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The Farce Is With Me and I Am the Farce

So in what is likely going to be a year tradition now, I have seen Disney’s new Star Wars’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Now I get to tell you all about it.

Only, I don’t think I will. I feel like most people will already have their minds made up about Rogue One, regardless of if they have seen it or not. We’re at a crossroads, if you will. Or perhaps it is a turning point. Maybe it is a precipice – hell if I can tell. All I know is that either you agree with me or not. I simply suspect that actually seeing the movie is irrelevant to the discussion.

In the name of simplicity, I’ll just give my feelings now in the first 200 words: I think Rogue One is an unfortunate mess of two conflicting tones and concepts that lurches between them through haphazard editing and an divisive vision. To throw it a bone, it’s better than the prequels. To put it in perspective, it’s worse than the originals.

Accessed from http://popwrapped.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/image153.jpg

Rogue One and Star Wars now belong to Disney, I suppose. All hail the almighty mouse.

And having seen two modern “modern Star Wars” I don’t think this refrain is apt to be changed at this point. I believe this comes down in large part due to intent. There was a real desire to create with the first Star Wars: to break molds and challenge conventions. The series now, however, has shuffled back to one of a position of enshrinement. People are trying to preserve like a crusty curator hoping to pass off old relics with a little bit of spit shine and dusting. But they’re still aged pieces, no matter how shiny and gilded you make their new frames. You might touch up a few cracks in the canvas. Maybe do a touch of restoration to bring back some of the faded colour. But you’re not creating anymore. You’re pining. Unfortunately, time moves on and for all the hard work done it is only so much futile resistance against the endless march. There’s a certain bit of sadness to it, I feel, if you get past all the agonising issues.

Not that my grumpy feelings on the matter amount to anything anyway. It’ll smash box offices. People will laud it’s achievements as being revolutionary. And then the next Star Wars will release next year and Rogue One will be pushed to the side. Just like that. I wonder if people will even remember it as simply a reproduction. I wonder if they’ll remember it at all.

I suspect they won’t.

And I find myself pausing and looking back at the state of affairs. How did we get here? I remember when I was a child and the original series was being re-released to theatres. Oh the furore over the special editions. I had seen the originals, of course. I wasn’t alive when they were released. I am not that ancient. But my parents had been and they’d enjoyed it. So they eagerly bundled me up, enthusiastic to relive the excitement with their child. Course, the special releases were quite special. There’s been far too many words devoted to what happened there. But they were successful and that bled into the prequel trilogy. And there’s definitely been far too many words devoted to sand for me to add to that discussion. But they too were successful. And now we’ve come to the third take as Disney hones in on what they love doing most: making money.

Perhaps if this phenomenon were devoted solely to Star Wars then I’d feel more inclined to rail against it. But it’s not. It’s simply another notch in a very long trend. We’re in the throes of the “cinematic universes.” I want to say this nonsense started with Lord of the Rings. It’s the very problem I’ve written about in the state of novels. Entertainment has morphed into this obsession with series – the content of the entertainment be damned. It’s less important than finding worthwhile stories, quality stories, than it is about making sure you squeeze out even more from your brand. We’re inundated with these throttling things. It’s the Stupid Hero Era where screen time is devoted more to how many laser beams you can fire per minute than on the characters being inordinately gunned down by them.

And frankly, I just can’t care. It’s not like the movies give me any reason to. The characters of Rogue One are about as interesting as any of the other endless faces propped up in these mindless flicks. In fact, the movie even goes so far as to resurrect old familiar faces in order to do the heavy lifting of emotional attachment since the work done for their new ones as as thread bare as ever. And there might be a number of wonders CGI can perform but bringing a person back from the dead still lies solely out of its purview. Though I applaud the effort nonetheless.

On some level, I can understand how we’ve come to this sorry state of affairs. We crave what we’ve previously enjoyed. We clutch to the fond memories, unwilling to give them up. But can you imagine the state of our entertainment if we had attached ourselves so fiercely to past productions as we have now? We’d be embroiled in the cinematic universe of Shakespeare, trying desperately to tie the madness of King Lear’s Fool and speculating whether he survived long enough to become Feste in the Twelfth Night XXII: Revenge of Maria Malvolio III.

And, perhaps, this is a symptom of our current copyright. At least with Shakespeare, since he lives in the public domain, revisiting the old work isn’t a problem. His plays are featured endlessly even now on stages both prestigious or pubescent. However, since anyone is allowed access to his work, there is less devotion to seeing it kept faithful. There’s been so many re-imaginings and retellings that what lies underneath is barely noticeable in the first place. 10 Things I Hate About You is about as recognizable as Taming of the Shrew as Clueless is of being Emma. Interest can still be mined from these concepts as they aren’t so much derivations but different visions. Their success or failure has no effect on the originals or their value. There exists no concern over a “brand” and maintaining the interest of said brand within the public consciousness.

Rogue One, however, is part of a brand. And it’s a very poor part indeed. It tries to maintain the same message and tone all the while directly contradicting and stumbling over the very toes of the piece it hopes to cash in on with your nostalgia. We’re not trying to see the themes and characters of Star Wars in a new light. We’re not seeing a poignant reinterpretation of a beloved story to reflect modern themes, struggles or problems. We’re seeing a tired horse trotted out with a new bridle, hopeful that most won’t see the emptiness of the act because this time it’ll hop a more colourful bar.

I don’t know if there had been an attempt to do otherwise. There are certainly moments that suggest Rogue One – at one time – existed as a darker war story to examine the more fearful elements of living beneath Star War’s fascist rule. But it’s mostly lost in drawn out action beats that are both poorly contextualized and rushed out one after the other so none have any particular weight. Much has been said about Star Wars revolutionizing the modern film by enforcing the standard of an action beat every ten minutes. What was originally conceived as a cinematic nod to the serialized adventure origins of these tales has turned into a cemented cinematic truth that has done more harm than good. I’ve made peace that any mainline Star Wars movie is going to hop from laser fight to laser fight with silly people in plastic costuming falling over. But Rogue One was their chance to get away from such empty conventions. Instead, it falls into them gleefully, hoping that the action itself will speak for the characters given so little screen time themselves. You don’t come to like Jyn and her merry band for who they are. You are meant to like them because you see them shoot lasers a lot or smack obvious space Nazis with sticks. They’re good. Their enemies are bad. It’s sad when they struggle. It’s happy when they succeed.

There’s little plot in order to tie it together. There’s little motivation for you to care. It’s a spectacle with as much flair as a fireworks display and as much meaning to it too.

So, in the end, if the latest Hollywood trend has left you feeling empty and longing for more – seeking something different to inject life into an industry more concerned with milking safe investments and enforcing tried and true structures – then you will be let down. If you solely want a spectacle to fill two hours then it’s fine. At this point it doesn’t seem to matter. Whether you like it or not will be determined long before you set foot into the theatre.

And either way we won’t care about it anywhere near as much as what it’s trying to ape in the first place.

Forever TV

This promotional poster is not my own image, all rights belong to its creator.

This promotional poster is not my own image, all rights belong to its creator.

Forever is the title of a 2014-2015 American police procedural TV show. It lasted for one season and I am currently two episodes from the end. I think if the show had continued I would still stop around the end of the first season.

It is a cop show were the two leads are a female detective and a male coroner. Dr. Henry Morgan is blessed or cursed with seeming immortality. He has been alive for the past 200 years. Not to say he doesn’t die, he just keeps coming back at the same age and apparently in the same physical condition. He doesn’t appear to age either. It is kind of a cheesy concept, that I found a little interesting – at least to start. Unfortunately, I don’t think they made very good use of the two hundred year old history. While the plots are filled with lots of twists that sweep you through the 50 minute time frame, I have several problems with the program.

I think a lot of the problems stem from the nature of TV. It is episodic. Further, to exacerbate this characteristic, it has different writers working on each episode. This leads to a number of inconsistencies which become even more numerous and glaring as time progresses.

With the coroner being detailed oriented and very intelligent, it was very noticeable when he contradicts his own words between episodes. One example of this occurs when a murder victim is slashed across the throat. He points out, that the killer was smart enough not to pull back the head as that action pushes the cartilage supported trachea (the windpipe) forward thus protecting the main arteries in the neck. By titling the head forward the cut is easier and more effective in killing the victim. A couple of episodes later, the good Dr. himself is killed with a knife to the throat. Again he comments on the ruthless proficiency of the killer who pulls back his head and slices his neck open. Obvious contradiction to earlier information.

