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Questioning My Reality after Preferring “Madagascar 3” to “Brave”

July 2, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After seeing Brave and Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted within a week of each other, I was surprised to conclude that this is the second year in a row in which I’ve liked a DreamWorks CG-animated film more than a same-year Pixar release. Last year’s narrow victory of Kung Fu Panda 2 over Cars 2 was…well, a paltry competition, but still.

For the most part, Brave was still very good for what it was. I could appreciate the uneasy conflict between a mother and daughter who fail to see eye-to-eye, but who eventually learn to accept each other’s differences through a series of intense situations. However, swap their gender and you find yourself with the same uneasy conflict last seen in How to Train Your Dragon. Whereas the latter was more epic in scope, Brave by comparison was a more intimate struggle whose own four-legged antagonist was a bit smaller. Both were also set in long-ago Scotland, had characters with limbs amputated by beasts, and beefed up their supporting cast with a healthy dose of Craig Ferguson. I didn’t want to keep comparing the two so unfairly, especially since Dragon is presently my favorite DreamWorks CG film, but my mind wouldn’t stop.

Madagascar 3, on the other hand, benefited tremendously from how forgettable I found the first two. I remember the main and supporting characters, and a few flourishes from the original that are referenced in this one for effective callback resonance, but not my actual overall opinions of them. It was a pleasure hearing Ben Stiller and Chris Rock riffing to their heart’s content for a general audience. I was practically giddy from overdosing on the manic wit that propels the film forward at breakneck speed. I’m enamored of the moral of the story, that nostalgia can prevent us from seeing how confining our former boundaries were until we confront them and realize the power of moving on to wider stages. I also enjoyed turns from incoming performers such as Bryan Cranston (a Siberian tiger with a tragic story), Martin Short (a fawning, barely talented sealion), Academy Award Winner Frances McDormand (an unstoppable French animal control specialist on a vendetta), and X-Men 3‘s Juggernaut as a miniature circus dog with a ‘tude. This may also feature the best performance by a mute circus bear in cinema history. I entered the theater expecting no effect on my apathy; I exited with a smile on my face and the very few lyrics to “Afro Circus” stuck on Repeat in my head.

I’m having a very hard time reconciling these two opinions. In pondering my blasphemous imaginings of a world where Pixar is no longer the automatic king of everything, I wondered if any statistical comparisons have been drawn between the two. As luck would have it, such comparisons have been done and overdone. I decided to compile figures anyway for my own amusement, chronologically for all CG releases from each of the two companies — not of American box office grosses, but of ratings on the world-famous Tomatometerâ„¢.

Those results to date:

1995: No Dreamworks CG department to speak of; 100% for Toy Story, the grand pioneer of the medium.

1996-1997: No entrants. Each studio lay dormant, making plans and revving up their engines.

1998: 95% for Antz; 92% for A Bug’s Life. This flawed comparison is a prime example of how the Tomatometer fresh/rotten binary system lacks nuance. I didn’t hate Antz, but I’d be surprised if anyone favors or even remembers it to this day. I’m also mystified as to why Pixar hasn’t allowed an encore yet for Flik and friends. Were their merchandise sales really that anemic?

1999: No Dreamworks CG releases; a rightful 100% for Toy Story 2.

2000: No entrants. Remember when each studio used to craft one film at a time, no matter how long it took? Pixar has obviously expanded their staff and resources to sufficient capacity to maintain a steady pace of one new film per year as productions overlap. Meanwhile at DreamWorks, their WikiPedia page lists an alleged, ambitious overkill slate of twenty-two projects in various stages between ideation and completion. That either speaks to their success, foreshadows an animation glut in our future, or includes direct-to-DVD fodder to be distributed by DreamWorks but created by other, smaller animation houses.

2001: 89% for Shrek; 95% for Monsters Inc. I enjoyed the cleverness and performances in Shrek up until the exact moment where the plot pivoted because of a Three’s Company-style stupid misunderstanding because of ill-timed eavesdropping. Those are an automatic fail in my book. While that meant a forfeit in favor of Pixar, I thought some of Billy Crystal’s ad-libs weren’t exactly among his best. Given the choice, I’d rather watch clips of his past Oscar-hosting gigs.

2002: the last mutual skip year. Going forward, the mission statement for both studios was to crank out new movies every year or die trying.

2003: Still no new Dreamworks CG releases; 98% for Finding Nemo, the greatest Ellen DeGeneres film of all time.

2004: 89% for Shrek 2, which I thought was the best of the series; 36% for Shark Tale, which seemed like a case of casting famous faces first, then writing a script around them later. DreamWorks thankfully took notes from Pixar’s methodology and has relied on this poor creative formula a lot less than they used to. Meanwhile, The Incredibles, my all-time favorite Pixar film sans Woody or Buzz, impressed with 97%.

2005: 55% for the first Madagascar, whatever it was like. I do remember it looking crudely drawn. Cars was originally scheduled this year but delayed to 2006 for any number of rumored reasons, from quality control to internecine corporate shenanigans.

2006: 74% for Over the Hedge, shrewder and funnier than I expected in its barbed consumer-culture satire. 74% for Cars, which I thought was just fine. I suspect some negative reactions were Mater’s fault. He didn’t bother me. I know people here in Indiana not too different from him.

2007: 41% for Shrek the Third (no argument here); 51% for Bee Movie, proof that not everyone loved Seinfeld as much as some entertainment magazines did; and 96% for Ratatouille, Pixar’s first attempt at something besides an epic adventure, and a blessedly successful one at that.

2008: 88% for Kung Fu Panda, which I tried to tell everyone around me was seriously awesome (especially in super-sized all-powerful IMAX), but no one would listen to me because of either Jack Black or disdain for kung-fu flicks. Their loss. The 64% for Madagasacar 2: Something Something Animals improved on its predecessor in ways I no longer recall. 96% for WALL-E, which I really liked but didn’t fall head-over-heels in love with, as some of my peers did. Can’t really put my finger on why. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing about environmental lectures.

