Reviews I Wish I Had Written: Adam Quigley's Hit Piece on Prometheus

Adam Quigley over at /Film has written a great review of Prometheus. You should avoid it like the plague if you have yet to see the film, but it says just about everything I felt coming out of Ridley Scott's latest... thing... 

I don't completely agree with Adam's read of the "big reveal" at the end of the movie, nor did I feel that the android David was the most interesting character in the film, but that said his overall take on the movie is 1:1 with my sentiments. As such, I'm ripping a few of his larger and more on-point quotes to help give my take on Prometheus. Spoilers and unbridled negativity abound from here on out.

Prometheus may seem like more sophisticated fare, with a promise of greater significance deeply entrenched in the oft-mentioned subject matter (i.e., uncovering the origin of human life), but the movie utterly fails at tying its ideas and its monstrous happenings together. Despite feigning interest in probing life’s most pertinent mysteries, the film has nothing to say. It asks — literally asks, aloud — weighty questions without any interest in exploring the answers. The film expects you to do the heavy lifting, as though it should be rewarded for even daring to ask the questions to begin with. 

...

Oh, what, you have a problem with the lack of meaningful plot resolution? You’ve completely missed the point! It’s about the desire to find answers, not the answers themselves! Why try to satisfy you with answers when life doesn’t have any satisfying answers to give? Check mate, motherfuckers!

Is this seriously the point of Prometheus? We’ve waited this long to have our questions about the Alien mythology answered, only to be told that expecting satisfying answers to those questions is actually reflective of the folly of mankind? That’s it? 

How profound. Nevermind that I only sought the answers to those questions to begin with because Ridley Scott chose to make a movie that asks those questions.

This might be the thing that bugged me the most about Prometheus: the movie pretends to ask big philosophical questions about life and creation and faith, etc. ad naseum, but then says literally nothing substantive about anything. Seriously, there's a line right at the end of the movie where David asks Noomi Rapace basically "Why do you want to know the answer to [insert big question here]?" and her response is, verbatim, "I can understand because I'm human but you can't because you're a robot."

For fucking real?!

The movie's big point is that we should be curious about the big questions or else we're just robots, and that's ostensibly bad now? Never mind that this message is thematically and literally incoherent since the entire movie has poised David as the most "human" character of the bunch in terms of his (flirtatiously hinted at) desires to be loved/accepted/not treated like part of the decore. He has one of Prometheus' rare great moment earlier in the film when he confronts a human scientist who's frustrated about not being able to meet and speak with his creator (it makes sense in context). When the man tells David that humanity made androids "Because we could," David retorts by asking "Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same answer from your creators?” It's a moment of sheer brilliance and seems to point towards a thematic structure that interrogates both the reasons for human existence and our vain desires for lofty rationales BUT NOPE. We get nothing of the sort and none of that matters by the movie's end! Instead the big conclusion is that it's bad and inhuman that David doesn't have a higher level dissatisfaction with unanswered questions about existence, which is ironically my major takeaway from Prometheus!

But I digress. My apologies, Prometheus is an all-over-the-place kind of affair and so I'm sure this review must read that way too. Back to Adam:

Stripped from its Alien roots, Prometheus barely has a story to call its own. A lot happens in it, but the events play out with so little thought or urgency that almost nothing seems to happen at all. By the time it hits its third act, the film has completely devolved into generic sci-fi drivel, rushing through each incongrous payoff without bothering to properly root them in any sort of intellectually or emotionally substantiated context. Scene after scene, the film subjects its expert team of stock horror dummies to inactivity and death, completely devaluing the inherent thoughtfulness of the themes at hand, and in doing so removing any trace of intelligent design in a story that’s all about tracing back the roots of intelligent design. But then, maybe that irony is not lost on the writers, who treat the film’s actual gods like dummies, too.

And finally, the don't-call-it-a-money-shot summation:

To call Prometheus inconsequential would be a severe understatement. This movie is a trifling blip of narrative disarray, so lacking in anything resembling an intelligible throughline or purpose that I can’t help but wonder why there was any incentive to tell this story at all. Prometheus isn’t just bad; it actively detracts from the very mythology it’s trying to enhance, reducing the Alien legacy to little more than an accidental byproduct of a mind-numbingly stupid expedition.