FOREVER - ABC's "Forever" stars Judd Hirsch as Abe, Ioan Gruffudd as Henry and Alana De La Garza as Detective Jo Martinez. (ABC/Bob D'Amico) - image is not mine and belongs to the appropriate creator.

FOREVER – ABC’s “Forever” stars Judd Hirsch as Abe, Ioan Gruffudd as Henry and Alana De La Garza as Detective Jo Martinez. (ABC/Bob D’Amico) – image is not mine and belongs to the appropriate creator.

The side characters are constantly changing opinions. Abe, the Dr.’s adopted son from WWII could have been an interesting character with such a long shared history with Henry. Unfortunately, the writers struggle to know what the relationship is, how to develop it and more importantly how to keep Abe’s character consistent. He is always flip-flopping between pushing Henry to keep his secrete and share his secrete. It doesn’t make sense. The relationship they do have is clichéd and worse very shallow – mostly because there is no single writer to properly showcase the complexities of a 65 year old son living with a 200 year old father who appears to be 35 years old.

Lucas is the assistant M.E. He is best written as smart and capable with a strong regard for Henry. But again, the writers are not always consistent with him. Occasionally he is treated like an nerdy, idiot that no one wants to associate with. It is just so muddled that I find it frustrating.

Then we come to the biggest issue I have with the program, Adam. He is another immortal having been alive for some 2,000 years – or so he claims. I understand and even appreciate the desire to have some greater arc to a TV series. Sure each episode is a new crime to be solved, but watching characters change and evolve; learning about their histories can in theory be a strong draw for a program. If it is done well. Unfortunately, Adam, much like Red John in the Mentalist, is more of an irritating and jarring addition to the set. He doesn’t fit. His desire to taunt Henry is more off putting than engaging. For a man who is supposedly 2,000 years old he is shockingly bland as a character. He is also, surprise, surprise, Henry’s nemesis (mostly). Why? For reasons is the best I can discern.

I do, sincerely appreciate the idea of Adam. It is good in many ways to have another character who is also in the same predicament as the Dr. If done well, it could be used to show how people would view immortality differently. How they would live their lives differently. But I don’t feel that is accomplished. Adam is tossed in for the cheap, meaningless moments of stress for Henry. He attempts to challenge Henry’s views and actions only work to show how shallow of a character our 200 year old man is.

Caste of the series - image is not mine. Characters from the left: Lucas, Abe, Dr. Henry, Detective Jo, Detective Hansen, and Lt. Reece.

Caste of the series – image is not mine. Characters from the left: Lucas, Abe, Dr. Henry, Detective Jo, Detective Hansen, and Lt. Reece.

And if that wasn’t enough, the series has started to fall into the main trap of shipping the two leads. Really? Why does Detective Jo and Dr. Henry have to be in a relationship with each other? Why can’t they have relationships with other characters? The program teases you with such possibilities, but in the end (literally the third last episode) we have Jo trying to express her feelings for the Dr. who has only shown interest as a friend. It is such an over done cliché that I cannot properly express my utter disappointment in the series for doing this. Completely Disappoint.

In the end, I am glad Forever didn’t last. It really couldn’t in my mind. Not with the shallow characters and standard plot. There are dozens of police procedurals on TV. Even within a program you can only kill a person so many ways before things start to become repetitive. Multiple writers might bring new and crazy ideas for the cop part of the show – different killers and methods of crime – but they also reduce the opportunity for the main characters to develop. You can’t have character or world growth in a consistent world with different people writing each episode. With the change in writer you change the voice of the characters on screen, because what most people fail to realize is how important a good writer is to a movie or TV show. Writers are important, but writing for TV seems to create some obstacles that cannot be overcome. At least, I haven’t seen it done well yet.

London Has Fallen Review

I saw London Has Fallen on the weekend. You may not have heard of it. I didn’t know about it until I went to the cinema to watch it. It’s a sequel to the blockbuster and cultural cornerstone Olympus Has Fallen starring Gerard Butler in his depressingly ageing attempt to appear youthful and relevant in an action hero role. Evidentially, he could not beat Henry Cavill’s audition for Superman.

It’s worse than Olympus Has Fallen. If you want a more in-depth review of the movie, go here and simply replace all instances of Olympus with London:

http://somewherepostculture.com/olympus-ballin/

I’m serious. This movie gives an awful sense of deja vu. Not just because the premise and weaknesses of its predecessor are out in full force but also because the movie spends a helluva lot of time aping other famous movies in an attempt to crawl out of the cesspool of its own excesses. I suppose it’s kind of an achievement that it made me think back to Olympus Has Fallen fondly, as though I were witnessing the mis-appropriation of some time held classic soullessly resurrected in the name of easy profit.

And if Olympus Has Fallen is unrealistic, London Has Fallen has ramped up its glorified American flag-waving delusions to the umpteenth degree. What’s even more infuriating about the movie is that it does pull on current issues–specifically middle eastern radicalism and the blow back on western society–but does it in such an empty gesture as to provide no nuance or greater understanding for the audience. Those devious Muslims are killing noble, family-loving westerns because we’re good and they’re bad and that’s just the way it is.

They also have an inordinate amount of money that would make Augustus St. Cloud blush. And that sentence just makes me wish I was discussing Venture Brothers instead of this pile of rubbish.

Anyway, if you’re bored and cursed with too much cash than you know what to do with, I recommend you see Zootopia.

On the other hand, there’s been new Summoner Wars announcements! Take a gander at this fantastic art!

Accessed from http://www.plaidhatgames.com/images/u/WebsiteReveal.jpg

Summoner Wars belongs to Plaid Hat Games and associated individuals and whatnot. It can be found here: http://www.plaidhatgames.com/. And no, I have no idea what’s going on with that girl. I’m assuming it’s the result of Take Your Child to Work Day.

I’m excited. It should give me something to discuss for a good month or so. Though it’ll probably be a month of complaining. Oh well! Happy March Break!

 

The Good Bad

Making a movie is difficult. Making a good movie is really difficulty. And making a good “bad movie” is an art in-of-itself.

This past weekend was the Great Digital Film Festival which, I can only assume, was an initiative started by Cineplex Odeon Cinema to try and shore up some extra sales during that post Christmas lull where nothing but movies expected to die are released and most the populace is either recovering from holiday feast induced comas or are desperately trying to keep to their optimistic New Year’s resolutions until the end of the month when it’ll seem less pathetic when they invariably give them up.

How’s that for an opening sentence?

The Digital Film festival is filled with old cult classics–presumably because cult hits are the only type of film apt to still draw viewers years or even decades after release. I’m sure there’s some sort of commentary somewhere in there about the disposable entertainment of our generation and how art is meant to be immediately consumed and forgotten in an never ending pursuit of the latest big releases from our dominant industry overlords. We’re on the precipice here for some good, old fashioned futuristic dystopia with the way our tastes are dictated to us but, alas, this is probably just a moment of “old man yells at clouds.”

Mostly, I want to say that I saw Big Trouble in Little China this weekend. And I had fun.

Accessed from http://bitterempire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/big-trouble-in-little-china.jpg

Big Trouble in Little China belongs to John Carpenter, 20th Century Fox, SLM Production Company and many more.

Yes, me. Yes, fun. It was as unexpected an event as world peace or a tasty English meal. Now this isn’t to say Big Trouble is a fantastic movie that everyone must see and totally a forgotten masterpiece that changes lives. It’s stupid fun but not the sort of “stupid fun” that I complain about in pretty much every other single release that hits the screens.

See, Big Trouble in Little China is a “bad movie.” By all reasonable measurements, it fails in every category worth discussing. It has undeveloped characters. It has a nonsensical plot fill with enormous holes. It has terrible special effects and awful cinematography. Its dialogue is oft-times incomprehensible. But unlike so many other movies, this is done intentionally. This was a beast of a movie made solely to be “bad.” And it is. And it’s great.

It reminds me of the type of comedy movie that I enjoyed as a child (and given the age of the movie itself–released in 1986–it’s probably made in that style). I’m thinking of the Leslie Nielsen pictures of yesteryear. The Airplanes and Naked Guns and whatnot. These movies were all parodies, deriving their humour by poking fun at the faults or cliches of the genres they spoofed. Then you have the Mel Brooks films which also steer into parody but also have a strong farcical component to them. I mean, one of Mel Brooks recurring jokes is having production elements slip into the action on the screen, whether it’s a boom microphone breaking a window interrupting Maid Marian’s song in Robin Hood: Men in Tights or Dark Helmet accidentally cutting down a cameraman during a mock lightsabre battle in Space Balls.

