What if Vin Diesel Played Aragorn? Oh, Yeah: Happy New Year!

Every New Year's Eve, my family eats baguettes and meatballs dipped in swiss cheese fondue while drinking Martinelli's dry cider and watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy in its entirety on blu-ray. We watch them back-to-back-to-back, starting at 2:00 PM, so that the marathon is finished by the time the ball drops in Time Square. Thus, I have Lord of the Rings on the brain.

That is my segue into today's topic: Vin Diesel reportedly auditioned for the role of Aragorn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that this story positively reeks of urban myth. For one thing, I couldn't find who originally reported this little bit of news, which immediately throws the story into the "dubious" pile, and for another thing, some of the reports assemble a set of facts which are simply wrong. One website claimed that Diesel was asked to audition after his "acclaimed" performance in Pitch Black got New Line's attention, but that's unlikely, as the Lord of the Rings began filming in October, 1999, and Pitch Black wasn't released until February, 2000.

But I'm digressing. This post is not about examining the validity of various casting rumors. It's about writing Vin Diesel/Lord of the Rings crossover fan-fic! Why? Because I don't do New Year's resolutions.

Aragorn's introduction in Bree, after he snatches Frodo to the side in the Prancing Pony: "You made three mistakes. First, you took the job. Second, you came light. A four-hobbit crew for Mordor? F***in' insulting. But the worst mistake you made: empty lembas pouch."

Aragorn shares a tender moment with Arwen: "It's been a long time since I smelled beautiful.... Seriously, where are the showers?"

Aragorn kills at least one Warg with a teacup.

Theoden's bodyguards try to take away Aragorn's sword, after informing him that it presents a security-risk to the king: "What, this? *holds up sword* This is just a personal grooming appliance."

Aragorn has to kill Gondor before he can "keep" it.

I think my target audience has had enough. And if anybody understands every one of those references, your copy of Just as Big a Nerd as Serge Bodnarchuk, a bi-monthly publication, is on its way. Cancel your membership at any time, simply by forgetting the names of all the dinosaurs ever dug up in Antarctica!

Seriously, though. Happy New Year's, people. My looming penultimate quarter in college has got me both super-excited and terribly spooked, which is probably contributing to the brevity of this post. In all honesty, I am going into this quarter with more sadness than I'm used to feeling. I'm not sure where it comes from. I'm excited about my classes and even my impending job-search, which by all rights is supposed to be what scares us college kids the most.

Life is really rewarding, but it's also really finite, and, while I always know that, the impending termination of both my college career and the decade has reminded me of the inexorable passage of time a little more brutally than, idk, most new years. I plan to stick close to my friends. No time spent with friends is wasted time.

--Serge

PS: I heart Vin Diesel

The Troll of the Year Award Goes to Armond White

So I've been meaning to do a post on Armond White for some time now, and I figure bestowing a fictional "Troll of the Year" award on him is as good an excuse as any. You see, Armond White is not an actual internet troll, though it would sure make me feel better about the state of journalistic film criticism in this country, and humanity in general, if he came out tomorrow and announced that his whole career has been one long con.

In fact, who knows? Maybe I'm wrong about him not being a troll. Let's dare to dream. And examine the evidence.

Armond White is a film critic for the New York Press. Most of the information we have on him is self-generated (our first indicator of his being a troll). He claims to watch "five to 10 films a week," which isn't an exhorbitant claim, but the fact that every claim about Armond White's work cites Armond White as its source is highly suspicious. It's all downhill from there.

"If critics and fanboys weren't suckers for simplistic nihilism and high-pressure marketing, Resident Evil: Afterlife would be universally acknowledged as a visionary feat, superior to Inception... on every level."

On Toy Story 3: "...none of these digital cartoon characters reflect human experience; it's essentially a bored game that only the brainwashed will buy into. Besides, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence." This, about Toy Story 3, which he went on to declare inferior to the "credible and poetic historical satire" that is Jonah Hex.

Could it possibly get worse? Only if he decided that his sh*t was so sweet-smelling that he should start quoting himself, I suppose: "I previously remarked how '[Jonah Hex directorial pair] Neveldine-Taylor stand so lonely on the culture's edge that their au courant ingenuity seems absolutely avant-garde when compared to standard box-office formula.'"

What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of how au courant my ingenuity is!

White describes himself as a "pedigreed film scholar" with a "more politically minded perspective on film" than most viewers. He hates bloggers, naturally, calling internet film criticism "intellectual anarchy." He has also stated that there should be no film critic younger than 30, as such a person would not possess enough experience with life or art to, presumably, give the job the attention it deserves. Once film criticism becomes an important job at all, someone let me know!

Let's get the obvious out of the way. White is clearly well-educated, but so are many dogs, and I don't believe adding degrees to your wall means you know more about what makes any given film awesome or not. Then there's his obvious egomania and shameless ageism over which to grow incensed (Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane at 26).

