Category Archives: Entertainment

by - 1 Comment

Matt Damon and Zhang Yimou whitewash their souls

Dark days are ahead for China. There be monsters north of the wall. Winter’s probably already here, or something like that. Everybody’s scared, the army’s not ready, disaster looms. But don’t worry, Matt Damon will show up to save everybody.

 

matt-damon-the-great-wall.jpg

Remember when this guy wasn’t an action movie star?

 

Except it’s a big trick. For the monster is not some type of mythical creature that eats life. Instead, it’s the devil incarnate of bad action movies. This hideous demon spawn was born from an unhuman blending of the reproductive organs of Michael Bay’s Transformers and Zach Snyder’s Superman. China doesn’t stand a chance, even with Damon’s purchased-sculpted-boxer-physique.

 

great wall movie.jpg

Just take a gander at the stereotypical bad action flick awfulness that awaits the poor Chinese theater audience.

 

The Great Wall is China’s most expensive movie production ever. It cost $160M in pure gold pressed latinum and is a massive gamble by both Hollywood and the Chinese film industry. Legendary Entertainment does the production as the now full-fledged member of China’s business community since they (sold out to) were bought out by Wanda Group.

Bankrolled by Wanda Group’s overlord, Asia’s richest man, and expert 1930’s style tap dancer Wang Jianlin, this flick’s meant to serve as a key mark on what Wang and many, many Hollywood suits hope will be a very long and lucrative alliance. If it’s not already, China will soon be the world’s largest film market. And you’d better believe Hollywood wants in on all that luscious cash.

This forthcoming epic masterpiece will hit theaters in China this December followed by a February 2017 debut in the States. This is a bit strange, as February is usually second only to January as a dumping ground for garbage films. Maybe they’re hoping a sparse market will help the film perform better? Maybe they’re hoping they can rope in the Valentine’s Day audience as 11th Century Chinese warriors are viciously beheaded by evil monsters?

 

The_Great_Wall_(film).png

Eh, I’m pretty sure The Mongols. Why do I need to pay $13 to see a movie when I already know the answer to the poster’s wise quest question?

 

Anyways, in our current modern media culture, we can’t have anything without a race based controversy. And boy does The Great Wall sure have one in the entirely accurate accusation that they whitewashed the cast by adding Damon when an otherwise all Chinese cast would have made a lot more sense.

They claim Damon plays a mercenary or something. Maybe he’s there to assassinate Jason Bourne? It would have to be something specific like that. Because from what I know about the Song Dynasty, I’m pretty sure the Chinese army didn’t lack for limitless raw manpower. So there’s nothing that would require them to hire to creepy white guy from Medieval France who’s on the lam for stealing Her Ladyship’s already stolen virtue.

Whatever. This aspect of the flick doesn’t really interest me. Damon’s presence is really rather simple. Wang and his minions want to make cash worldwide. In order to do that you need a global star. Damon is a global star. There’s not a single Chinese actor that comes even close to his worldwide appeal. That’s why he’s there. There isn’t much else to it. Money!

Except to perhaps ask the question: Why isn’t there a Chinese actor as world famous as Damon? Ah, yes, now we get to the parts I actually care about. First off, let’s take a look at the director in the brilliant Zhang Yimou. I really like Zhang, the dude’s made some incredible movies and knows his craft well. In particular, To Live and Hero are quality movies. To Live even approaches the realm of masterpiece in my mind. But that was then and this is now.

Then, Zhang got himself banned from filmmaking by the Communist goons because To Live did such a great job tearing down the hypocrisy of said dictatorial state. Now, Zhang is their errand boy. So he thus produces flicks of questionable messaging and quality such as The Flowers of War, which also had a conspicuous hunk-white-dude lead in Christian Bale.

Now Zhang is working for Wang. And before he made billions in real estate, Wang was a regimental commander in the PLA. He’s also a mint condition delegate to the rubber stamp National People’s Congress. In other words, Wang’s the consummate Communist team player. Which helps to explain why Wanda Group is so successful given his connections. Although Wang is probably also a genius, so that helps too.

