Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Malevolent Maleficent

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As my brother has posted this is the holiday season, thus the lack of posting. It is also a time to catch up on entertainment. I have seen two movies of late: The third part of the Hobbit and Maleficent. Today I will write a short reflection on the latter.

Aurora, Maleficent and Crow (couldn't be bothered learning this one's name). Image from the internet.

Aurora, Maleficent and Crow (couldn’t be bothered learning this one’s name). Image from the internet.

Maleficent was meh. I had extremely low expectations having watched recent remakes like Mirror Mirror (very clean and simple) and Snow White and the Huntsman (truly terrible film). The movie did not exceed them. On the other hand, it was not frustratingly worse than I had expected.

Best scene in the movie - The Cursing of Baby Aurora by the Evil Maleficent. Image from the Internet.

Best scene in the movie – The Cursing of Baby Aurora by the Evil Maleficent. Image from the Internet.

Angelina Jolie had a great scene when she cursed the baby Aurora. Otherwise her acting was good, but not great. The acting of the other primary characters was terrible, while some of the tertiary characters were better acted. The visuals pulled heavily from Lord of the Rings. The vine monsters were kind of neat, but completely unnecessary (as were many of the elements). The story was a mess. The writing was terrible. And the world development was a mess.

The simple princess. Not the type to survive political intrigue, war, famine or even the hallways of her own castle. For an affectionate child, she was surprisingly unmoved by her father's demise. Image from the internet.

The simple princess. Not the type to survive political intrigue, war, famine or even the hallways of her own castle. For an affectionate child, she was surprisingly unmoved by her father’s demise. Image from the internet.

Maleficent was trying to give a different perspective to the class Disney Sleeping Beauty while at the same time still retreading very familiar material. Unfortunately in attempting to make the villain sympathetic, Disney cleaned her up to heroic level. In order to accomplish this unnecessary feet, the writers had to create a different villain (the king, Aurora’s father) and kill all characterization of the other characters. Aurora came off as simple, in the classical sense. For a princess, Aurora did not fill me with confidence for the future of her land. She seemed the sort of oblivious individual that would get lost in her own castle.

 

The sort of Scottish, increasingly Evil King Stefan. Probably because he is an orphan and if I learned anything from the film it is that orphans do lots of damage to the land. Image from the internet.

The sort of Scottish, increasingly Evil King Stefan. Probably because he is an orphan and if I learned anything from the film it is that orphans do lots of damage to the land. Image from the internet.

I found Stefan (the king) a poorly organized character. He was an orphan (and that is sad), in order to make a connection to the fey Maleficent (also a sad orphan). Stefan was driven by greed to excessive and unexplained proportions. His actions seemed as inconsistent as his vaguely and randomly Scottish accent. By the end he was so irrationally evil that no one, including his perfect daughter, mourned his death.

Actually, this reflects a problem with the world building. One human kingdom is located next to a full blown fey kingdom. Naturally an all-powerful king rules over the Human lands. While the Fey live via democracy, at least until Maleficent goes on a vengeance kick and subjugates all the other, conveniently smaller fairies. Of course, when Maleficent is finally redeemed as a character at the end of the film she then crowns Aurora as Queen of the Fey kingdom – and yet no one sees this as a problem?

Also, if the Humans had been living next to the Fey for so long, why were they so surprised and baffled by magic? It should have been normal or at least explained why it was not normal. Also, after the Humans spontaneously declare war on the fey and Maleficent repels them at cost, why do three little fairies go to help the king and bless his daughter?

Why the wings? Well 'cause she is a fairy of course. Why is Maleficent a fairy? Umm... hmm... still can't answer that one. Image from the internet.

Why the wings? Well ’cause she is a fairy of course. Why is Maleficent a fairy? Umm… hmm… still can’t answer that one. Image from the internet.

At the end of the day the motivations for Maleficent becoming the evil sorcerer that she is famous for, were far from compelling. Her redemption was contrived. It was … not good. A better direction to take the story would be to start with the cursing. Then work out the why behind the actions. As my brother suggested, I wouldn’t redeem Maleficent. I would however explain in sympathetic terms why she became evil. It would be done in a way that while Maleficent’s actions were explained and understood, the audience could also sit back and see she was still evil and should not have done the curse. I also wouldn’t have her as a fairy, just a sorcerous. Furthers, since we know the story of Sleeping Beauty, I would not worry about having all the familiar elements. Why rehash old material when time could be better spent telling a new and interesting story. I also wouldn’t randomly make the King evil just to have a villain – Maleficent is the villain, the story should be why.

The bottom line: Maleficent took one of the greatest, most recognizable villains and forced her to be a weakly explained, psuedo-hero.

The Hungriest Games

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A winner is me! It’s the post novel writing month and I’m still riding on those loose vapours of having conquered the task. Course, for a novel titled Mary Creek’s Blood there’s a conspicuous lack of the sanguine but what can you do?

This joyous time means, of course, we return to our regular posting schedule. And since it is the season to be festive and celebratory, I’m going to begin it with a delightful review! Oh, how wonderful is holiday criticism.

Let’s move on to the typical prefacing. I want to first establish that just because one finds fault or flaws in a work does not make it bad or worthless. Look back across our long history of culture and you’ll find flaws in just about any great work. The Statue of David, after all, has enormous hands and a head. Apollo Belvedere has the exact opposite issues. Nothing crafted by human hands has ever been perfect and even my favourite art has nits which can use some picking. Criticism does not equate to quality or a lack there of. Beneath its surface, criticism is simply an engagement with a piece and the extended conversation between crafter and audience that has always been intricate since the moment some old man gathered his cave-children around a fire to tell them of the first buffalo to roam the plains.

Accessed from http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130420112448/thehungergames/images/e/eb/Effie-Reaping-Bowl-The-Hunger-Games.jpg

And my verdict is!

Now with that said, The Hunger Games is a bad movie.

Alright, this isn’t the most topical of discussions but if anyone thought I was going to be rushing out to the theatre to see the opening feature of the Hunger Games Trilogy then, well, they don’t know me at all. I had full intentions of not seeing/reading/experiencing this teen drama since I had already read Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. And if you’re over the age of eighteen, I think it’s pretty safe to say that you’d consider the Japanese version not only the predecessor but the superior telling of the story.

All that said, I didn’t even like Battle Royale. I felt it suffered the Lord of the Flies syndrome but this isn’t a Battle Royale review so that is neither here nor there. Obviously, I’m going to only examine the film and the unfairly compare it to the much more developed medium of Battle Royale‘s book form. Will anyone be surprised when the film ultimately come across as more shallow? I hope not!

First, the customary preamble:

The Hunger Games follows spunky, go get ’em Jennifer Lawrence as the eponymous Catnis (Catniss? Katnis? Katniss?) of District 12. The movie makes immediately clear the crushing poverty which Catnip lives with her younger sister and ambiguously employed mother in old timey Midwestern Quaker America. She leads an exciting life of hunting boar from the King’s forest and eating the local cake shop owner’s burnt and soggy bread while courting a budding romance with young Throbheart McHandsome. This delightfully dirty pastoral life could not last and her whole world comes crashing down in traditional fashion with the arrival of a spaceship delivering the Queen of the Oompa Loompas.

Here, the quaintly townsfolk are gathered up to perform Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, replete with coal miners, surprising in the frankness of its name: The Reaping. Course, the twist here is that instead of males over sixteen being candidates, we’ve decided to only make children between the ages of twelve and eighteen eligible. This is for reasons obviously beyond trying to appease the target market demographic, I am certain. There is, of course, some propaganda video with some bullshit reason explaining the historical context for this system which is apparently in place for seventy-five years, but so unbelievable is that explanation that I’ve already forgotten it.

Of course, Catnip’s sister gets selected as one of the “Tributes” to the Capitol (because subtlety is a lost art in the future) and Catnip boldly steps forward to volunteer in her place.

This was when I did a “bwuh?” moment. Anyway, everyone gasps, Catnip walks forward, Strawberry Shortcake draws the male representative and our two heroes board a hover train to be whisked away from their shitty lives of digging in mud to reach the very short terminus of their lives. This is where the story really deviates from Battle Royale, however. And it’s not just because they meet Woody Harrelson aboard the train.

As the audience quickly discovers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was apparently the only classic work to survive whatever terrible war tore America apart in this speculative future and everyone is dressed as garishly as possible while they stroll through a city plucked from the doodlings of Steve Jobs. Here, Catnip learns that the games are essentially a gussied up Miss America competition but instead of a swimsuit competition to round off the finales, contestants are instead expected to either starve off their competition (that shouldn’t be hard in a Miss America contest) or bludgeon them to death with whatever item is nearby.

And to think people draw parallels between modern America and the Roman Empire.

The workings of the games, it seems, are based around impressing the crowd in the Capitol and acquiring sponsors to send you little robotic crates like kill streak goodie crates in Call of Duty. We’re then treated to an extended portion where Lenny Kravits tries his best Chris Tucker from the Fifth Element impression while dressing Catnip in the most garish costumes that a fevered teen author can imagine. Catnip scopes out the competition during their four days of officiated training and interviews are held with each contestant before a crowd all to eager to gasp and laugh as though the tele-prompters were all equipped with semi-automatics.

We’re well past the hour before the actual games begin and here we see the second largest departure from Battle Royale. Around half the contestants are killed in the first four minutes of the games and Catnip spends most of the time climbing trees and hanging out with bees than partaking in any actual “game.” Of course, she gets help from some spunky little girl meant to warm the cuckolds of our hearts before she has the grace to be killed by someone else other than Catnip (seriously, what was your plan in befriending the little girl?) which justifies the only real kill Catnip performs in the entire game. She then spends most of her time caring for Peter, the male representative of her Mudville commune while hiding in caves and waiting for the game makers to get bored and release mutant dogs to conveniently eat anyone who happens to be left.

Accessed from http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26900000/The-Hunger-Games-wallpapers-the-hunger-games-26975706-1280-800.jpg

(The Hunger Games is property of Lionsgate and Suzanne Collins and whoever else)

There’s a customary “battle” of sorts with the one contestant who was dressed as a roman soldier during the opening ceremonies and is blonde haired and blue-eyed so we can only assume he’s meant to be a Nazi stand-in. But even this villain is pretty unconvincing as he taunts Catnip while holding Peter at knife point with such blood-chilling lines like “Kill me. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter.”