Yep. That's pretty much the gist of it. When asked what I thought of the movie, I've summed up my thoughts as "What the fuck did I just watch?" and "I'm frustrated." Because really that's how Prometheus left me: frustrated that a movie with so much going for it (strong cast, strong crew, strong franchise roots, a legitimately interesting premise) does so little and purports to say so much. It's thematically scattered, it's plot is nigh incoherent, it expressly refuses to address its most interesting facets, and worst of all it has a self-righteous attitude about the whole thing. It's very tone poises Prometheus as a critic-proof endeavour along the lines of Tree of Life, though even mentioning the two films in the same breath has me mentally gagging. 

People often ask me why I'm so down on so many movies here on this blog, and I think it's a fair question. I'm critical of movies because I love them, and I expect a lot from them. I don't want everything to be high art, but when I sit down to give a film a few hours of my life I expect more than just a way to pass the time. I expect it to give me something interesting, something thoughtful, something that knows what it wants to do/say and does so competently.

I expected Prometheus to do what every piece of its advertising promised it would: tell me an interesting, intelligent, high-brow sci-fi horror story about the origins of mankind and somehow tie it into the Alien franchise. The movie we got wasn't intelligent or high-brow, and I'd barely call it interesting. The first words that come to mind are "stupefying," "infuriating," "insulting" (although that might be the Alien fanboy in me lashing out), and above all else "frustrating." After all the hype, all the "it shares some DNA with Alien" nonsense, all the spoiler-filled trailers and incredible viral marketing, and all the sublime mystique that fans have enjoyed since 1979, Prometheus is mess of a film that's less than the sum of its parts.

I expected more. Silly me.

Joss Whedon's The Avengers Review

Who woulda thought they'd be able to pull this off?

The Avengers is a summer blockbuster unlike anything we've ever seen. Featuring an all-star ensemble cast, the movie is the cumulative product of five films worth of world-building and ground-laying. Over the course of the two Iron Man flicks, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor, Marvel Studios has effectively crafted an onscreen comic book universe in which four larger-than-life heroes can believably join forces to save mankind. They've been doing this stuff since the '60s in comic books but never before has such a monumental task been attempted in film. With that in mind, it's more than a little reliving to say that The Avengers succeeds, thanks in no small part to the brilliant mind of Joss Whedon.

When Iron Man came out in 2008 I was pleasantly surprised to find it was an enjoyable super hero origin story. The movie played to its main strength in Robert Downey Jr. and presented a funny and charismatic hero that was fun to watch and easy to root for. And in the end it made us a promise: that Marvel would give us something more, something bigger than we'd ever seen. Based on how great Iron Man turned out to be I was excited, but after Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk ended up being mediocre at best, I worried that The Avengers would prove to be a disappointment. My fears were abated somewhat when Marvel brought Joss Whedon on board in April 2010, but then last summer's Captain America ended up being kind of shitty despite Whedon's additions to the film's script. As much as I adored Whedon's prior work (particularly the short-lived Firefly and the troubled Dollhouse), I wasn't sure he could pull together something as big as The Avengers, especially given Marvel's heavy-handed approach to the franchise with Iron Man 2. My fear was that Marvel would restrict Whedon to the film's detriment, and force him to make their movie as opposed to his.

And they sort of did.

The first half of The Avengers is a mess. Seriously, it barely makes sense. The villain is sort of established, the heroes assemble, they fight amongst themselves, the villain attacks, etc., but it doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Each of the major characters is expertly acted and written, and their developing relationships are enjoyable to watch. It's clear that Whedon's at the helm because the movie gets by solely on how the heroes interact with one another, which has always been Joss's forté. However the larger story seems aimless, and nothing that occurs seems to be clearly building towards, well, anything. Don't get me wrong, I was never bored in the theatre, but for the first hour and a bit I was underwhelmed.

But then something happens. I won't spoil it here but one character's dialogue identifies an event as a clear "deus-ex machina" type moment where the writer (Whedon) gives the heroes a reason to unite. It's heavy-handed and a more than a little cliché, but somehow it's brilliantly effective and everything that comes after is a pure joy to watch. I can't really explain it without giving away too much but trust me that you'll know the event when it happens, if only because the movie suddenly becomes awesome.