But if you were Zhang and you once made movies of conscience, perhaps you’d hesitate before getting into business with a guy like Wang who is so clearly tied to a Communist Party organization that censors movies like the ones you used to make. Hell, if somebody banned me and my movie, I’d be pissed. Maybe Zhang’s just more forgiving than I?

But you see, as a now Chinese owned studio, Legendary has to get The Great Wall entirely past the censors. This means that every line of dialogue, every scene of horrible computer generated action has to support the message of the Communist Party.

And therein lies the real crime of this movie, not the color of Damon’s skin. If I ran into Wang on the street (as in if I stowed away on his jetcopter) I’d like to ask him straight to his face if all of Legendary’s future movies are now going to have to be approved by the Commie censors?

I ask this because Legendary has made some damn good movies throughout the last fifteen years. I’d like to know in advance before stepping into the theater whether my movie experience got approved by some undersexed-degenerate-apparatchik-tool.

Hollywood (in theory) is supposed to be a land of consummate free speech. After all, it’s freedom of speech, freedom of the arts that enables Hollywood to function. It’s what gave birth to this pinnacle location of the film industry at the start of the movie era a century ago.

But money talks, and Hollywood (most, but not all) values money over principle. So Damon and a whole bunch of other people are perfectly happy to climb aboard a production that is essentially bankrolled by anti-free speech goons provided they get their tasty paycheck.

Seeing as how, like most celebrities, Damon does substantial humanitarian and human rights work, if I ran into Damon on the street (as in if I stowed away on his autogryo) I’d like to ask him straight to his face what he thinks about hundreds of Chinese human rights lawyers and activists being rounded up and convicted in show trials? Or that they’re being forced to read Cultural Revolution style confessions to the public like in one of the heart tearing scenes that Zhang used to put into his movies.

Did I also mention that Wanda Group owns AMC Theaters? Do you like movies? I sure do. Do you like free speech? I sure do. Well, as far as I can figure, I think these two concepts go hand in hand. But if you’re Wang, Zhang, or Damon, I guess you can respectfully disagree. Money!

Here’s the problem though. Wang and Zhang are placing a bet that you can have quality movies in a realm without free speech. It’s the same gamble that the Communist Party is taking all throughout China’s culture. For example, the Communist Party is backing efforts to dramatically enhance scientific research and development, but without the freedom of speech and academic liberty that normally comes with it.

I suspect, just as it’s awfully hard to invent cool shit when the censors are all over you, that Wang and Zhang are going to discover that without freedom of creativity that they can’t make decent movies. They might make a lot of money (see Transformers for the ability of bad movies to make billions) but not actual good art.

Until China’s film industry can make consistent, freethinking, actual good art, they’re never going to produce a true global star like Damon. I just don’t see it happening. True art requires true freedom. End of story.

Maybe The Great Wall will be fairly decent. Like I said, Zhang is a superb filmmaker. And I really do like Damon as an actor. But for the future of movies, I hope this film tanks.

by - 0 comments

my version is free

I’ve never played Pokemon Go.  I never will.  So this post is more an observation vice a review.  Although if actually reviewing said game as a game, instead of a piece of likely clever and ingenious technology, I’d give it negative twelve stars.

I don’t get the human race.  Sometimes I feel like a darn alien inhabited my brain.  And he’s looking around at the goings on and he’s like, “What?  Huh?”  But basically, Pokemon Go is augmented reality.  Not a true game.  Not true virtual reality.  Something in between.  I’ll spare you the details.

But basically you walk around the real world and see the real world, but Pokémon is there too.  You can see him.  He’s over there getting fries at the drive thru window and you have to go up and say hi to him.  Or whatever.

It took humanity’s greatest leaps in technology to make this happen.  And even then servers are still crashing.  So instead of using all our powers to battle cancer or go back to the Moon, we’ve got finding Pokemon down by the Sizzler.  Uh, okay.