He falls off their post-postmodernist pez dispenser and is eaten by dogs before Catnip may or may not have delivered a mercy shot from her iconic bow before the “star-crossed lovers” who may, or may not, be actually in love or just hamming it up before the camera in order to gain more sponsorship, realize that some pointless ploy by the game makers to allow two winners for the games is really a ruse (elegantly revealed by the game makers themselves making a broadband announcement because they feel having 12-18 year olds enact a bloodsport isn’t evil enough). Catnip threatens to do a joint suicide with Peter which forces them to deliver truly on their earlier promise to let the pair live and crown them victors.

Cue the celebration montage and Catnip and her on-again, off-again heartthrob returning home amidst smiling faces and fluttering confetti as though the fact that she killed two children is something worthy of celebration.

Hit the credits, prep secondary camera crews and get filming started on the sequel because we can rake in tons of cash from the teeny-boppers with this nonsense.

Seriously, there’s so much to discuss why The Hunger Games is the poor Midwestern coal miner’s version of Battle Royale. But for me, the lasting issue is I have no idea why this thing exists as a piece of art. It’s purpose is lost on me.

There appears to be three key elements that are more jarringly thrown together than the Halloween costumes of the Capitol citizens and their pristine, clean white buildings.  We have the opening set-up of a post-war dystopian America organized into a tyrannical and yet oddly absent totalitarian government. As though tutu Nazis weren’t intimidating to begin with, the fences erected around District 12 are unmanned and Catnip slips between them rather effortlessly to hunt amongst the plentiful forests with just a half-hearted scolding from Chiseled Dreamman that this is dangerous/bad/mildly unacceptable. There is a sense that the government is suppose to be all domineering, complete with cheap Star Wars Stormtrooper knockoffs that show up to perform the Reaping on the children (which sounds worse than it actually is). Furthermore, the fact that you can volunteer for the games gives a somewhat mild alternative to the cold-hearted ripping of twelve year old children to throw mercilessly into a gladiatorial arena.

I mean, they make mention that one district trains up their children for the games and has them volunteer every year. Why every district doesn’t do this is beyond me. You would think that a responsible community with apparently no motivation to organize an uprising (since they’re not actually oppressed-see the complacent absence of the froo froo Capitol “army” earlier) would at the very least teach some people what skills they can to give their children a fighting chance in the games. I suppose this sort of kindheartedness was lost on the future Quakers because they were too busy making sure their mud was still properly muddy.

Contrast this with Battle Royale. Here, the government chooses a single graduating class amongst all the high schools in the country seemingly at random. Everyone knows this will happen but prays that the odds are in the favour (and generally speaking they are given that only one class is taken and there are a lot of schools in Japan). Here, the government literally kidnaps the students, going so far as to execute teachers who try to interfere with the process. They are then whisked away to some random location in the country which changes every year. The people of said area are forcibly evacuated for the duration of the games without so much a “Sorry Ma’am.” There is a heavy implication that the whole point of the games in Battle Royale is to instill fear and obedience in the populace. The twist, however, is that the government is simply corrupt (shocking!) and they only maintain this barbaric murder spree because it’s become somewhat of a bureaucratic gambling event.

My first instinct given the opening act of The Hunger Games was that we would get this very same “totalitarian governments are evil” shtick. However, when Catnip and Peter are whisked away to the city, there is no sense that we’re really suppose to feel these games are horrific. The contestants are treated like celebrities and past winners languish in comfort and luxury. Furthermore, everyone seems excited and the games is treated more like American Idol than anything else.

Thus, I began to wonder if this was ultimately a criticism of American media and its exploitation of the people it sucks in. An immediate comparison would be the Toddlers and Tiaras show and the whole controversy surrounding child pageants.

Accessed from http://htmlgiant.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/the-hunger-games-movie.jpgBut, no, the movie never really explains that the system is bad. In fact, it celebrates the ingenuity of Catnip for manipulating it in her favour. Sure, District 11 gets angry and tries to riot when their little girl gets speared but outside of that, everyone seems pretty damn happy with the conclusion of the 74th Hunger Games. There isn’t any sense that the audience themselves are part of the problem. Outside of the stupid costumes of the Capitol citizens, they’re mostly portrayed as blank individuals there to cheer blindly on for our protagonist as we, the viewer, cheers her on simply because she is the heroine and that is what you do.

Finally, we have the games themselves. Battle Royale is almost entirely composed of its combat. It goes into great detail about each student, often right before they are horribly killed in ever escalating orgasmic feats of violence and murder. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is incredibly shy about its actual games. It’s like the author didn’t actually want to write about the bloodsport with almost all the people either dying away from Catnip and off screen or to rather mild methods (single shots from thrown spears, arrows or hilarious and not-graphic ‘neck snaps’). There isn’t any real exploration of how this absurdly barbaric event would really impact the people involved either. The “villainous” contestants essentially form a jock squad of bullies going around pantsing the nerds and giving them swirlies. Catnip befriends the outcasts and everyone seems quite content to ignore the fact that they are all stuck there until everybody but one is killed! Seriously. You would think the district which supposedly trains its children the hardest for these games would have drilled into them “Trust no one!” There is no benefit in grouping up with people and then blithely falling asleep at their side. Had Peter been so inclined, he could have slit the throats of about five of the contestants, bringing the movie to its conclusion a good half hour early.

Accessed from https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CLm89hlPwyk/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAACs0Q/R3VP_M8Bem0/photo.jpgSo, I have no idea why this book exists. It’s like three half baked ideas which no one really wanted to explore. The horrors of dystopian totalitarian military states? Nope, that’s never touched. The exploitative and inhuman way media treats and views both its stars and audience? Nope, the media is wonderful and really we just celebrate those that succeed within it! The senseless and gross loss of value in the death of an individual especially for something as banal and pointless as a sport? Nope, we view the survivors as heroes and the losers are very quickly forgotten for adoration and accolades. There is no reason for Catnip, after surviving the games, to blithely answer the master of ceremonies about how she found love and everything is wonderful. She should have condemned Flickman, the audience and even the government for how disposable they were. Why are people all applause and grins when Rue died and no one cares? Catnip went so far as to build a rather extravagant pyre for the girl and then never thinks of her again.

There is no reason to create this cold-hearted set-up if you’re not even going to use it. There’s a whole lot of nothing going on in this movie. There’s no commentary on the value or disposability of life. It’s a watered down, friendly version of Battle Royale which by its nature is neither of those. The Hunger Games is, ultimately, forgettable. At its best, it’s mild entertainment meant to distract and appease for its brief flutter across the eyes of its readers. But there’s no punch to it. There’s no depth. It’s only so much fluffy pink dress and horrible CGI flames that’s all too quickly forgotten after the next spectacle comes rolling through.

Kevin and the Pursuit of Entertainment

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Accessed from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Hector_and_the_Search_for_Happiness_poster.jpg

Hector and the Search for Happiness belongs to Koch films, Egoli Tossel Films and its associated peoples.

“You hold all the cards, Hector” grins the Tibetan monk. It’s a shame that he’s not playing poker.

It’s Thanksgiving up in somewherepostcultureland and that means that we are dragged back to the quaint little hamlet of our births in order to massacre turkeys in the name of some hungry god of year-end feasts and despondent familial gatherings.

It also means that Derek has no excuse to not spend time with me since he’s in the area. To celebrate this coming together of such intellectual forces, we felt it prudent to strive out and experience something that had not been done in quite some time. We wanted to see a movie.

Unfortunately, Derek already saw Gone Girl which left us with woefully nothing else to watch. When your options are Dracula Untold and Hector and the Search for Happiness, you have to wonder if you’re really left with a choice at all. Neither Derek nor I knew anything about Hector and his happiness but we certainly knew enough about Dracula and his untelling to choose the former. Course, that Hector was featuring only once a day at the late hour and in the small theatre should have been hint enough but we both enjoyed ‘That Guy from Hot Fuzz” enough to give the movie a shot. We arrived just as it was starting to a theatre that must have literally held six other people. Well, at the very least it would give me something to talk about on the blog.

I think Hector’s greatest failing is in it being so… safe. It’s generic. It’s a movie. I don’t really know how else to describe the experience. It was fine, both Derek and I intoned as we left the theatre. The biggest problem was that it wasn’t made for us. It’s a rom-com, likely the one genre least likely to spur our interest. Had we taken dates and not been each other’s date, I’m sure we would have gotten something by the end to warrant the ten dollar admission. Overall, the movie is light on the comedy, light on the romance and heavy on the sentimentality.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Those that want to skip having to look up the wikipedia article to learn the movie’s narrative can read on! Those that are already bored with this movie, well, congratulations I just saved you two hours.

Hector opens with probably its best scene. Simon Pegg (see, I do know his name after all) is flying a little yellow biplane with a great French flag on its ass, dressed in clothing reminiscent of a nineteen-twenties silent pilot film. In his passenger seat is a black and white pug with goggles and scarf with both passengers grinning from ear to ear as they soar amongst the clouds. Hector, getting wrapped up in the whole adventure, decides to do a barrel roll. My first thought as the plane starts to tilt is “There is no way that dog could be strapped in” and, sure enough, as the plane flips upside down, the little black and white pug falls out like a stone to plummet through the bottom of the screen. Well, now I’m grinning ear to ear as Hector slowly realizes the horror of his actions.

Then some cartoon villain pops out from the seat and tries to strangle Hector.

Needless to say the protagonist wakes up. We’re then greeted to Hector’s day to day life, narrated in a children’s storybook style with a grandfatherly narrator that details how Simon Pegg lives a structured, orderly life with toast properly squared each morning and his dutiful girlfriend happily settled into a mothering role of caring to Hector’s near OCD needs. We discover that Hector is a therapist who has a seemingly complex door arrangement in order to keep his patients from ever seeing one another. Of course, the film is quick to point out that, much like his morning routine, Hector is disconnected from the routine of his job and simply returns stock replies to his patients all the while doodling pointless pictures on his notepad and arranging a follow up session the next week. Hector’s girlfriend, Miss Frost from Die Another Day, is some marketing member of a large pharmaceutical company and during a celebration for their latest successful ad campaign she is teased for still being unmarried while Hector sits silently at the table.

And by now it is absolutely clear the entire plotline of the story. Hector is going to realize that his job is a sham and is going to go on some grand journey vaguely reminiscent of the Grand Tour in order to discover that true happiness is in his heart and putting a ring on his girlfriend’s finger.

And that’s exactly what happens.

It’s a story filled with cliches and empty moralities in order to give the audience “the feels” of thinking they’re watching something touching, sweet or profound. It’s none of those. Hector is safe, standard and espouses traditional ideals. Presumably that’s what its audience is there to see.

