content with knowing Roland got to the Tower and Eddie and Susannah and Jake found each other again. Yet he begrudgingly gives us more of an ending, at what I imagine was the strong behest of his editors and publishers.

Roland opens the door to the tower. He begins to climb the stairs madly, finding room upon room filled with memories and objects of the past. The floors and the rooms continue on and on, and he worries that he might never reach the top, that that tower might be an unending spiral. But he does reach the top. At last he goes to grab the doorknob and complete his final mission, his one wish in life, forever.

When he does, Roland’s moment of realization is brief but agonizing. He has done this before. This is what its like every time. The exact gut wrenching thought he thinks is “Oh no! Please, not again! Have pity! Have mercy!“ My veins filled with chilled mercury at the sight of this phrase, and I was chilled to the bone in horror at Roland’s fate. Suddenly Roland is back on the desert –the very same desert where we first meet him, six books ago. Right at the moment where he realizes that reaching the Tower might just be in reach, if he can catch the man in black. Of course this time things are a little different. He has the horn of Eld, the one that he was wishing he had grabbed from Cuthburt on Jericho Hill; the one he wished he had had with him to blow upon exaltedly as he crossed the field of roses, only moments before.

Since I read these last few pages last night, I have been thinking about them, and turning them over and over again in my mind. I have so many thoughts, not only about alternate endings, but questions and confusions. While Roland has been obsessively coveting his ascension of the Dark Tower, he has also had to undertake the noble quest of saving the beams. He had to save the Dark Tower (in its permutation as a rose in keystone New York), in order to save the beams. He also had to scatter the Breakers in order to save the beams, and he had to kill the Crimson King in order to save the Dark Tower too, and on and on. Roland’s quest was much more complex and less self-centered than merely reaching the top room of the dark tower (although it has been his darkest desire). Does this mean that he needs to keep on saving the universes until he learns to resist, and not go up to the top room of the tower? Was it really ever about saving existence at all, or does it simply boil down to Roland and the room at the top of the Dark Tower? And what of the world “moving-on”? How does it tie into Roland’s mind-trap from hell? Why does his world, (and really all worlds) keep coming to the edge of caving in on itself? But I suppose it does no good to keep contemplating all these things. One must merely accept the fact that Roland saved the universe once and he can do it again, and maybe next time he will learn to resist the temptation of the Tower. I suppose trying to get to the room at the top of the Tower is equivalent to trying to see the face of God (or in this case Gan). It is something that no one can do, and only punishment can come of trying.

Ultimately, the thing that fills me with the most regret about the end is all the amnesia that seems to set in on everyone at the end. Eddie and Jake don’t really remember Susannah and all of them will forget Roland, and Roland has forgotten all of them by the time he’s back on the desert trailing the man in black all over again. They shared such a deep and special bond; it seems cruel that it could just evaporate in an instant. I wonder if Roland will keep drawing those three over and over again out of different worlds or if he draws new people every time. It would somehow cheapen their ka-tet, if it was different folks at every turn of ka’s wheel. Truth be told, part of me wanted Roland to walk through the door at the top of that Tower and enter the Clearing at the end of the Path. There he would reunite with Susannah, and Eddie, and Jake and Oy, and Pere Callahan, and Cuthbert, and Alain Johns, and Sheemie, and Susan Delgado, and all have punch and cookies in eternity. But I suppose that would have been too upbeat and sappy for the King of horror. Another part of me wondered what would have happened if Roland had opened the door and stepped out onto the drop at Mejis just before he met Susan Delgado. If given the chance, would he have been able to recapture his true love and youthful heart? But that too I guess falls under the category of too sentimental.

In the author’s note following the Coda, King says that he himself wasn’t crazy about the ending, and yet it was the only ending there was. As foolishly literal as the statement might seem, I find myself in a strange state of agreement with it. The ending to the Dark Tower was the only ending there was.

As King himself admits, these books were not perfect, and there were things I wish had been different, but after all is said and done, I really grew to love them. I journeyed with Roland and his friends for many a day and night, and I am really going to miss that. We were well met, we were very well met.

Roland, may you find your tower, but find some peace this time as well.

The New Yorker finds the Academy picks to be B_O_R_I_N_G

2006-01-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

By Hollywood standards, the nominees for the 78th annual academy awards are old news. It’s been a almost a whole seven hours since word got out this morning at the crack of dawn, about who was in the running for those beloved little gold statuettes. Since then, chatter has been everywhere –the internet, the radio, people gabbing about how now more than ever the “serious” and “intelligent” films are really getting the recognition they deserve.