But beyond these fairly superficial complaints, I really only can think of positive things about the work of this over-inflated tool-bag. Hate him or hate him, the dude makes us think. That's what makes me think he might in fact be a troll -- because the best internet trolls are not there only to make us angry, but also to periodically challenge our most deeply-held presuppositions. I can't help but admit that a kernel of self-doubt like that is fairly healthy.

White speaks in over-stated rhetoric which very often runs contrary to sound personal conclusions, but possessing an unpopular opinion is not in itself inherently bad. I'd rather listen to White defend his own crazy conclusions with well-researched rhetoric so that I might re-assess my own beliefs than listen to someone parrot my own opinions with no corresponding support. White rightly values evaluation over popular consensus, and he's not afraid to state his mind.

If I had to then sum up: Armond White ticks me off, but he ticks me off in a way that makes me re-examine my own thoughts. While he remains relegated to the profession of film criticism and thus remains fairly harmless by every practical measure of power, he doesn't do enough harm to warrant universal vilification, or even marginalization, IMHO.

But what do I know? I'm just a sub-30 internet blogger.

--Serge

Fun Fact: If you google image-search "Armond White," among the various imposing head shots and photoshopped memes, you'll also find a picture of Anton Ego. I can't imagine why....

How do We Recommend Movies Without it Feeling Like a Homework Assignment?

So on this blog, and in life, I recommend that people see a lot of different movies. Despite my enthusiasm for the films I recommend, sometimes I feel like I'm handing out homework. This feeling becomes especially acute when I buy a movie that I've been talking about for someone else to watch. It seems so forward, so imposing, so pretentious. I do it anyway, though, because if the fans of great films don't help them proliferate, what will? Still... doubts linger.

(Real quick: why even care? Because film is awesome and protocol is tricky)

It's not enough to say that I liked the film. Everybody has different tastes. To say that my liking a film is worth giving the film a viewing would be pretentious.

It's also not enough to say that I recognize that any particular film would match the tastes of any particular person. To pidgeon-hole people like that is to assume that they will never, ever change their minds about anything, and that's no good.

So here's what I got: when recommending films, use loglines.

What's that? Loglines. How do you recommend films without being a pretentious tool? Quote loglines. Then you friends can decide for themselves if they want to see the awesome films you have. What's a logline? It's a short summary of the plot of the film which, by itself, generates interest in the film.

Here's what I hope is a good example: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). I've never felt that "Serge thinks this is the best-plotted film ever made" ever won this movie any converts. You know what just might? The movie itself.

Two resourceful mercenaries are busy trying to kill each other after having double-crossed each other on their last job together. When one learns the name of a cemetary which hides $200,000 in Confederate gold, and the other learns the name of the grave in which it resides, the two must grudgingly team up if they are going to, firstly, find the gold at all, and secondly, overcome both the perils of the Civil War and the machinations of a ruthless bounty-hunter in hot pursuit. The film ends with a seven-minute three-way shoot-out.

As far as I can tell, if that doesn't get anyone interested in the film, I don't know what will. At that point, my job is done, and everyone can move on accordingly. Which reminds me: people often try to recommend I watch films while refusing to summarize the plot. I will not watch a film without knowing the logline. Perhaps this sounds like dogma, but what other reason is there to go see a movie? The actors? The special effects? Heck -- the key grip? There's nothing more paramount than the story. The very first question anyone asks when they hear the title of a film is: "What's it about?"

Refusing to summarize the plot is, for me, even worse than not knowing why you liked a certain film. I get that a lot, too.

"Serge, you gotta see this movie!"

"Why? What did you like about it?"

"Oh, well, idk, but you gotta see it!"

No thanks.

Man... now that I've got a way to recommend a film without sounding like a pretentious tool, I should start working on a way to not watch a film without sounding like a pretentious tool, am'right? Which begs the question: where does "being a tool" begin? With the unsupportable recommendation, or the subsequent flippant response?

I don't know. My mind wanders. All I can say with absolute certainty is that I started thinking about this subject after I gave a 2.5 hour movie to someone to watch after I'm the one who decided s/he should see it. In the words of Ryan Bingham: "Protocol's always tricky."

Serge's Top Ten Films of the Year

This list did not actually make it to ten titles. It stops just short, at nine. It's not that I didn't see ten films this year -- I saw dozens. I just didn't want to list more than nine of them on a top-ten list. I saw Tron Legacy, Predators, Salt, Repo Men, Frozen, and Kick Ass, but none of them are going on the list just because I saw them. Likewise, I should probably mention the films I haven't seen which are making a lot of critical waves: The Kids are All Right, The King's Speech, How to Train Your Dragon, Valhalla Rising, The Town, The Ghost Writer, and The American. With all of that said:

9. Winter's Bone -- While Veronica Mars probably did everything anyone can do with the idea of creating a film noir with a young female protagonist, Winter's Bone proved that the idea was always, and probably always will be, pretty awesome.