The movie's trailers have made no secret of the fact that The Avengers concludes with an epic battle sequence that literally takes up almost half the movie. However, in a rare example of restraint in Hollywood marketing, the trailers don't give away the scene's most incredible moments. All of the heroes come together for an epic battle for Earth against an (admittedly underdeveloped) alien enemy, and it ranks among the most rewarding action sequences ever put on film. Not only are the action shots effective and awe-inspiring, there is also a character-driven sense of humour to the scene that was unlike anything I have ever seen. It's strange to say but there were moments during the battle where I laughed as hard as I can ever remember laughing in a theatre. It's a rare and wonderful thing for a fight sequence to succeed so brilliantly in this kind of way.

The Avengers is a unique and worthwhile experience, almost solely on the merits of the final battle sequence, and I wholeheartedly attribute it to the talent of Joss Whedon. What probably happened with the movie is that Whedon came onboard after the overall premise of the film (ie the villain, the basic plot, etc) had already been set by Marvel and the original script writer, Zak Penn. The fact that Penn was ultimately only credited with the story backs this theory up, and indicates that Whedon was probably only able to flesh out the characters, dialogue, and minor happenings within the film's larger preset framework. It makes sense then that although the characters are strong throughout, the film stumbles through its own plot until the final battle. At that point Whedon undoubtedly had a lot more room to stretch in terms of his contributions to the script, so long as the heroes still had an epic concluding fight.

The Avengers succeeds against all odds on the strength of its director and the talented ensemble cast. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it doesn't suffer from many of the problems you might expect. Each of the actors involved does a great job, their interactions are pitch-perfect, and the movie is far from a mindless action-fest. All of these are common characteristics for Whedon's work, and it's unsurprising but also a little relieving to see his talents on display. Somehow Joss's personality is able to shine through and The Avengers doesn't crumble under the weight of the five lead-up films or Marvel's franchise crafting.

I urge you to check out The Avengers while it's still in theatres. It's not intellectual, it is a super hero movie through and through, but it's some of the most fun I've had in a theatre in a long time and that's worth a lot. If anyone feels differently then I'd be happy to discuss the movie's relative merits and flaws over a shawarma.

The Style of The Wire

About a week ago this video-essay on the visual style of The Wire made the rounds on film blogs and such. I only finally got a chance to watch it this morning, and frankly it's stunning. Erland Lavik, a Norwegian academic, gives a shockingly thorough and well-presented breakdown of The Wire's unique approach to story-telling, and spends thirty minutes expanding upon a premise that only takes a few words to convey: it's shot like a documentary. His analysis of the "creeping up on the action" motif, and the way the camera follows instead of fishes, floored me by pointing out subtle but significant aspects of some of my favourite scenes.

Although I'd acknowledged that The Wire was presented in a particular way to reflect its narrative, until I watched this video I hadn't really considered all of the subtle ways in which that design choice manifested itself. Lavik's video feels like sitting through a half-hour introductory lecture on filmmaking, and if that sounds like something you'd enjoy then I strongly recommend you check it out.

Warning: Spoilers for The Wire follow

As an aside, the zoom on Bodie near the end is positively haunting, especially with Lavik's narration of how Bodie clearly doesn't see the big picture at that moment...

One line I particularly appreciate is when Lavik says that "when everything is presented as climactic, nothing is" in reference to Domino. That sentiment also perfectly captures one of my (many) problems with the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica: the fact that we saw Admiral Adama reduced to tears so many times robbed the image of its impact. *Sigh* But that's another rant for another post...

(Via /Film)

Getting Stoked for 'Shame'

I've been meaning to write about the upcoming movie Shame for a while now. The sophomore feature-length release from director Steve McQueen, Shame stars the incredible Michael Fassbender as a sex addict living in New York. When his younger sister (played by the increasingly daring Carey Mulligan) moves in with him, Fassbender's life begins to spiral out of control.

What's gotten me so excited for Shame is the bold approach distributor Fox Searchlight is taking with the film: they're embracing its NC-17 rating. More than that they're wearing it like "a badge of honour." This move is unusual in the extreme and it's strange but inspiring to see such a brave step forward coming from a member of the Fox family. Here's an incredible quote from Fox Searchlight director Steve Gilula:

I think NC-17 is a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter. We believe it is time for the rating to become usable in a serious manner. The sheer talent of the actors and the vision of the filmmaker are extraordinary. It’s not a film that everyone will take easily, but it certainly breaks through the clutter and is distinctive and original. It’s a game changer.