In case you haven’t look at the list of nominees yet, here is a brief run down:

BEST PICTURE

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
MUNICH

**The directors of each of these films were nominated for best directing, so we’re talking, Ang Lee, Bennet Miller, Paul Haggis, George Clooney, and Steven Speilberg.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
MUNICH

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
MATCH POINT
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
SYRIANA

As I was driving in my car this morning listening to NPR, I heard an entertainment commentator talk about how the “NPR audience” was “to blame” for the change in certain independent type films coming to the forefront. The NPR anchor (on the show Day to Day) then asked the commentator why he used the word “blame”? Wasn’t it a good thing that “real” and “smart” movies were finally being made and recognized?

Oh it was all enough to make me puke.

Don’t get me wrong, I like NPR, and being “smart” and all is great, but why does everyone, excuse my language, have to run around with such a stick up their a**. Because I thought Capote was terrific, and Munich was a very interesting film, and Good Night and Good Luck looked great, –but what about Batman Begins? What about King Kong? Batman Begins only garnered a single nomination in Cinematography, but I think it should have also been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Directing, and Best Picture. I would have nominated the screenplay for Batman Begins over The Squid and the Whale, which was an intriguing movie but not particularly splendid. King Kong was nominated for Art Direction, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual FX, but I also think it should have been nominated for Directing and Best Picture. In fact looking at the Best Actress nominations, I think if they are going to go ahead and nominate Charlize Theron in North Country, they should in turn nominate Naomi Watts for Kong too –because Watts was better than Theron.

I also thought that Star Wars: Episode III was sorely missing from some of the more technical awards. I would have bumped out the dreary, drab Art Directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and replaced it with Revenge of the Sith, for its gorgeous interiors, and beautiful spacescapes. Also how is it possible that Sith did not get a nomination for Visual Effects? How did that happen?!

Now I haven’t seen Crash and I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain yet, which are two major contenders in this oscar race. While I think it’s a good thing that Brokeback Mountain is getting recognition despite of its controversial subject matter, to me a love story is a love story is a love story, which might be well acted and beautifully portrayed, but is also typically boring. I think of all the films that was smothered in nominations the one that seems the most surprising is Good Night and Good Luck. I thought the most impressive element about this film was its visuals. So I think it properly deserved its nominations in Cinematography, and Art Direction. But McCarthyism isn’t exactly a novel topic, and while Edward R. Murrow’s story is both significant and interesting, the film was very heavy handed, and bordered on its own brand of propaganda. Another surprising omission to me in the nominees was Walk the Line in the catagories of Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Directing and Best Picture. I am not usually one for a bio-pic but I thought this film was really quite good, and certainly Oscar fare. The way that James Mangold pieced together the story of Johnny Cash’s life was both compelling and original. I actually thought this film was better than Ray, which was nominated in all those catagories, and I think at the very least it should have gotten a screenplay nod.

Why is it that when the Academy looks at a film like Batman Begins they think, “Ridiculous –it’s about a man who dresses up like a bat,” instead of “This is really a movie about fear and violence and revenge. It’s about learning how to deal with one’s internal demons, in a way which might mean incorporating them into oneself instead of banishing them.” And why is it that when they look at King Kong they think “It’s merely a movie about a gigantic ape,” instead of “This is a film about alienation, about man kind’s fear and wonder of the wilderness within his own heart, and about the unavoidable conflict between man’s desires to cherish and destroy that which he loves.”

What makes a movie “serious” anyway? Is it a lack of comedy? That certainly seems to be part of it, as comedies are traditionally snubbed at the Oscars. Is it a lack of ground breaking visuals? That too, seems to be part of the package since, with the exception of the recent Lord of the Rings victory, films with massive visual FX are ommitted from the nominee list. Must it be grounded in historical events, and forego anything imaginative or fantastical?

The Academy seems to be narrowing down further and further its criteria for who it chooses to nominate. Cinema is such a vast medium, and there are such of a variety of different films out there. Shouldn’t the award show with the highest profile in the world properly reflect diversity? Isn’t the race more exciting and balanced, when you have a blockbuster fantasy extravagnaza, next to a small, independent bio-pic? Apparently, according to the Academy, the answer to these questions is no.

Tagline of the week: Courtesy of UltraViolet

2006-01-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

I had never even heard a whisper of this movie until last week, when a friend of mine pointed out the one sheet poster amidst his giggling, in the lobby of a movie theatre. I quickly glanced at it, but only long enough to notice that it was a hyper-stylized graphic image of the indomitable Milla Jovovich in huge Fendi like sun glasses. I figured it was some sort of bizarre assassin flick a la Le Femme Nikita, and didn’t really give it a second thought. Then, while doing my periodic scan on the Apple Trailer site, I stumbled upon THIS , the trailer for UltraViolet. I urge you to view it before you continue reading anymore of this blog. You simply must watch the trailer for this film, because you won’t believe it until you see it, and even then you’ll be questioning if it was all a hallucination. My own eyes and ears could barely believe what they were seeing and hearing as the trailer flashed forward on my computer monitor.