It’s a style of comedy that I haven’t really seen much nowadays. You could argue that Spy was a modern attempt at that parody/farcical style but it leaned far too much on gross humour and the standard “fat person falls down” that’s rampant. And it’s stupid but it’s not the same kind of stupid. That may be a strange claim to make but it’s true. There’s an air of “Screw it, let’s just do this,” in Big Trouble. It’s not dumb because the creator’s couldn’t do better. It’s dumb because it’s silly, fun and weird. I mean, I have no other explanation for the weird beholder monster or ugly Chewbacca that show up with little to no explanation in the movie. It shoots for the unexpected without trying to strike at shock value humour.

There’s a deliberateness that doesn’t come off as artificial. It feels like the creators set out to specifically make a bad movie, spoofing the elements that plague poorly created works much like Mel Brooks spoofs the technical gaffs of production. It’s in the little details, like villainous Lo Pan’s first name being David even though he’s depicted as an ancient Chinese sorcerer. Or Miao Yin arrives with a big box of baking powder. And, of course, there’s the bigger detail that Kurt Russell spends much of the action either knocked out, trapped under bodies, stuck in wheelchairs or chasing after knives. Course, he’s ostensibly only in the film because the villains stole his truck for no apparent reason other than, I presume, Lo Pan needed a honeymoon vehicle.

And yet, the strangest thing about Big Trouble in Little China is that somehow a movie thirty years old somehow bucks a lot of the issues prominent in our media now. Its female characters, while ostensibly serving as damsels in distress, end up getting involved in a number of rescue attempts and action. And their uselessness in combat is negligible given the plethora of female villains that the protagonists have to combat. Since, you know, everyone in China knows kung fu and the movie is most certainly happy to fall into Wuxia tropes at the drop of a hat. And outside of the principle male and female role, near everyone else is a minority. And while the narrative frame is to try and put the focus on Jack Burton and Gracie Law, the action and story is most assuredly set around Wang Chi and Miao Yin. Perhaps its because comedies aren’t expected to hold to conventions.

Accessed from http://cdn.hitfix.com/photos/6057863/Big_Trouble_In_Little_China_remake_news_article_story_large.jpgBut there’s a delicate balance in making a good “bad movie.” And while you can have some skill in doing so, like John Carpenter, you can also be completely clueless so long as you’re earnest.

I couldn’t help but draw some comparisons between Big Trouble in Little China and The Room of Tommy Wiseau fame. Both are pretty nonsensical, with perhaps The Room maintaining even less coherency than Big Trouble in Little China. And that’s without the aid of lightning riding martial artists or a man whose soul looks like a creepy, black haired Ronald McDonald. Whereas there’s so much deliberate shoddy work in Big Trouble, Wiseau addresses his film with all the earnestness and solemnity of an actual drama. You can tell that John Carpenter is in on the joke and yet he is still able to make you shake your head and leave you guessing where he’s going next. Wiseau, however, isn’t aware of any joke and the complete fumbling of his film is near an exact copy of everything that Big Trouble is mocking. The characters, narrative and pacing is so poorly done that you, as the audience, can’t help but laugh. In a sense, the fun of The Room is mean spirited but I can’t feel bad about it. First, The Room is really bad. Second, Tommy Wiseau is perhaps far more famous than he has any right to be. Finally, The Room is entertaining even if it’s not in the manner it wanted.

So, to make a good bad movie, you need to either be entirely clueless and talentless without the self recognition to realize you need improvement or you need to actually possess the skill to appear as if you don’t. Otherwise, you’re just making a bad movie and while that may be just as much work, it’s significantly less fun.

In short, I had fun with Big Trouble in Little China. On the other hand, I’ve just discovered that they’re going to make a reboot of this movie and now I’m back to being sad about the empty hearted consumerism of modern entertainment.

The Returner

I see my sister has started posting. Perhaps the guilt was starting to get a bit much for her. I mean, it had been almost two whole months since she decided to place something on our little piece of the Interwebz.

Still doing a lot better than Derek, however. Apparently, he’s too busy running doomsday cults and trying to summon great Elder Ones to end Earth and all existence in a maddening song of death and delirium. But that’s fine. I got to see him and as a reward for trekking to his distant and damp apartment, he paid for a viewing of Oscar nominated and likely winner Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Revenant.

So here is my movie review:

It’s ok.

Yup, that’s it. Just ok. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen better. DiCaprio isn’t the best actor in the film unless you consider lots of heavy panting noteworthy acting. Tom Hardy was quite good, however, and demonstrated a vastly different range of skill portraying the cowardly and inconsistent Fitzpatrick. Though billed as a “white man gets revenge flick for the death of his native family” the film is actually a “see North America beat the crap out of DiCaprio and him trying to eat every living thing in response” film. There’s light characterization, little plot between the three overlapping but ultimately shallow narratives and a bunch of poor decisions made by the principal actors in order for the story to move along.

Accessed from http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/24/revenant-poster-leonardo-dicaprio

The Revenant, its images and all associated rights belong to Alejandro G. Inarritu, 20th Century Fox and whoever else.

It’s pretty, though. Not sure it justified the larger screen but there are plenty of moments you can forget you’re watching a movie desperately trying to win an Oscar and think you’ve stumbled across David Attenborough’s fevered dreams of the Secret Life of North American Fauna While on Crack. Though, I’m sure that mountain of elk skulls is meant to be artistic or symbolic or something.

The movie is simple, brutish and harsh which I suppose was the goal in order to communicate how much it sucked being a fur trapper on the edges of colonial America. There’s probably some other dialogue meant to occur that, beyond the confines of civilization, man just sorts of reverts to a barbaric and violent state of nature but that’s such a boring, tired and ultimately unfounded argument that I’m not going to indulge it any further. At the very least, I can tell you that the production crew were very meticulous in making sure their representation of fur traders and the frontier was accurate. I say this with confidence because Kait keeps dragging me to pioneer villages and everything I’ve learned from Fort William Historical Park to The Fort Museum in Fort Macleod was front and centre on screen.

Anyway, I don’t wish to go into the finer merits and demerits of the film. I’d rather complain about the Oscars.

Mostly, I don’t understand the appeal of the awards show. I know there’s been a large discourse over the institution and its implications for the entertainment industry in general in regards to representation. It’s a worthy conversation and one where the issues are pretty plain to see. Course, with such huge gobs of money involved, change will no doubt be slow and painful even as television starts making greater strides to prove that widely held truisms simply aren’t based on reality. Look at Marvel’s Agent Carter. There’s a show that’s presumably doing well, lead by a prominent female protagonist and (second season at least) has a minority co-star and love interest. Granted, you can see that in the new Star Wars too.

Anyway, I don’t want to bang on the social justice drum. I mostly want to express how baffling I find people’s obsession with the Oscars is in general. I simply do not understand the appeal. I mean, it’s an awards show. I don’t get why I should care. I especially don’t understand why I should care when the awards are doled out in an arbitrary fashion following the tastes and judgements of unnamed individuals who never need justify or provide oversight for their decisions. At least something like the People’s Choice Awards involves public polling to provide some sort of attachment for the viewership and the results.

But not the Oscars. No, their arbitrariness is meant to be accepted. It’s meant to be enjoyed.

I suppose it’s a testament to the entertainment industry that they can turn their own industry awards into a public spectacle that lots of people tune into and discuss fervently. You won’t find co-workers gathered around the water cooler who have obsessively tuned into the Queen’s Award for Enterprise to vehemently argue how Bonds Limited was robbed in the International Trade (Export) category in 2010.  And yet, you’re practically a philistine if you haven’t some horse in the race for Best Picture or haven’t heard of Spotlight let alone seen it. There’s tons of articles covering the politics of the Oscars and how actors or films will be rewarded not for the quality of their entry but as a sort of “pity award” for being ignored prior until the individuals had established their careers. When talking about likely winners, people are more likely to debate whether someone is too young or if the award should go to the guy who has been nominated six times and still hasn’t won rather than whether their specific performance deserves it or not.

Accessed from http://d2ciprw05cjhos.cloudfront.net/files/v3/styles/gs_large/public/images/15/12/duane_howard_0.jpg?itok=N0d5hqsaThis should probably sound familiar, given the opening of this rant. I wouldn’t be surprised if DiCaprio wins for his nomination despite, as I said, his acting in this movie boils down to learning about twenty lines then rolling around in dirt for an hour and a half. People will debate how this is such a great injustice. People will argue how the films nominated don’t deserve their recognition when other films were snubbed.