The NC-17 rating has traditionally been a death mark for films that push the limits of social norms. When a film gets this rating most theatres typically won't play it, fearing public backlash against deviant content. Germaine Lussier over at /Film explains it best:

When a film gets branded with an NC-17 rating, most studios do one of four things. They re-cut it hoping to get an R-rating, release it unrated, doom it direct-to-DVD or suck it up and go for it.

That last option is a rarity because embracing the NC-17 rating means fighting an unfair, almost pornographic, connotation. The MPAA website itself explicitly states “NC-17 does not mean ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic’ in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense. The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience.” But that doesn’t stop major theater chains from not playing the movies, major video distributors from not stocking the movies or TV channels from not advertising the movies. It’s a huge mountain to climb.

The resultant battles between filmmakers (at every level of the process) and the MPAA over ratings have been well documented. This phenomenon has spawned an interesting (albeit very one-sided) documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated, that everyone who's interested in film should see.

Now to see a major indie distributor like Fox Searchlight coming out in support of a film that's been branded with the NC-17 rating is both refreshing and encouraging. Hopefully it's a sign that the stigma associated with the rating is deteriorating and that we'll be seeing more daring and unique cinema as a result.

Anyway, I bring this all up now because the red band trailer for Shame has been released and it is, in a word, electric. It's embedded below, but seeing as it's red band I'll warn you that it's definitely NSFW. The score and the acting are the highlights of this minimalistic but powerful taste of what we'll see. Without a single line of dialogue Fassbender manages to establish an incredible sense of tension and forced restraint. On top of that the music evokes memories of The Social Network and There Will Be Blood, two of my favourite film scores.

The trailer's gotten me excited for a film I would already have gone to see solely for the cinematic-political reasons stated above. Shame has received great reviews and this trailer gives credence to that buzz. Hopefully this film's success will match its quality so that it has the opportunity to positively impact the entire industry.

Cool Stuff: Remake of Citizen Kane Trailer

Kane is perhaps the only citizen who can save the newspaper industry... From the internet...

(Via /Film)

Vincenzo Natali Adapting Neuromancer

/Film reported the news a while back, but there's now official confirmation that Splice director Vincenzo Natali will direct a film adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer.

I have a serious affinity for Neuromancer, and to be honest the fact that Natali will be directing it accounts for like half of my excitement for Splice. I'm still excited to see Splice on its own merits (though with some significant apprehensions), but I'll be unusually suspicious of the directorial talents on display. If someone is going to make a film adaptation of Neuromancer they better be on their fucking game, and Natali still has everything to prove as far as I'm concerned.

A while back I asked whether or not a cultural product can be so influential as to render itself irrelevant for adaptation; I used Neuromancer as an example of a book that has not been adapted into a major film but has nevertheless made a serious impact on contemporary cinema by inspiring more popular movies, particularly The Matrix. In a recent interview with /Film's David Chen, Natali specifically addressed how his adaptation will negotiate the significant cultural weight of The Matrix in adapting Neuromancer. I'm including the relevant section of the interview here, but you should really check out /Film for the full piece, there's both video and text available and it's a great interview. Natali clearly has a lot of passion, time will tell whether or not he has the competence to match it.

On making Neuromancer in a post-Matrix world, he says:

“For me, it’s a story of redemption, if you want to get down to the core element of it. I think in terms of how you approach Neuromancer now, post-Matrix, post-all the other films that have poached from it, in the 21st century (because the book was written in 1984), I think you have to take those things and use them to your advantage, because what they give you, what The Matrix, for instance, gives you is the opportunity to make Neuromancer in a culture that is already aware of what The Matrix is. I mean, the very word “matrix” is in Neuromancer. It was borrowed by the Wachowski brothers for their film. I think that’s a good thing, because I don’t even know how someone would have been able to make that film 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because it’s so abstract. I don’t even know how people understood the book when it first came out. I think I read it in the late 1980s, but in 1984, how would people even understand it, because it was just so far ahead of the curve?