Have you watched it yet? Doesn’t it seem incredibly familiar? Remember Aeon Flux ? That crazy futuristic sci-fi movie, which came out less than two months ago?! I find it highly ironic that the big plot reveal in Aeon Flux revolves around clones; how fitting that it should in turn, spawn off its own cinematic clone. I was simply flabbergasted at the outright similarities between UltraViolet and Aeon Flux; everything about them is so congruous. UltraViolet tells the story of a female assassin, who has been “altered” in some way, giving her strength and skill beyond the average human. Her mission is to try to get rid of the fascist government which has taken over earth in the future, after some debilitating virus has crippled the human race. Aeon Flux is quite nearly the EXACT same thing. Another coincidence in a sea of coincidences is the fact that both Theron and Jovavich donned silly raven colored wigs for their roles. Theron’s was an 80’s-esque asymmetrical do, while Jovavich’s make her look like Bettie Page after two months without eating.(and I don’t mean in a good way). But next to UltraViolet, the barely passable Aeon Flux looks like a masterpiece the likes of “A Clockwork Orange”. Not only UltraV’s trailer put together poorly, (using some of the music that was actually in Aeon Flux), but everything that was silly and postured about Aeon Flux seems a hundred times worse in UltraV. Such freewheeling dialogue exchanges such as:

Evil Guy: Are you mental?
Milla: Come and get it!

And--

Milla: I hate humans.
Ambivalent Guy: You used to be human.
Milla: But not anymore, right?

nearly boggle the mind. Wow. I mean wow. This trailer has rendered me speechless. I’ve never had a problem with Jovavich per say. She’s not a particularly remarkable actress, but I actually found the first Resident Evil to be mildly entertaining, and she was somewhat endearing in The Fifth Element. Certainly, her looks are quite striking, and she can put in a decent performance, but something tells me that director/writer Kurt Wimmer, probably didn’t bolster the innate talent she does have. Wimmer, who also did Equilibrium in 2002, another fascist futuristic sci-fi flick, which I had actually never heard of until I looked him up on IMDB , has spent most of his career as a writer. He wrote The Thomas Crown Affair remake, and the adaptation for Michael Crichton’s Sphere (yikes) among other random projects. Truth be told, I know very little about the guy, and don’t have a very informed opinion about his level of talent. Maybe this project has been on his slate for years, maybe it’s his “baby”. But what still seems so incomprehensible to me about all this, are the blatant similarity between UltraViolet and Aeon Flux. I mean the script was probably written and greenlit before they knew if and when A.F. was being released, but even the marketing is disturbingly similar. If I were Sony or Screen Gems, I’d be trying to make that movie look like a sci-fi western, a romantic comedy, a story about a girl and her gun, anything, but the futuristic facist dysptopian setting, where a scantily clad, beautiful woman runs around slaughtering bad guys. Financially speaking, Aeon Flux was a flop, it cost about $60 million, and only made $30 world wide in its eight weeks of release. It’s curious to me that the folks behind UltraViolet wouldn’t take that into consideration, and try to avoid the stink off A.F. as best they could.

I guess I just don’t understand how this sort of thing happens in Hollywood. This certainly isn’t the first time, but if you ask me, it’s worse than Deep Impact and Armageddon, or Finding Nemo and Shark Tale; Aeon Flux and UltraViolet are a hair away from being identical twins. In my mind, I imagine a sort of bizarre game of chicken where by each studio thinks the other is going to flinch or give up first, but ultimately neither does. Cutting together a trailer that wasn’t so completely reminiscent of A.F. would also help. Releasing it with more than two months in between would help even more. Of course, at the end of trailer, there is no date given for it’s release. It merely says “Coming Soon”, and something tells me it might not see the light of day for a long time yet…

As for the tagline? According to IMDB, it’s, “The Blood War is on.”

Whatever that means….

Dark Tower Update

2006-01-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

It’s been two weeks since I last blogged about my progress on the journey to the Dark Tower. At that point in time I was about seventy five pages or so into the fourth installment of King’s Saga, Wizard and Glass. By now, I’ve completed the fifth chapter in the quest of Roland and his fellow Gunslingers, Wolves of the Calla. After I posted my first blog, I received a fair amount of comments from folk, and the general consensus was that after the fourth book in the series, the quality of the books starts to dwindle down. Now after having completed the fourth AND the fifth books, I am sorry to say I agree with this sentiment.

First off, I found Wizard and Glass to be remarkable, perhaps my favorite of the lot. It was the meatiest installment thus far, clocking in at about 670 pages, almost double the size of some of its slimmer predecessors. Wizard and Glass does in fact, take a large sidestep from the path that Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy are on, but it was a sidestep that was not regrettable in the least. Within the crust of the main plot, lay a wonderful fairy-tale like yarn with textures both hard and soft; one which so compelling it could have stood on its own if necessary. The fact that the story of Roland’s adventures in Mejis was woven so craftily, into a pre-exisiting mythology and set of characters, made it all the more impressive. I was completely enchanted while reading about the vibrant community of characters, the peculiar geography, and unique dialect and customs that King had created within the pages. There were a million little revelations for me from chapter to chapter as I saw how each little tendril of the story, sneakily found its way back to its origin, forming a complex and detailed tapestry that was breath taking to behold. At times, my mind would beg to wander, and I might begin to wonder why King was spending so much time developing a seemingly tertiary character –yet everytime, I was met pages down the line, with a satisfying answer.