8. Shutter Island -- You had me at "Scorsese does psychological horror." People complain that it's too convoluted, too bleak, too slow -- I hear all the complaints, and I don't care. I think the film is densely detailed, honestly abject, and unafraid to take its time, which are all pluses in my book.

7. True Grit -- As I sat in the theater watching this movie, I was convinced that it would certainly wind up occupying the number-two spot on this list, the first two acts being so gosh-darned awesome, but then the final ten minutes arrived. Simply put, this film is really anticlimactic. And I'm not even one of those people who was dissatisfied with the ending of No Country for Old Men (2007). This film's ending unspools so fast that it leaves one feeling -- in an otherwise perfect film -- that everything ends a little too easily. The epilogue feels more like an afterthought and did more to confuse me than give me closure. Something tells me that repeat viewings might make me change my mind, though. Look for this film to jump a few spots on next year's review of 2010.

6. Ondine -- What a cool little film. A poor but good-hearted fisherman, who is also a recovering alcoholic, pulls in his nets one day and finds a beautiful girl trapped inside. Is she a mermaid, or something much more common? This brilliant set-up eventually yields a surprising, cathartic, and really sweet conclusion which doesn't feel cheap or easy. With every new development of the plot, until the final scene or two, it remains equally likely that Ondine is either a mermaid searching for a husband, or simply a runaway, dodging a troubled past.

5. Toy Story 3 -- Leave it to Pixar to get the final installment of a beloved trilogy right. I haven't seen the main characters of a kids movie come so close to death before, and I'm glad that the franchise has matured alongside secondary protagonist Andy, who, in this installment, is going off to college and must decide whether or not his toys ultimately stay or go. It's nice to see Andy become an actual character for once, as the last two films in the series relegated him more to the role of plot-device.

4. Robin Hood -- I can't imagine why the studio made Ridley Scott cut 16 precious minutes from his version of this film. No doubt, the sub-par theatrical cut doomed this film to critical and box-office mediocrity. The director's extended cut is the far-superior version of the film, and it's also the one which I would hope gets lots of nominations, come awards time.

3. The Social Network -- Aaron Sorkin should write every script. That's what I've decided. He's taken a subject as silly as the founding of Facebook and elevated it to the rank of a Shakespearian tragedy.

2. Black Swan -- Ballerina-horror! I've never tried it myself, but I imagine there are far more ways for a project like this to go wrong than to go right. The CGI hallucinations could've violated the aesthetic distance and looked really silly, but they weren't. The internalized conflict could've gotten stale, but it didn't. The themes could've been lost in the frenzied sexual bedlam, but they didn't. It could've been a box-office flop, but it wasn't. Kudos to Aronofsky and co.

1. Inception -- Well, of course, the Chris Nolan film gets the top spot on my list. Not because I'm just a Chris Nolan fanboy, mind you. I like to think it's because this, like all of his other films, is at least a minor masterpiece.

And those are the films everyone needs to see from 2010.

The "Alien Anthology" Box Set Makes the Perfect HD Transfer Debate-Starter

So even I'll admit that perhaps I care more about the subject of HD transfer fidelity more than most people,* and I was really, really ready to put the issue to rest after my last post on the subject, but then I got the Alien Anthology blu-ray box set for Christmas, and wouldn't'cha know it -- there are marked differences in the transfers of all four films, and I find that noteworthy.

"Duly noted," you say. But bear with me!

The issue at stake here is money and the preservation of art, as it relates to profitability. Clearly, more money was put into the HD transfers of Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) than Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997). Waaaay more. This was to be expected, and it doesn't bode insanely well for the future of art-preservation. Basically, whatever art profits gets preserved. But there are bright spots, too. Read on!

Alien and Aliens are far and away the more popular entires in the franchise. The other two entires are often met with loathing by the (fair-weather) fans of the series and apathy by everyone else, so it only makes (economic) sense to spend less money restoring the two films that fewer people will care to watch. Mark my words: within a year, both Alien and Aliens will be released separately on home video.

The actual transfers are interesting to note, then, as they all carry with them various strengths and weaknesses and, by extension, represent four different ways that studios may restore and subsequently transfer to blu-ray any given film. The care with which the studio has transfered and restored the four films in this set is directly related to their critical reception and box-office performance, which is kind of both my set-up and my punchline for this entire post. Money makes the art go 'round.