I think when you read it now, it still feels very relevant, maybe in some ways more relevant, because so much of what it predicted has come to pass. And therefore, my approach to it would be to be very realistic. I think The Matrix is a wonderful film, but it absolutely takes place in a comic book universe…everything about it, in the best possible way mind you, but really I think it’s a very heightened reality..."

Splice: Expectation and Apprehension

Splice opened in theatres last Friday and I'm going to see it later today. I first heard about the movie back in January when the /Film.com guys were covering the Sundance film festival. I was immediately intrigued since the movie got great reviews and was essentially billed as a contemporary re-envisioning of Frankenstein, one of my favourite novels. Since then I've been patiently waiting for Splice's release, but in the last few months the marketing push for the film has started to worry me:

The trailer above shows that Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley use human DNA to create a new life form that eventually gets out of control. All that is fine and dandy and sounds like it could make for a solid horror film, but I'm concerned about the angle the film seems to be taking on this type of experiment. The trailer openly discusses contemporary legislation and debate about the use of human DNA, and shows that the scientific protagonists are blazing a trail regardless of whether or not the powers that be allow it. Despite that setup Brody's character appears to be a mouthpiece for the conservative right who tries to kill the new creature and melodramatically calls it "a mistake." When things take a turn for the horrible the trailer seems to vindicate this perspective and broadcast the "moral" to the audience that "science is bad!"

I've mentioned recently that I'm getting really sick of primitivism and conservatism in my mainstream movies. Yes they're popcorn flicks but dammit I want to empathize with the characters and feel that my upper-middle class perspective is represented! I want my popular entertainment to promote a culture of liberalism and open-mindedness, not regressive conservative doctrine. Admittedly a contemporary Frankenstein isn't exactly the best site for progressive politics (modern Prometheus much?), but it's possible for movies to show experiments going horrifically awry without implying that it's intrinsically wrong to explore new scientific territory.

I don't know that Splice berates the use of cloning technologies or experimentation with human DNA, but judging by the trailers it certainly looks that way. I'm still going to see the film because it looks like an interesting cross between Alien and Species, but I'm going in with my guard up. I'll do a follow-up post saying whether or not Splice is more intelligent than it looks, but right now I'm not hopeful. Fingers crossed that I'm wrong.

The Bechdel Test

A recent post at /Film alerted me to the existence of the Bechdel Test, and I must say it really got me thinking. First described in Alison Bechdel's 1985 Dykes To Watch Out For comic strip (below), the test exposes a disturbing trend in mainstream cinema. The test asks three simple questions of any given movie:

1. Are there at least two female characters in the film?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. Do they talk about something other than men?

If the answer to any of these questions is no then the movie fails the test, and you can check out Bechdel Test.com for a surprising list of films that do and do not pass. It's disheartening to see that such a limited portrayal of women is so prevalent, and that so many good movies perpetuate it. Worse than that it's difficult to admit that the test is still so effective and relevant after 25 years.

New Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World Trailer

A post at /Film has alerted me that there is a new trailer for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World up on Facebook. I am including it below:

My excitement for the film is palpable, by which I mean that it is capable of being palped. At the same time I doubt it'll be anywhere near as good as the books. That's not to say the movie won't be earth-shatteringly awesome, but rather that the books set the bar so high that I'm lowering my expectations in preparation. I want to enjoy this film for what it is, not what it isn't, and then pontificate about the difference.

We shall see what Edgar Wright hath wrought come August 20th.

Michael Bay on 3D Upconversion

I've made it clear in the past that I'm not the biggest fan of Michael Bay. His testosterone-fueled approach to film making encapsulates all of the irritating stereotypes about Americans: the overt racial and sexual insensitivity, the sheer superficiality, and the obsession with the military, to name but a few. His films are gloriously tepid affairs purporting to be epics due to the size of their pyrotechnic budgets. He seems to be doing nothing but perfecting his financially-guaranteed production formula, and each of his films comes at a steep cost to the collective intelligence. Bay's movies are the cinematic equivalent of McDonalds, and so as far as I'm concerned the dude can go drown in one of his many swimming pools filled with money.


For the sake of full disclosure I should note here that I fucking adore The Rock, and am thus a giant hypocrite. Moving right along...