It was fascinating to peer in through the glass and watch Roland, with his compatriots, Cuthburt and Alain (of whom he had always spoken of), when they were nothing more than children. To see Roland, when he could feel and express sheepishness, boyisheness, giddiness, in both his love affair with Susan and his handling of his mission, added a whole new dimension to his characters. The first three books gave him depth, purpose, mannerisms, and even heart, but by the end of the fourth it seems we had seen Roland’s very soul. The only thing that I found to be slightly over the top was the fact that, shortly after returning to Gilead, Roland mistakenly shoots and kills his mother. While it made sense logistically that Rhea of Coos has yet to exact her final revenge, and that this act broke the last strands of Roland’s heart, it teetered a wee bit on the side of the melodrama. I think particularly because it happened so close in tandem to Susan’s death made it seem a bit over the top.

The story as it takes place in Mejis is captivating, and though simple in its concepts and themes, was remarkably intricate in its execution. I myself, could never imagine thinking up all that “story”, -not just the major plot elements, but the little staples that pulled all the pages together. Equally compelling was the bizarro Kansas and Oz that the Gunslingers stumble upon as they try to find their way back to the “beam”. I liked all the little allusions to the Wizard of Oz, including the ruby red shoes, the Emerald City-like Palace, and the throne they find inside it, operated by the elusive “man behind the curtain”. Somehow it made sense that there should be a confluence between the fantasy world of Oz, and the fantastical world of Roland’s Mid-World.

But tactics that felt clever and organic in Wizard and Glass, became unnatural and obnoxious in Wolves of the Calla. In this fifth book King decided to cross from the territory of literary references, into the post-modern modern world of the self-reflexive pop culture flourishes. In “Calla”, King brings back Father Callahan, a main character from one of his first novels, ‘Salem’s Lot, which I have yet to read. From what I gather from the information in “Calla”, the book deals with a small New England town which becomes inundated by the undead/vampires. Father Callahan is actually quite a compelling character --of the tortured soul variety, and ‘Salem’s Lot seems like a scary and interesting book, but I am reading the Dark Tower series, and I’ll be damned, but it feels like a heck of a cheap trick to me. Now again, since I’ve never read the book, I don’t know how much of the material regarding Father Callahan was previously dealt with in ‘Salem’s Lot. Granted much of the stories we learn about him have to do with his life after he left said small New England town. But still, recycling one’s characters, when they are not already part of a given series just seems like a bit of a cop out to me. Particularly since, try as he might, King, who so artfully constructed and meshed together the story elements in Wizard and Glass, struggled to marry the mythology of vampires with the mythos that he’s already created within the world of the Dark Tower. As intriguing as Callahan’s wanderings into the world of the vampiric might have been, the “payoff” of his stories within the grand plot of the Wolves of Calla was meager at best. The fact that Roland told the town folk of the Calla that the Wovles that came after their children were actually vampires, in order to fool certain people listening, was ridiculous. It was fairly obvious from the beginning that the Wovles were robots at any rate. This and other secrets held within the pages of Wolves of the Calla were not nearly as well hidden as some of the other mysteries which had been revealed in earlier volumes of the series.

I was particularly shocked, when in the final pages of “Calla” – the book ‘Salem’s Lot actually appears in the story, as written by an author named Stephen King. I know King isn’t the first writer to reference himself in a his own work of fiction, but in the world of the Dark Tower it just doesn’t seem to fit. Not to mention the fact that I nearly fell out of my chair and onto the ground, when I read that some of the weapons used by the wolves were “sneetches –Harry Potter Model.” Nor did I care for King’s last ditch effort to draw uncanny similarities between the wolves and Dr. Doom from Spiderman comics. These items felt slapdash and ill-suited to the rest of the story.