2009: 72% for Monsters vs. Aliens, which was quite a nifty League of Extraordinary B-Movie Creatures; 98% for Up, which made me bawl before the end of the first half-hour, but knocked itself down from an A+ to a mere A because of doggie biplanes. No one steals Snoopy’s shtick and gets away with it, not even Pixar.

2010: 98% for How to Train Your Dragon (thank you, critics, for validating me); 58% for Shrek Forever After (which I avoided after hating the third one); 73% for Megamind (not a fan of Will Ferrell movies, but was pretty happy with this despite sad reliance on AC/DC); and naturally 99% for Toy Story 3, weakest of the trilogy but hardly a weak film.

2011: 81% for Kung Fu Panda 2, okay but not nearly as seriously awesome as the first; 83% for Puss in Boots, which I also avoided because of Shrek the Third (my loss, perhaps); and 38% for Cars 2, certifiably the Worst Pixar Film of All Time. If you think of it as three back-to-back episodes of Cars: the TV Series, it’s really not so disappointing in those terms. If this had been released direct-to-DVD, it might have attained the same kind of regard that Disney fans hold for The Lion King 1½. Again I blame the Mater-haters.

2012: As of this evening, 76% apiece for Madagascar 3 and for Brave. It’s a tie!

On average, the DreamWorks track record has improved in the years since its Shark Tale nadir. Pixar isn’t exactly churning out third-rate filler just to pad the Disney release schedule, but no longer seems bulletproof, either. I look forward to future works from both, as long as none of them is Flik vs. Antz, which I would view as a sign of creative bankruptcy, unless Flik wins.

Additional notes:

1. List does not include Aardman productions released through DreamWorks, as much as I recommend the majority of them.

2. List excludes non-Pixar Disney CG fare because it is presumed inferior due to lack of Pixar authorship, with the exception of Tangled. The jury can’t wait to deliberate on Wreck-It Ralph.

3. List obviously excludes productions from other well-known studios such as Blue Sky and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers because my free time for late-night writing is not unlimited. Their inclusion would also distract from the whole two-sided rap-rivalry vibe of the competition.

4. I lament that the list excludes traditional animated films, just as movie executives do nowadays. Recent works in this medium have been flawed in ways that could not necessarily be blamed on said medium (e.g. mediocre stories; unfunny jokes; reliance on star power over creativity); and yet, when those flaws hurt them at the box office, the medium was blamed and practically scuttled as a whole in America. This, in my mind, is an even greater shame than Shark Tale.

Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Brave” End Credits

June 26, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

My wife and I are stubborn about receiving our money’s worth for our movie tickets. We really don’t mind sitting through the end credits, skimming for names we recognize, trying to spot buried gags, and waiting for the occasional Easter egg to be hatched. I like seeing if any of the storyboard artists are names I recognize from their previous career in comic books (this is extremely common), or if any bands I like contributed music (not so common). If our patience is rewarded with an extra scene, it’s a super-special bonus.

My son and I attended a showing of Brave this evening in a theater packed with several dozen other patrons, most of whom seemed to know each other, probably a group outing. (Frankly, I can’t remember the last time I was surrounded by so many teenage girls.) And yet, by the time the final minute of the final reel arrived, we two were the last ones around to smile at the capper.

For those who deserted early and missed out because you were dying for a bathroom or you have an intense fear of scrolling words, you can rest assured that, for better or for worse, it did not include any of the following:

* A middle-aged Merida and her husband playing with their children, Hamish and Lamish

* Several outtakes in which Merida keeps slipping into a Valley Girl accent

* An ad for a proposed Disneyland Glasgow resort

* Eight more versions of the Monsters University trailer, including one badly aged Sammy Davis Jr. impression

* 17-minute bagpipe solo

* Merida and Katniss Everdeen gabbing over tea and mocking Hawkeye’s alleged archery training

* A new “Sam and Max, Freelance Police” short by Brave co-director Steve Purcell (Man, if only. *sigh*)

* A cartoon Mel Gibson yelling about freedom, right before being beheaded

* A word from John Ratzenberger about the Will Rogers Institute

* A single male character who’s not a boor, a dolt, a wild animal, or a ringer for Huey, Dewey, and Louie

* A round of applause for How to Train Your Dragon, a better, more epic fantasy about ye olde Scotland

If you haven’t seen the film, a description of the epilogue will make no sense to you. For those who fled and really want to know without seeing it a second time…

…

[insert space for courtesy mild spoiler alert in case anyone needs to abandon ship]

…

…suffice it to say that goods previously purchased near the film’s halfway point are finally delivered in one overflowing wagon. It’s nice to know a deal’s a deal, no matter how monkey’s-pawed it was.

Thor and Bella Team Up Against Meredith Vickers in “Lord of the Apples: Return of the White”

June 24, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In the 2012 Snow White theatrical-reboot cage match, I declare Show White and the Huntsman the winner. Largely that’s because I plan to avoid Mirror, Mirror for the rest of my life, based on the unfunny trailers and my track record for refusing to watch every Julia Roberts film since Ocean’s Eleven. I confess the cage match was fixed. I’m fine with unbalancing the scales intentionally and will lose no sleep over it.

I can’t say I liked Show White and the Huntsman as a whole, but I wouldn’t give it an F-minus, as have other Internet participants who reject it on the principle of starring Kristen Stewart. I’m not a Twilight fan, but my apathy for the series isn’t borne of defensive rage about how Real Vampires should be portrayed, nor do I condemn any of the actors for their mere participation. A quick IMDB check confirms the last two Stewart films I saw were Jumper (my dislike of which can be pinned on another cast member, not her) and Zathura (in which her big-sister character was supposed to be irritating). That’s not nearly enough grounds for me to jump on the anti-Bella bandwagon.