Hey you know what, I’ve got an even better version of Pokemon Go.  And my version is free.  It’s also augmented reality.  It’s called my freaking imagination.  Instead of picturing Pokemon, I get to pretend I’m battling dragons, or passed out drunk on the curb, or exploring this thing called a forest when I hike through it after removing the battery from my smartphone first.

Put down Pokemon Go.  Pick up your imagination.  You shall not regret it.

stupidity

What I see inside my head is 1,700 times as detailed and 1,300 more fun.  I win.

by - 0 comments

we duel MacArthur and Patton

Patton selected his .357 Magnum and a baseball bat. MacArthur chose an original Model of 1911 and a bolo knife. I met their ghosts at dawn at a nondescript grassy plain somewhere alongside the Hudson River. After a bit of friendly but restrained banter, I outlined the rules of the day.

And …, wait, hold on. [shuffles papers] [unintelligible muttering] I know, hold on. [throws papers] Yeah, okay, that didn’t happen.

But what did happen is a long while back I visited MacArthur’s ivory skeleton box.

So for whatever reason I decided to rewatch Patton and then watch MacArthur the whole way through for the first time. Then I decided to compare the two, because why not. For those who have seen both movies you know how this is going to end. But this is all for fun, so why not.

All the pieces were in place from the start. Patton pulls a decent director in Franklin J. Schaffner who made some good films beyond just this one and also served in combat in said war. They got some c-grade hack named Francis Ford Coppola to write the script.

MacArthur gets stuck with some guy named Joseph Sargent and a writer known as Hal Barwood who you all will surely remember as the guiding hand behind the Oscar nominated video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Oichalcum plot twists my ass, Hal, what the hell were you thinking? Indy wasn’t like that. [throws chair]

MacArthur also pulled a budget 1/4 less even though it was made seven years later. For whatever reason MacArthur’s creators then decide to compound the impending misery by covering a span of ten years instead of Patton’s three, all with a running time 40 minutes shorter than Patton.

In terms of MacArthur, I think a bunch of producers got together and decided to shoehorn a Patton clone, they somehow got Gregory Peck involved, and figured even though they were setting it up for failure that it’d somehow all work it and still make a bunch of gold. It didn’t.

MacArthur made a fraction of Patton’s money, lives with justifiably poor reviews, and just leaves you with sense of apathy. When you’re done with Patton you get the idea you’ve just watched something powerful. When MacArthur’s over you shut off your television and go get another beer.

Peck, who remains one of my favorite actors, touched on this:

I admit that I was not terribly happy with the script they gave me, or with the production they gave me which was mostly on the back lot of Universal. I thought they shortchanged the production.

No kidding. Yet for some reason Peck would still go on to say this was one of his most favorite roles. Maybe because MacArthur was a victorious general, famous and mostly beloved, and Peck got to do a whole bunch of long monologues.

A good example of the disparity is that Jerry Goldsmith did the music for both flicks. You can hear Patton right now, picture the light notes of the trumpet across the North African desert. You know that music. It will live forever. Now you go ahead and try and remember one note from MacArthur. You can’t because Jerry phoned it in. So did everybody else.

MacArthur is just going through the motions, they portray MacArthur’s evacuation of the Philippines in the first ten minutes of the film. It’s one of his most controversial and gut wrenching decisions and we see it immediately with no buildup, no time to establish the film. It’s jarring how quickly this scene shows up.

Conversely the movie is nearly an hour long by the time we see Patton confront his inability to keep his mouth shut and the ever eternal slapping of one of his men. These scenes have power because the movie has taken its time to build a character and story.

The crazy thing about Patton is that so many of the memorable parts we take as genius, thus making MacArthur look silly, almost never happened at all. Nobody wanted to go with the opening flag speech scene. George C. Scott wanted nothing to do with it. So Schaffner just lied to him and said it’d be filmed at the end.

Says Coppola on the commentary tack, “All you young people, bear note, that the things that you are fired for are, are often the things in later life that you are celebrated and given lifetime achievements for.

Patton also has to deal with the enduring reality that it was made without Patton’s input, family, diary, notes, and thus relied heavily on Omar Bradley. I can say what I want about MacArthur’s poor film execution, but the content at face value is likely almost entirely accurate. The same cannot be said of Patton.