But for me, I think it’s stranger that we’re talking about this. Unless you were involved in the production itself or are cheering for a family member, I simply don’t understand why you’d care. It’s the same reason why I never understood the Spike sponsored Video Game Awards. My life is literally unaffected whether The Revenant wins best picture or Fallout 4 continues to be loved by critics and fans despite being one of Bethesda’s worse products in recent years. Of all the awards in all the industries, why is it people are so interested in the Academy’s movie awards?

I don’t mean this to ruin anyone’s fun or detract from the conversation regarding its process people wish to hold. I am merely perplexed and can’t help but wonder why there’s such public involvement in this sector and why no one has been able to harness that involvement to improve it for the better.

And why can the average person riddle off all the Oscar Best Actor nominees but not name a single Nobel Prize winner for the same year? Where have our priorities gone?

Age of Adeline – movie review

This image belongs to the owners of the film and its distribution rights - not me.

This image belongs to the owners of the film and its distribution rights – not me.

It has been a terribly long time since I posted. I apologize. There have been many reasons. I had password issues that meant I was unable to log onto the blog for a couple of months. I have been travelling (as Kevin has already mentioned). I have been busy living in Japan and so have consumed little media (certainly little worth comment) and I have been a little lazy. Well, I am back and while I do not make promises to be regular I will certainly try to do better.

The first thing I would like to review is a movie. It is not a new movie. In fact I watched it in August while on a 14 hour flight from Japan to Tokyo.

I knew practically nothing about The Age of Adeline when I selected from the limited pool of available movies. Whatever I might have thought it would be about (something through time based on the costume clips), it wasn’t. It was however, surprisingly good. A movie that I really enjoyed enough that I have actually watched it again.

The Age of Adeline was released in April 2015 to moderate reviews – apparently. I was just looking this up on the internet. Sometimes it is best to go into a film with as little information as possible. It certainly worked to my advantage for this one. The movie tells the story of Adeline, born January 1, 1908. Through an accident and science-magic she stops appearing to age when she is 29 years old. The story is mostly told from the present day with a few flashbacks to various points in her life. It is a romance in the classic, predictable way of romances. However, knowing how it is going to end does not spoil the journey, at least for me.

What I liked about this Sleeping Beauty-esq tale was the voice of the film. Not literally the man who did the voice-over exposition at the start and end of the movie, although I liked that choice. It was the feel. I liked the costumes, the cinematography, the way the characters conversed, and the flow of the story. I suppose I liked the clean, simple tale of life that had nothing to do with massive explosions, overly dramatic moments or superheroes. Perhaps it was the change that appealed most to me as other people didn’t seem to enjoy the film as much as I did.

This image is also from the movie and not owned by me.

This image is also from the movie and not owned by me.

I thought the story of Adeline Bowman to be interesting. It may not have touched on her past as much as I would have liked, but I think it hit all the key moments. I also enjoyed those small moments that connected past and present. For example when she is attending a New Year’s Eve party at a fancy hotel and looking at photos on the wall, which include her with a different group of people some fifty or sixty years earlier. She was a classy character and I found Blake Lively’s soft-spoken performance compelling. I liked the costume choices and the touch of old that even the modern Adeline incorporated into her wardrobe. Visually, the film was appealing.

The rest of the cast was also engaging. Adeline’s daughter was the most interesting relationship and unfortunately the weakest. It would have been interesting to explore more of the hardships of watching your child age as you do not. Though they did try to do some interesting things between the characters, it was not the greatest strength of the film. After all this was a romance. As such it focused mostly on the present day love interest of Ellis Jones and the older love interest of William Jones.

This is not my image and I do not own it.

This is not my image and I do not own it.

Yes, those two are related as father and son – one of the more … awkward moments. Though no one seems to really make much of a deal that William had been ready to propose to Adeline long before he married Ellis’ mother. I recognize the use of this sort of relationship (father and son both falling in love with the same ageless woman) was done in order to move the plot forward. It was used to force Adeline to face her own life and choices. Still I thought it a bit much that Adeline’s Prince Charming was the son of the man who wanted to marry her some 45-ish years earlier. I suppose it did add for an interesting exploration of William’s character and whether he was still happy with his choices after so much time had passed.

The Age of Adeline was a nice story. I really enjoyed watching and would recommend it as a good, sweet romance.

War of the Stars

Alright, it’s been awhile. Surely, the end of December silence must have been understandable (I completely meant to make a post saying we’d be off for the holidays but, well, it was the holidays). The end of the old year and the start of the new also involved a rather delightful trip through Japan’s southern prefectures so neither Kait nor myself were in a position to be making posts.

Derek, as usual, didn’t care.

Since then we’ve had some issues with logins, I’ve returned home and got a lovely cold for my troubles and so the new year has started off with a bit of a sluggish stumble.

But that’s OK because I’m here now to give you my thoughts and feelings and words.

Because I love you.

I originally was not going to post about this subject matter. I felt I had very little to contribute to the global discourse and, frankly, I had little desire to engage with the discussion in the first place. But, alas, the discussion continues and it’s hard to keep out of something that keeps throwing itself in my face.

So today I shall give you my thoughts on the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I’ll cut right to the chase–I did not care for it. Surprise!

Accessed from http://www.starwars.com/the-force-awakens/images/share_1200x627.jpg

Star Wars belongs to Disney now. All hail our marketing overlords.

This isn’t to say I hate it. That reaction is reserved for my sister. It appears I’ve created a bit of a monster and I couldn’t be any more proud. She gets so angry with mass consumption media now that I hardly need to dredge up some casual ire for the factory produced schlock. Each flaw and inconsistency sticks in her craw like a… well an indigestible insect in the throat of a bird. Shallow characterizations, unnecessary action beats, clichéd conflicts and marginalization of women and minorities are all aspects that stand out in stark relief upon her movie going experience. She longs for the days when she was ignorant and blind.

So, yeah, she hated Star Wars. We both like to joke that the best thing about the movie was the mixed bowl of caramel and salt covered popcorn but it was also the truth. Furthermore, the containers were only five dollars and gave far more popcorn than I could possibly eat which strikes me as a better deal than anything I’d find in Canada.

Well, before you close the browser with fury over our misguided opinions (if you haven’t already), I’d like to discuss what does drag The Force Awakens down. For I’d like to believe even if you truly loved the movie you’d still be open minded enough to recognize its flaws. Nothing is ever perfect and it’s important we point out the good and the bad so that what we attempt next can be an improvement. Right?

So let me make a concession. The Force Awakens is not the worst Star Wars movie to be released. It’s better than the prequels–yes, all the prequels no matter which someone may have found to not be completely awful. I was hoping there would be a greater “race to the bottom” over which could possibly fail the hardest as a piece of cinematic entertainment. The fact that the Force Awakens was so competent was my greatest fear. It’s not a terrible movie, especially not in consideration with the other entries in its franchise: it’s just a boring one.

I think my uncle summed it up the best: “It’s just missing something that made the first so special.”

That something is novelty.

Kind of a strange accusation to raise against a series that hasn’t ever been anything but an homage or pastiche of space operatic science fiction. The original Star Wars drew heavily from such sources as Flash Gordon–a movie which George Lucas wanted to originally direct but was not given the privileged and led to the creation of Star Wars–not to mention practically bragging about ripping from acclaimed directors like Kurosawa and mythology as a whole. It’s a fair argument even if it ignores that all art builds upon itself. It’s also a deflection because there’s a difference between being inspired or borrowing to outright copy.

There were a lot of people that did not like J.J. Abrams Star Trek. I wasn’t one of them. I really enjoyed the reboot and I appreciated its differing direction. There was a dialogue about whether it truly contained the spirit of Star Trek or not but I appreciated the attempt to shine a new light on characters and a series that was over forty years old. If I wanted the old Star Trek movies… well, they’re still there in all their glory untouched and unchanged by Abrams brash reinterpretation. On the other hand, I loathed Into Darkness. Whereas Abrams first movie went to great lengths to untangle itself from the vast swathe of history and baggage of the Star Trek franchise, Into Darkness was nothing but an empty mimicry of one of the series most cherished instalments. It was choked to the brim with inside jokes and cheap copies of once famous scenes.

You can probably guess where this is going.

Accessed from http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/02/EP6_KEY_42_R.jpgI feel ultimately my issue with the Force Awakens is my issue with the prequels (outside of the general issue of the prequels being rubbish). There’s this misguided nostalgia that surrounds Star Wars and blinds people to the actual films. I loved them as a child but it’s folly to believe that they’re anything other than just good films. And like all other good films, they are replete with issues and points of weakness. I mean, the special effects for their time may have been great but no one is buying that this guy is anything but a dude in a blue rubber elephant suit. However, the issues run further than poor CGI work and anyone trying to convince you otherwise is hopelessly fanatic.