That said: to be honest, Show White and the Huntsman doesn’t provide her with much in the way of superstar material to prove herself. Her dialogue in the first half of the film is minimal. When she speaks in the second half, it’s largely either shouting while on the run or grunting while taking damage. She does have two (2) opportunities for quiet, smiling moments, as well as one troop-rallying speech which seemed to go over well. That’s a start, but she’s largely overprotected or out-bellowed by all the other characters. That’s not too prominent a place for a main character to act very main. Perhaps it wouldn’t help to mention a few scenes where Snow is so beloved by Mother Nature and so essential to the very fabric of her kingdom that she’s actually followed and celebrated by assorted happy woodland creatures. One can only imagine the Internet’s own Kristen Stewart Revenge Squad going into convulsions at the very sight.

Her general character arc also doesn’t help. Her entrance in the film is after years of dungeon imprisonment, which should have left her a drained, emaciated mess. She escapes from Point A Prison with some pluck and a single-minded goal to reach Castle Point B, because then and only upon the arrival of their exiled figurehead will the people of the kingdom unite, grow a collective spine, and stage a coup against their all-powerful oppressor. Fortunately for Ms. White, days of fleeing, watching others die because of her, fleeing some more, and being saved by the grace of others all somehow provide her with enough exercise and fresh air to overcome her years of imprisonment, reach a semblance of physical competence, and assume the role of Eowyn for the film’s climactic, chaotic assault on Poor Man’s Minas Tirith.

As the Evil Queen who is her opponent, longtime captor, and Evil Stepmother, Charlize Theron nearly makes her own head explode as she goes over the top, pauses for a tea break while her servants construct a new top thousands of feet above the previous top, then sails over that top with feet to spare. She’s allowed a few moments of vulnerability as it’s suggested that she was cursed by her mother with beauty to use as a dangerous weapon against a misogynist world (so it’s Man’s fault she has to be beautiful! And, um, not her wicked mother’s…), but moments later she returns to her previous state of apoplectic fury. I’m willing to bet her on-set line-shouting was so vehement, it made the film crew cry. Those scenes alone are worth seeing if your constitution isn’t too delicate.

As Snow’s trusty sidekick, Chris Hemsworth is allowed to inflict more damage and use pointier weapons than in his previous films. Like Snow, he also has one good speech-ifying scene, in which he laments the needless passing of so many lives that have touched his. The rest of his scenes alternate between barking at Snow and pounding on her assailants. We don’t even know he’s approaching his own private Inigo Montoya moment until seconds before it’s upon us. It’s over in a heartbeat, with nary a whit of closure, an ounce of emotional satisfaction, or even a great kiss-off line.

In case those three stars aren’t enough to hold out attention, there are dwarves. Singing the complete opposite of “Hi-Ho” are a troupe of known quantities as varied as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, and Nick Frost. Dwarven CG technology has come a long way since the days of Gimli and company, but here it’s more of an eyebrow-raiser than a triumph of art. I just couldn’t get past them. I found myself staring at them in every scene as if they were hideously deformed. The jocular Frost very nearly fit, but I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the image of scary, glowering Ian McShane trapped and required to act melancholy while his re-proportioned head is attached to the body of Billy Barty.

I was so distracted, I hardly paid attention to the unnecessary love triangle that remained buried, bordering on subtextual, throughout the film’s second half, with neither closure nor even much resulting conflict. I also ignored several scenes of men in armor swinging their weapons through demons made of glass shards. Ground wars between anonymous participants don’t thrill me like they used to, even if magical CG is involved. Yes, it’s pretty. How encouraging it must be to aim for the low bar of “pretty”, all the better to celebrate when it’s quickly met.

It goes without saying that the sum of SWatH’s parts don’t hold a candle to the vastly different Once Upon a Time, though I do think Kristen Stewart could take li’l Mary Margaret in a fair fight, either in Storybrooke or in her original homeland. And yet, despite the flaws it evinces as it attempts to dazzle with medieval warfare and to rely upon the power of its stars without arming them sufficiently, I’m convinced it’s still better than Mirror, Mirror, sight unseen.

(I’d love to step out further and compare all of them unfavorably to Bill Willingham’s Fables, but I’m at least five volumes behind the present, having dramatically paused months ago at volume thirteen, The Great Fables Crossover. Eventually I’ll attempt to move forward on that.)

2nd Teaser for PT Anderson’s “The Master” Stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Bell Bon Bubbard

June 20, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

In the first teaser trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, The Master, we saw Joaquin Phoenix as an uneasy rapscallion on the verge of doing something different with his life. In the new teaser, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a jack of several trades probing Phoenix with questions and strange reassurances. While the Internet is firmly convinced The Master chronicles the secret origin of Scientology with all the names changed, let it be known Hoffman here distances himself from the late L. Ron Hubbard in a very concrete way: he disguises himself with a mustache.

Not only do we finally see and hear costar Amy Adams, we also hear her hint at Hoffman’s character working on his most important text, a revolutionary self-help tome possibly to be titled Ianetics-Day.

Meanwhile at home, the most optimistic Scientologists hope this film will be, best-case scenario, their version of The Last Temptation of Christ. If it’s not, Anderson may look forward to being banned from working in their half of Hollywood in the future, and resigned to working in the Jewish half instead. If all else fails, there’s always work to be done in the malnourished field of Christian direct-to-DVD.

Who Will Strike More Fear into the Hearts of The 1%: Bane or the “Step Up” Dancers?

June 20, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The American upper class has now replaced other races and nations as Hollywood’s go-to nemesis du jour. We’ve already seen them criminalized in Tower Heist and countless other films whose titles I don’t feel like brainstorming right now. Trailers for two upcoming films show no sign of anyone giving that beleaguered minority a break this summer.