If you ask me, the most controversial aspect of the film is not Patton himself but Bradley’s presence. It’s open to interpretation just how much of Scott’s portrayal of Patton’s personality is a mythical creation inside Bradley’s mind. It makes for wonderful movie, but maybe perhaps not the look Patton himself would appreciate. From my end, I think this is how Patton was, some of the time, as in an act. A deliberate act of leadership. The rest of the time he was likely the thoughtful military professional his writings depict, but that which does not make for entertaining movie.

In the end, the best part of these two movies though is that I think that bizarrely, both Patton and MacArthur got the movies they would have personally wanted. Patton got to be played by George C. Scott and seen forever as an eternal warrior monk badass. And MacArthur gets Gregory Peck, who gives a bunch of cool long speeches for two hours. In this sense, they both win the duel. As always, in their own way.

Duel.jpg

Gentlemen! I will now count off the paces. No General MacArthur, I do not know the current exact time of day. General Patton, please wait till my countdown is completed before you wield your bat. General Patton!

by - 0 comments

what’s this Irish thing anyways?

Just about a whole bunch of people are wearing green in the office today. I’m not exactly sure why, I don’t get it. Genetics-wise, I’m about 50% Irish, and I still don’t get it.

I mean in the old days you would get pinched if you weren’t wearing green. So you had to wear green. But those were the good old days. Nowadays pinching somebody on Saint Patrick’s Day would speedily result in a sexual assault conviction and/or lawsuit.

Quite randomly, I’ve been on a bit of an Irish haul lately. This last weekend I binge watched (in between working both days) Peaky Blinders. Without ruining the plot, the 1919-1922 pivotal years of Irish history are intrinsically tied to what’s going on throughout the events of this otherwise English gangster saga. This series is pretty good, I thought the first season was just awesome. Unfortunately the second season degenerates into a mix of Godfather, Sopranos, and Boardwalk Empire. It’s decent, watchable stuff, but it’s all been done before. They even take certain themes shot-for-shot from these other series. But at least you get Cillian Murphy and Sam Neill, who are so entertaining you could get them on screen watching third tier soccer in a bar and it’d be entertaining.

Sam Neill.jpg

“As a villain, I’m so fucking awesome.”

Cillian Murphy is also in another Irish themed saga of this era called The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Depending on who you ask, this movie made Murphy’s name. As you can tell from its high-minded title, it’s not a lightweight journey. People love this movie, they shout it to the horizons. I however, didn’t quite care for it. It was preachy and predictable. It devalued an incredibly complex civil war into the usual, brother fights brother tale, where one dude is the romantic and the other guy plays it straight. Likely Peaky Blinders, it’s imminently watchable stuff, but it’s all been done before. I know I’m definitely selling this flick short, but as emotional as you’re supposed to be, by the end, I didn’t feel, like, things. I didn’t care what happened to either of these guys. Maybe that says something about me? Anyways, I wonder how many folks wearing green today have even heard of the Irish Civil War though?

cillian-murphy-padraic-delaney.jpg

Hmm, based on how they’re dressed, I wonder which one is going to end up Anti-Treaty and the other Pro-Treaty?

I’m currently reading my Granddad’s copy of A Bridge Too Far, which by some miracle I’ve never read before. The lead element of the Allied ground advance for Market Garden was the Irish Guards. Which despite their name, were recruited only from Northern Ireland. While most of the rest of Ireland essentially sat out World War II, despite the many individuals who volunteered for British units, or the limited clandestine help the Irish government provided. Which, I kind of get, given what the Irish people would have thought about the English. But to which I’ve always found troubling, because it’s like, “Hey, uh, you do know, what Hitler would have done to Ireland, had he won? Right?”

But then you also have to step back and consider that Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t typically about Ireland or the Irish, but rather the Irish diaspora. So unless folks happen to hail from Puerto Rico, or Lebanon, or the Philippines, then I’m not quite sure any similar national concept applies. Except that, by raw numbers, there are probably more German descendants in America, than Irish. But there’s no rough Duestch equivalent to Saint Patrick’s Day, that’s so widespread, so known. The recent Oktoberfest craze is too new, is not just one day, and is in case nowhere near as big.