And yet if you listen to George Lucas discuss his work on the prequels, he spent so much time trying to get them to “rhyme” with the originals. Likewise, it’s painfully obvious that–whether through adoration or fear of angering the masses–The Force Awakens was made to be as boringly close to A New Hope as possible. But this isn’t 1979 and the novelty of A New Hope has long since worn off. It’s flaws, however, have been left in stark relief to its rather dull paced action and simplistic characters. It seems both Lucas and Abrams seemed to miss this point. You can’t keep blindly replicating the same thing over and over again. People will tire of the same high points and the flaws will only grow worse and worse.

The Force Awakens demonstrates this point exactly. Its narrative is near an exact copy of A New Hope with a few cosmetic changes and little else. You can predict the death of characters scenes in advance simply knowing when characters died in the original. So much of the movie painfully draws itself and its parallels back to the first that I was hardly a third of the way into the film wondering to myself, “If I so badly wanted to watch A New Hope, I’d just put on A New Hope.”

If I were a person more invested in the series, I might even be insulted that all the original trilogy managed to accomplish was resetting the franchise back to state zero. All that blathering about bringing balance to the Force, defeating the Empire and whatnot and here we are with no one knowing the Force except some old white hermit and a Nazi-inspired military force that’s hell-bent on being evil and ravaging the galaxy. They even still use stormtrooper armor in case anyone might have difficulty pinpointing the group that wants to tyrannically rule the galaxy. How cute.

And let’s not let Abrams off the hook for trying to pitifully pull heartstrings with Finn the lovable stormtrooper who takes all of ten seconds to get over his traumatic experience of war and the death of his colleague stormtrooper to begin mercilessly gunning down the rest of his co-workers in droves as he busts his best friend forever Poe from jail after knowing him for less than ten seconds. It’s probably because his boss was a woman and drove him crazy, right?

Accessed from http://the-indie-pendent.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/starwars_a_new_hope.pngThere’s an endless list of these issues but this isn’t a movie that would benefit from ironing out the small details when the fundamentals are so misguided. What they should have done with the sequels was what Abrams did with his first Star Trek. Only now, you don’t have to spend so much time explaining why you aren’t following the same tired three characters for another trilogy of movies since the originals did such a thorough job already. In fact, the only thing that Abrams needed to do was the one thing he completely avoided. He didn’t talk at all about what happened with the end of the original movies. There was no explanation for what happened with the Empire or even what the hell “balancing the Force” is suppose to mean. Clearly, no one knows what to do with either of these major plot points from the originals so they were just sort of trotted out again as the typical stage horse.

Personally, I’d rather see the galaxy in the aftermath of the originals. I’d like to see a new universe that’s far, far away. I want to explore different concepts, themes and characters that are borne from the foundations of prior events and decisions. I’d like to see the struggles of people trying to find their lives in the hollow wrecks of the titanic edifices of days gone by. Why can’t we see the difficulties of a galaxy trying to re-establish order after the head of a tyrannical regime is killed leaving perhaps dozens of warlords in the power vacuum vying to carve out their own slice of territory or even attempting to forge their own throne in the chaos? Why can’t we see the Force taken in a new direction now that it’s been made whole–a Force that’s no longer beholden to these arbitrary, contradictory elements that riddled the originals but perhaps turned into simply a matter of life for some or an ideal by others?

There’s so much potential for what could come next that it’s more than just disheartening to see the old clothes pulled out to be draped over new faces and run through the paces.

It’s boring.

The Importance of Being Ernst

So we had some technical difficulties and some unfortunate lockouts. I think it’s been cleared up now. Hopefully? I can post at least so here’s something to make up for the extraordinary silence.

*  *  *

Sam Smith’s airy opening title card for SPECTRE probably reveals more than the producers ever wanted to admit. His spectral voice warbles over “giving everything up,” “being here before,” and perhaps most importantly, “I’m suffocating.” Overlaying his breathless gasps we see an impossibly omnipresent black octopus extending its multitudinous dark tentacles to choke everything that appears on the screen.

Accessed from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Spectre_poster.jpg/220px-Spectre_poster.jpg

SPECTRE and James Bond belongs to Eon Productions, Iam Fleming, Sam Mendes and such.

Eon, you are that octopus. And you’re killing me.

By now anyone that will see the new James Bond has already. Unfortunately, Japan was not blessed with a worldwide release so I’m late to the party. However, it awarded me an enviable advantage that everyone else had not. I was prepared, nay–braced for SPECTRE. I knew this was a sinking ship. This was more Quantum than Casino and with my expectations dragging on the floor–sticking behind with its many suction cups hoping to not have to face the monstrosity–I settled in my seat with a half and half bin of regular and caramel popcorn.

I’m not a popcorn person but I have to say, what few handfuls I wrestled from Kait’s grip was probably the highlight of the evening for me. I wouldn’t think that caramel on popcorn would be all that great–and truthfully, I couldn’t eat an entire bin of it–but that sweetness mixed with the salt of the other half was just divine.

Bond, by the way, does not balance its duality with such sublime perfection. It’s meandering. It’s insipid. More than anything, it’s just boring. It’s a failure on nearly every front with even the remarkable result of presenting Christoph Waltz in an unentertaining role. He tried, I think. Insofar as anyone seemed to try. But while I could tell the production was earnest about this Bond product, they seemed like the only ones. Every actor plastered on the screen looked bored. They sounded bored. And their lethargic struggles were matched with stifled yawns from the audience.

I’m sorry, dear Bond, but I’m afraid the writing’s on the wall.

I feel that Sam Mendes has proven his point. Bond is an ancient relic. He’s a dinosaur dragged up from a time long since left in the dust. He’s brushed off, given a clean suit and dapper haircut, then sent stumbling and flailing into a world where he wholly does not belong. And I can’t shake the feeling that the director and writers know this.

Skyfall and SPECTRE are very keen to point out that how we conceive of Bond is an unwieldy, inelegant, almost grotesque tool. Who knew that Judi Dench’s speech would be so important when she addressed the internal review committee over the appropriateness of MI6 and it’s antiquated tradition in face of progress and change. Unfortunately for M, Tennyson and Mendes, it seems that the strength of tradition does have its failings. Skyfall and SPECTRE are the old Imperialist trying desperately to maintain his relevance and, ultimately, failing to do so.

You’ve moved heaven and earth, Bond, but it’s time for us to pause and consider what you truly are.

And from your greatest supporters, it seems you are that which you most feared.

 

There is no point in dissecting SPECTRE. There isn’t a single part of it that works. The scene between Bond and Monica Bellucci continues the creepy predatory nature that Craig’s Bond has exhibited towards his sexual exploits. The explosion of the secret desert base–itself mired in the worst ridiculousness of the golden age of Bond’s silliness–utterly shatters any suspension of disbelief. There’s no spy work involved, just a haphazard breadcrumb trail which isn’t exciting or even internally consistent (Mr. White sends Bond to his daughter and puts her in direct danger when he could have simply sent Bond to the hotel and protected his daughter from SPECTRE finding her which was his whole motivation in the first place). Why are we even trying to add moral depth to this throw-away henchman in the first place when everyone else is presented so shallow? It’s so bad that the hilariously cliched and ludicrous re-introduction of Blofeld doesn’t even cause anyone to blink their eyes while Waltz makes cuckoo noises while explaining their familial past.

Which, by the way, are we to assume that Bond suffers amnesia for not recognizing the name and picture of the man that was his younger brother after his parents died or is Bond just that much of an asshole to not even try and remember the people that rescued him?

But, for me, the worst offence is the desperate attempts by the creative team to constantly try and remould MI6 into the common man versus the oppressiveness of bureaucracy and government. Wake up, Eon, Bond is the government. He is that long, secretive arm sheltered from public scrutiny and oversight. Your whole character and even Judi Dench’s entire argument was that MI6, Bond and the entire cast are the antithesis of what democracy is. So don’t try and patronize us with Fiennes’ hilarious championing of democracy all the while he peers over the shoulders of voters to undermine the casting of secret ballots. Seriously, an intelligence committee agrees to have a vote with people seated right behind them? Why bother with the screens and the “9 vs 1” and simply have a show of hands for all the point that anonymity was meant to be.

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It’s also rich that Fiennes is battling Andrew Scott’s Big Brother program giving the invasion of privacy that MI6 has utilized in the past.