In the case of The Dark Knight Rises, the conflict will be a twisted case of evil-vs.-evil, if we infer correctly from previous trailers that Bane and his henchmen mean to bring the pain to the lives of the few remaining upper-crust Gothamites that didn’t already wisely evacuate to the suburbs after the city-wide calamities of the last two films. A new, sponsored trailer was released Monday that shows more of Bane and his plainclothes lackeys without revealing more details about how destroying a football field will in any way inconvenience the billionaires of Gotham, all sitting in their skyboxes above the tumult with easy access to their escape pods.

Other sites are busy scouring that video for clues to the true nature of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s enigmatic character. All I know is, if the success of TDKR means he’ll never have to return to the role of Cobra Commander, so much the better.

For those who would prefer to see stands taken through nonviolent means — stands that includes more women, non-whites, and colorful costumes — Step Up Revolution offers a viable, funky alternative:

The new girl in town shows off her moves, learns a very important lesson about performance art, then inspires her new flashmob friends to bust a move for social justice. I look forward to learning how this flagrant disruption of dull real estate negotiations will result in tense cinematic drama. Also, I’d love to see Bane try performing a one-handed Centipede.

You’ll note in both trailers the police are completely ineffective against the threats of grass-roots disobedience. If anything, it appears the Step Up cops will be persuaded to join the Occupy Solid Gold movement, unless we’re to believe that they’ve implemented krumping as a new form of riot control. I’d love to see Denis Leary as Arthur Stacy from the most recent Amazing Spider-Man trailer pay them a visit and compare notes.

“Men in Black 3”: the Casual, Relaxed Viewer’s “Prometheus”

June 14, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I realize this summer’s careful studio negotiations of their blockbuster release schedule intended MIB3 to be the opening act for Prometheus, but I defied their release-order mandate and saw them in reverse order, four days apart. I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

I was a little surprised at the superficial similarities. Behold the flimsy case for their separated-at-birth pedigree:

* Hurray for sci-fi guns, vehicles, aliens, and slime! All given, of course. Getting the easy points out of the way first.

* Directors with impeccable art decoration and set design. Barry Sonnenfeld doesn’t have nearly the resumé that Ridley Scott has, but his settings likewise have nary a drab space. Always a treat, even when the characters inhabiting them are less than captivating.

* Farewell to former series regulars. Setting aside the Alien vs. Predator apocrypha, Prometheus marks the first Alien invasion without Sigourney Weaver — no unbilled surprise cameo, not even an Easter-egg hint of a Grandpa Ripley (unless I missed it, though I’m sure the Internet would’ve trumpeted it by now). Meanwhile in MIB3, we rejoin our old friends Jay and Kay as they attend the funeral of their former commanding officer Zee. Rip Torn is present only as a single large photo, thankfully not a souvenir mugshot from the various legal scuffles cited on his WikiPedia page. Also MIA from MIB, sadly, is our old pal Frank the Pug, except in two wall-sized tributes impossible to overlook. That’s just not good enough.

* Don’t call it a prequel. The past prologue of MIB3 is simple, simplified time travel as Jay absconds to July 1969 to save Kay’s life from retroactive elimination, but the movie keeps the Mad Men and hippies in the back seat. Since we’re back in time anyway, the movie graciously offers insight into Kay’s early days on the job, the tools and methods of the golden age of ET management, and Kay’s very different, much more gregarious relationships with his coworkers. Much insight is provided as to what turned Kay into a gruff old coot, and even the returning but underused Emma Thompson has a ’60s counterpart who’ll be most fortunate if she grows up to be anything like her. It’s not a direct prequel per se, but it’s a strong argument for the superiority of contained flashbacks over feature-length prequels as a secret-origin device.

Prometheus, on the other hand, avoided using the P-word in its publicity as much as possible, though they didn’t exactly sue the media or fans who refused to judge it as anything but. It’s obviously a predecessor in the same Alien timeline, no doubt, but any hardcore fans insisting on the complete origin of Alien‘s mysterious dead Space Jockey despite Scott’s modest pre-release protestations should’ve seen their own expectations deflate in the first reel. Alien took place on a heavenly body designated LV-426. Prometheus takes place on LV-223. BAM. DONE. End of Internet arguments. At best, Prometheus is now Alien Episode One: the Menacing Phantom. Moviegoers will have to wait with bated breath and years of message-board debates until they reveal how the xenomorph forefathers migrated from LV-223 to LV-426 in Alien Episode Two: Clone of the Attacks and Alien Episode Three: the Last Dangerous Visions. (Look, I couldn’t think of my own catchy title, and no one else was using it.)

* Haggard old man played by younger famous actor. Guy Pearce in several pounds of artificial wrinkles versus Josh Brolin as Tommy Lee Jones. Different angles, different results, both with accents not their own.

* The nonchalant black guy is only the second-most magnetic character. Michael Fassbender’s complicated android stole the Prometheus show, but Idris Elba’s just-a-pilot provided the only other relief from a cast of sourpusses. MIB3 isn’t nearly as grim, but Will Smith’s natural charm takes a back seat in several scenes to the hyper-verbal Michael Stuhlbarg (whom I last noticed and enjoyed in the Coen brothers’ Oscar-nominated A Serious Man) as a fifth-dimensional tourist who views multiple timelines simultaneously and hopes to see Earth live into the correct one. (The worst part of living with such a talent must be perceiving all of Schrödinger’s cats at once, then watching helplessly while half of them die.) Stuhlbarg’s jittery nattering upends the film and then grounds it solidly with one ecstatic monologue about synchronous miracles, delivered in a fever pitch rivaling Jim Dale’s narrator from the Sonnenfeld-produced Pushing Daisies. And I’m a big fan of anything that reminds me of Pushing Daisies.

* A spaceship takeoff is a major plot point. And another victory for subwoofers nationwide.

* There will be sacrifice. In each film, at least one person dies so that others might live. That’s a little deeper than anything I recall the first two MIBs attempting. For its achievements in the areas of depth and narrative competence, I’d go so far as to say that MIB3 is the series’ best entry to date.