So what’s this Irish thing anyways? Perhaps it’s simply not enough for some, to just check the American block and call it a day? That they need / want a deeper connection that predates 1607?

Or is to wear green and play crazy, wacky dress up, like Halloween?

Or is to find an excuse to go drink with friends on a weeknight?

Or how about to celebrate and enjoy a non-standard event that still binds people together across all walks of life in an increasingly separated, smartphone divided world?

How about all of the above.

None of these are bad ideas. If they bring people together, and don’t result in people getting too many beer steins cracked over their heads.

So leaving aside the deeper thoughts, I guess I’ll simply say, drink up, have fun. Enjoy Saint Patrick’s Day, folks.  Cheers.

by - 0 comments

virtual, what?

So this photo of Facebook’s Overlord got quite a bit of undeserved attention as, or so folks said, an example of the Giant Octopus getting its claws into everybody’s souls.  I think people got unnerved that they all had headsets on, and then Zuckerberg’s got this creepy smile on his face like he’s ready to drive humanity using a giant joystick.

oculus-1200x799

I mean, I guess.  It’s certainly not a good look for Facebook.  And I think I’d be genuinely uncomfortable in a room alone with Zuckerberg unless I was armed.  But I’m just not sure what the problem is?  Dude’s just showing off his fancy new product, of course they’re all supposed to wear it.

What is this virtual reality thing anyways?  I’m having a hard time understanding how this is supposedly the new thing.  Are people supposed to design buildings, drive cars, or shoot people in video games or what?  I can’t get around the concept that regardless of what you put on somebody’s skull, what they see and hear, that unless you put them in a giant custom built warehouse you run into the problem that people have to actually walk, move, etc, the touch and smell part.

So I think this’ll become a niche thing, expensive and little used.  So rich 10 year old Jimmy and his friends will play Mass Effect in a warehouse at his birthday party.  Ford will allow you to drive their new car on the track built like you’re driving around Mars.  And so on.

Will virtual reality go mainstream?  I just don’t see it.  And in any case, virtual reality is already here in its own way.  When you’re in the airport waiting area and 98% of folks are buried in their smartphones, that’s virtual reality to me.  They’ve all checked out.

In the same line of thinking, here’s another shot, as an example of one that a teacher of mine tried to sell as an example of fear of progress.

giant gear.jpg

This is not the original shot my teacher used, I couldn’t find that one.  Don’t ask me why I remember this lesson and yet can’t remember the date England separated the head of their king.  The same basic concept, a human standing next to a big gear, as an example of the smallness of humanity compared to our own massive creations.  That we’d devalued the human form into just a gear, a cog of the machine.  At the time I’m like, uh, maybe, I guess.  But we need big gears don’t we?  Ships use them to sail around and stuff.  Our #2 pencils (remember those) rode a ship from China to get here.  So what’s the big deal?

Put another way, it’s progress.  In 1963 you couldn’t talk with your friends while you waited at the airport.  Now you can.  That’s kind of cool.  Yet folks can get freaked out by progress, I mean, I’m certainly one of them.  So virtual reality’s going to rub some people the wrong way.  It’s going to be a bit controversial, just you wait.  You pick a topic, it’ll be there in its own way.

Let it.  It might be weird and little used, but it’s still progress.

by - 0 comments

what if Rose had killed Jack?

I normally don’t fall victim to clickbait with the expectation that my immortal soul depends on it. But I have to claim ownership of this setback because I have some weird type of morbid fascination with this Titanic film. As in, if I bump into it, I’m likely to watch a bit of it, but yet feel I can’t stand the film.

First off, if you want to understand why this movie plays doppelganger inside your brain, you need only take an hour of your time to have the guys at RedLetterMedia explain it all in their own dark-twisted-hilarious way.

[rare TAP caveat; some of you might be offended with these guys, so don’t say I didn’t warn you; on the other hand, Roger Ebert wasn’t offended after watching them, but what does he know?]