Alien's video transfer is, quite simply, perhaps the greatest video-transfer I've ever seen. The film stock that Ridley Scott used in 1979 was good stuff. When bad film stock is used to shoot a film, the resulting image is very grainy, which studios may choose to remove, but only at the cost of image-fidelity. When Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) is used to "scrub" the image clean, images get their edges artificially enhanced and everyone in the film suddenly looks like they're made of wax. No good. Luckily, Alien was filmed on good stock, and so not only is the film virtually grain-free, it doesn't suffer from any artificial digital manipulations. The clarity is astounding. I suspect that the negative was scanned at double the resolution of the typical blu-ray (4K magnification instead of 2K). 5 out of 5

Its sequel, Aliens, on the other hand, was filmed on bad film stock. As a result, this film has always appeared exceptionally grainy, even in theaters (so I'm told). Now, a lot of grain is bad, but a lot of grain reduction is also pretty bad -- so how does this transfer sort itself out? About as well as possible, actually, as director James Cameron, who oversaw the film's transfer to blu-ray, opted to remove only some grain. The result is that we get the best of both worlds. Grain is greatly reduced, but not so much that the image looks like it was digitally manipulated. A wonderful compromise (Predator, by contrast, has been released on blu-ray twice: first with far too much grain, and then with far too little). The great joy of watching this transfer, as it was with Alien, is that the original film negative was clearly scanned at a very high resolution. The details of the film have never been clearer. 4.5 out of 5.

Alien 3 didn't get so much attention. They scanned it, sure, but not at a super-high resolution. Perhaps I should count myself lucky, though, if that's my only complaint. There was no director overseeing this transfer, and yet the technicians made the right call with what they had to work with: grain levels are reduced but not artificially obliterated, which is the best compromise I can think of. In fact, had they put more money into their efforts, perhaps they would've scrubbed all the grain away, and that would've been bad. While the transfer isn't stunning, it's definitely waaaay better than any previous DVD release, and so I am more than satisfied. 3.5 out of 5.

Alien: Resurrection is the closest thing to a disappointment that this set carries. This could've easily been the best transfer of the set, having just been released in 1997, but 20th Century Fox just didn't invest very much time in this puppy. My guess: they scanned the original negative at 1080p resolution and called it a day. Edges are soft and detail isn't spectacular. CGI effects look grainy. No doubt, simply by virtue of the capacity of blu-ray discs, this is the best the movie has ever looked on home video, but I still would've liked to see a lot more attention paid to this transfer. 3 out of 5.

In the studio's defense: I've heard that these transfers are expensive. Very expensive. I don't have an exact figure to quote, but I would guesstimate that 20th Century Fox spent millions just scanning Alien at 4K resolution. Like I said, it makes perfect sense, economically, to spend less attention on the less popular films in the set. The "only" people who suffer are Joss Whedon fans.

If you've finished reading this post, congratulations! You're a videophile.

--Serge

* If you think I'm crazy about this stuff, then clearly you haven't seen the horrors I've seen, when left alone with the internet. Some people post "unboxing videos" on youtube, which are exactly what they sound like: self-indulgant clips, some of them nine minutes long, of goofy fanboys filming themselves opening and exploring the packaging of their favorite blu-ray box sets, and, of course, offering their narrative commentaries. Yeah. It's called "perspective." Go outside and feed the squirrels or something!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! This year, I ranked the top five best Christmas movies, the ones which come closest to actually putting me into a merry mood, and of course, The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) came out on top. Waaay on top (last year's list).

It would be selfish of me to just buy it and watch it by myself. Luckily, thanks to youtube, we can all watch together! I've posted part one below. When it ends, youtube will show you results for related videos, and you'll see part 2 listed. Click and repeat as necessary until you are in the holiday spirit! And remember kids: if nobody likes you and you have no friends, buy their respect with a generous display of mad coin!

How Come Nobody Liked Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" (2010)???

I'll be the first to admit that 2010 is probably not the best time to release a big-budget Robin Hood movie. Robin Hood, as a character, reeks of naive optimism to my generation, who first saw him embodied not by Errol Flynn or even Kevin Costner, but rather by Cary Elwes. Robin Hood's too-good-to-be-true idealist modus operandi of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor sounds unrealistic and all-too "boyscouty" to today's jaded and politically-apathetic youth.

With all of that said, the latest Hollywood rendition of the Robin Hood story absolutely rocks.

Too bad it bombed at the US box office (recovering only half of its estimated budget), and critics generally didn't like it (a score of 53 out of 100 from metacritic.com). I'm here to combat the wave of negative criticism because, as previously stated, Robin Hood (2010) absolutely rocks.

Robin Hood was the ideal (albeit fictional) libertarian, very much in the same way that President Josiah Bartlett of The West Wing was the ideal (albeit fictional) Democrat. If you want to compare ideal libertarians to the awful truth, line up Robin of Loxley with the dreaded Tea Party and see what happens. The Tea Partiers may say that they're libertarian, but they're not--not if they want to legislate civil rights, ban immigrants, and eliminate every public-sector job in the country. They're just re-skinned Bible Beaters with an unusually powerful need to be the center of attention. They more closely resemble, as Joseph Betson pointed out to me, the Know-Nothing Party of the 1840s and 50s.

No, Robin Longstride is totally different. His politics more closely resemble the Founding Fathers--some of them, anyway. The "evil" King John demands the loyalties of his subjects merely by virtue of his Divine Right to rule. Despite entangling the country in several costly wars which only a few noblemen care to fight and bankrupting the entire nation with crippling taxation, King John demands unquestioned obedience from his subjects. Enter Robin of the Hood.