Then again, with a decade between this and the first two, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve forgotten more about those than I think. I remember Lara Flynn Boyle not doing much, the giant subway worm thing, the Unisphere, Vincent D’Onofrio as a demented farmer bug alien, and our old pal Frank the Pug. Alas, poor Frank. What are the odds we’ll see you again in MIB4? Better or worse than the odds of seeing you in Alien Episode 2?

“Prometheus” IMAX 3-D: Panoramas, Subwoofers, and Questions Begetting Questions

June 11, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

From an audiovisual standpoint, the IMAX 3-D version of Prometheus was one of the most overwhelming, immersive experiences I’ve ever encountered. Beyond that, results varied. Possible spoilers abound, but nothing intense enough to require the services of my usual spoiler guardian.

I’ve only seen one full episode of Lost, but I got the impression from its viewers (haters who refused to stop watching as well as genuine fans) that they had to answer all the deepest questions themselves. Much of Prometheus was like that for my son and me. We liked its approach to the spiritual questions it raises, as well as the additional questions engendered by those questions in turn. In my experience that’s par for the course in any serious reexamination of What It All Means. Even if the movie’s answers and suggestions don’t remotely match mine, it’s intriguing to watch other people’s thought processes at work through the constructs built from their own set of evidence.

If we’d seen it on a smaller screen, I might’ve been more disappointed. Luckily for Prometheus, I have a hard time concentrating on aesthetics when my field of vision and my limited hearing range are in maximum sensory overload. Whenever vehicles crashed, it was like a full body massage as the whole theater vibrated with malevolence, and a special treat for my ears that cause such despair when they miss little sounds and entire conversations in everyday life.

As far as people go: Lisbeth Salander Prime was in top form as our main character. It’s refreshing to see a film where a character can wear a cross, stand their ground, and espouse non-Jewish religious views without being a source of intense comedic ridicule or die a grisly death. Granted, she’s the subject of mild comedic ridicule, but then there’s occasionally satisfying retribution in the form of grisly deaths. I also approve of her enduring the most excruciating of hardships while armed only with canned space epidural.

I was enthralled by Michael Fassbender as the android David, who combined Data’s existential aspirations with Wall-E’s cinephilia and Crow T. Robot’s amoral curiosity. Idris Elba seemed an odd choice for the role of the cantankerous, nebulous pilot, but the Stephen Stills squeezebox went a long way. I was mollified by the one or two human moments that Charlize Theron was allowed to experience in modes other than hard-as-nails. The Tom Hardy lookalike met the minimum requirements of the standard skeptical-significant-other role. I barely recognized Guy Pearce disguised in gallons of elderly makeup as Professor Farnsworth and wish he hadn’t been irrelevant to the entire third act.

In general I wish more had been done with the supporting cast. I wouldn’t’ve minded an extra half-hour of character moments, which were the hallmark of some of the previous films. When characters are pondering deep subjects and waxing philosophical, it means a lot more if I’m given reasons to care about their opinions, regardless of whether they’re informed or shallow. Without that emotional foundation, the inevitable kill-spree meant no more to me than one from an average horror film, which is all the more disappointing if you consider that the majority of the film was more sci-fi than horror.

About that kill-spree: although the creature effects achieved their goals, the simplistic drives for some beings and unexpressed motivations for others each failed to coalesce into an effective bad-guy presence. Yes, they were big and strong and physically menacing, but I’ll be really surprised if I can remember any of them fondly three years from now. Prometheus achieved the rare reaction of creating backgrounds and settings that were more vibrant eye-candy than the beings gallivanting in front of them and blocking my view. When you find yourself wishing that movie characters would move aside so you can see what cool things they’re blocking, the movie has gone wrong somewhere.

Perhaps my opinion would’ve improved if I’d consumed any of the pre-release viral-video supplements. I ignored all of them for two reasons: avoidance of spoilers, and preference for experiencing the movie as a work of art unto itself. I grow impatient with any movie that requires homework before I’m supposed to see it. I’m fine with viewing such material months after the fact in the form of DVD extras, but I’m of a mindset that doesn’t yet appreciate movies as the climax of an interactive cross-platform viewing game. If character moments in the movie were minimized with the expectation that the viral videos would pick up the slack in that area, then this isn’t my kind of filmmaking.

It’s possibly my kind of DVD-making. But I’m gonna need a bigger TV.

Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” Has First Trailer Ever to be Made Entirely of Easter Eggs

June 9, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This week saw the release of the first trailer for the next Walt Disney Animated Classic, Wreck-It Ralph, which promises to do for video game characters what Who Framed Roger Rabbit? did for cartoon characters — namely, see how many entertainment companies are willing to stuff theirs into the same clown car as their competitors’.

Casual gamers should obviously recognize King Bowser from the Super Mario Bros empire. Anyone who doesn’t know Clyde from Pac-Man won’t be using the Internet to see this trailer or watching movies made after 1980 anyway. I like to think I made it to level 3 by recognizing a King Malboro from Final Fantasy X-up.

After watching the trailer a second time, I suspect all the pieces and clues of this clever how-many-can-you-name trivia game have also been used to construct a sort of movie to connect the various stages of the game. The difficult part to perceiving this value-added extra is ignoring the game and paying attention to the dialogue instead. That’s harder than it sounds, considering this may be the first recorded instance of a modern game whose cutscene graphics are of equal quality to the in-game graphics. (Sorry, Agni’s Philosophy — you were so close. If only graphics processor technology had progressed at a more supernatural rate for your sake.)

The Wreck-It Ralph Theatrical Trivia Game stars Academy Award Nominee John C. Reilly (Chicago, Step Brothers), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Jane Lynch (Glee), Brandon T. Jackson (cruelly underrated in Tropic Thunder), and hopefully hundreds of video game voice actors. If Steve Blum isn’t somewhere in this film, then there’s no point to its existence.