Personally, I find it boring. For what it was, I can’t say whether it was any better or worse than any other movie with the same aspirations. As I’ve said, I have no interest in the genre or the story-telling. Ostensibly, the biggest conflict in the movie is that Hector is longing for some old girlfriend Agnes and his whole trip to “research what makes people happy to help his patients” is simply an excuse to check up on Agnes to see if she wants to hook up again.

What I personally found, however, was beneath all the generic sentimentality was a rather hilariously morally bereft story. The very first day Hector is on this journey of “self-discovery” he invites a prostitute back to his room in Shanghai and tries to bed her while listing some rubbish about “Happiness is the ability to love two women simultaneously.” Of course, Hector has no idea that the young Chinese girl is a prostitute and when he discovers this, he is absolutely devastated. The movie then moves on as if something of value was learned.

Except, not once is Hector’s lack of fidelity truly addressed. Presumably his disconnect with Miss Frost for these last five years stems from his emotional affair he’s having with the photograph of him, Michael and Agnes on a beach during college. And the first thing he does on his trip is physically fool around behind his girlfriend’s back (which he never discloses to her). Hector supports this unpleasant prostitution by indulging and endorsing his banker friend’s lifestyle. When in Africa, he assists a well known drug lord which, presumably, we’re suppose to believe is led to reform his wicked ways because Hector showed him a spot of kindness.

Of course he doesn’t. Not to mention his continual habit of stealing people’s property and never returning it. Though, I suppose we’re meant to take his pen thefts as a charming quirk. Clearly whoever wrote this story was not on the receiving end of a perpetual pen thief. It becomes less charming when it’s your only pen they nab.

And what movie would it be if there weren’t some awful, convoluted and ultimately empty science thrown in as a cheap mechanic to try and justify the sappy tale. When Hector does meet up with Agnes he discovers that she’s happily married with children and not pining after Hector and his gallant return in the august years of her life. When learning of his “Happiness Search” she instructs him to visit with some crackpot scientist who is researching happiness. The audience is then introduced to the narrator and, thankfully, the initial impression is that this man is off his rocker than an honest to god scientist doing serious science. I mean, he walks around spouting nonsense like “It is not the pursuit of happiness which is important but the happiness of pursuit” while wearing some ratty toque and looking slightly deranged and possibly high. His “experiment” is to shove someone into an isolated box which looks suspiciously like a soundproof booth and have his participants think of three random memories which invoke either sadness, happiness or fear. He then guesses the order of the conjured memories based on neuronal activation monitored on his end.

Oddly enough, his booth doesn’t block cell phone signals which makes you wonder why he’s shoving them into an isolation booth in the first place if it doesn’t isolate anything. This is the moment when Hector gets a call from his girlfriend and after his sad thought (her marrying someone else) and his fear thought (being killed by African warlords) he confesses his trip and… does something? Possibly says he loves her, it’s kind of vague and the scientist exclaims with triumph as if he’s witnessing something profound “It’s all three!”

This, of course, is transposed over images of the Tibetan monastery with its stupid little coloured flags whipping in the wind with the scientist’s stupid coloured brain flashing the same colours. The music swells as actors hemorrhage emotion from their eyes and we all feel better about ourselves even though nothing is being said or learned. Hector’s problem was ultimately solved by having a telephone conversation with his girlfriend which could have easily been held back at London and didn’t necessitate him promoting destructive behaviours like the excess of Shanghai investment banking and Africa drug trading. He then returns to London to continue conning his patients out of their money with his weekly sessions but this time everyone is doing it with a big grin so presumably that makes it all better.

No, ultimately what I wanted to see would be an investigation of happiness. What makes people happy and is happiness ultimately something worthwhile to pursue? This movie seeps with Western standard armchair philosophy that happiness is the be all and end all of our life goals. And yet, we get some glimpses of things otherwise. The investment banker is incredibly rich and has traded traditional happiness with the accumulation of money and the fake reality which he is able to buy with it. He builds his happiness in the illusion that hookers are young college students who fall enormously in love with these old, out of shape white men who come and are just the hippest thing at their little dance clubs.

Then there’s the African drug lord who sells a very different kind of happiness. People who partake of his drugs are getting euphoria just as fake as the bankers and, presumably, just as destructive. There’s a parallel between the drug lord and banker which goes completely ignored. Not to mention there’s the unspoken association of wealth and happiness. Hector and his girlfriend joke a couple of times about Hector’s experience in Shanghai being “so that’s how the rich live” and yet both of them have lucrative work and live extraordinarily well in London (their flat has its own, private elevator!).  Even married Agnes is living quite well with her mathematician husband in a grand house with its own pool.

Ultimately, Hector’s search for happiness is the well-to-do, white upper class westerner’s search for happiness. It’s peering through the tiny Skype box at a world of lavish bathrooms trying to find that one item or object that will bring meaning and joy to their life. I can’t be the only one that finds it incredibly shallow that the best Hector can scrape from his experiences is that happiness is some girl and getting married. It’s about as meaningful as his little book filled with those delightful phrases, “Happiness is not know the full story.”

Let It Go – No! A Frozen Review

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Here at somewherepostculture.com, we aim to bring you only the most relevant, up-to-date information and opinions. Which is why I’m going to do my review today on Frozen. You know this movie, everyone does. It came out last Thanksgiving and when I saw the trailer I thought to myself “Hey, here’s a movie that looks stupid and filled with annoying characters!”

And boy, was I right.

Frozen and all it's imagery belongs to Disney. Because I sure as hell wouldn't create such creepy bobble headed design.

Frozen and all it’s imagery belongs to Disney. Because I sure as hell wouldn’t create such creepy bobble headed design.

So, yeah. Most people who are likely to read this are already going to hate my opinion. I, of course, hate everything so clearly I don’t know what I’m talking about, right? But I would be complaining about either Frozen or X-men and I have it on good authority that the latter is going to be dealt with shortly.

Now, the reasonable question to ask would be, “Kevin, if you thought this movie looked terrible then why did you see it?” Well, my imaginary conversational partner, it was almost under duress that I watched this movie. If you don’t share this delightful space under this rock with me then you will be aware that Frozen is Disney’s highest grossing movie. Ever. It’s incredibly popular. Everyone who has seen it raves about how good it is. I was told, repeatedly, that it was better than Tangled (which I also didn’t like but felt part of that was due to excessive hype – the other half was due to it being an unfinished story stretched way too long) and was probably Disney’s best modern movie. Hell, it’s been likened as the benchmark for a new ‘Golden Age’ of Disney movies.

If you are one of these believers, you’re probably best of skipping the rest of this rant. If, however, you do want something a little more from our entertainment and are like me then there is value in criticism. Creating echo chambers that serve solely to feed self congratulations does not improve our art. As artists it is our responsibility to constantly strive for improvement and learn to hone our craft. Part of this is listening to the dissenters and asking if their complaints are valid.

And I can guarantee you that my complaints are very valid.

Let me get this out there. Frozen is one of Disney’s worst recent ventures. I didn’t like Tangled but on any metric for the valuation of a movie it was far better than Frozen. I’ll state my biases now – as a writer I am most concerned with plot, narrative, characters, theme and tone. This is where I focus my attention and critiques. If you’re someone who doesn’t think story is important – then get off my blog because I’ve iterated numerous times how narratives and stories are the most important aspect in artistic expression.

Alright, now that I’ve chased most people away, I’m not going to do my normal routine. Frozen is broken on nearly every level with so much inconsistency and contradicting ideas. There are so many problems with this story that I don’t understand how it’s received all this praise. Chief amongst its failings is being an hour and a half of zero conflict. Characters constantly spout problems which are neither shown or addressed. The primary issue of the story stems ultimately from bad parenting and terrible medical advice.

But let’s use an example. The major conflict in the movie revolves around Elsa and her ability to conjure snow and ice. When an accident occurs while her and her sister Anna are playing as children, her parents break into a front hall to find that Elsa accidentally struck Anna in the forehead with an icicle. To remind those that have seen the movie, the foyer is at this moment filled with hills of snow and mounds of ice. The parents first reaction to entering isn’t wonder over seeing all this snow inside but worry over their daughter injured in the middle of it. What does this tell us? They are well aware of sorcery and that Elsa controls it. They immediately whisk the two girls to seek the medical consultation of the trolls who just… well… troll them and tell the worried parents to lock Elsa up and never speak of this event again. Staff must be fired and somehow this must become a secret… for reasons. We’re later introduced to the idea that magic is considered an abomination.

But never once has there been any indication from ANYONE that this is the case. The staff never expressed concern (and they certainly would know what is going on when they have to clean all that ice and snow out the front door). Never once do we get an explanation for why people don’t like magic and we never had any concern from the king and queen until they spoke to a bunch of talking rocks.

Instead of doing an entire review of the movie and how it’s ultimately about nothing, instead I’m going to focus on review its award winning musical number ‘Let it Go.’ Fortunately, for me, Disney has been kind enough to upload the sequence on youtube. Please, enjoy the number for a moment. Don’t worry, I have lots to discuss on it.

idina-menzel-as-elsa-sings-let-it-go-in-disneys-2013-hit-film-frozen

Click Me!

Nice, uplifting song, right? Makes you feel empowered and sympathize with Elsa, doesn’t it?

Well, here’s the thing. This sequence is terrible. But I think it really helps highlight my sense that this movie passed through three or four different hands all trying to take it in vastly different directions. Watch it again and pay attention to the interplay between visuals and lyrics. Keep in mind the context – this is the moment Elsa has fled the kingdom after unintentionally revealing her magic powers and basically must give up on everything she knew because of a slip-up.

While you watch it again, I’d like to take a moment to highlight important details. Don’t worry, I’ll time stamp them.

1:00 – Elsa Tosses Glove

I want to take a moment and really highlight the time stamp. My first comment on this number occurs at one minute. One minute! This is a three and a half minute song. I need to ask, what has happened in nearly one third of the musical number?

Absolutely nothing. We’ve just had over fifty seconds of Elsa standing on a snowy hill singing. Here’s a thing about movies, their adaptations are almost universally considered worse than their book sources. The challenge with movies is you are working within a very tight time constraint. A children’s movie is even more constrained as they almost always last for an hour and a half since their target audience can’t concentrate that long. In the case of Frozen, the creators admit that they desired to have a scene explaining how Elsa got magic but had to cut it due to time constraints.