I’m sorry, but no one is going to be sympathetic to the dismantling of a rather legally dubious covert operations branch. You want to know why Bourne resonates better with modern audiences, take a look at who the villain is. It’s American’s version of MI6 and the conclusion of that trilogy was with the protagonists dragging its masterminds before a public inquiry and holding them accountable for actions performed without democratic discretion. So spare me the moralistic bullshit. Bond has never been democratic and your best character (Judy Dench) adamantly argued against it.

But it’s as you’ve already said, Eon, MI6 is an antiquated relic of a bygone era. The Empire has crumbled. And in the times we face now, it’s all the more appropriate we draw the lens across the organizations, drag them out into the light and evaluate them on their merits and weaknesses.

And even the movies can’t justify their existence. But how could they?

If Bond is to survive, it’s going to have to change. That was the point of Casino Royale. It’s shocking how badly Eon Productions have completely missed their own point. The audiences were tired of all that old, goofy Bond baggage. We didn’t want stupid gadgets, ludicrous villains, two dimensional supports and outlandish patriotic chest pounding. Take a look at Casino Royale. Take a good, long look. What do you see? Bond is a psychopathic monster being wielded by an uncaring, hard hand interested solely in the mission. There’s no love in Royale’s MI6. But M is looking for results. She doesn’t care about those showy bomb-men. She wants the financiers of terrorism. Casino Royale is about trying to catch that white collar criminal. It’s weakest points were when it was coyly toying with those SPECTRE tentacles. It’s strengths were when a desperate banker was fending off a brutal African warlord looking for his money so he can continue his wars with countries the civilized world simply can’t be bothered with concern. It was an indictment of Western aloofness by peeling bare the weaknesses of our own perspective.

But when faced with its own shortcomings, the series turned back and fled into the open arms of its past. It enthusiastically clung to its traditions–the very traditions that ring so hollow and empty to an audience that holds no loyalty to outdated and harmful ideals.

It’s sad that after one of the strongest reboots for a franchise over fifty three years old, we need another reboot after just four movies. But you had your chance, Craig, and you’ve come up wanting.

Honestly, what I’d like to see is a complete remake of the whole franchise. Bond can’t be the star. There’s only so many ways we can dress up a tool that’s long become obsolete. At this point, we’re staring at a franchise whose entire identity is based on misogynistic imperialism. The efforts to update while still keeping to the core identity has been an exercise in futility. The Bond girls have never evolved into anything of value. Even in these more intensive character pieces which Craig’s Bonds have languished in, the supporting cast hasn’t been any more complex. The action beats are flat and undermine any point the movie tries to make about it’s covert branch that is anything but given the number of international incidents its titular character keeps cocking up.

So what’s my idea?

Retire Bond. I say this as a Bond fan who’s watched and owned (almost) all the movies. There’s nothing here anymore. It’s just a desperate man up to his neck still digging madly his hole. Retire and rebrand. Put the franchise through a transformation. Instead of relying solely on a character which has been thoroughly explored every imaginable direction, focus on the organization. Call this series MI6. Let’s have explorations of the other double O agents. Thus we don’t need to keep making ever sillier personal investments for a man that’s long past the point of believability. Elsewise, who will Bond have to face off in the next installment? His long lost child he didn’t even know he had (Oh God, I’m probably giving Eon ideas now).

Personally, I’d also like to have a greater examination of the issues we face today. Instead of trying to make MI6 the plucky underdog that has to struggle against its own government, let’s use it as a vehicle to explore those political ideals that we wish to criticize. Can you imagine how powerful a movie following an MI6 agent who has to heed the directives of an overly conservative or oppressive British parliament would be? It would raise some really interesting questions and lead to a more complex perspective of these secret agents who, theoretically, shouldn’t question their directives even if they didn’t agree with the goals of the ones issuing them.

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We can also start looking into more interesting conflicts than Bond vs Sunday morning cartoon villain of the week.

Taking into account these ideas, here’s my rough, short synopsis for what I would have done instead of SPECTRE:

Below the Thunders (or some other reference to Tennyson’s The Kraken)

The movie opens to a political rally in Britain where a young man is condemning the current government and it’s misguided and brutish policy to foreign threats. Fabricate some sort of conflict which makes parallels to bombing runs in the Middle East (but to avoid offence, make a fictitious location and conflict). While this activist is using his poetic speech about the dangers and futility of using war to end war, we can have breaks (with the speech still overlaid) to some dark, sandy corridors as Bond stalks the shadows in a black operations outfit. Flip between the two to make clear that Bond is performing a covert operation wherever this political speaker is discussing. As he reaches the climax of his speech, Bond can quietly and expertly take down guards and approach his target. While Bond sneaks up to his mark (possibly ignorant of his approach as he’s on some radio communications device), we can have the perspective of the rally shift to a person pushing aggressively towards the front of the mob. The politician can evoke a Franklin quote (“He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither and loses both.”) or the like. The stranger at the rally reveals himself to be a suicide bomber, instilling panic just as Bond creeps to point blank range on his target. The bomber throws off his coat and reaches for a button. Cut to a finger pulling a trigger and an impossible explosion firing from the gun’s barrel right into the title music video.

Bond would return from his mission, learning of the terror attack that killed the political activist. He’s called into a meeting with M and Blofeld who is revealed to be the Minister of Whatever. And yes, I’m not going to play coy with the audience, let those who know Blofeld make the immediate connection. We’re not playing him as a super villain here. M explains that Blofeld’s operatives suspect that a terrorist organization seeking a radical, free nation from India is behind the attack. More importantly, Blofeld’s intelligence suggests that these radicals are in the market for something called “red mercury” that has a greater potency than a nuclear warhead. Bond is sent to investigate. To assist him, he has a young spy (not double O classified) to assist him that’s been working the area. He also crosses paths with a woman that turns out to be working for the United Nations (or the Indian Government) to investigate the radical group and the dangers it and this red mercury poses. This woman can be obviously Muslim and condemn the actions of this minority as well as serve as essentially a Bond girl that doesn’t end up sleeping with the character.

Investigating the issue can turn up uncomfortable truths about Blofeld and Britain’s meddling in Indian affairs, perhaps leading all the way back to issues that arose from England’s Imperialistic days. From there, Bond learns information that Blofeld has been feeding members of the organization information to direct their attacks against political dissidents and members that threaten the current government’s directions. With increasing attacks on the European Union, it’s clear that Blofeld and his associates in supporting countries are hoping for tighter regulations over its populace that will better enable them to maintain political hegemony within their elected seats. Bond, being the dutiful agent, seeks to hide this information from the UN as it would be a huge diplomatic issue for Britain and the allies implicated. His younger agent colleague, however, is more idealistic and would rather expose the “crimes” committed by the government.

When the young agent realizes that Bond is going to take out the leadership of this fringe group and destroy the evidence, he confronts him that he’s only repeating the same crimes that allowed this group to arise in the first place. Bond, sensing that this agent is going to defect, attempts to eliminate him. The agent escapes and intercepts the “red mercury” they’ve been tracking. As Bond gives chase, the agent declares that he’ll get the truth out no matter the cost. Can have the explodapolooza showdown in the radical’s base (and have the primary characters all collected there for whatever reasons). Bond works with the UN girl for the operation but during its execution gets separated from her as he confronts the rogue agent. Can have some speech as he tries to detonate the red mercury in defiance. There is no explosion, however, and Bond executes him for being a traitor. He takes the information from his body. As the girl arrives, she can remark about the seeming miracle that the red mercury didn’t work. Bond will say that it did and hand the information to the girl. She’ll ask what it is and he’ll simply say that she didn’t get it from him.

The conclusion can be a discussion between M and Bond and explain how red mercury was an old war trick used to make enemy spies run in circles over a fictitious substance. Blofeld, not being a spy and the young agent too young to know those old tricks, were unaware that it wasn’t real and typically used to “smoke out” agents. M can admonish Bond not being able to stop the information from leaking even if both men seem unperturbed about the issues it’s now caused for their administration. As Bond is leaving, M can remind him that their job is to serve regardless of who is in power and they should be careful of their actions lest they make monsters of their masters. Bond can make some remark that everything they do is of course for Queen and country.

Like I said, this is rough and short. Eon, if you want something better and fleshed out, I’ll be more than happy to arrange a date to expand on things.

Lost World

Well, the one benefit of sixteen hour flights is that you get to spend a lot of time catching up on recent media you may have otherwise missed. I’m assuming I’m paying a premium in seat prices for access to summer blockbusters that I couldn’t be motivated to actually head to a cinema to view. I’m certainly not paying for the leg room!

And what greater movie opened this summer that I’ve been quiet about than Jurassic World? No, seriously, was there a bigger movie released this summer? I don’t follow releases and I don’t know what came out. I’m assuming there’s a Marvel movie or three. I know I put Ant-Man on my list of what to watch below Magic Mike XXL.