Because Avatar made more money than AIG lost in 2008, 3D is now the next big thing for movies. At least as far as the suits are concerned it's a good way to make a lot of money, and so there are going to be a lot more 3D films in the future. In particular studios are pushing for their blockbuster tentpole releases to come out in 3D, and that includes the next iteration in the cultural vortex that is the Transformers franchise. A year ago Bay stated his suspicions about 3D being a fad, and his hesitancy to adopt it. At the time it was a reasonable stance to take given the unproven nature of the medium. On this side of Avatar, however, there is a little bit more pressure for him to utilize the technology for his next act of intellectual terrorism. He acknowledged this pressure a few months ago when he started doing tests to give the technology a shot.


A little over a week ago Bay clarified his stance on 3D, and specifically addressed the difference between shooting in 3D and converting 2D film to 3D. The former was on display in Avatar, the latter can be seen in piece of shit like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland or the remake of Clash of the Titans. I'm including Bay's quote in full below, as I read it over at /Film:


“I shoot complicated stuff, I put real elements into action scenes and honestly, I am not sold right now on the conversion process. … I am trying to be sold, and some companies are still working on the shots I gave them. Right now, it looks like fake 3D, with layers that are very apparent. You go to the screening room, you are hoping to be thrilled, and you’re thinking, huh, this kind of sucks. People can say whatever they want about my movies, but they are technically precise, and if this isn’t going to be excellent, I don’t want to do it. And it is my choice. … I’m used to having the A-team working on my films, and I’m going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I’m not.  Avatar took four years. You can’t just shit out a 3D movie. I’m saying, the jury is still out.”


Wow. In a stunning turn of events, Bay seems to have a completely reasonable and awesome perspective on the whole debacle. His movies are, yes, technically precise, and if he thinks the 3D cameras are too bulky for his style of shooting then fair enough. As with IMAX technology, 3D necessitates certain sacrifices and considerations; it is different from traditional 2D film and thus requires a different style in order to make it work. If Bay doesn't want to deal with all that then he is well within his rights, and frankly no big loss. It is incredibly refreshing, however, to hear his open dismissal of the 3D upconversion process. I am in complete agreement with his evaluation of that practice as a money-grabbing gimmick. Nothing that has been produced using the conversion process has been notably good, and much of it has been abhorrently bad, in particular the recent Alice in Wonderland. That movie featured sequences that were near unwatchable due to the crappy use of 3D technology, such as the rabbit hole scene which looked more like an extended motion blur than anything else.

It's not often that someone like Michael Bay comes out and says something so honest and awesome about the film industry. I just wanted to acknowledge this moment for the sake of posterity, and to highlight the fact that 3D upconversion is a shitty fad that we hopefully wont have to suffer through for very long.

From Around the Web - 3/8/10

Above: love that Godzilla, love haikus.

A law-minded discussion of the recent split between Activision and the heads of Infinity Ward.

Hey, looks like I will be able to play Portal 2 after all!

Famous movie quotes depicted as pie charts. Awesome.

A tragedy. Lets hope Kotaku is completely off base in their reading of the article.

Thoughts on Avatar Part 2: The Issue of Race

Alright, time for another piece on James Cameron's Avatar. My first post focused on the use and potential of the 3D technology used in the film. This time I want to talk about the racial politics of the film, specifically the problematic depiction of the Other and the purported critique of colonialism.

From Around The Web - 1/26/10

If I had been Errol Morris I probably would have shit my pants when I got this message in writing on official Miramax letterhead. Harvey Weinstein is clearly a corporate badass, and would most likely eat me.

Why hire a real secretary when you could just buy an iLane? All the benefits without the hassle of having to deal with a real, live woman!

I just learned the sad news that The Big Bop is closing. For all those who don't live in Toronto, this was a rock club that featured all ages shows. I spent a large proportion of my youth there and it's sad to see it go.

Ok, so I lied. There was at least one awesome thing about Youth In Revolt: it introduced me to this song

Youth In Revolt

I just got back from seeing Youth In Revolt, the new Michael Cera vehicle about adolescent love and rebellion. After the break I'm embedding the trailer followed by my review.