Second, you can read this surprisingly delicious Washington Post article that still made me hate myself just for clicking on it.

It basically goes through the questions of why Jack just didn’t ride out the cold on a piece of wood that could have held both of them.

But, ponder if you will, how much better this movie could have been if Rose had actually killed Jack.

For example, what if as they’re floating there, Rose surprisingly goes full blown black widow. In the most unprecedented plot twist since Hitler turned out to be the disguised black guy in Casablanca.

They’re floating there and she gets this evil smile and she’s like, “Well Jack, I guess that’s it. You’ve played your part. I’m free of Cal forever. I couldn’t have done it without you. You were the best. But now it’s time for you to go. Goodbye Jack.” And she starts to remove his frozen fingers from the wood one at a time. Leo’s hypothermic, so he can’t move, but you can see in his eyes that he’s freaking out. Then he goes floating away. And Rose just leans back on the floating wood, sighs, and waits to be rescued.

The advantage of ending the movie this way is that in 1997 it would have caused 343 million teenage girls to vomit in the aisles or in the garden outside the theater. This kind of thing appeals to me. Plus, who wouldn’t want to kill Leo.

But if you ask me, the Washington Post article has the best little nugget, of how this would have actually played out:

 “Rose lives on in a cheap house with Jack, and goes on to bear a child or two. . When Jack takes her out with her kids, she notices a wealthy family laughing and walking into an upmarket restaurant. Meanwhile Jack, fatigued by age and experience, almost weakly asks her what’s keeping her, as he walks towards a cheap fast food joint. The rifts slowly get created, and there’s no more ‘high’ of the first few days of love to get her through.”

Yup.

rose and jack.jpg

eh, you both know that one or both of you is going to die in this movie right? I knew it, why didn’t you?

by - 0 comments

choosing the right direction

I find it intellectually interesting that just a few days after the country celebrated the legacy of Martin Luther King, that we have such a forceful issue dealing with his message. Normally I couldn’t care less, or desire to comment, about a circular firing squad emanating from Hollywood, but I feel compelled today for some reason.

Lots of reasonable people can read these words different ways:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

But to me, when King says he wants people not to be judged off the color of their skin, I’m pretty sure he means he doesn’t want people to be judged off the color of their skin.

Yet today’s professed problem with the Oscars is that they’re judging people based off the color of their skin. Titan-of-Humanity George Timothy Clooney says Hollywood is “moving in the wrong direction“.

But what are the Oscars anyways? The organization has been a panel of white man slime since its existence. For instance, all those old Hollywood legends of how they treated young women didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Which has always kind of made me wonder why so many people take the Oscars so seriously.

What exactly is supposed to happen here? If the Academy doesn’t nominate black performers it’s not diverse? So should they have just thrown in two or three black performers, just to keep the controversy away from the panel?

What about Asians? How many is the Academy required to nominate each year? What about lesbians or gays? How many each year is an acceptable number? Is there a set quota that will scratch the itch of every interest group, racial, ethnic, religious, or gender background? And while we’re at the elimination of gender roles, why do the Oscars even continue to nominate based off male or female categories? Shouldn’t we force the Academy to create a single category for all performers? Or at least create a category for all 17 of these newfangled gender roles? You can really take this craziness down a long road to which there is no end.

So to me, the solution simply comes back to King’s dream: judge by character, and nothing else. Which occasionally, yeah, it might mean no performer of a particular identity gets nominated.

So some of you would make the argument that the Academy is not judging by character, and that if it did, there would be more black nominees. Eh, perhaps, but almost every article I’ve read on this issue mentions skin color first as the issue at hand, and not character. I also get that the business is the business. And in the Hollywood business, if you have an Oscar you’re a freaking legend, and if you don’t you’re not. Which is why the Oscars are so important an issue.