Thankfully, it seems Air Canada was determined to run a Jurassic Park marathon instead. Seeing in the list Jurassic World sent my heart a-flutter. Finally, I can watch that which I was never going to bother with and I wouldn’t have to spend anything extra! I could see what the fuss (or non-fuss was because, really, I heard no one talking about this one) was about.

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Jurassic World, thankfully, does not belong to me but Colin Trevorrow, Amblin Entertainment, Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures.

So what were my thoughts? Well, it wasn’t completely awful. But it’s a far cry from good. It’s better than the other Jurassic Park sequels but that’s like praising a movie for having comparatively more eloquent writing than The Room. It shouldn’t really be a compliment that you can scratch together something more graceful than, “I don’t want to talk about my business. It’s too personal. So tell me about your sex life!”

By the way, if you haven’t seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, you really should. Go to one of those little indie theatres that has the special showings. It’s a treat. Spoooooooon!

Where was I? Right, Jurassic World. Let’s get down to brass tacks here. What did it do well? It’s pretty. Improvements and refinements to CGI continues to do these fantastical movies service. That said, I had the luxury of watching the original after it and, honestly, the dinosaurs aren’t that much worse in the original. No, the real improvement is in sound stage design. Granted, to overcome this, older director’s had to do more on location shooting. And there’s something archaically authentic of Jurassic Park’s vistas. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly. Perhaps it’s the cheap looking line of track running through actual overgrowth that adds something. Jurassic World appears more complete, however. And it’s zoo/theme park design is really top notch. The art director deserves some credit for really bringing to life and making quite believable this incredibly fantastical attraction.

There’s lots of money in dollying up Jurassic World; it’s a pity that the poor girl has no substance behind her. This brings us to the other thing that Jurassic World does better than it’s sequel predecessors. It follows the original’s release far more closely. This is both it’s strength when compared to, say, The Lost World but ultimately a weakness when compared to Jurassic Park itself. Because, let’s be honest, everything Jurassic World does, Jurassic Park does better.

The children are far more engaging in Jurassic Park. The narrative flow is far more gripping. There’s tension. There’s character complexity. There’s sharp plotting. It’s the sort of story that very clearly derived from a very strong base. I’ve read Michael Crichton’s novel and, truthfully, I’m uncertain whether I like the movie or book better. Somewhere along the line, the film found the essence of the novel and made some notable improvements with far less time to explore them. Specifically, I much prefer the film’s John Hammond and not solely due to Richard Attenborough’s phenomenal portrayal. I found the tragic change in his character as he realizes his life’s work an utter failure more compelling than the staunch and (albeit) rather silly end he reaches in the book.

That said, Jurassic Park is filled with excellent performances. No one can forget Jeff Goldblum’s smarmy chaostician. Sam Neill’s Grant is a wonderful ornery Indiana Jones. Wayne Knight’s slimy Nedry is as wonderfully unlike-able as you can get and Samuel L. Jackson’s Ray Arnold is lamentably underused.

Who does Jurassic World have? Chris Pratt is very obviously pushed as a hybrid Grant-Muldoon but never comes across as being as capable in either roles. While Muldoon essentially only gets eaten in Jurassic Park, the way he commands people in the control room during the crisis lends far greater gravitas than Pratt’s running around and eschewing direct orders. While Pratt may control his raptors like chickens, it feels like Muldoon had a far better understanding of the creatures. Bryce Dallas Howard has some fleeting moments as the under pressure operation’s manager but she drops this role to run around the jungle with Pratt trying to extol the virtues of modern feminism while completely failing in the bad-ass female role compared to her predecessor Laura Dern as Dr. Sattler. Whose left of the cast? Vincent D’onofrio, as security chief Hoskins, sucks up time putzing around the screen doing… something. He’s clearly meant to be some sort of villain but he doesn’t do anything. Even when his “special ops” (emphasis on special here) take over the control, it’s still Dearing’s staff that are doing any work. Outside of being obnoxious, he doesn’t add anything. The children are worse than Jurassic Park’s primary because they’re there to primary take up space. See, the children in Jurassic Park served a vital role in the personal story of Dr. Grant. This exact same character development is shifted onto Howard’s Aunt Dearing but there’s no establishment that Aunt Dearing is so detached from her family and this is a personal failing outside of a few throw-away lines. As such, there’s no real investment in those familial stakes. In fact, you never really get a sense that she’s not absolutely worried over her children solely because it’s just irresponsible for losing them in her park.

There was something about an imminent divorce but this–to me–came out of nowhere and went back there just as quickly to make it such an inconsequential moment in the brother’s lives. There was no story around them other than they were typical kids in a park that got lost.

Perhaps the only character that I liked in the film was B. D. Wong’s reprisal of Dr. Wu who at least had the decency to lampshade some of the nonsense surrounding the series and this movie in particular.

Now, let’s get to the bad. And yes, that entire rant on pointless characters wasn’t even addressing the movie’s flaws!

Accessed from https://halloweenlove.com/images/posts/jurassic-world-poster.jpgThe plot is awful. It’s the sort of plot that moves forward with its own inexplicable logic, requiring the poor decision making of its characters and throwing any sort of internal consistency out the window in order to succeed. Indomitus Rex, as a concept, is silly. The creators seemed rather aware of this and tried their hardest to explain this but the thing is just dumb. It’s really glaring too. Jurassic Park presents its dinosaurs as monsters and treats them like real animals. Jurassic World presents them as real animals but treats them like monsters.

What do I mean by this? Jurassic World goes through a lot of character dialogue establishing that the dinosaurs are just any other animal. Pretty much all of Pratt’s work speeches is spent demystifying them. He controls his velociraptors through standard behaviour imprinting and training. Indominus Rex’s motivations are framed as poor socialization through isolation and automatic feeding. And yet, the tail end of the movie revolves around Indominus killing just because and one hilariously stupid moment where the stupid animal squawks at a pack of raptors to convince them to its side (despite, you know, it already established that the pack was only working because Pratt had–since their birth–been socializing and raising them). But no, these animals just mystically decided to work with Indominus despite the creature being raised in isolation with no contact with any other creature (so how does it communicate with a different species of dinosaur in the first place?) and it only being several months old (even if this simplistic and inaccurate representation of pack mentality were true does anyone truly think that a pup would ever convince a pack that’s all older than it to follow it?).

And what the hell was up with the pterosaur rampage? These creatures are theorized to be fish eaters so they clearly had no reason to hunt the park goers (and their attempts to do so in the film demonstrate how ill-fitted their beaks are for such a task) and furthermore, what the hell even attracted them to the park in the first place when they were released from the aviary at the far northern end of the island? Why wouldn’t they just disperse all over the place?

Well, that’s because we need some really contrived moment where the park is attacked by animals but since we’ve spent so much time with Indominus in the middle of nowhere, we have no damn good explanation for it.

And this is the kicker. The rampage in Jurassic Park didn’t just sort of happen. There were a lot of culminating factors that built up to Grant, Sattler and children running through air ducts as raptors trying to eat them alive. Jurassic Park spends quite a chunk of time setting up its perfect storm of conditions for the entire enterprise to collapse. Nedry is disabling all the high-tech security so he can steal the embryos for a rival corporation. A massive tropical storm comes through to fully knock-out the hacked systems (which Nedry could theoretically plan around to maximize chances of him performing his corporate espionage without getting caught). The island itself is running on a skeleton screw: partly because it hasn’t opened yet and partly because nearly everyone was evacuated (whether because of the storm or because staff don’t actually stay on the park is never made clear). Thus, between human treachery, natural destruction and abandonment of resources, the first Jurassic Park fails.

Now look at Jurassic World. Indominus Rex escapes its pen because it has magical control over heat sensors (never explained but the assumption is a gene-wizard did it). Indominus Rex gets to rampage because Dearing not only issues that the containment squad solely try to restrain the creature instead of kill it (because it’s too costly an asset to lose, she claims, despite the cost a lawsuit should a single park goer get injured or killed from its escape grossly outweighs any production cost and the fact that they’d now have the embryo to re-clone anyway. Oddly, this is already mentioned in Jurassic Park when that one handler who gets injured or killed by the velociraptor in the opening scene costs Hammond and his investors over 20 million dollars). Then, instead of deploying all their security to now capture the creature that’s eluded the first containment squad (which we know since D’onofrio’s special ops come swooping in later and there’s a bunch of inept security running around during the pterosaur attack), Dearing simply enlists Pratt to wander into the jungle while the owner decides to fly a single helicopter with one mounted gun to try and shoot it down (and gets foiled by the aforementioned magical pterosaurs). I’ve mentioned the third attempt to stop the Indominus when the raptor hunting party magically turns against Pratt and the third containment squad sent after it.