The Car Long Shot in Children of Men

I was listening to the /Filmcast on my way home from work and in the latest After Dark episode they discuss a controversial article by Mike D'Angelo over at The AV Club (for link see the update at the end of this post). In the article D'Angelo discuses and devalues the famous shot inside the car in Children of Men. If you haven't seen the film then stop reading right now and go watch the movie because it is a fantastic piece of cinema and you should go into it with as few preconceptions as possible (a fact D'Angelo's argument proves). If you have seen the film then after the break is an embed of the scene in question and a discussion of D'Angelo's critique.

Zombieland Review @ The Lemon Life

The folks over at The Lemon Life have posted my review of Zombieland. For any of you who are recent graduates from university, The Lemon Life is an online magazine that focuses on common post-grad experiences. There are a lot of people contributing articles that give advice and perspective on living without academic guidance for the first time. It's a cool site, you should check it out.

Cool Video: Tarantino on Boyle's Sunshine

I don't mean to be such a Tarantino fanboy by posting this right after my post praising Inglourious Basterds, but I found this video on /Film this morning and it's an amazing critique of Boyle's Sunshine.

I saw the movie when it hit theatres back in 2007 and felt that it was an interesting but deeply flawed movie. Beyond its laughable third act twist, I felt that the film borrowed too heavily and obviously from the heavies of the sci-fi genre, both thematicaly nd aesthetically. Tarantino is more forgiving of Sunshine's clear references to its influences, and praises it for exploring new territories.

The reason I'm posting the video is because I think it's interesting to see a director exhibiting this kind of geeky reverence for film making and in-depth critique of a director-screenwriter team. Regardless of my feelings about the majority of his films, this is the reason I like Tarantino: he is a geek. It's great to see this kind of excitement and energy from someone in his position, especially considering how long he's been in the business.

Anyways, that's it for today. This past week has seen me return to the city, so hopefully I can return to a regular posting schedule fairly soon.

Robocop, Transformers, and sexism and racism in blockbuster movies

So now that I've seen Robocop I actually feel somewhat vindicated in my lack of surprise at the racism and sexism in Transformers 2. I mean, yes, it's awful, and possibly the most overt example of prejudice in a Hollywood film in recent memory, but does that make it remarkable, or unique in its offensiveness?

Take the scene in Robocop when Nancy Allen's character essentially sets the plot of the entire film in motion by being unable to stop herself from taking a peep at the penis of the black member of Kurtwood Smith's gang. She has him at gunpoint, ready to be arrested, but his penis is out, and when she looks down for a second he hits her and puts her temporarily out of commission. As a result she is unable to come to Murphy's aid, he gets gunned down, etc., becomes Robocop. The entire plot hinges on this sexist and racist joke. Of course she's unable to stop herself from looking at the black man's penis, which is, of course, gigantic and thus worth looking at.

Transformers 2: Take Two; or, The Revenge of Michael Bay

I want to start this second post on Transformers 2 off with a few choice quotes. The first comes from Maryann Johnson, whose review of the film I linked to at the end of my last post. In it she astutely points out that,

“… Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire. It’s so us, a preposterously perfect reflection of who we are: loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent... and in love with ourselves for it. And Michael Bay is the high priest of our self-engrossment. … What we have right here is the Easter Island statue of our legacy.”

Once again, her full review is available at http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/0

6/062309transformers_revenge_of_the_fa.html, and it's one of the better pieces on the movie out there. Now, somewhat more succinctly, I want to quote David Chen of /Film, discussing Transformers 2 at the beginning of last week’s /Filmcast. In discussing his initial, unformed thought on Michael Bay’s latest opus, he says,

“Basically I think Transformers 2 perfectly encapsulates everything that’s wrong, not only with America, but with American cinema.”

Some random thoughts and film reviews

I think I'm going to make a policy of dedicating one hour a day in the afternoon (either when I get back from LSAT classes or just general afternoons) to writing for this blog, because the complete lack of updates since I finished school is getting a little ridiculous. Today I leave for Scotland and the whiskey trail my dad and I are doing, which I can't believe is actually happening now, today, for real. I get back on the 18th, and starting on the 19th I will begin being more serious about this thing, because I'm tired of not writing. Also, judging by how poorly I expressed myself in this first paragraph, I need to keep up the regular practice in order to retain any semblance of verbal proficiency.