But still, at any rate, whatever the situation, I now offer a few belligerent solutions:

1) Stop pretending the Oscars are a meaningful benchmark

Is this the pinnacle of filmmaking? Why? Because the Oscars been around since 1929? So they’re the true benchmark of success because they’re old? These are the judgmental jackasses who picked Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan and gave a best director award to an acknowledged child rapist. I’m not sure what a proper replacement is, but at a certain point maybe it’s time to acknowledge that the opinions of a bunch of faceless big shots doesn’t equal what’s actually a great performance.

2) Stop going to the Oscars

The one thing I’m very okay with regarding this latest round of shouting is that folks are actually putting their actions where their mouths are. Usually Spike Lee just complains but then goes on like nothing happened. This time he’s not going. Good on him. If you truly believe in something, don’t participate. It removes the element of hypocrisy. As I wrote above, I don’t necessarily understand how Lee and the others are going to get the result they want, but at least they’re showing they mean what they say

3) Create your own benchmark

If you’re a young white/black/etc/etc/etc filmmaker or performer then what’s your definition of success after say 40 years in the business? I submit, if your benchmark is, “I won an Oscar”, you’re missing the point. Just as if a writer’s definition is, “I won a Pulitzer”. Those things might be neat, but they aren’t life and they certainly aren’t art. They’re just the voting intentions of a panel of other human beings. Good movies, literature, art, are all things that transcend silly little voting exercises. Art at its best is composed of the things that define the “content” of our character. If you ask me, if you want to move in the right direction? Forget fixing the Oscars. Create your own benchmark. Create your own dream that isn’t based off an award chosen by others. That’s the right direction to go.

george

Oh George.

by - 1 Comment

hopefully he’ll never be known for Potter

Sorry, Wand Goon Squad, you can’t have him.  He doesn’t belong to you.  Any more than Alec Guinness belonged to Star Wars.  Because both men were cut from the same mold, and it showed in the way they lived, and in their best roles.

alan rickman.jpg

But sorry, Potter was not one of his best roles, and it’s not how he should be remembered.  I’ve never read the books, so maybe Snape is more of a relevant presence in there.  But in the movies (which I was forced to watch) Rickman‘s talents are devalued on a character who’s about as critical as a coat stand.  Even Snape’s death scene in the last film feels like it’s completely wasting Rickman‘s immense talents, like they’re just going through the motions.

snape

Don’t get me wrong, the Potter films aren’t completely horrible, they’re fairly decent.  There are some really, really powerful scenes in there.  But claiming Rickman’s life over them isn’t right.  Guinness didn’t want Star Wars that way either.

So where do we place Alan?  Best villain of all time?  Yeah, maybe that’s a start.  To me, the best villain of all time knife fight might be between Hans Gruber and the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Who would win?  Us, by watching it.

hans gruber.jpg

Just drink in this deleted scene longer clip from the Robin Hood extended edition.

This was the film era where a villain was fun, sharp, cool, even bordering on campy.  But you knew they meant business.  They also had motivations behind their actions.  Both Gruber and the Sheriff’s purpose make sense as Rickman skillfully reveals their character.  Whereas nowadays most villains are just stark-raving-mad-brutal-psychopaths.

And yet, I think Rickman wouldn’t want to be known for these either.  He was always afraid of being typecast and having these two lovely roles ruin his range and reputation.  He did theater, did it superbly, but also painted and was in general (as most like him) a true artist.

But more than anything he was just fun, fun to watch, fun to listen to, fun to see.  And you can tell whether he’s poking at himself in Galaxy Quest or acting in the oh so weird but delightful Alan Rickman Tea Time, that he’s having fun too.

by - 0 comments

what if the force is not with you?

I find it hard to get excited over movies now.  Everything kind of blends together.  It’s all kind of the same, nothing’s really unique.

Even stuff I’ve loved for decades, like the James Bond series, has become tired.  I should have known better, but I actually got really excited for Spectre, and it wasn’t all that good.  I was genuinely bored watching Spectre.  Even during the mind melting action scenes with planes and cars and speed and action?  If I had a wristwatch, I’d have looked at it repeatedly.  Don’t get me wrong, Spectre isn’t awful, but there’s just nothing exciting about it.