And yet we’ve wasted an entire minute already with absolutely nothing happening in that time. The significant action in this moment is Elsa tossing her glove to the wind – a symbol of her shedding the restraint and control forced upon her by her parents and the expectations of her station as the next in line for the throne. That is an important symbol to use. Unfortunately, this moment really lacks any impact. One big reason is that it’s not the only time in this song that Elsa symbolically discards the responsibilities and constraints placed upon her by society. This brings me to:

1:28 – Elsa Tosses Cloak

After almost thirty seconds of creating pretty snowflakes (presumably to demonstrate that she still has the power to make ice and snow which is really unremarkable given that the movie OPENS with Elsa creating a far more complex and spectacular winter landscape when she was half her age) Elsa loosens and discards her cloak. Once again, here is a symbol of her abdicating her responsibility for leadership as this was part of her coronation ensemble. This symbolic moment really serves no further purpose than the glove and the audience is still just watching this bobble-headed girl warbling on the world’s most blandest mountain top while she spins in circles.

2:08 – Elsa Creates a Staircase

Seriously, what is the obsession with staircases in this movie? Is it because the creators made Tangled and were really annoyed that they had to replace them with Rapunzel’s luscious golden locks that they’re over-compensating. The number of times action occurs on stairs in this movie is ridiculous. More specifically, I want to highlight that this is the first big “action” moment of the song. Elsa is faced with a gaping chasm and must cross. She creates a rather icy and unremarkable half bridge to start then bolts up it, refining it with her touch into an incredibly bland and boring modern design.

Take particular note of the lyrics, however. Throughout this song (and the whole movie in fact) the characters sing using common imagery. This almost never aligns with what’s actually happening in the song. At this moment, Elsa is saying she is “one with the wind and sky” and yet, there is no wind. In fact, what little wind there was at the start of this number has completely died. She’s hardly one with the sky, either, as she’s still surrounded by a mountain and standing on some stupid ice staircase.

2:17 – Elsa Heel Stomps

This is the song’s one good moment. Here is the only time the lyrics and the action actually align. Elsa cries “Here I stand!” and slams her foot down on the ground creating a stylistic snowflake. It’s probably the song’s most powerful moment too as it combines what’s happening on the screen with the audio. Idina’s delivery conveys the emotional punch of her finally taking a stand against perpetuating the charade she’s been doing all her life and all this is demonstrated emotionally, visually and audibly.

But this happens more than halfway through the song. Two minutes and seventeen second and only now the song is actually accomplishing anything. We’ve wasted so much time on nothing for this small emotional reward. It’s not enough.

3:09 – Elsa “Magics” Her Shirt Away

This just pisses me off. This is the sort of laziness that drives me crazy. After creating the world’s blandest ice castle, Elsa covers herself in ice to create a new wardrobe and her shirt “magically” disappears. Yet, the only established power Elsa has is that she can create ice and snow. What are we to assume – the ice just gobbled up the material? Where did it go?! This is the sort of error which fractures the sense of world verisimilitude. And it’s done for no other reason than to sex up the character. Who looks like a blow-up doll in the first place. I also hate her stupid turquoise slip dress.

But I want to take a moment to highlight the castle and chandelier which take far more importance during this than the moment when Elsa tosses her crown away (moment three of discarding past responsibilities). The visual design they have of this tower and it’s accouterments is so boring. This is the Imagination Studio, or whatever Disney is calling their movie making department. This is suppose to be the greatest artists they can hire. And they make the least inspiring tower I have ever seen. This thing is just boring. Later, we find it’s mostly a few platforms and a curving staircase (mhmmm staircases). Seriously, if I was an artist and this was the best I could come up with for a winter palace, I’d be embarrassed. I’m sure I could search deviantart for a better design.

Queue the rest of the song with Elsa’s stupid sashaying dance as she flap her arms onto the balcony as though she’s a spring chick trying to fly from the nest. Her final lines “Let the storm rage on” once more highlights this complete and utter disconnect between lyrics and visuals. There isn’t the slightest hint of a storm here.

It’s like the creators don’t even care.

Frozen-poster

Now, I don’t believe that criticism alone is the best way to encourage improvement. It is one thing to point out flaws and yet another to correct them. So, for this final part of my review, I’m going to describe to you how I would have directed this three and a half minutes.

0:00 – Elsa Struggles Against a Blizzard

Open the damn song with some conflict. Elsa is in emotional turmoil – show it. Have a blizzard on the mountain and she’s fighting against it to escape the troubles behind her. This blizzard is not natural – it’s the unconscious manifestation of her own inner turmoils. Panting and tired, she comes to an overhang and looks back over where she came.

0:15 – Elsa Looks Back

Notice that I only wait fifteen seconds before having something of importance happen next. Not a minute. The moment Elsa opens her mouth, she’s looking back where she came, seeing the storm raging behind her. Her footprints are eaten up in the snow, discouraging her from returning where she came. There’s nothing around her (kingdom of isolation) and she pulls her cloak tighter around her to keep warm. She touches her crown (and it looks like I’m the Queen). As the blizzard rushes around her (wind is howling), her hand drops in despair (couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried) and ice forms where she brushes against the rock.

This way we’re showing that she’s still struggling with her choice to run away. She’s holding tight to these symbols of her old life and responsibilities (the cloak and crown) while still unable to control this power flowing from her (the ice against the rock).

0:43 – Elsa Braves the Blizzard Old Style

Elsa turns from her safety to take on the mountain again (don’t let them in). But the wind, falling snow and ice impede her. She doesn’t get very far before she’s forced against the rocks again, her cloak and stubbornness not enough to see her through. She tries to pull herself up again and her hand once more creates a great sheet of ice – stylized in some interesting way, personally I’d make it jagged – and she looks at it realizing how futile trying to maintain her parents wishes really are since everyone knows that she is a witch (Well now they know!).

Were not a full minute in and I’m already adding conflict and action with this blizzard. We’re also seeing the progression of her character as she tries and tries to be the ‘good daughter’ and fails every time. Finally, she realizes how useless it really is.

1:00 – Let it Go

The wind picks up and Elsa shields herself with a pillar of ice (let it go). She gathers her strength and bursts forward into the blizzard. Losing the last of her inhibitions, she uses her powers to force her progression: she forms arches of stylish snow to cover her from falling snow. she creates icy steps to lift her up the incline and finally she begins to control the weather itself to create a peaceful passage through which she can pass finally emerging from the blizzard unscathed as she unwraps herself from her cloak (the cold never bothered me anyway).

One important note for this section. As Elsa gives in to the use of her powers, the storm should build in intensity. Every time she “magics” the blizzard grows more forceful and violent. The blizzard represents the uncontrolled emotions and manifest as this turmoil that she’s not truly addressing but, essentially, fleeing. The rest of the song should follow suit – anytime Elsa “magics” the storm gets deeper and darker.

1:30 – Crossing the Chasm

Elsa emerges onto an overhang and walks to the edge to see the town below. It’s nearly swallowed up in the blizzard now but seems so unimportant to her now (it’s funny how some distance makes everything seem so small – Come on! How wasn’t this obvious?!). Elsa turns away and approaches the chasm, removing her glove (the fears that once controlled me) and tosses it into the abyss to signify that she’s not going to let others keep her restrained (can’t get to me at all). Elsa then gauges the expanse and tries to create a crossing. She fails. She tries again. She fails again. Finally she makes a precipitous ledge and tentatively walks out. She then takes the plunge, using the blizzard and a spectacular display of snow and ice to get across in a hectic manner (I am one with the wind and sky – and make sure there’s wind!). As she lands on the other side, the camera pans around to her exuberant face while in the background the town is finally consumed in the raging blizzard, not to be seen again (never see me cry).

2:17 – Heel Stomp

As I said, this is the best moment so we can keep it. She then starts the first of her ice tower. But make it interesting and exciting. Have icicles bursting from the ground like crystal stalagmites. Elsa raises her tower but this should be a physically trying and taxing experience. The audience should get a feeling that she is making it in a very physical sense. Have her bend, sweat and struggle. For example, you can have her stumble and jagged ice shoots out. She then expands it in a quick burst, accepting the flaw as the ice projection lifts her up. This tower should be wild and free – just as Elsa feels now. Nothing clean and pretty. Make it look almost terrific – as in inspiring terror – and make the sequence focused on. When she talks about fractals, a sheet of ice forms across the screen with her face reflected in every broken piece. Elsa should be the centre of attention, not the tower. And shit, get rid of that stupid chandelier.

2:56 – Crown Toss 

Elsa takes a moment to remove her crown and throw it away (I’m never going back). For the first real time, the camera leaves Elsa and follows the crown to the base of her growing tower. The blizzard greedily swallows up the crown in its snowy maw (the past is in the past). Make this moment feel really dark as its suppose to communicate to the audience finally that, perhaps, Elsa has gone too far. The fact the tower looks more scary isn’t an accident. The whole idea behind this sequence is to show Elsa’s crossing into “villain” territory and the audience should cheer her along until they realized that she’s gone too far. Elsa isn’t being liberated anymore, she’s completely burying her past at the expense of all the people she knows. And the crown represents this. It’s not just a symbol of the throne but the responsibility of the throne to its people. The camera can follow the raging blizzard to the horizon where the town is no longer visible. The sun crests over the mountain tops (And I’ll rise like the break of dawn) and follows the sunlight back to the tower. Suddenly, the ice lights up as though the morning has breathed life into the structure and filled it with millions of refracting candles. Elsa stands in the centre covered in ice and bursts forth with her new outfit – that covers the old one and doesn’t eat it will looking more terrific – and moves towards the sun. She magics out a balcony and stands to look over her new kingdom of the mountain’s summit with the largest, most terrifying blizzard raging uncontrolled below. She greets this ‘guardian’ with open arms (Let the storm rage on!) and as its ferocious fingers reach up to grasp her, the camera pans in on her smiling face (the cold never bothered me anyway). The camera is then consumed in the snow.

 

Now I’ve introduced a character progression, emphasized and strengthened the story’s themes and symbols while adding an actual conflict for Anna to face (the blizzard that is now threatening to literally destroy the kingdom and kill it’s people). Elsa maintains her sympathy as she’s done this all unintentionally but she’s still maintaining her villainous as she as given up on all her responsibilities and sealed herself away from having to worry over the feelings and fate of others.

And all of that in one hour. Seriously, Disney, get your shit together!

Cinderella

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Haha! It is not even the end of April and I am posting. On the downside I am procrastinating my novel writing … Don’t expect too much.

From the movie version.

From the movie version.

I am a fan of fairy tales. I was brought up with the Disney retelling of the Grim Brother’s classics. Over the years I have read a number of iterations and have watched numerous movie versions. Recently I found myself watching the film adaptation of Ella Enchanted, which urged me to reread the source material. Then as luck would have it another book arrived at the library for me – another Cinderella-based story.