Now, criticims aside, let it be known that I devoured this fifth volume, which was even bigger than the last (714 pages), in a matter of days. I have not given up hope on Roland and his team, and I am still as committed as ever to the see this story to the finish. In terms of the general plot structure that founded the fifth novel, I thought it was well conceived. I like the idea that King took a simple fairy tale conceit ---bad wolves who come to steal away the children, and turned it into a rich piece of folk lore. I liked how King developed the Calla of Bryn Sturgis, and how it mirrored various aspects of Mejis, and the mission that Roland completed in that similar outpost so many years ago. Though similar, the Calla also had its own unique nuances. I thought the idea of Andy the messenger Robot was brillant and wonderfully sinister, and I liked the rest of the supporting characters in the town. The details involving the twins, and how half of each pair inevitibaly became “Roont” by the wolves was original and creepy, though by the end I felt King stopped short of giving it the full explanation and resolution it deserved. Even creepier than the twin-nabbing, was the development of Mia, --yet another alter ego for Susannah, and the reveal that she was pregnant. Even more unnerving, was the plot twist that it was not Eddie’s child she was carrying, but the child of the demon she had battled in the third book “The Wastelands.” The scenes that King wrote about Susannah/Mia in the Castle Dining Hall, where she fed her and her “chap” were completely gripping and utterly terrifying. Equally unsettling was the surfacing of “Black Thirteen”, the wizard’s glass that embodied ultimate evil, in the semblance of a singular and unblinking eye. King has a knack for writing about evil; he turns is from a disembodied concept into a hovering, palpable presence. King creates visceral descriptions and striking analogies that solidify into frightning images in our minds eye. I finally had my first Dark Tower related nightmare while in the midst of reading “Calla.”

So all in all have I noticed a decline? Yes. Am I resolute as ever to make it to the end of this journey. Yes. Wizard and Glass was amazing, Wolves of Calla was still a page turner, but not as artfully done. Song of Susannah awaits me on a shelf at home. The cliffhanger at the end of “Calla” with Susannah’s disappearance is a nail biter… so I may not be getting much sleep tonight, do ya ken it?

LOST feels Lost

2006-01-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

I figure by now, anyone who is an avid watcher of Lost (is there any other kind?) has seen last week’s episode, titled “The Hunting Party.” In this episode, Michael runs off to find Walt and we get yet another peek at Jack’s past life as a surgeon.
I thought it was one of the weakest episodes I’ve seen yet in a series which I’ve always touted as being remarkably strong and elegant. I’m not sure if it’s a sophmore slump or pressure from the network, but I cant’ shake the feeling that the writers behind Lost, are feeling lost themselves.

The week before last, the episode, “The 23rd Pslam” aired on January 11th, and went into the backstory of the solemn and enigmatic character Mr. Eko, one of the “new” survivors”. This was the first new episode that the show had aired since November 30, which was almost a month and a half prior! Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the actor who portrays Mr. Eko, has been a solid addition to the cast, and I think he is terrific actor. Akinnouye-Agbaje has a subtlety to his mannerisms, and a gentle intensity that fills up the screen with power. I was intrigued by Mr. Eko’s former days as an African warlord, and these scenes felt surprisingly authentic, as they told the story of his unfortunate childhood and the difficult decisions he was faced to make once grown. I thought the writers did a clever job of weaving together story elements from last season and the current season; explaining the origin of the priest’s corpse which had been found by Jack and Locke hung up in a tree last year, and the plane wreck in the middle of the jungle that led to Boone’s death. I liked that they were once again able to tie up the fate of one of the new survivors on the island, with the fate of the other survivors. “The 23rd Pslam” even featured a guest appearance by the ever elusive “black smoke”, with its mechanical, clanking sounds, as it faced off Mr. Eko in a clearing. As peculiar and menacing as the smoke is, my response to it has dampened. The first time I saw the smoke in last season’s finale, I was shocked and perplexed, but now I feel somewhat jaded, because I feel certain that nothing about it will be explained. It’s like a dog who smells the delicious aromas of cooking wafting through the screen door of a kitchen. He will anxiously wait for someone to step through the door and feed him, drooling and pawing at the metal mesh seperating him from the food. But after a while of waiting, he will give up hope and walk away from the door, certain the a meal is never coming.

This metaphor is fairly accurate in describing how I’m beginning to feel about LOST. “The 23rd Pslam” was a good episode because it highlighted some of the inherent strengths of the show, --creating characters with depth and intrigue, and weaving together new plot elements with old ones, these are the things that LOST can be so good at. But as well done as it was, it still didn’t really advance much of anything in terms of the story on the island.

“The Hunting Party”, was an egregious stall tactic episode if I ever saw one. It felt like recycled themes, and continued the show’s recent knack for opening up can of worms upon can or worms. The characters on the island must be up to their eyes in figurative earthworms, no wonder they can’t get anywhere. First off, even though, the first episode of the season was months ago, I felt like we’d JUST seen a Jack flashback episode. Especially since the flashback scenes in this episode were so familiar and predictable. Once again we saw Jack as a surgeon, doing spinal operations, struggling with his role as a doctor/miracle worker, and letting people down. I felt like we saw similar elements in the episode “Man of science, Man of Faith” (season 2 opener). The only difference is that in one case, he succeeded in his miracle, in another he did not. As for his relationship with his wife, there was too little interaction between them to surmise what was really going on, and his act of kissing the Italian woman was deflated by his wife’s admission that she was already having an affair. We already knew from last season that Jack was divorced, to learn that the cause was nothing more than some standard workaholic tendencies and textbook infidelity was kind of disappointing. Futhermore, the link that the writers always make between the action in the flashback and the action on the island was especially weak in this episode. According to his wife Jack, “always has to try and fix things” –this sentiment is mirrored somewhat by Locke, who accuses Jack of doing the same thing by trying to chase after Michael, who has absconded to find Walt. This felt like a like more than a bit of a stretch to me. Jack doing his job and trying to save a man’s life, and Jack deciding to give his marriage a second try, are not that comprable to his control issues on the island.