James Bond vs. Not-Jason Bourne: Who Will Be America’s Next Jason Bourne?

June 8, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Last weekend I finally watched Daniel Craig’s second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace after years of stalling due to unenthusiastic reviews. I’ve never been a big James Bond fan and, to be honest, have seen less than half the films — one Connery, a few Roger Moore, all the Brosnan ones except Goldeneye, and both Daniel Craig joints. So far, Casino Royale is the only one that I would rate above a B. That may be because Craig is less suave and sophisticated, more pragmatic, and definitely more bruised and bloodied. Not that I crave movie blood, but his Bond sweats and struggles more on the job than his pampered alternate-Earth predecessors did in my limited experience. Heroes spoiled rotten don’t appeal much to me. Batman may be rich, but you can tell he still has to put effort into what he does.

Perhaps it helps that Craig’s Bond seems less like traditional Bond and more like Jason Bourne — an unlikely hero who saves the day through determination, intense fist-fighting, handheld cameras, and smash-cuts into smash-cuts. Quantum of Solace seems brazen about its co-opting of the Bourne method. I didn’t mind at all until the action paused for character moments, few of which stacked up to the quiet moments and tense complications (exception: any and all uses of Dame Judi Dench). With half the movie sturdy and half of it wanting, Quantum didn’t quite find the same balance that director Paul Greengrass did in the second and third Bournes.

It remains to be seen, then, which of the upcoming spy films will rise above and bear the crown of the Bourne heir apparent. In this corner: Craig’s next Bond film, Skyfall:

This first teaser doesn’t offer nearly enough fluid fight samples for my taste, though that shadowy figure near the end is rumored to be special guest villain Javier Bardem. If anyone can grace us with a far more memorable presence than either of Craig’s last two opponents, Bardem is a safe bet.

In the other corner: The Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner as a spiritual doppelgänger of Matt Damon.

Stars a-plenty in that one. Edward Norton! Rachel Weisz! Joan Allen! Albert Finney! Rhys Ifans! David Strathairn! And is that Zelkjo Ivanek? (Well, I thought it was him.) And I probably missed even more. The Alley-Swoop-Cam shot at the end shows promise, though it’s a wee derivative of the window-jump shot from The Bourne Ultimatum.

Despite the months separating their release dates, I look forward to the cage match.

“Hunger Games” Sequel Renamed to Avoid Sounding Like Manly Gun-Battle Flick

May 24, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Crowds who flood to theatres next year for the follow-up to this year’s second-largest event movie should note the reworked title that will take up twice as much marquee space. Lionsgate announced today the rechristening of the largest event film of 2013 as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, as a kindness to those of us who keep their DVDs alphabetized and still struggle over whether to file The Dark Knight under ‘D’ or ‘B’.

No word yet about whether this change was strictly the fault of the marketing department, or if any input was welcomed from incoming director Francis Lawrence (I am Legend). Fans fervently hope the title format is the only element of the series to be even remotely inspired by Twilight.

Ten other new titles may or may not have been under consideration:

Katniss: the Hunger Games, Part 2
The Even Hungrier Games
Hunger Games 2: Hunger Harder
Hunger-Catching Firegames
Katniss Everdeen and the District of Secrets
HG2: Tributes United
The Hunger Games, Episode 2: Catching of the Fire
Peeta: the Hunger Games, Part 2
Panem Has Always Been at War with Eastasia
Hunger Games II with Last-Minute Slapdash 3D Conversion

Also worth noting is the best of the rejected poster taglines:

“No more games. The hunger just got REAL.”

1st Teaser Trailer for PT Anderson’s “The Master” Avoids the 11-Letter S-Word

May 22, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

From Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of There Will Be Blood, comes another fictional biopic about a potentially disturbed self-made man whose work would come to affect millions in ways not necessarily for the better. Despite Anderson’s own denials, parts of the Internet swear The Master is thinly veiled nonfiction about L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and/or the creation of Scientology. Any similarities to any movements living or dead, real or fictional, will no doubt be left to the viewer to decide and write pretentious essays in response.

(That’s not meant as derogatory. Seriously, I look forward to reading said essays. Some days I thrive on pretentiousness.)

The cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, and Kevin J. O’Connor (the lanky toady from Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy). As with Blood, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is composing the presumably eerie, non-traditional score. This first teaser avoids any overt hints of its ostensible subject, instead focusing on flashbacks of Phoenix’s shenanigans while an obscured interrogator watches his immature smugness melt into unease.

[Content warning: teaser contains brief clip of bawdy sand-sculpting.]

I’ve played this a few extra times for the soundtrack alone, but I’m also savoring the one-minute sample of Phoenix’s performance that hints at grander, controversial, hopefully pretentious things to come.

Reviews Mocking “Battleship” Drive Product Placement for Other Board Games Up 4000%

May 21, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This month’s most popular Internet pastime has been writers jabbing the latest Transformers sequel by asking the rhetorical question, “What’s next, ________?” and filling in the blank with the one game they were most frequently beaten at as a kid. Unable to settle on just one punchline, the May 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly even provides a full page of Photoshop humor that name-checks five different classic games. Naturally this list includes the commonest punchline of the day, Hungry Hungry Hippos, which in the past month has skyrocketed to 192,000 Google results, up from a pre-Battleship all-time high of twenty-three Google results, twenty of which were disturbing fetish sites.

I expect most of the true classics have already been snatched up by large studios with massive budgets. Fortunately, if I were a Hollywood executive in need of more properties to license, I have memories from childhood and adulthood to plumb for potential licenses I could plunder that few of my arch-rivals would be equipped to translate to the silver screen.

My hypothetical release slate for summer 2015 would include:

Dungeon! — Someone brilliant at TSR boiled Dungeons & Dragons down to its essential elements: dungeon-crawling, simple hack-‘n’-slash, and treasure-hoarding. When my friends tired of the RPG aspect of Advanced D&D (i.e., whatever TSR module connected their AD&D battles into a story), we’d put away their character sheets and most of the dice, break Dungeon! out of the box, and go mindless.