All three of these stories involve the same basic characteristic elements. They have a young girl whose mother dies when she is young and whose father is either mostly absent or dies. There is a stepmother who despises her stepdaughter and works to make her life miserable.  There is a charming suitor of prestigious background and a grand ball somewhere towards the end. Magic is thick through all three of these Cinderella retellings, though each one is different.

While the movie Ella Enchanted starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, and Cary Elwes (and others) is based on the novel by the same title they should be treated as two different works. Certainly, I could not stop the flood of ‘that was not in the book; that was not how things happened, and where did that come from?’ comments while watching. The movie version takes the idea of freedom and runs with it. Everything is changed to make freedom the driving theme. Suddenly, there is a wicked uncle who is enslaving portions of the population. Of course Ella is the primary example, for she is under a curse of obedience which has stripped her of her freedom since birth. While this is not a bad way of dealing with the transition, I do think it removes much of the elegance found in the book. The movie is garish in colour and humour. It is loud, oversized and extreme. But it is also fun. It has an interesting mix of modern music, ideals and dance numbers set in a more medieval setting (with some visual quirks like the moving stairc

The book cover.

The book cover.

ase – also not found in the book). The evil stepsisters are even more comically driven to woo the prince than they are in the book. I would say it is fun, but childish and certainly lacks any depth.

I infinitely prefer the book version by Gail Carson Levine. Though my recent rereading reminded me it was written for a much younger audience. It is not the plot, by the simplicity of the writing, aimed more for early rather than late teens. Still, I really like the struggle the cursed Cinderella faces over the course of the novel. Her we can see how she has always fought against the curse. It also better explains how the orders work. Ella is not magically good at everything. When ordered to sing she does so, but being untrained her voice is awful. However, after a series of increasingly more specific commands, she can be ordered to do what is required. The specificity of the commands is not dealt with at all in the movie. Which actually brings me to the other thing I liked about the book, there is an incident with ogres in which Ella clearly helps the Prince – rather than being saved by him as is seen in the film. Being a book the story spans a year or more, in which Ella is allowed to slowly fall in love with her prince. It shows them building a relationship, something that is difficult to do on film because of time constraints.

cinderella - 2While both works could be described as dealing with Freedom they come across very different. The film is taking the most obvious route of oppressed and oppressor. The message being that no one should be ordered around and told what to do with their lives. The book is not so blatant. Here the author explores choice and responsibility in less obvious ways. Ella is still cursed and ordered around by those who know. However, the ogres are also capable of making unwary people do what they want. It is more manipulation of people and freedom on a very personal level being discussed in the book; the freedom to be yourself in expression and personality. It seems such a slim difference. However the manner in which these ideals are expressed produced two very different works.

Both of these works are targeting a younger audience with their Cinderella retellings. Glass slippers, another Disney element play only a nominal role in the novel version and are not present at all in the film.

cinderella - 4The glass slippers take on a slightly different role in Wayfarer: A Tale of Beauty and Madness by Lili St. Crow. Here the stepmother’s job is to manufacture high-end footwear. While many of the Cinderella elements are present in this book, much was done to create a different and unique fantasy world. I would say the world building was successful – I also enjoyed the first book in this series dealing with Snow White. However, my age started to show through while reading Wayfarer. Ellie Sinder – Cinderella – was not the spunky girl from Ella Enchanted. She was ultimately depressed, convinced that no one would believe how terrible her stepmother was (at least no adult) and that her friends only stayed next to her through pity. Even while she professed these ideas, Ellie also admitted that her friends were really good to her. And really, so many of Ellie’s problems would have been solved if she just told someone she needed help. Instead she flopped between bleak desperation that no one cared and the noble need to sacrifice herself to protect her friends. It was tiresome. Especially, since you get to the end of the book and the adults are quite reasonable and ready to believe the stepmother was evil (she really was). So, while there were many good ideas brought forth in this world it was simply too much self-pity and needless whining for me to really enjoy the story.

cinderella - 3

True Detective – False Mystery: A Review

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I did like the opening credits and thought it interesting the overlap of location on character to blur the line between the two.

From True Detective’s title crawl. Series aired on HBO and belongs to whoever.

Expectation is a curious thing. It can be both a source of great elation and anticipation and the harbinger of infuriation and loathing. Quite often it carries both in turn, drawing its victim joyfully in with its double strike of promise and praise before delivering its brutal reality that leaves naught but a wreck of broken visions in its wake. Not that all things with great expectations are terrible. Sometimes our expectations are met and we leave pleasant and fulfilled. Sometimes they are exceeded and we talk and dwell gleefully upon the experience with renewed vigour.

After nearly twenty nine years of existence, I have come to realize that expectation is not worth its price. The higher your anticipation for the payout, the less enjoyment you will collect. But keep your expectations low and you should be surprised more often than not.

Today’s review of True Detective isn’t about failed expectations. Instead, it’s that more trouble quandary. It’s misaligned expectations. I had heard about True Detective from multiple sources that all praised it for being high quality television. Had that been all I’d known, I may have sought it out but given how difficult it is for acquiring access to HBO shows, I may have let it slip by. There are, after all, many series which I intend to watch based on the praise they receive. They are the Breaking Bads and Parks and Recreations. They’re on my list to check out not because the initial premise is promising to me but because so much good word of mouth has surrounded them that it seems they are almost like the Titanic; they are too big too fail – or at least disappoint as would be the case here.

True Detective, however, came with an addendum. It was, according to one source who shall remain nameless for his own protection, a good show with Lovecraftian elements. I have been enjoying the Cthulu Mythos over the last few months. I particularly find most tales good travel literature for their morsel like size. However, I have been reading Lovecraft on and off for years now. While my feelings towards the enormous body of work encapsulating the Cthulu Mythos is mixed, I do enjoy the monument of literature as a whole. It’s an intriguing look at fiction writing in a specific time period. It is a culture artifact dug up for our enjoyment. Though its old time society and issues leave it from being truly horrific, those same elements make it engrossing.

Thus, I was curious how a modern take could incorporate the ideals of Lovecraftian horror. I did write that post many months back detailing the issue with Lovecraft and the modern era. I boldly pronounced that type of horror dead, though I hold no great convictions on the diagnosis. So, a critically acclaimed detective show with Lovecraft horror? Well, sign me up!

If that extended introduction didn’t make things clear enough, True Detectives was not to my tastes. I suppose I am partly to blame for having my vision of what the work would be. I didn’t do much research before diving in, hoping to avoid any spoilers beyond what I heard from acquaintances and friends. Perhaps if I had done some early investigation, I could have spared myself the disappointment and the time.

But then I wouldn’t have this post to make.

Of course, as True Detective gloriously made a point of itself, the biggest clues were right under my nose the entire time. The mini-series is an HBO show. There’s a certain… reputation that the station carries. I had not seen many of its original content before and had been living quite happily in my ignorance. In a sense, True Detective is a great crash course to the expectations of the programming executives. It has certainly made clear to me that I would not like their vision of what television is or should be. I shall politely avoid their True Blood and Game of Thrones. Though peering at their wikipedia page, I did like the Newsroom though I don’t think it’s nearly as revolutionary as the rest of my family may believe. Course, it seems the Newsroom is only getting three seasons so maybe it’s the black sheep of the bunch.

At any rate, one thing is clear and that is HBO has a quota. I would feel remiss if I didn’t contribute to their quota during a review of one of their celebrated shows.

Accessed from http://seemorepictures.blogspot.ca/2012/11/the-blue-footed-boobie.html. Not my photo. I don't have much interests in Boobies.

Of all the lessons I’ve learned from watching True Detectives, the most important is that as an entertainer I must show frequently a pair of boobs else I’m apt to lose the attention of my audience. So here’s my first pair.

I have spent a number of hours in reluctant debate with my co-contributors over the series. For those that don’t want to slog through the next couple thousand of words or so, here’s the short of it. I don’t like True Detective. Specifically, I think it is a bad show. This may make me a hipster or just a chronic hater-of-all-things but that is my feelings on the matter.

Course, being who I am, I won’t just slap my opinion and walk away. I will provide some room for discussion. Truthfully, there are some things the show does well. I think Matthew McConaughey has both an impossible name to spell and a very consistent and powerful performance. Woody Harrelson, on the other hand, took a few episodes to get into the swing of his role but by the end I felt he had reached a stable level of performance even if it wasn’t on the same level. I wouldn’t say it was terrible, though, and I can see why he’d get praise for it too.

The cinematography of the series is also particularly well done. At least, I think it is. I’m not a film critic so I don’t know the proper terminology. However, the use of the Louisiana landscape gave the production a very haunting touch. More often than not, the actual vistas and shots conveyed that slow building of discomfort far better than the story itself. There is something domineering about those factory skylines that seem to press down on the viewer as their concrete towers rise over flooded plains blotting out all else from sight. Perhaps the most eerie moment is the slow drive to a half burnt church in the middle of nothing with only a thin line of wispy trees to half-heartily try and cover the ruin and keep the rest of the world protected. Every now and then the show flirted with the cosmological horror so captivating to Lovecraft and his peers. But it’s a fleeting relationship, and one more often carried strictly by the strength of the show’s visuals than anything.

Which brings me to what is bad about the show.

The writing is awful. Do not believe what people say, the show is poorly written. When I first began watching, I was lulled into a gentle state of repose by its marble gargling characters. The dialogue, for the most part, is fine barring for the fact that the actors have a tendency to grind on their lines in their hasty attempt to sound gruff with their affected southern accents. Mostly, I found I had to crank the volume if I wanted any chance to hear half of whatever was being said. The mumbling was so bad, one of my friends recommended I watch with subtitles like he did. The actual written lines are fine even if the characters have tendency for slipping into melodrama in their attempt to wallow in the self-pity of whatever emotional decadence the show was trying to indulge.

McConaughey’s character, in particular, was prone to long bouts of almost eye-rolling pseudo-philosophy about nihilism and the emptiness of existence. Once again, I felt maybe this was the show attempting to cleverly pull on the psyche breaking horror of one’s insignificance beneath the vastness of Lovecraftian revelations and how bewilderingly unknowable the universe is. Perhaps we would get the slow explanation for a mind that snapped beneath unearthly realizations through the slow interview format established in the first couple of episodes hoping to ascertain McConaughey’s character by the current investigating detectives (as if there needs to be a warning: spoilers are going to abound in this review though most of this is pretty evident early on). Alas, this is not the case and it seems McConaughey mostly just waxes about whatever nihilist mantra the writers happened upon that day of writing as even his philosophical outlook hardly maintained consistency. He bemoans the meaningless of existence in one scene, only to persuade Harrelson in another that he’s indebted to action by some vague sense of duty, honour or human decency which flies in the face of nihilistic pretensions.