I've started listening to podcasts more regularly again, especially Poetry Off the Shelf, This American Life, and the /Filmcast. Poetry Off The Shelf just needs to update more, it's an outstanding podcast that I wish I could listen to more and which I look forward to every month. The Poetry Foundation is doing great work, and it's nice to have them in the increasingly present absence (ha) of an educational institution in my life. This American Life had a great show the other day that featured a guy with a really funny story about marriage and getting hit by a car (wish I remembered his name), the musical stylings of Joss Whedon (the low point of the show, surprisingly enough), and a story from Dan Savage about the death of his mother and religion. The latter was one of the most amazing and poignant stories I've ever heard, and I instantly told Mirah about it since she absolutely loves Dan Savage; Savage described his loss of faith and his devout mother's reactions, her support of him, and then her eventual demise. She sounds like the kind of mother you only hear about, the kind who really is as much of a best friend as a mother without any required concessions. It's no wonder that she produced someone as well loved and inteligent as Dan Savage.

The /Filmcast I was really just waiting to both have some time and also see the movies they've been reviewing, and the Crank 2 and Wolverine episodes proved to be well worth the wait. I need to be seeing more movies more regularly, I've been slacking off of late, and I want to start writing about all of them in a general way, reviews, reactions, thoughts, ramblings, etc., just something to get down my thoughts on paper if only to force myself to have them more. Speaking of which, some quick thoughts on the movies I've seen since I got home:

Star Trek: I'll get my complaint(s) out of the way right off the bat, and just say that a few times in the film I felt it treated the audience like idiots by making the subtext and narrative complexities just a little too obvious for us. The visual metaphor during the birth sequence that aligned Kirk with a sace ship, for instance, or the explanation of the alternate reality route the franchise is now taking. For the latter I understand that they need to make this clear, I just felt that the story did this on its own, particularly the scene with Kirk and old Spock, but I might need to see the movie again to be sure. Besides those minor nit pickings, however, I thought the movie was absolutely fantastic, J.J. Abrams has done a great job of updating and streamlining the franchise for general audiences while being respectful of its history and fans. I know that he really already has "made it," but if nothing else I think this film wil ensure that Abrams earns a position as one of the "big names" currently working in Hollywood. He's great at what he does, which is make exciting and intelligent films with heart, and he deserves the widespread respect and attention that this will inevitably earn him. Now if only Joss Whedon could have a similar blockbuster experience...

Crank High Voltage: I read the first movie as a "balls out" parody of action films and video games, and this second one tried to do exactly that same thing. In attempting to do so, however, it became a bit of a self-parody, succumbing to its own conceit and ending up as just another crazy action movie franchise. That said, the movie was awesome and incredibly entertaining. Someone on the /Filmcast review called it a modern exploitation film in the purest sense, and I like that analogy. The movie just takes advantage of every minority, character, actor, gender, taboo, and expectation we have, and I loved every second of it. There is a character who has full body Tourette's syndrome for the sole purpose of having the audience laugh at him because of his disease. This movie is not politically correct, and it revels in that nature. I actually think it didn't go far enough at times, for example: why oh why did they not have Jason Statham fire the shotgun that he shoved up that fat guy's ass? I can't really imagine why a movie like Crank 2 would shy away from the expectations we had of seeing the explosive disembowelment? It's not as though they saved our virgin eyes anywhere else in the film... It perplexes me a bit, but not enough to make me have any reaction to the film besides glowing admiration.

Oh, and on the note of exploitation films I should probably also mention the absolute supreme glory that is Toronto's Trash Palace. It's this tiny little "theatre" run by a few guys who print t-shirts and posters, among other various business ventures, and every Friday they show various 16mm shorts, exploitation films, etc. Last night I watched Horror House, a horror movie from 1968/9 staring Frankie Avalon as one of a group of young adults in swining London, exploring and being murdered at a haunted house on the outskirts of the city. The plot didn't really make sense, and I don't have the time now to really get into its convolutedness, but suffice to say I will be back at the Trash Palace again and again in the future. It really is a twisted version of what I always wanted The Film Society to be in my wildest dreams. I plan to frequent this place often come the fall, and hopefully find some way to get to know the guys running the show, maybe even get involved if possible. Who knows...

http://www.trashpalace.ca/

Alright, that's all I have time for, time to get off to Scotland!

PS: What the FUCK happened with Wolverine?! Who actually went and saw that thing, how did it earn all that money? I did not see that coming, not for a second... Wow