While I think its creepy and interesting to have Walt purportedly typing to his father, Micahel, at an unknown computer at the island, I think the writers of the show have chosen a very bizarre way to play the scenario out. First of all, it seems HIGHLY unlikely that Michael would be so surreptitious about the fact that he was talking to Walt over the computer. Especially if Jack walks up to him, (as he did in the episode “The 23rd Pslam”) and brings up Walt, and how he and the other survivors haven’t forgotten about saving him. Why wouldn’t Michael tell him immediatley what was going on? It seems like a natural response for Michael to get up screaming from that chair in the Hatch, and tell anybody who would hear him that his son is alive and that they must figure out where he is. Furthermore, I don’t think they’ve fully justitified why Michael would go out on his own to go collect Walt. Maybe Sawyer, or Kate would do something like that, but Michael has always been painted as a more logical and rational individual, a smart man who wouldn’t unncessarily throw either himself or his son into danger’s way. Knowing what he does know about the Others, he seems completely crazy to go after them by himself. Even if he did suddenly snap, and go AWOL on account of his son, I think the way to do it would have been to make it a Michael or a Walt flashback, and center it around their story, rather than making Jack the focal point, when it really has little to do with him.

On the subject of The Others, I thought the scene where that creepy old sea billy walks out of the trees was certainly unnerving, as was the instantaneous lighting of the torches at his command. But we still didn’t get anywhere with anything! There was no real information divulged about the Others, such as how they got there, what their M.O. is, and why they took Walt. Is this “Others” racquet getting old to anyone else? Not to mention the fact that it feels like there are too many main characters on the show. What the hell happened to the French Woman? Desmond? And has Hurley done anything but make his occasional wisecrack for the past several episodes? It’s time for them to kill more people off or have some sort of real event occur on the island. They go on hiatus for a month and a half, and this is what they come back with? The only thing right now that is kindling my hope, is the last line of last week’s episode, where Jack asks Ana Lucia how long it would take to train an army. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

The Trend of Torture

2006-01-19T16:06:00.000-08:00

In the past couple of years, it seems that the sub-genre of the “torture” horror film has had a renaissance. First there was the Rob Zombie gorefest, House of 1000 Corpses, which was released in Spring of 2003. A few months later came the Michael Bay produced remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Then in 2004, came SAW, and in ’05 we saw two new sequals in the torture genre with SAW II and The Devil’s Rejects (aka House of a Thousand Corpses 2). This past summer, a film called Chaos, was released, which many critics have pegged as a “rip-off” of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, despite the fact that director David DeFalco denies it as a remake. A couple of weeks ago Eli Roth’s Hostel came in at number one at the box office, and though I myself have not seen it, it is apparently, the torture film to end all torture films. But things aren’t quieting down yet. In less than two months a remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes will hit theatres, and who knows what other horrors are in store for us in the near future.

The plot for most of these films are pretty similar to one another, and fairly unsophisticated to boot. Unsuspecting innocent folk (usually attractive young people) stumble upon a group of psychotic killers, who slowly torture and murder each one of them, with slight variations on the theme. Sometimes the killers wish to dine on their prey, other times they wish to watch their victims to hurt each other, but often the killers view the rituals leading up to death, and the murdering itself, as games or sport. Typically, by the end of the film, there is only one survivor who is able to escape the clutches of these human monsters, sometimes by outwitting and killing their captors, occasionally with the help of others.

The first time this sub-genre of horror had it’s hey day was in the 70’s. In 1972, master of terror Wes Craven directed his first feature film, The Last House on the Left. This film is a grisly depiction of a gang of murderers who rape, torture and kill two young women, and then unknowingly end up at the home of the girls’ parents. The parents, who discover what the murderes have done, subject the murderers to a series of brutal torture, before they kill them. Craven defended the film (which was banned in the UK), as a work that was meant to show the true terrible and horrifying nature of violence. Three years later, Wes Craven followed up his Last House of the Left, with the original version of The Hills have eyes. THHE is a tawdry tale of a family whose car breaks down in a deserted area of the midwest, and is ambushed by a roving family of inbred, primitive freaks. The 70’s also saw what is perhaps considered to be the quintessential torture flick of all time in ‘74 with Tobe Hooper’s ground breaking original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. TTCM followed the story of a group of teenagers who come across a enclave of psychopaths in a deserted part of Texas, and are then successively mutilated and killed in a smorgasbord of gore. On a personal note, I consider myself a veteran of horror films, and one who is not too easily frightened, but to this day I can not bare to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre for a second time. I saw the remake when it came out and found it somewhat engaging, though it did not terrify me the way the original did. In it’s polished and stylish presentation it lacked the grittiness and rawness of the original, (though it had quite a good trailer . The original TTCM, feels almost like a documentary, and gives you the shivering sensations that everything you are watching might have actually happened.