Accessed from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sula_sula_by_Gregg_Yan_01.jpg

Red footed booby by Gregg Yan.

More than anything, True Detectives has no plot. Its “story” could be summed up in the span of a thirty minute episode. Instead, the crux of the show focuses on the petty life of Woody Harrelson as he flits from affair to affair while trying in vain to be a good father to his rapidly distancing family. This is interspersed with the repetitive personal conflicts between him and McConaughey who are diametrically opposed personality wise that it leaves you wondering why their chief insisted on them being partners for ten years despite their constant bickering and arguing.

My first concerns with how poorly the show was structured arose in the very first episode. Our introduction to the two detectives is with them driving up to the scene of the crime – a young woman tied naked before a tree as if in prayer and adorned with deer horns surrounded by a bunch of ritualistic animalism stick structures that are never even attempted to be explained in the series. It smacks of such lazy “this is weird cult shit” by not even being remotely close to the source material they’re referencing by looking suitably Wiccan enough for the average viewer to associate it with paganism and – by obfuscating intent – satanism. I doubt, given the show’s rather grim view of Christianity, that there is any malicious intent in portraying modern (or even historic) Wiccan beliefs or practices with satanism and I’m left wondering why they didn’t try dressing the cult artifacts in a more unique or, dare I say, Lovecraftian fashion. Instead, we have some shitty stick bird cages meant to inspire dread but mostly appearing as some poor child’s craft project. Anyway, these first scenes are abruptly interrupted with Harrelson’s constant reminder to the modern investigators (and the audience) that he wasn’t particularly close or knowledgeable about his partner even though he repeatedly informs us that they had been working together for three months.

I was never able to figure out the significance of this three month period. Harrelson is portrayed as a sociable, charismatic man and given the way he kept trying to communicate with McConaughey it is bizarre that the two seemingly went three months without him ever even attempting small talk and then randomly that day he begins to learn more about the foreign Texan. As it turns out, McConaughey doesn’t share Harrelson’s Christian values, which leaves them quarreling for most the first episode over philosophical nihilism before Harrelson’s insistence his partner come to dinner to meet his family and wife.

To simply summarize those two long paragraphs, I don’t know why the show didn’t just have McConaughey new to the Louisiana division and it was… say… his second week on the job. Maybe they were trying to avoid some sort of cliche but they ended up instead with some even more bizarre scenario that was awkwardly brought to the audience’s attention by Harrelson’s own constant stammering. This trend – of making the structure of the story unnecessarily complicated – continued for the entire series. I still don’t know why they even bothered with the two modern investigators questioning McConaughey and Harrelson over their case. It was clear a couple of episodes in that they suspected McConaughey of being the serial killer, but the audience knew without a doubt he couldn’t have been it as the flashbacks to the scenes when both lead actors were police officers was an accurate portrayal of events and not what they were communicating in their interviews. So in the latter portion of the series, they spring their intentions as if this is suppose to be some sort of plot twist meant to leave the audience second guessing the reliability of McConaughey’s character.

Accessed from http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/blue-footed-booby/

Blue footed booby by Tim Laman from National Geographic.

However, we had already seen that pretty much the only reason the show extended past the fourth episode was because Woody Harrelson is an awful person with zero self-control. The show completely abandons the interview format in the final act of the story and I was left wondering what the entire point of it was as the investigating officers are pushed completely to the sideline. McConaughey returns in the present to recruit Harrelson and after the shortest amount of detective work they discover the true serial killer and tie up the plot in a remarkably unsatisfactory fashion that neither dealt with any of the King in Yellow teases they had dropped once an episode or even the overarching character flaws that we had spent the entire time entertaining.

And this is why I say True Detective is a bad show. I was happy to proclaim it as “fine and not for me” after the third episode, but really despite their handling of the characters there was just too much inconsistency and complete bungling of the plot for the writing to not be considered bad. Just like this review, the biggest issue with the series is that I can’t shake the feeling it was just an enormous waste of time. So much of each episode is devoted to Harrelson’s crying over his affairs and the personal drama between him and McConaughey that it just felt like the writers didn’t know what they wanted to do. It was eight hours of spinning wheels with the odd “oh right, we have some sort of plot here about government cover-ups and cult worship!” But none of that panned out. Even in the end, the main characters’ flaws are never addressed. Harrelson ends up divorced but his ex-wife shows up by his hospital bed with a smile and warm hand squeeze despite the character not once showing any change in his ability to control his urges for over indulgence in women or drink. I suppose after nearly dying before some hallucination of some vaguely alien blackhole in the depths of a cyclopean sunken city inexplicably found in the killer’s backyard but politely ignored by the entire cast of characters, McConaughey cries a little about the loss of his daughter.

And don’t get me even started on how illogical Harrelson’s wife’s affair was. Nor how horribly presented almost every single side character is. And what the hell was up with that subplot about the daughter that was just hand waved away with a short comment in the present about her “now on her drugs?”

Verdammt! Just thinking about it reminds me more of its nonsense. This is why everyone ends up an alcoholic, HBO! You are the cosmological horror whose very image inspires madness and insanity!

Accessed from http://www.mattdebenham.com/blog/proving-the-negative-true-detective-and-remembering-when-this-is-not-my-thing/

From the title crawl. I found this on a website also calling True Detective shit. So much about me being the black sheep!

Superman – Man of Steel a review

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Man-of-Steel_01I finally got around to watching the latest film version of Superman: Man of Steel, 2013. It was sadly disappointing.

Now, first I feel the need to point out I am not my brother. I do not hate everything. In fact, I like superhero movies. I don’t read the comics/graphic novels, so I am not hard-core fan. Still I enjoy the hero’s tale, good triumphing over evil, amazing powers and greater responsibility and all that fun stuff.

Superman may not be a childhood favour – I always found his story a little bland. However, I do have fond memories of watching the first several seasons of Smallville – before my source dried up (I was watching a housemate’s bother’s collection in university). I know the basics of Superman – he can do amazing things, including disguising himself with just a pair of clear glass frames. He can leap tall buildings, stop bullets with his chest and somehow fall victim to Lex Luther on a regular basis. I have seen some of the older films and was looking forward to the new reboot.

The cape looks foolish and why doesn't he realize that he is wearing his underwear infront of everyone?

The cape looks foolish and why doesn’t he realize that he is wearing his underwear infront of everyone?

Casting is probably one of the strongest elements of the movie. It had an incredible supporting cast of well-proven actors. And the main lead fit my visual of the title character perfectly. There was clearly a huge budget available for all the shiny, computer assisted cinematographic tricks used to push the visual appeal for good to great. And Christopher Nolan was also part of production.

So, what happened?

Well, not a lot of anything. Man of steel turned out to be one of the most boring movies I have seen in a while. The most exciting part was surmising that Superman’s ‘flight’ was gas-powered through flatulents. How else do you explain the puffs of air emerging from his backside as he leaps into space?

Poot and he goes a little higher!

Poot and he goes a little higher!

 

 

 

 

From the previews I had expected an origins story – but there was no character development. You could not even describe the film as an epic good vs evil as there was not progression of such a plot. It seemed at several moments the writers wanted to do something, they had half an idea, but then nothing came of it.

Superman’s history was interspersed throughout the long two hours in which nothing much occurs. Sure we see scenes of Clark being bullied (for undiscussed reasons), but what was the point? Why was he bullied? What did he learn from this experience? And why do all modern superheroes have to follow this over-done plot device? Can we not have a reformed bully become the hero?

Lois Lane was tossed into the film because even the director recognized you need a female on screen. But her role was so muddled and random to be completely irrelevant to the story. After doggedly hunting down her mysterious guy (Superman), she is suddenly caught by the FBI – how? And why does Superman, having met the woman once and told her to leave him alone, suddenly want to protect her more than anyone else? I think we are supposed to believe that they have some sort of romantic connection, but why? They interact for barely five minutes together over the course of the entire movie. Also, why is Lois taken by the bad guys? What use do they have for her?

Look I am evil. See, I am wearing black and a perpetual scowl. Oh and some facial hair, for twirling purposes only.

Look I am evil. See, I am wearing black and a perpetual scowl. Oh and some facial hair, for twirling purposes only.

The evil guy – with the ridiculous sounding but otherwise forgettable name – would have twirled a ludicrous moustache, if he wasn’t so two-dimensional to even lack that interesting aspect to his character. He was genetically evil – or so he claimed – without being consistent. He was a warrior bred to protect his people, but initiates a coup and tries to take out one of the few remaining people when he attacks Superman.

I also really struggled with the alien ancestors of Superman. For a species supposed to be different from our own (they are Aliens), they were disappointingly human: in appearance, behaviour and thought. There was nothing particularly interesting about them as all of their characteristics and problems were pulled unimaginatively from our own western-culture thought and history. Their evil plot to terraform earth and rebuild their population on our deaths was so poorly justified. There was no way the audience could sympathise with their actions – which given humanities propensity to do the same should have been an easy accomplishment. Actually, what little dialogue and … culture? … was littered at the beginning of the film I felt the writers wanted to comment on … something.

There were snippets of conversation and thought regarding over population on Krypton and the unfortunate consequences. This led to colonization in the galaxy that was mysteriously abandoned. Birth was controlled by use of test-tube babies. This in turn resulted in limited bloodlines and genetically engineered individuals. Questions arose about the role of genetics over an individual’s fate, free-choice, and natural birth. With our growing skill in genetic engineering this could have been a topic of relevance, but the science was botched (how do two individuals genetically modified not to breed miraculously give birth to a child?) and like everything else the topic fell to the side.

Also, why did the planet suddenly exploded for no particular reason? For those not in the know, planets do not suddenly and violently explode by themselves.

So, underdeveloped, bland and boring summarize my Superman experience. The visuals were nowhere near original or spectacular enough to compensate for story in which nothing really happens over a 2 hour period.

man-of-steel-5

I Don’t Know Parks and Rec – Lego Movie Review

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Plague in Rome by Jules Delauney 1869.

An accurate portrayal of the agents of death coming for me perfectly captured by Jules Delaunay.