And then, of course, the only thing that stops Indominus is an equally baffling and unexplained alliance between a Tyrannosaurs Rex, the last surviving member of the velociraptor squad and the water bound Mesasaur. All we needed was a really lame line like, “There’s always a bigger fish” to tie the whole package up in it’s indescribable camp and stupidity. And then the T-Rex and raptor basically respect head-nod each other out of the scene.

And here’s the frustrating thing: people will forgive these incredibly awful plot moments because “it’s a movie and you’re suppose to turn your brain off.” And yet, what made Jurassic Park so great was that you didn’t have to. Was it perfect? Of course not but it certainly wasn’t this stupid either.

And at the end of the day, we’re not looking for a re-master of Jurassic Park in the first place. It’s a fantastic movie that, if anyone wants to watch it, should just watch it and not go through the hassle of this crap. What Jurassic World should have done was tried to chart it’s own course instead of relying on the prior successes as a crutch. Especially when it can’t even use that crutch to keep it hobbling down its broken course. What would I have liked to see from Jurassic World? For it to tell it’s own story. Figure out what the hell you’re actually looking at. Jurassic Park isn’t coy about its themes. Every single scientist in the movie questions the ethics of returning to life a species that was extinct for the sole purpose to print tickets and sell merchandise. It posits that the value of life is more than how much you can charge someone to come and see it. The roar of T-Rex at the end isn’t a roar of some wild animal claiming it’s status as the apex predator. It’s the roar of life itself, reminding the viewer that artificial constraints can not bend or break it.

And the roar of Jurassic World is nothing more than a mew for attention.

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Edit: Apparently, the Indominus’ original escape is somehow arranged by Wu and chief security officer Hoskins? At least there’s lampshading if the original complaint about it not making any sense still stands–considering if that was the case, why didn’t they open the door instead of relying upon the Indominus using it’s chameleon skills to lure a dopey security officer into the pen who is too slow to make it to the employee exit but fast enough to open the massive pen’s door?

47 Blunders

Well, here’s a bit of an outdated movie review. However, while waiting for my family to arrive for dinner, I ended up watching 47 Ronin from 2013. I don’t recall hearing about this movie but I was more surprised to find out that it had such a low rotten tomatoes and metacritic rating. The movie wasn’t that bad.

And this is coming from me!

Seriously, I don’t know why this was received so poorly. Ok, it’s not the most brilliant piece of media to hit the screens. Also, I saw it for free with absolutely zero idea of what the hell it was. So, going in with no expectations and not spending a dime on it, I thought it was fine. It’s not perfect nor am I running out to buy the DVD but, I mean, Pixels has a 17% rating for crying out loud! Granted, I haven’t seen Pixels but then again I’d have to be an idiot to think Adam Sandler is ever going to make a movie worth seeing.

Accessed from http://images.entertainment.ie/images_content/rectangle/620x350/47ronin-costumes620350.jpg

47 Ronin belongs to Carl Rinsch, H2F Entertainment, Universal Studios and whatever other unlucky fools want to make a claim on it.

And 47 Ronin is watchable. Not sure if it’s worth seeing, mind you. But if you see it, it’s not totally horrible.

Let’s begin with what it did right. Visually, this movie is really well done. The costumes and set design are fantastic. It’s a visual feast first and foremost. Even more than that, the visuals are incredibly good at creating a setting. This isn’t just Japan we’re looking at but a fantastical feudal Japan if the stories of myth and legend had actually occurred. In this vein, it’s more akin to Lord of the Rings or Beowulf. It’s squarely in the fantastical genre and plays with those supernatural elements and makes them interesting.

I think what I liked most about its visual execution was that it truly immersed you in a different world. Too much of western fantasy is rooted in medieval Europe with all its tropes that it’s stolen from Lord of the Rings acting as crutches and short hands to push a mirror copy of dwarves and elves upon the audience. 47 Ronin, by its nature, can’t follow this route since it doesn’t have any of the cultural underpinnings of Lord of the Rings. It explores its witches and demons in a different direction and this breathes some wonderful fresh air into standard character archetypes like the witch. Rinko Kikuchi is positively spellbinding, bringing a crazed sort of elegance to her character that makes the transition between her actions on camera into the wispy CGI of her spells near seamless.

And talk about those vistas. In Lord of the Rings inspired panoramic shots, 47 Ronin conjures a mystical image of Japan where great statues of Buddha are carved in the faces of mountains along paths old and forgotten. Fallen giant Buddha heads house strange Tengu demons who are such a different reimagining of the folklore avian/human hybrids. Of course, there’s a fair amount of pulling on eastern kung fu tropes in the film and none of these fantasy epics wouldn’t be complete without visiting vast bamboo forests or Japanese castles. Expect plenty of cherry blossoms popping up regardless of the season.

Accessed from http://www.martincuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/47-Ronin-5.jpgI think, more than anything else, the amount of appreciation shown in a Hollywood production for another culture is what took me by surprise. The vast majority of the cast are Japanese actors, which makes sense for a movie that can only take place in Japan. The small details like the Tengu’s bird-like shows that someone on the production was doing research to evoke a sense of a mythical Japan. But this wasn’t just for some element of exploitative exoticism. The central conflict surrounding the Bushido discipline and adherence to honour as well as the feudal’s restrictions on class interactions played with those historic ideas both pulling on its idealisms while also raising elements of it as problematic. I felt the treatment allowed the viewer to enjoy the sense of another time and place while creating enough friction and undesirable elements to not sweep away the issues that it was glamorizing either. It’s a more balanced perspective than one I’d come to expect from outsiders, which is an unfortunate expectation that’s required when dealing with Hollywood.

Course, this is Hollywood still. Keanu Reeves is the Tom Cruise in Last Samurai problem. Granted, they try to play him up as half-Japanese, half-European in an attempt to have their incongruous cake and eat it too. It never stops being weird or shoehorned especially since he’s pushed as the primary love interest for Daimyo Asano’s daughter. It’s irksome that studios feel it necessary to insert some sort of European character under the pretence that western audiences won’t be able to sympathize or be engaged with the struggles of others. It’s either racist or condescending and neither perspective is encouraging. It’s not like they use his trumped up heritage to any great effect either since his major character struggle surrounds his class rather than his “demon blood.”

Granted, those Tengu sword moments are damn entertaining to watch.

So why did this movie flop so hard? On one hand, I can see it being considered somewhat slow. When compared to something like The Man with the Iron Fists, there’s certainly a more plodding tone taken here. I don’t think you could do 47 Ronin quite as over the top and, honestly, I felt the slow pace rather reflected classic movies in this genre like Seven Samurai.

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Course, this could be telling for why the movie didn’t do so well. This character is in one scene with one line and he has his own poster?!

On the other hand, I’m not certain if the base story really fit with the overall aesthetic. 47 Ronin is based on a historical event and the movie most certainly is not historical in any stretch of the imagination. I can see where people familiar with the story and events around it would be annoyed with the judicious amounts of artistic licencing on display. On the other hand, with how often this story has been retold and re-imagined, does it really matter how accurate of a portrayal it is? How can one criticize this production of 47 Ronin for being historically inaccurate but not criticize any other Chuushingura production. At some point, details are going to be altered, motivations and characters will be changed or dropped to better adapt history to the film or stage. No single piece of media will ever accurately address a historic event. Look at all the various movies covering World War II and how drastically they portray the events. There’s not really a lot of people up in arms when Inglorious Basterds or Captain America portray obviously fantastical characters or elements into these events.

I can’t help but feel that, had this story taken a more Lord of the Rings direction, it would have been better. Use mythology and historical events to inspire a story but divorce that story from people’s expectations so it can live on its own merits. If someone familiar with the 47 Ronin story sees this, all the deviations from the traditional mythos is more likely to be grating than interesting. But there’s nothing about the original story itself that couldn’t be lifted. It’s basically a story of conflict between a samurai’s duty to his lord and to the law. Political intrigue transcends stories and worlds. Tolkein’s Middle Earth was crafted from Nordic mythology and I feel that something comparable and trend setting could be made by using the same method but the rich cultural history of Japan.

Alternatively, we could just make an honest 47 Ronin movie as well. Cut Keanu, cut all the fantasy stuff and just do as best a movie as one can about the historical event (with the obvious expectation that some liberties will be necessary). I’d be happy with that too.