But what exactly is it about these sorts of films that have people flocking to the theatres to watch bodily dismemberment? Is it that these films are like a gruesome car accident which we recognize as horrible, yet can’t bare to look away from? We wince and shriek when we see a character mangled on screen, and our stomachs curdle with empathy at the pain that the person on film must be going through. We feel a combination of disgust and horror as we watch fingers be clipped and blood ooze from the wound. But to what end, one might ask? So many of these films, particularly the recent lot have lacked a real point or story. One begins to blend into another with a sense of redundancy, when the main characters are one dimensional, and the film making unartistic. For a horror movie to really work on the level of its genre, it needs to not only operate on different levels, but to tap into our fears on a more metaphorical sense. Yes, everyone is afraid of getting murdered, but it is the mystery of the unknown and the unexpected that can be even more terrifying.

There is a marked difference between the horror movies that are chock full of violence, and those that are not. Certain horror films rely on what remains unseen to create a sense of suspense and terror, while others use the shock and sensationalism of blood and gore. There are many varying shades of grey in between these two techniques. There are ghost stories, like The Ring, pyshcological horror films like Rosemary’s Baby, and serial killer movies like Halloween. But the torture-horror films? I’m not so sure what to think about them. The films in the 70’s had a sort of cinema verite quality –they were terrifying because everything about them felt so real. The actors looked like real people, the settings felt organic, and that small irrational part of your brain wondered whether or not this footage might actually be real…. Yet, this new slew of movies involving torture are so slick and hollywoodized that they feel or at least seem, fake. The actors aren’t everyday looking people, but hunky men (Cary Elwes, Jay Hernandez) and doll faced women (Jessica Biel, Emilie de Ravin) who’s presence shatters the conceit that these terrible horrors could be happening next door, because we’ve just seen them the day before on Entertainment Tonight. The quick editing style, outlandish camera angles, and filtered and colored film stock, also give a lot of these films the aura of music videos rather than documentaries.

Once you take the realistic elements out of these films, what do you have left? A couple of hours of people people abused, mutilated, and killed? As I already stated the plots of these films usually aren’t too intricate, so all there really is to focus on is the blood letting, and anguish. These films just seem to be repetitive after a while. I know these things all boil down to a matter of personal taste, but I really don’t find anything redeeming or particularly enjoyable about watching people be tortured and dismembered without a deeper theme or story behind it. It’s not my cup of tea, and I think these sorts of films just try to capitalize on the “gross-out” factor, and shock value.

I also generally find horror films that deal with the supernatural to be more frightening, then those that merely deal with a couple of psychopaths. (Of course, I’ve found exceptions, like Silence of the Lambs, the original TTCM, When a Stranger Calls, etc.) For me, some of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen are The Exorcist, The Ring, Poltergeist, The Birds, The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, Jacob’s Ladder, just to name a few. Some people think its scarier to witness the horrors that may reside in the hearts of men, causing them to committ evil acts (none display this more aptly than war movies I think). But I find the monsters that can not so easily be stopped in their tracks by bullets or blades of steel to be the most terrifying of all.

The King and the Dark Tower

2006-01-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

About a month and a half ago I embarked on the long and distant journey to the Dark Tower. In other words I started reading Stephen King’s fantasy-horror epic: The Dark Tower series. The Dark Tower, is part vintage western, part Tolkeinian, and part ghost story, and follows the tale of Roland of Gilead as he searches for the Dark Tower, the answer to saving the world that crumbles around him. It is King’s self-proclaimed masterpiece, and many fans agree. Though getting through all seven volumes, as a grand total of 3,770 pages, is in my opinion, no small feat. It seems to be the consensus that the first book, titled The Gunslinger, (though the shortest in length at around 230 pages in the paperback edition) is the most difficult to get through because of its slow pace and unweildy prose. It is fairly atypical for Stephen King book; a piece more dedicated to it’s protagonist than to a rip-roarin’ adventure. But the first book is not to be skipped; once you move onto the second and third books, you realize you could never enjoy them as much if it hadn’t been for the first, which is instrumental in setting up the story’s hero, Roland of Gilead, as well as the world he travels in and through.

First published in 1982, The Gunslinger was the first of the seven novel saga, the last installment was appropriately named, simply, The Dark Tower, and was finally published in the fall of 2004. What I find neat about reading the series now that it’s been completed is:

a) I don’t have to worry about waiting around for the next book to be written and published. (which I guess is cheating a little bit but I also don’t have the detriment of forgetting things from previous books when I pick up the next one)

c) King has revised and expanded certain pieces of the original four novels, and has included a pretty nifty introduction to the series, which talks about his inspiration for starting the dark tower books, and the journey that he took as a writer over the two plus decades it took him to complete Roland’s story.