First, I must address the uncharacteristic absence of myself upon the prior Friday. For those rife with worry and concern, I can confirm that I had most grievously been stricken by that most deadly of contagions – the flu. It had been of my utmost concern to do my daily work but between preparations for the arrival of the dear kin to our home and my own flight from the plague ridden halls my sister haunted, I had not succeeded in preparing some words in advance. Consequently, when the day of postage arrived, I was struck down mercilessly beneath my malady and spent most of the sun’s hours unconscious and in a fitful state. My recovery, however, is arrived and thus I am able to scribble towards you now.

Course, my goal isn’t to spend the entire day discussing with you sickness and suffering. Instead, I want to talk about the Lego Movie.

Yes, the Lego Movie.

Obviously, this junk all belongs to Warner Bros.

Promotional material for The Lego Movie.

This film, by all promotional material, was quite obviously a Derek movie. I mean, it even featured Will Arnett (of Arrested Development fame) as Batman and if that doesn’t have Derek written all over it than I don’t know what does. I hadn’t seen any trailers or really anything about the film, mostly because when I go to the theatre it isn’t to see children’s entertainment. In fact, it’s been awhile since I have seen anything directed at a child. Even Disney, that great malicious blackhole that pulls in infants and adults alike, had failed to pull me or my family to one of its awful attempts to milking older creative works for every copyrightable ounce they could.

Needless to say, I didn’t have high hopes for the feature but, because I’m such a wonderful friend, I was willing to see it for Derek’s sake anyway. Surely, you all are on the edge of your seats awaiting my verdict. Well, I shan’t keep you in the dark for long.

The Lego Movie is weird.

There is truly no other way to describe the film. It’s bizarre. It’s non-standard. It’s off kilter. It’s a peculiar little creation that left me thinking about it long after the ending credits rolled and the audience was reminded one last time that “Everything is Awesome!”

But why this confusion? Well, I’m not entirely convinced that the Lego Movie is a children’s film. That isn’t to say that it wasn’t designed with children in mind. It was targeted, almost locked on and homing in on the youngest generation capable of producing speech and willing to put forth any amount of effort to getting their bum in a seat before it. All of its components are simple and digestible for the little ones. It’s bright and colourful. The pace is frenetic as it careens between showy extravagance and goofy exploits. The dialogue is digestible  and much care is taken to scrub it clean of any possible offense from its initial presentation. The characters are simple with direct arcs and uncomplicated personalities… for the most part. For a good half of the film, you could be lulled into gentle repose by the mind numbing banality of its narrative, kept awake by the sheer creativity of its visual effects as the animators explore a building block world with far more exuberance and ingeniousness than any child will ever display.

And then suddenly the movie plunges off the edge of the map. Gleefully, I should add.

Copyright to Warner Bros.

As it turns out, The Lego Movie is my favourite kind of media. It is thematic and every character and theme is purposeful in exploring those themes. Consequently, there are some unexpected narrative twists that will most certainly turn some audiences off of the whole spectacle. There is risk, of all things, in a god damn Lego Movie. I can not stress how utterly bewildering this is in this day and age. And it is with regret that I have to draw attention to how rare this is.

You see, there’s a funny thing about children’s movies – and children’s entertainment in general – that the Lego Movie highlights in grand fashion. I have no idea who this stuff is directed at. At the end of the day, the Lego Movie is most certainly not targeted at children. Its messages and themes are wrapped up in irony: a concept infants under five or six years of age are going to struggle with simply due to developments of their cognitive functions. The grandest theme the movie itself is exploring is wrapped in tradition and rigid adherence to classical methods versus creative freedom, a conversation skirting quite close to copyright and the discourse surrounding those laws – themes that I can’t imagine are pinging on prepubescent radars. And it’s a Lego Movie. There’s no way that teenagers are going to be the primary market for a children’s toy line.

No, the narrative focus seems most assuredly directed at adults though with about the surface complexity as your typical children’s fare. There’s clearly been placed a lot of work and effort in communicating the writers’ themes in this piece, something that is most unusual for the genre it’s in. Let’s face it, people don’t hold much expectations for children’s movies. Check Rotten Tomatoes and the vast majority of the time, the highest rated movies in theatres are typically children’s shows. Does this mean that children’s shows are our best products?

Well, of course not. Had we not a separate category for them at the Oscars and they would almost never receive any recognition. Instead, there’s a general consensus that we don’t need to be harsh or critical in our assessment of a children’s movie because it’s “just for children.” However, this is a sentiment I vehemently oppose. And the Lego Movie is the perfect example why.

Accessed from google image search. Don't know how memes are referenced.

Good luck finding a mate though, Mr. Blacksheep.

Watch the first section of the Lego Movie as Emmet goes through Builder’s World (or whatever the hell the construction setting is called). It is a fascinating if not poignant example of just why we should be equally critical of children’s movies if not more critical than an average film. This media is, essentially, propaganda for the most impressionable members of our society. Emmet’s world is very much the epitome of a collectivist totalitarian society. It is run by the villain President Business who enforces a strict code of conduct on his people through a Rulesbook they all read and follow every morning that details the exact business of their lives which the citizens are expected to adhere and maintain with a smile and song. This regime is worked into every aspect of their lives, even their music and entertainment is dictated by the Rulebook and everyone watches the same show and listens to the same song day in and out with a smile. Obviously, despite the facade of cheerfulness, we’re presented with the extreme of a socialist dystopia which is immediately countered with the introduction of “master builders” – individuals capable of bending the fabric of their very world through their individual creative genius. It’s the age old collectivism vs individualism dynamic with such a sickeningly severe condemnation of collectivism ideals and socialist stances.

Let me take a moment to highlight this. The opening act of the Lego Movie focuses most of its time communicating to children that co-operation and community are terrible things and should be abandoned instead in the name of personal glory and fame.

While this is certainly trumpeting the typical “American Dream” I have to wonder if this is the moral that we want to express to our kids. And it’s not like you can really shake your head and just say “Well, it’s a children’s movie.” The studios are expending a lot of time and money to communicate these lessons to the children whether we ignore it or not. This isn’t to say other movies don’t try to convey messages and ideals but there’s a difference between Fight Club pushing for anarchist revolution on an audience capable of evaluating Tyler Durden’s message and a group of children who aren’t likely to question whether the overall theme of a colourful, singing ensemble should be followed or not. Had the Lego Movie continued in its generic hero’s journey direction, would we as an audience be comfortable with children taking home the lesson that working in a team and co-operating others is bad and we should really abandon our friends in pursuit of a dream that doesn’t exist?

Thankfully, the Lego Movie is far more nuanced and spends quite a bit of time subverting the traditional morals that are usually bandied about in these pictures. It’s more to the movie’s credit that it manages to strike a balance between the collectivist and individualist ideals. And it’s a shame that such an effort will not stand out compared to other children’s entertainment which will be rated the same because “it’s just for children.” And it is foolish for us to think that these movies are heavily laden with ideals. Even the decision to not use swear words is promoting a certain ideal – despite it being a common one shared. So, in my incoherent, rambling way, this is my argument for why we need to be more critical of children’s entertainment.

Accesed from www.wemakehistory.com.

Hoop and stick. As effective at entertaining children as a multi-million dollar production since 2000 B.C.

Anyway, there’s lots more words I could write on the Lego Movie. Unfortunately, I lost my train of thought after taking an extended break to make Derek’s apartment smell like orange and apple peels before the girl could return so I don’t remember where I wanted to take this. Suffice to say, I enjoyed the Lego Movie. It’s something more than “a children’s movie.” It’s a proper movie, much like the Incredibles and Wall-E. Which is how I feel children’s movies should be. At the end of the day, targeting solely children is a pointless endeavour. Kids are dumb, there’s no two ways about it, and they like simple things. Hell, halfway through the Lego Movie, the row in front of me seemed to get more interested with the popping of the lid on their M&M container than the millions of dollars in front of them. Parents will always laugh about purchasing a big toy for their child only for the kid to be more intrigued by its big box. Children will find entertainment in anything, so making them the primary target is a waste of effort. Instead, we should focus on making movies like the Lego Movie. Yes, they’re accessible at a low level so children can enjoy them. But there’s more to that picture than a bunch of animated building blocks. It attempts to pierce into something fundamental. It tries to comment on our lives and experiences. It diverges from being just mindless fun and approaches something, perhaps, a little closer to art.

Intelligence – a review

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Ok, I would just like to point out that I am not skipping this week – so take that!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you didn’t already know, the Olympics are on right now. I think they are rather interesting and I have been watching many of the different sports. I have also spared a few moments to watch some TV – alas, I have not read anything worth noting. So instead I am going to take a very brief moment to comment on one of the newest TV series titled: Intelligence.

intelligence - image It is terrible.

In fact I am struggling to find one redeeming quality in this show. Now, I know that people will blissfully sit and watch awful programming. I have been known to absently watch poorly created TV without much thought; usually with knitting needles busily clicking in my hands.

So, let’s take a moment to consider the various aspects of the show.

Characters: well, they are all really, super boring with no characterization. Essentially, all the characters are interchangeable. Really, if I was to describe them we have: The Male Lead (with noticeably sloping shoulders), The Female Lead (a brunette), The Super Genius Scientist (of unspecified discipline, but advanced age – hence the smarts), The Scientist’s Sidekick (who is his son – wow, isn’t that new and different!), and the Hard-Ass Female Boss (the older blond).  I assume the characters have names, but they are forgettable.

intelligence__1310180033151Plot: so here we have a super-secret technology based agency who have created an amazingly dangerous weapon by implanting a computer chip in a human. Yup, that is all they have done. A small chip, the size of a pea (or there about) was inserted in the brain of a human. How does this make them super-human and extremely dangerous? Why was this human able to survive the surgery when all others died? How can we protect this expensive asset?

Well, these are reasonable questions and the show has answers for some of them. First, there is a gene that allows only some people survive the implantation of a computer chip into the brain. Wait. A gene? As in genetics and DNA?? But that doesn’t make any sense at all. Even those with a rudimentary understanding of biology must recognize the fallacy of this statement. How could there possibly be a genetic trait for such a concept? What sort of mutation exists that allows people to better interface with implanted computer chips? I mean really?!

Second, according to all the people on the show, one single, small chip was implanted in the Male Lead’s brain. As best I can tell it is a portable internet search engine – WiFi enabled. Apparently through tech-magic, it also allows the user uninterrupted access to all types of technology that are powered by electricity. The Male Lead can turn on cell phones, hack into closed circuit surveillance cameras, utilize satellite imagery, search every database in a millisecond and remotely unlock key-pad operated door locks. All this using a very tiny chip and I have yet to touch the fantasy of ‘cyber-renderings’, which are ultimately too stupid to comment on.