I have the same feeling with Star Wars.  I think I’d walk out of the theater and be like, “Eh, that was okay, I guess.”  Part of the problem is I feel like I already know what the plot of the movie is seeing as how we’ve all been bombarded by trailers and merchandise ads for like seventeen months.  And now that I know the plot, I’m kind of already bored with it:

Rebel spy meets little girl who find Han and the Falcon, get attacked, we eventually see the Rebels (Not Rebels) again and there are X-Wings and another Death Star (checks watch) and a whole bunch of lightsaber fights (checks watch) and a big battle at the end.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it won’t be awful, but there’s just nothing exciting about it to me.

It’s like they’re just going through the motions.  Probably because JJ Abrams is just going through the motions.  It’s the safe bet.  This movie will make over $2B provided JJ just feeds a serviceable movie to the viewing public.  As long as he totally doesn’t screw it up, they’ll do alright.  It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, it just has to not be bad.  After the total disaster that was the prequels, folks will be glad to settle for decent, I assure you.

But what if the force is not with you?  It’s not really with me, so I’m not even sure if I’ll see it in the theaters.  I probably will, but I guess I’m just not feeling excited about it.  That’s a bummer.  Oh well.

jj-abrams-shows-off-first-footage-of-x-wing-in-star-wars-episode-viiMy the cash be with you.

by - 0 comments

were it not for Duracell; Obi-Wan would have slain Vader

Somebody who’s actually seen the newest Hunger Games or has read the books is going to have to tell me if they have Dodge cars and trucks in there. As in, do the stormtrooper-based Hunger Games goons drive around in Dodge trucks? Or does Jennifer Lawrence lead her militant-teenage-love-army into battle in a Dodge Challenger? I ask this most important of questions because I saw this ad where they show various Hunger Games trailer shots alongside Dodge cars.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Dodge isn’t in there. So then why exactly does Dodge desire to be associated with a story that has among other things genocide, starvation, murder, and other lightweight topics that typically encourage people to go joyfully buy cars?

I don’t know what they call these things? Joint ads? Dual commercials? Future obliterated Earth tutorial?

The first one of these I saw was in 2009 when all of a sudden they shoehorned in an ad for Avatar interspersed with clips of the World Series. Joe Buck got tasked to narrate the thing. It literally broke my brain. I was like, “Eh, is there a baseball league on this mysterious alien world? Did Joe Buck misplace his brain medicine? Should I stop drinking now?” The commercial was almost entirely over before I figured out it was a deliberate dual ad.

So this is the way it’s supposed to work, I guess:

1) You like The Hunger Games

2) You see an ad of The Hunger Games alongside Dodge

3) So you like Dodge now

4) You go get your $

5) You use $ to go buy a Dodge vehicle

Or, simply replace the words Dodge and The Hunger Games to have the opposite reaction.

This is the most basic and simplistic advertising campaign imaginable. It basically devalues the audience (you) into nothing more than a partial-corporeal-ape-like-creature. How did this juvenile campaign work in 2009 and Avatar? Well, the success of that simplistic ad helped equal $2.79B. So I guess it works? I think?

So now it’s all over the place. They’re doing it for Star Wars too! Gaze upon this disgrace to humanity, only this time it’s Fiat.

I have it in my mind that they need to go back in time to 1977 and redo all the trailers for the original.

They can show Obi-Wan and Vader dueling, and Obi-Wan’s kicking Vader’s ass. Vader’s lightsaber keeps malfunctioning, and Obi-Wan’s just toying with him. Instead of finishing him off, Obi-Wan keeps kicking Vader in the shins and smacking him in the face, laughing. But then Vader has an ah-ha moment, whips out some Duracell batteries, puts them into his lightsaber while epic music plays, Vader viciously slays Obi-Wan, and then looks directly at the camera with Obi-Wan’s mangled corpse behind him: “The Force is no match for the power of the Copper Top!”

But of course this didn’t happen, for Star Wars 1977 was before the time where everybody was a sell out. A simple, glorious time when movies were still pure. And so you see, and, oh, oh no, please no.

vader

“You don’t know the true power of The Dark Side, only Duracell does.”