Robin says that Kings have just as much of a need for their subjects as the king's subjects have for him, if not more so, and as such, if King John wishes to have the cooperation of the people, then he needs to put something on the table to trade for their loyalty. Robin Hood demands a written statement of rights which the king must allow his subjects. That's right... Robin Hood wrote the Magna Carta. Wanna know how the movie ends? I'll give you a hint: the historical King John reneged on his promise to provide such a document to his people.

Beyond the politics of the film, which are nothing if not a breath of fresh air in these politically-troubling times, the film itself is magnificently constructed, as one would expect from a partnership between director Ridley Scott and Imagine Entertainment.

The action is exciting, visceral, and not at all cheap, the characters are well-developed as either extremely likeable heroes or decrepit villains, the production values are sky-high, and finally, finally, the male and female romantic leads are less than five years apart from each other in age! Watching the dashing rouge that is Robin flirt with the annoyed but otherwise-intrigued Marion is adorable, fun, and ultimately very encouraging. They work better as a couple than they do alone, though one doesn't get the sense that either of them are pushovers when acting independently, either. They enjoy simply being with one another, and understand that no time spent together is wasted time.

So why did nobody go see this movie, and of those who did, why didn't they like it? I imagine it's because this film was marketed piss-poorly, as some sort of Gladiator (2000) set 1300 years later. Watch the trailer. It's little more than battle-scene shots set to rock music. Awful. People showed up for a bloodbath and they got an exciting, thought-provoking, love-laden political period-epic. What they saw was awesome, but nonetheless, it was not what they were expecting, and so the film suffered in the reviews. That's my theory, anyway.

One more note: I have been speaking this entire time about the director's cut of the film, which runs 16 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. I am told, by the people who have seen both, that the director's cut is far and away much better than the other version of the film. Thus, perhaps the critics are right for bashing the film--the version that they saw, anyway. I'll be damned, however, if this film suffers the same sad fate as Scott's other medieval masterpiece, Kingdom of Heaven (2005), which also suffered from poor marketing and a lame theatrical cut.

Make me happy. Rent it this weekend. When prompted, select "Director's Cut." Come back and tell me you didn't have an awesome time watching!

--Serge

Phantom Trains, Nicole Kidman's Womb, and the Importance of Checking Sources

Bear with the structure of this post -- I've been reading a lot of Stephen Jay Gould lately. The title of this post matches the typical format of most any Stephen Jay Gould essay: pick at least two disparate subjects, one academic and one innane, and link the two of them together, in a way that both informs and entertains the reader. You've also gotta be scientifically and historically accurate to a fault. Let's see if I can match the Great Gould on this one.

There's an anecdote which is repeated by film school instructors and cinema hobbyists 'round the world: when the first films were being exhibited in the late 1890s by the Lumiere Brothers, audiences were so mystified and shocked by the new technology that, when presented with a short film featuring the image of an oncoming train, patrons of the theater ran screaming from the room, unsure of whether or not a real train was about to burst through the screen and into the theater.

This anecdote, while vivid and exciting, is entirely unsubstantiated and more than likely a complete fabrication. In fact, if we can set down a general rule of thumb for planet earth, I'd say that, the more vivid the account, the less likely any of it is true.

The first thing that works against the anecdote is the Lumiere film itself. Watch it here. Go ahead, it's only 55 seconds long. Notice anything? That's right: the train isn't actually headed for the camera at all! The filmmakers have placed it not down on the tracks, but up on the station platform, where any decent train-patron is wont to stand, in complete safety. So even if audiences did think that the train were somehow real, it was never about to pop out of the screen, and nobody ever ran screaming from it.*

Let me make the resulting point exceedingly clear: there is no primary report of an event like the one described above in the myth in existence, where people in the audience ran screaming from a theater when presented with an on-screen threat. Anybody who ever regurgitates this anecdote only ever heard it from someone else. There is no original report, and thus, no reason to believe that it's true. If my education at the University of Chicago has taught me anything, it's the importance of checking sources. It's fun to learn the truth, and you can very often look like a serious badass for being able to back up your claims when no one else can. The other day someone (very dear to me, bless her heart) claimed to hate Tom Cruise for "leaving Nicole Kidman when he found out she couldn't have children." This claim sounded dubious to me, so I went online and, within minutes, lo and behold, I found that Kidman was actually three months pregnant when he filed for divorce. Bam.

Doesn't exactly nominate Cruise for sainthood, but it does knock down the original dubious claim.**

But perhaps the whole "ran screaming from the theater" thing is just an embellishment, and beside the point. After all, the story had to come from somewhere, right? Did those early audiences think that the images brought to life on screen were somehow real? In a word: doubtful. We have an extensive catalogue of primary accounts gathered from the time which go on and on about the particular uncanniness of seeing a moving photographic image for the first time, but nobody mentions anything about panic. To put it another way: nobody ducked when that bandit from The Great Train Robbery fired his pistol into the audience. To put it another way: hair tended to stand up, but not frightened patrons.