At one point the Male is lamenting the ‘knowledge’ streaming through his head. He knows all the details of his partners life because of the data trail she leaves behind and he really wishes for one day he could wake up and just not know these things. At which point the Female should have said ‘Then stop googling my life, you stalker!’ Alas, the show failed to see the ridiculousness of its own creation.

Their magic chip is capable of everything or anything at every moment, which does create a huge disconnect. Where is the drama, the tension, the drive of the plot when the magic-chip will come through and expedite the problem solving process? The show has completely failed to define the limitations of their magic-chip. Without this critical framework, the creators really have nothing to explore since any problem the characters come across can be easily solved with that all-purpose magic-chip. Without challenge, there is no conflict and without conflict the show lacks any real draw.

intelligence tv showThe Third question is really stupid. The chip was implanted in a military-marine, who should be well trained to protect his brain. So why they brought in a female secret service agent to protect him can only mean they are looking to set up a love interest (how predictable).

This brings me awkwardly to the Writing. Obviously the writers have put little thought into the world’s development. They have not flushed out any of the characters. They do not have a clear idea what sort of themes they want to explore – and this is perhaps the most frustrating as there are so many options. You could explore the impact of bionics on humans and the blurring between man and machine, but not if the only difference is one tiny implanted chip. It would be interesting to explore the benefits (beyond a glorified search engine) and the manifold limitations (data corruption, viruses, the need to constantly clear the memory, etc), but they do not.

The writing in each episode has the heroes charging off to save the people from their everyday problems: kidnappings and terrorist attacks. All the while they are trying to keep their implanted human secret while using him as their most effective asset. There is question about government and power that could be explored, but isn’t. And of course, with modern media there are the constant, illogical and poorly conceived action beats. Why does a car chase suddenly erupt, well because it has been 10 minutes since the last chase/fight/explosion. Uhg, how predictable.

Intelligence-TV-Show-ImagesIn the end, Intelligence brings nothing new to the table. It doesn’t even competently rehash old ideas. It is bland, super-bland. It is just another program adding to the monotony of current television programing.

Olympus Has Fallen Review (Olympus was Ballin’)

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So, this weekend I saw Olympus Has Fallen. Which is unfortunate since I was planning on doing some more rambling on world creation. Instead, you get a shitty review. Here’s my Olympus has Fallen review.

olympus_has_fallen_500x250

But, Kevin, what is Olympus Has Fallen I hear you say. Is it some interesting movie dissecting the decline of Grecian cultural hegemony over western development? Why are there so many American flags being waved. And is that Morgan Freeman? I love that guy! I hope he plays Memnon.

Well, my beloved readership, Olympus Has Fallen (abbreviated to OHF which should be easy to remember since its so close to Oh F@#$!) is Gerard Butler’s grossly self-indulgent, narcissistic, fantasy indulgence centering around the ridiculous modern ubermensch and the failing of the outdated classical action hero trope in carrying current cinema. But that’s a bit long of a tag line so it’s normally billed as a story about the White House being taken over by terrorists.

That sounds like it could create a compelling story right? A movie that examines the frailty of the American illusion over its own supposed invincibility. Gosh, post 9/11 America has become really self critical and introspective has it not?

No, no it has not. OHF is easily the blandest, driest and boringest movie I’ve seen all year. Granted, it gets that through sheer convenience of being the only movie I’ve seen this year but I have high hopes for the new G.I. Joe flick. Suffice to say, the movie is more than deserving of its rotten status on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Don’t expect this to be winning any awards. Don’t expect it to win anything period. I was literally bored ten minutes into the movie.

And let me tell you why.

The narrative, story and characters of this movie are about as cliched and one dimensional as you can possibly get. If you’re worried about spoilers well… you shouldn’t since this movie is about as predictable as the outcome of the Trojan War. Now, I could probably write thousands of sentences on how this movie is bad (I know my family has listened to just about as much Saturday afternoon) but I’ll try and keep with the initial stumblings of the film and not even touch the some of the more ludicrous elements that most viewers will probably notice (Cerberus and Dylan McDermott).

This movie is bad right out the gate. The story opens one blistery winter evening up at Camp David where we’re treated to some nonsensical moment where Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart are rolling around in some sweaty embrace that’s suppose to mimic boxing. No doubt this moment was meant to establish the close bond between Butler’s secret service agent and Eckhart’s President character. Perhaps we were meant to see these two at their most intimate time, when both their guards were lowered and they had shed all pretenses of job and protocol so they could express their own deep seated worries and fears.

Well, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s… something about Butler teaching the President to stop sucking at boxing. He gives him some times to improve his game but if you think this is foreshadowing a moment where Eckhart is going to knock some jerk out then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. In fact, this entire Camp David scene which ostensibly is suppose to be introducing us to the major players is nothing more than an enormous waste of twenty minutes. The only thing established in this time is that the secret service are incompetent drivers and could never survive in Canada. If the President had hired some Mounties to be his chauffeurs then maybe his wife wouldn’t have taken a forty foot plunge off the world’s flimsiest bridge.

At least the cars don’t explode when they crash against ice.

So, here the audience sits, twenty minutes in and the only thing of note is that the First Lady has died in a car crash. What does this have to do with terrorists and the White House? Absolutely nothing. Because if you think this moment is important in developing some deep character conflict between the President and his secret service agent then you’d be wrong. Because all that’s changed is that Butler has been moved to some cushy job at the Treasury since he reminds Eckhart “too much about that one time at band camp.”

The best part, is that the entire twenty minutes is literally recapped in the next scene when a bunch of secret service agents walk into a caffe where Butler is on break to explain that he doesn’t have a job with them anymore because the First Lady died eighteen months ago in a terrible car accident. Look, if you’re going to summarize immediately something that’s juts happened, why bother showing it in the first place?

On top of which, none of this matters for the overall narrative other than it delays Butler’s arrival at the scene when the White House inevitably comes under attack. So we’re twenty five minutes into the film and already you know that it’s going to be a stretched time sink padded with pointless moments because the writers and director really had nothing to tell with this film.

Speaking of a waste of time, cue Butler’s contrived marital troubles with a wife that thinks he “works too hard” and a man that is sad because he can no longer tell the brat of the most powerful man in America to stop playing violent video games. Wait, isn’t this the exact same conflict that the First Lady and the President had before the First Lady’s inappropriate bridge jumping exercise? How astute of you!

Which brings us to the boring ass characters. There is nothing to any of these people parading across the screen. I challenge any viewer to try and describe the characters without referring to their job. Because at most you might get one or two lines about how everyone seems whiny and that’s about it. These people have the emotional complexity and depth of second grader’s family portrait. And yet, oddly enough, the movie tries so hard to get the audience to feel some capacity of sympathy or emotion towards these beautiful, rich, white folk whose biggest troubles is that their husband missed the latest weekend barbecue and can’t remember who Patty or Paula is married to.

All this, and we haven’t even touched the silly terrorists yet. At any rate, we’re now thirty to forty minutes into the movie with the only established fact being an unnecessary job promotion for Gerard Butler that he’s going to just leave anyway to rush headlong into the White House to save the President. So, what was the point in having all this time wasted? It certainly wasn’t because the terrorists plot was so well co-ordinated that if Butler was there then he would have surely been killed. I mean, the first phase of their plan was to fly a heavily armoured military craft over DC and miraculously not get shot down before gunning its stupid escort and opening up a whole bunch of Gatling fire onto the unsuspecting tourists strolling through the National Mall.

Of course, our heroic Butler is the only one who can run through this gunfire while surprised men and police officers are mowed down like it’s the last charge on Vimy Ridge. He even has the time to rescue a woman and her little child by tackling them to the asphalt before sprinting to the White House before the airplane is shot down overhead, taking out the enormously phallic Washington Monument in its descent. There, he nearly foils the terrorists plans to irrevocably mar the cast iron fence before that’s blown up. But while he now runs through the gap in the fence, he has the opportunity to casually shoot the only two female Korean terrorists in the head before reuniting with the secret service on the steps of the White House.

Basically, this is a long winded way of saying that Butler is the only one capable of doing anything. This becomes painfully obvious as he’s the only one to survive the next wave of spawning baddies like the producers already had plans to turn this into a video game before rushing up into the White House’s interior to be the only man capable of finding the wayward President’s son. And, by now, I’m sure you’ve figured out he’s also the only one to single handedly rescue the President and kill the main baddie after single handedly disposing of the automatic, highly advanced and secretive turret the White House had installed by didn’t have the foresight to use when it was under attack (but the terrorists knew how to operate in order to shoot down the only back-up he was going to receive).

Needless to say, it’s all a little eye-roll inducing.

Which brings me to my original point. The biggest problem with OHF is that it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It tried taking itself far to seriously and realistically to be considered a throw-back to the bygone era of the 1990s action hero but had too much nonsense to be considered remotely logical even within its own narrative. I mean, three quarters of the way through the introduce an almost James Bond-esque plot contrivance because it seemed that the producers almost feared the audience wouldn’t care about troop movements in the Korean peninsula (or the life of a very bland President which was probably accurate).

So what could it have done? Well, first, suck less. Second, ditch Gerard Butler. No one cares about your Mary Sue superman that is the only bad enough dude capable of rescuing the President. I’d cut most of the pointless nonsense surrounding the First Lady’s death which, by the way, never once came into play (the briefly hinted emotional distress that President and son had over not yet getting over the grief was completely brushed aside by the end and never mentioned again). What I would have done was had four lead secret service agents who end up being the leaders and key players in the defence of the White House. Have most of the movie revolving around the attack and resolution of the assault on the building. Instead of having the terrorists “win” and then squat on the property for so long, have these four agents working together and with the Pentagon to try and stave off the assault and, ultimately, bring about the conclusion. Between the four of them and their different circumstances you could easily fill a movie with compelling situations and challenges. Have one agent end up holing up with a bunch of staff and tourists who then has to decide between abandoning their post as this groups sole defender for serving the greater duty of trying to rescue the President. Have another agent with the President holed up in the bunker doing her best to try and keep channels of communication open and the President alive while enemies close in on all sides. Hell, if we’re so hell bent on having the little brat play any role in this, one of the agents could be his personal detail and spend most of the time trying to evade the captors and get the kid to safety.

Between four different agents you can have four more compelling individuals and perspectives to detail one single ‘day of hell’ that could bring about that touch of humanity that Butler’s wooden acting could only dream of.

Also, can we have some female secret service agents? I’m sure they exist.

In total, I’d give this three Morgan Freemans out of ten illogical consistences.