King completed the first four books of the series, Gunslinger, The Drawing of Three, The Wastelands, and Wizard and Glass in about a decade’s time. But after Wizard and Glass, he put down the gauntlet of the Dark Tower for a while, and it wasn’t until several years later that he was inspired to pick it back up again. In the summer of 1999, King was in a near fatal car accident, which left him severely injured. After his recovery, shaken by a newfound sense of his own mortality, he decided it was time to wrap up Roland’s journey, and in only four years completed volumes V Wolves of the Calla, VI Song of Sussanah, and VII The Dark Tower.

I am currently about seventy five pages into the fourth book, Wizard and Glass, and considering the cliffhanger that the third one had, I was excited to be able to pick up the next book immediately. Despite the slow going first installment, I have to say I’m quite enjoying the whole journey. I am constantly impressed, within this set of novels, at his ability to weave together a great deal of elements into a cohesive whole while shrouding them all the while in a hovering atmosphere of mystery and magic. In the Dark Tower, King has created an imaginary world which is both palpable and ethereal, and he tirelessly creates a bountiful amount of new monsters (my favorites are the lobstrosities and Blaine), scenarios(LUD is a page-turner), and mythologies (ka, ka-tet, and kehf can get burdensome after a while, but are all interesting concepts). Roland and his merry band of GIT (gunslingers in training) are eclectic in their chemistry and each is endearing in their own unique way. Yet Roland is the most magnetic of the characters perhaps because of all the dichotomies that reside within him. He does whatever needs to be done for his quest, and internally advertises his own solitary qualities, yet the reader knows he would never have survived through his various trials if not for the trusty friends he hand picked from the “real” world. There is Eddie, the former heroin addict, smart aleck, Susannah, the formerly schizo phrenic African-American who lived her prime in the era of the civil rights movement, and Jake, a young boy who up until his “drawing” was a regular NYC prep school kid. These characters are lively in and of themselves, but they are also particularly instrumental in bringing out Roland’s humanity. Roland invokes such tenderness in the reader because of the juxtopisiton of his strength and resolve next to vulnerability and kindness that he unknowingly exhibits.

King is often crtiqued among the erudite for being a cheap populist writer who has no style, and churns out newstand rubbish. In 2003, when Stephen King was awarded the National Book Award for lifetime achievement, many balked at the National Book Foundations’ choice. Harold Bloom, a stodgy Yale professor and scholar, wrote a scathing op-ed piece that was published in the Boston Globe, with the title "Dumbing Down American Readers". This article, and the mentality that it represents really irks me. According to the ideas espoused in this article, in order to be distinguished in the world of literature, one must either be dead or difficult to understand; at the very least inaccessible to those who aren’t literary scholars. In the same breath, Bloom goes on to lambast J.K. Rowling and her “dreadful” Harry Potter. This idea that anything which is “catered to the masses” is tripe, is both foolish and inflammatory. I’ve hummed this tune many a time before, but I hate the way genre items are so casually discarded as pedestrian; I think there is equal value in all sorts of literature. Some books are impressive because of their language and style, for the way that they are written. Others may be revolutionary in their narrative and the way that they are structured. Still others may be deliberately moving character studies with little to no plot, that are fascinating because of the person/people that they center on. But in my opinion, nothing beats a good “yarn” or story, and this is the very sort of crafting at which King thrives; he is a master storyteller. Yes, it’s true that his writing style can get a wee bit sloppy from time to time, (for example, he’ll use the phrase “mint green jelly” several times in a relatively short span of text to describe the appearance of a character’s crushed eyeball), though I think he has his more poetic moments as well. But beyond that King is astonishingly adept at creating a story, filled with a charismatic cast of characters, and a landscape of imagery for them to inhabit. King takes us to places we never dreamed (or wanted to dream) existed

What Stephen King has done for our cultural lexicon is nearly unfathomable. King has published a total of fifty four books (most of them novels, though some short story collections and non-fiction) in the past thirty sem-odd years. Over twenty of his works have been adapted into feature films, and television movies or mini-series. The man is a behemoth. His imagination is an unstoppable freight train. Behold his influence and power on the minds of countless readers, movie goers and pop culture consumers around the globe; do we not avoid hotels named Overlook? Cringe at the thought of pig’s blood pranks on prom night? Shudder at the thought of clowns?

I have read only about a third of King’s works, but what I’ve read I’ve always enjoyed. Some stories I found more compelling than others, but all of them consistently delivered as stories of intrigue, horror and macabre. Despite what people may say about him these days, I have a feeling his books are going to be kicking around for a long time to come. As for the Dark Tower? Wish me luck as I continue to delve for its answers.