Why would such an anecdote persist? Ageism, I'd imagine. The belief that people who lived before us are somehow inferior or deficient. No, aliens did not build the pyramids, no, people did not run for their lives when the first train was projected on-screen, and no, Tom Cruise is not an unholy slime-ball. Be sure to see the post-post script, though!

--Serge

*Woah, halt the presses! According to one source (Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film by Ray Zone), the Lumiere Brothers apparently went back and re-shot their Arrival of a Train film in 1935 with a stereoscopic camera. That is, they produced one of the world's first 3D films! I couldn't find any reports detailing its first exhibition, but perhaps we have now found the origin of the "running from the train" myth, as this particular train actually was popping out of the screen!

**It's far more likely that Tom Cruise divorced Nicole Kidman simply because he didn't love her. The timing, however, is suspiciously noteworthy, as he divorced her around or just before their tenth wedding anniversary. Under California law, a spouse is entitled to half of the others' income once the tenth anniversary is reached. At least one author has referred to the tenth wedding anniversary as the "dine and ditch," as so many divorces are filed just before this milestone is reached.

In Defense of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" Trilogy

So the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, hit the web last week, and I'm kinda taken aback at how excited I am for it. This excitement prompted an honest re-examination of the original trilogy, and I've come to decide that it's not nearly as bad as most people say--at least, I come away from any viewing happier than when I went in.

There are more biases, I feel, than genuine criticisms, when it comes to bashing this franchise. For one thing, the franchise has made oodles of money ($2.68 B at the time of this writing), which nobody seems to like. For another, the franchise took a previously art-house-only actor in one Johnny Depp and turned him into the world's highest-paid star, and nobody likes a perceived sell-out. For yet another, the franchise is unapologetically fun, and audiences tend to want a bit of agnst in their dramas. I have no idea why. Only Hamlet ever got angst to work dramatically.

So the film franchise made stacks of cash doing what looks like nothing but having a grand old time--something perhaps it should've been willing to do for free. That, I suspect, is what people really don't like about the films, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the actual films themselves.

So, what made them so good? Screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio are really good screenwriters. The action moves at a breathtaking pace but the set-pieces never take center stage over emotion. Ok, well--in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, anyway. Who would've thought that, in what seemed to be a simple climactic fight to the death between Captain Jack and Barbossa, that Jack would pluck a coin from an accursed chest and himself become immortal? Can you say "complication?" Not only is it a complication, but it is a complication which means something for the character--what about Jack wouldn't love the idea of being immortal? What really separates him from the villain?

No doubt, Johnny Depp's performance is quite a sight to behold, but it's the lines that are doing at least half the work. Jack is clever, good at what he does, and annoying, but never to the audience--only to those characters he wishes to annoy. He's one of the better anti-hero coward/swashbucklers ever put to the page or to the screen.

Even the supporting cast is fun. I think Orlando Bloom plays a great archetypal boy scout, and Keira Knightley always knows what she's doing, IMHO. Granted, they're not exactly essential to either the second or third Pirates films, and so I'm glad to see them go for the upcoming fourth installment. It tells me that the franchise isn't willing to try and squeeze blood from stones.

Also: remember the ten minutes or so of surreal dream-navigation in the third Pirates film? When rocks turned to crabs and dozens of Jack Sparrows worked the rigging of a ship stranded on a salt flat and the captain Captain Jack ran one of his copies through with a sword? If that doesn't show a willingness to branch off into exciting new realms of the narrative, I don't know what does.

Granted, a lot of the franchise, and especially a lot in the later two films, is just silly. The three-way swordfight in Dead Man's Chest (second in the trilogy) is laughably awful, as is Bloom's bizarre pledge to save his father from the crew of the Flying Dutchman at the expense of all else. But things cleared up by the end of that film. Elizabeth Swann shackled Jack Sparrow to the mast of the Black Pearl (after distracting him with her womanly charms) and left him there to die, knowing that a lowlife pirate like him would never willingly sacrifice himself to save the others. In doing this, however, she herself becomes a lowlife pirate, as Jack so readily notes with a sneer.

Likewise, throughout At World's End (third in the franchise), there's plenty of mindless silliness going on, but there's also enough brilliance for me to forgive most of the silly stuff, which was undoubtedly meant for children, anyway. Swann's St. Crispen's Day speech: awful. The meeting of the Bretheren Court and Jack's subsequent nomination of Swann to the position of Pirate Lord, after she had "killed" him in the previous film: brilliant. The film doesn't end so easily, either. Will Turner must captain the Flying Dutchman for all eternity, and he only gets to visit Elizabeth once every ten years. That's awfully romantic ("romantic" in the pejorative sense), but Turner was always the ideal romantic anyway, so it works.