In the movie version, the dragons, trolls, and other monsters would be replaced by giant alien robots. The titular dungeon would exist beneath a large European city that spectacularly collapses throughout the film from all the explosions undermining it.

Dark Tower — Another fantasy board game, this one dominated by a large electronic tower (batteries not included) that stood at the center of the board and determined the course of events on each player’s turn via LED numbers, flashing pictures, and annoying sound effects. The day mine broke down for good was a sad day indeed, except to adult family members who spent the evening sighing with joy.

In the movie version, the Tower itself is like an undertall Unicron ordering hordes of giant alien robots to overrun the lands of Ripoff Middle Earth. The original sound effects are cranked up to 11, distorted through several filters at ILM, and earn an Academy Award nomination. The movie’s release will be accompanied by vigorous lawsuits against any Stephen King adaptations that attempt to use the same name.

Run for Your Life, Candyman! — I was introduced to Smirk and Dagger Games at their 2009 GenCon booth. Not long after, I made a point of ordering a copy of this early release, a Candyland spoof that adds the single most crucial element the original game always lacked: a violent combat system. Each player is an armed and dangerous gingerbread man, opening fire on opponents while absconding through nightmarish candy-themed badlands. It’s a black-humor hoot that’s much more challenging and disturbing than its predecessor.

In the movie version, all those candy building blocks are the MacGuffin sought by a race of giant alien robots who need sugar for fuel. Firing nuclear weapons point-blank in each other’s faces over the centuries has resulted in a species-wide genetic deformity that prevents them from metabolizing raw cane sugar, so the processed sugar of faux-Candyland is their only hope. This would merely be an adaptation of the original Candyland if it weren’t for the gingerbread men’s extremely loud machine guns.

Bargain Hunter — This shopping game taught kids how to search store ads patiently for the lowest prices on furniture, appliances, and pets, as well as how to buy them with either cash or credit card. It came with a plastic credit card machine and several pretend credit cards that you inserted into the machine. You ran the cards through like a real machine, and prayed for purchase approval just like a real shopper. The rules for credit card interest accrual were sketchy and failed to reflect the realities of APRs, annual fees, and predatory lending, but you learned pretty quickly what a fair price was for an exotic lizard.

In the movie version, every department store in the Big City is taken over by a race of giant alien robots calling themselves The Bargain, who aim to dominate Earth’s economic infrastructures from within. Humanity’s last hope against this one-percenter allegory is a single man with a whip-smart attitude and no credit cards to max out. This hero will be played by Dave Ramsey.

Clue: the Great Museum Caper — I’m not sure this sequel ever became a household name, but it’s still a favorite in our family. One player is a thief sneaking through an art museum to steal paintings, recording their movements on a secret notepad in lieu of a physical playing piece on the board itself. The other players are detectives hoping to land blindly on the thief’s space as the disappearing paintings and disabled security devices give away his position. C:tGMC offered more variation in its gameplay and used none of the original characters, not even that cursed Miss Scarlet who was guilty in nine out of every ten times I played.

In the movie version, we pick up where the first Clue movie left off, wherever that was. I never saw it or its three different endings. Clue 2: Dark of the Monet will replace the art museum with the first game’s mansion setting and have twelve different endings. In each ending, the culprit is a different giant alien robot who retaliates against arrest attempts by blasting apart the study, the ballroom, and the conservatory.

File 13 — An integral part of my D&D experience was a subscription to Dragon Magazine, which occasionally came with free cut-out board games designed by a cartoonist named Tom Wham. My favorite was File 13, in which players were game designers attempting to shepherd their silly-named creations through a game-design flowchart. If one of your games reached the end of the chart, your game was published and you won. The board was a pull-out double-page spread; the pieces were tiny colored squares you had to cut out yourself. I still have my copy of the game tucked away in a Ziploc bag somewhere ’round here.

In the movie version, we replace all the games with giant alien robots, the flowchart with a giant alien robot factory, and the name File 13 with the title Transformers 5: Real Steel 2. Otherwise it’s an utterly faithful adaptation.

Did One Awful Line Cost “Dark Shadows” Millions of Ticket Sales?

May 14, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In its second weekend of release, Joss Whedon’s Marvel’s The Avengers raked in yet another $100 million at the US box office. By next Friday its grosses should surpass 2012’s previous champ, The Hunger Games. Running a distant second place, Tim Burton’s $150 million reboot of 1979’s Love at First Bite should be proud that it earned in a single weekend what Disney’s Chimpanzee has earned in four, but appears unlikely to catch up to Disney’s John Carter by the end of its run.

I’ve seen six of the seven previous collaborations between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd continues to elude me) and respect their general track record as a team despite my misgivings over Alice in Wonderland. However, this weekend’s performance implies I wasn’t alone in being repulsed by the trailers.

Strike One was the music selected from old K-Tel disco compliations. I’m not a big fan of trailers augmented with overplayed Top-40 oldies, which don’t score nostalgia points with me as they do my peers and elders. In my ’80s youth, we were used to the occasional ’60s hit here and there in our trailers, frequently even sung by the characters. In the grand scheme, a twenty-year-old song was forgivable. Whoever edited the Dark Shadows trailer was required by the setting to indulge in a musical generation gap twice as wide. This year Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly” will celebrate its 40th birthday, and the other tracks weren’t much newer. Disco would be the perfect bait if the film’s target audience were former polyester dance-floor kings over age 60.

I realize the filmmakers chose 1972 as their landing point for a specific purpose, but did the trailer need to sound like every other 1970s spoof ever made? Was disco the only genre of choice for musicians from 1970 to 1979 in the same way that the 1990-1999 Billboard charts were comprised entirely of sad-sack grunge acts? Somehow I don’t remember it that way.