Jack's fate is far more practical. At the end of all things, he's got nothing but a rowboat and a scheme, which is exactly how he came into this franchise. He's learned a lot, but still essentially the same old Jack.

Now the fourth film in the franchise is looming, and I can only hope that it doesn't drink it's own Kool-Aid. The second and third films each got subsequently more self-aware and self-indulgant, and I hope that the intervening four years has cooled the franchise down a bit. If this one fails to be a box-office smash, there probably won't ever be another film in the franchise. Jack seems to be his same old self without also recycling more than one witicism from the other films ("There should be a 'Captain' in there somewhere!"). The trailer also reveals that mermaids will be in this installment. Call me crazy, but is the fact that they look like they're all going topless strangely significant?

Whew. That was pretty long for a post about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise four years after the last installment came out. I don't want it to get even longer, but I now realize that I missed one point I wanted to make. Everybody knows that Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) are about as perfect as any action film can get. While far diminished in quality, I do believe that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is that series' spiritual successor. That is all.

--Serge

Top Ten Tuesdays: Best Films of 2009

Yes, yes, you read that right. No, wait--maybe you didn't. To be clear, this is a list of the ten best films of last year, 2009, the year that gave us both the inauguration of America's first black president, and Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the VMA Awards. I figure, in the same way that historians don't evaluate presidents until a certain period of time has passed after they've left office, a year of waiting to judge the best films in a given year does a lot to make a better-considered list. So here goes:

10. Angels & Demons -- Nope, still no complaints, even a year later. Everything that the cirtics hated about the film, I loved: very little in the way of "backstories," jumps right into the action with almost no buildup, the hero is a "symbologist," and the whole film takes place, essentially, in a series of museums. All of that, IMHO, rocks.

9. Brothers -- What an amazing logline: Toby Maguire goes to war, leaving his wife behind in the suburbs. His chopper goes down and he is reported dead. His wife becomes good friends with Maguire's misfit brother, and, just when you think they might think about turning romantic, Maguire is recovered alive. His wife and brother didn't ever get Biblical together, but the facts aren't enough to dispell Maguire's PTSD suspicions. What an amazing logline. No wonder the film was awesome!

8. Adventureland -- I feel like this film overcame a lot of issues which Hollywood coming-of-age dramedies all-too-often bungle. It takes place in 1987, but no bit of it is a caricature of the 80s. The teens in the film talk and act like actual teenagers, and the hero is really likeable. He's not a total loser and he isn't vying for a moron, and His and Her blossoming romance is actually fun to watch develop. Way to go.

7. The Road -- The second most abject film I've ever seen, second perhaps only to The Ring (2002). Who survives the apocalypse? The cutthroat murderers, that's who. You think otherwise? Then Cormac McCarthy is not for you. Come to think of it, neither is the apocalypse.

6. An Education -- Two fantastic coming-of-age films in one year? One must be British.

5. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans -- For those of you unfamiliar, bear with me. For those of you who are familiar, revel with me: why oh why did it take 45 years of life for Werner Herzog to direct Nicholas Cage in a movie with drugs in it? It was worth the wait. Nic Cage plays a crooked cop who only wants two things in life: 1) for all of the world's scumbag murderers to go to prison, and 2) to get high as often as possible. The film is, essentially, a story about how those two goals are often at odds with each other.

4. The Hurt Locker -- This was, I would argue, the first (and so-far only) film to break the Iraq-war curse: no film set during the Iraq war makes any money at the box office. That is now only the general rule, and not the Law of the Land. Kathryn Bigelow (ok, seriously, can we standardize the spelling of "Katherine" already?) gave us a film assembled out of a reported 200 hours of footage, and, for having so many feet of film to sort through, I'm astounded at how coherent and tense the filmmakers managed to make the finished film.

3. District 9 -- All the slick science fiction of Iron Man (2008) and Independence Day (1996), but with a wonderful beating heart at its core. Be nice to people. Never side with the mighty to fight the powerless. That's it's message, though it also contains lightning guns and an alien battle-suit. Independence Day also had those sci-fi trimmings, but I think it's message was something like "always update your anti-virus software, even if you're an advanced alien race."

2. Up in the Air -- Woah, nelly. We've finally hit the two masterpieces of 2009. If I could only recommend Up in the Air for one reason, it would be to demonstrate exactly how plots are supposed to interweave with character-development. I'm not even exactly sure how the film casts its character-driven spell over me, but when Ryan Bingham finds out that one particular secret about his f***-buddy, Alex, not only does the plot progress, but the character changes, and we learn something about living on Planet Earth to boot. More please.

1. Inglourious Basterds -- Sometimes it's the best films that are the hardest to write about. I suspect that this is because we don't always know what a particular film did to make us like it so much. I like to think of myself as an experienced watcher of movies, who is wise to the many tricks employed to win my interest and sympathy. Inglourious Basterds does it all without ever letting me see the strings, so to speak. Every line is important, to both the plot and our understanding of the characters, it's shot beautifully, there's a huge cathartic release at the end of the film, and none of it feels easy or cheap. This movie is, like, a septuple-threat. If you haven't seen it, then I suspect you were cryogenically frozen for the year 2009.