Think about that number again: forty years. Perhaps rose-colored glasses have obscured my hindsight, but I don’t recall ads for the original Fright Night featuring much Bing Crosby, or the Jimmie Dorsey Orchestra luring the kids in to see Jim Carrey’s Once Bitten. I am similarly unconvinced that The Lost Boys would have doubled its grosses if the Saxophone Guy had been replaced by the Andrews Sisters belting out “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”.

Strike Two was Depp’s portrayal of Eddie Munster as an anachronistic stiff with the self-awareness of Michael Scott. I hope the actual film at least avoids the hackneyed man-out-of-time joke from other movies in which a displaced hero looks at a modern car and thinks it’s a dragon, despite having wheels just like any known wagon from any previous millennium.

Strike Three was this slow-paced exchange of comedy death:

“Are you stoned or something?”

“They tried stoning me, my dear. It did not work.”

This was the exact moment that certified the movie as unwatchable for me. I know from bad puns. This is not how you construct a good bad pun. This…is a bad bad pun. This is humor for viewers who still chortle anytime someone says, “Ya think?” Those same fans are probably skipping theaters and waiting for its release on DVD, which might have been a better first home for this flick. I have no intention of getting past the trailers and finding out objectively whether or not this “joke” is an isolated instance, either in theaters or months later at home.

When it comes to TV-show remakes as self-parody, that quota is already filled on my shelves by The Brady Bunch Movie. I’ll pass.

Countdown: Four Weeks Until US Release of Last Ten Unspoiled Minutes of “Prometheus”

May 11, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Ridley Scott’s newest science fiction milestone commands the cover of the May 18th issue of Entertainment Weekly, whose sidebars in previous issues about the Alien prequel/spinoff/homage/whatever may already have said too much. If the official American trailers, several international trailers, viral-marketing future DVD extras, epic-length WikiPedia entry, and half-baked rumor sites haven’t whetted your appetite for advance knowledge (true or false), EW’s article also reveals which character is not quite human, which ones are corporate toadies, and which one is our primary protagonist. Along with those Dell-logic-problem clues, factor in the Hollywood pecking order of Academy Award Winner Charlize Theron, Academy Award Nominee Young Magneto, Lisbeth Salander Prime, Stringer Bell, Leonard Shelby, two male unknowns, and one female unknown. Savvy viewers should be able to calculate their order of elimination in the finished product with a margin of error of ±1 corpse.

If you mean to save yourself for the American release date of June 8th, hiding from the Internet will not be enough. TV ads have now been unleashed to the networks so that the Midwest will finally get a look-see. Expect more magazines to follow in EW’s footsteps in the weeks ahead, including the inevitable TV Guide cover straining to cash in on the hype with the most tenuous of TV connections. I predict a showcase along the lines of “Twenty Best Movies Starring Actors from The Office: Prometheus, Bridesmaids, Get Smart, and More!” I won’t be surprised to see ancillary merchandise at the comic shop. The true danger zone begins June 1st when the movie opens early in England because of favoritism. Expect Internet hall monitors to place their sites futilely on emergency spoiler lockdown when waves of soccer-hooligan trolls begin tweeting drunken screen shots and plot-loophole complaints live from their theater seats.

I count myself among the wave of fans who saw James Cameron’s Aliens before seeing the original Alien and consequently have a hard time discussing contrary opinions with old-school fans who were marked for life when they saw the classic chest-bursting surprise on the big screen. I may rank the four films differently, but to this day I don’t hate any of them (the two crossovers are another story). I hope not to hate this one as well, but with so much time remaining for so much more to be ruined, I may need to play the hermit card and go underground like Newt till it’s safe. I can’t just nuke the Internet from orbit, so there’s no way to be sure.

My Geek Demerits #1: No Midnight Showings

May 3, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

As I write this, millions of hearty moviegoers in the EDT zone are high on anticipation of tonight’s midnight premieres of Marvel’s The Avengers. Part of me wishes I could join the party and stay ahead of the curve on the online chatter and spoilers. Unfortunately, the majority of me has a full-time day job and a finicky attitude toward use of my vacation time. I’m weak like that.

Even if I’d taken the time off, my family would also like to see it, but they aren’t in a position to drop everything and go nocturnal. Sure, I could hit a midnight showing solo and plan my second screening with them at a later, mundane hour. That would be a boon if I love it enough for multiple showings. That worked for Chronicle, but what if something goes wrong? What if the movie is constructed entirely within the framework of the common Joss Whedon motifs of All Fathers Are Monsters, All Corporations Are Evil, and Destroy All Couples, all of which set me on edge? What if I hate it and find myself forcibly sequestered at the shunned contrarian end of the Internet next to Armond White and Cole Smithey?

I shudder to imagine enduring an encore for the sake of family quality time under those circumstances. I’m reminded of my final theatrical viewing of The Phantom Menace, in which I slept through the entire Tatooine sequence, even the podrace, as a defense mechanism. Knowing that I blew actual money on an extra ticket for that avoidable privilege added insult to injury.

Most problematic for me: my body can no longer handle gallivanting around town till 3 a.m. anymore. In my youth, I knew the occasional evening that ended with bedtime after sunrise. Today, retiring at midnight is normal for me (if not for others my age), but if I push too far beyond, the following day is made of regret, stupor, and double the normal assault of old-man muscle aches. Braving those hours of discomfort is not as fun a dare as it used to be.

I’ve had to learn to be patient and resist the temptation. For the sake of recognizing my limitations, I accept my geek demerit and will bide my time till Saturday without grumbling. I wish all the best to those superfans lining up hours ahead of the rest of us to see the best Greatest Film of All Time of the year.

Before you exercise your bragging rights too brashly, keep in mind: if you were a true hardcore Marvel’s The Avengers fan, you would’ve arranged to catch it last week in Australia. Waiting till it’s cordially escorted to your spoiled American front doorstep is weak.