--Serge

An Incomplete History of the Fight Scene

If I were to put all the fight-scenes from all of history into chronological order, the first one that would spring to mind would be the climactic swordfight between Macbeth and Macduff in Shakespeare's 1603 masterpiece, Much Ado About Macbeth. No, it's called The Tragedy of Macbeth, and nobody is quite sure when it was written. Someone first recorded it being performed in April 1611 at the Globe Theater, and it was first published in 1623. But really -- this can't possibly be the first instance of a fight scene in the history of drama.

I know that, but I can't think of any earlier examples. Thus, the horrible gaps in my education are revealed. What can I say? Orpheus liked to settle debates with more debating.

But yes. The fight scene. What strikes me, first and foremost, is how notably little the dramatic rules of the fight scene have changed in the past 400 years. If the history of the fight scene might be split into two parts, it would be composed first of the dramatic history of the fight scene, which remains largely unchanged, and then the technical history, which is the real head-trip.

The best kind of fight scene is a climactic battle between the primary protagonist and primary antagonist, to the death or "ultimate defeat" of one or the other. This is either the first time they have ever squared off, after a long build-up of opposing purposes, or the first time they are able to fight to the finish. It's gotta happen in the last act--and preferrably the last reel. David Mamet said it best when he said: "When you're done, get off the stage."

Take the one good part of Star Wars Episode I as a terrific example of all these qualities: Darth Maul. The build-up to the final three-way lightsaber battle at the end of the film is one of the best build-ups and subsequent payoffs in recent memory. Darth Maul is a mysterious, largely mute villain, who acts as the muscle of the evil Emperor Palpatine. Maul squares off with primary protagonist Qui-Gon Jinn once in the second act, but the fight is interrupted before either of them can finish the other--though it's implied that Qui-Gon was on the ropes. They meet again late in the last act of the film, and this time, Qui-Gon has got Obi-Wan Kenobi with him. The three square off, and this time, nothing is going to interrupt the fight. Darth Maul gets the better of poor Qui-Gon when Obi-Wan is preoccupied, and then Obi-Wan must become the new hero by vanquishing Maul--which he does. In a movie so otherwise-crappy, it's kind of amazing that such an awesome fight scene finds its way in.



Now, of course, there are plenty of fight scenes which do not follow this format. Good guys fight good guys, bad guys fight bad guys, good guys fight henchmen, fights take place in the first or second act, etc, etc. I suspect that these fight scenes inject themselves with some bit of spectacle in order to keep the audience interested. They have to. The audience comes for drama or spectacle. If a fight scene contains no drama, it must contain spectacle.

My thought is that advancements in special-effects technology has allowed for the easy injection of spectacle into the Fight Scene, which tempts screenwriters to put in more and more inconsequential fights. I'm not explicitly calling this a bad thing. Spectacle is fun. There are good kinds of spectacle and bad kinds of spectacle. The take-away point is that advancements in technology have changed the way that fight scenes are scripted, executed, and filmed.

Lightsabers. Back when the first Star Wars trilogy was being filmed, the plastic prop lightsabers would crack if the actors swung them too hard. So the fight scenes are slowed down a bit. Better plastics allowed for faster and more frenetic fight-scenes in the later trilogy.

Choreography. Watch an old western from the 1950s and you'll note how unchoreographed all of the fights look. It's not up on youtube, but there is a several-minute brawl between two angry lovers in The Searchers (1956) which looks less like a fight scene and more like an improvised scuffle between two untrained wrestlers. I suspect that very little was choreographed at all, and, as much as I hate to admit it, these spectacle-free fight scenes are far more realistic than the kung-fu sparring on display in such (masterpiece) films as The Matrix (1999).

Perhaps the primary move from early fight scenes in cinema to today's fight scenes is a shift from realism to spectacle. As I said, not necessarily a bad thing. Realism does not equal drama. The mixture of high drama and "Woah!" moments is indeed what keeps tushes in the seats.

So this was supposed to be a history of the fight scene, but I see now there's no way 1000 or so words could come even close to covering such a topic adequately. This is all ironic, because I wanted to write this post in order to fill in the horrible gaps I left in last week's "Top Ten Best Fight Scenes," and I am now left with even more holes. So it goes.

--Serge

The Weekend Meme

Stay in school, kids.



--Serge

Totally Lost Track of Time

Sorry, dear readers! Totally lost track of time today, spent half the day in a car, only finding time to write here at 11:42 PM. I met Brandon Marshall, All-Pro wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins today. That was cool.



In other news, I am totally absorbed by the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. I could write an entire post on him, but not tonight, as I'm insanely busy. I'd definitely recommend blind-buying at least one of his anthologies, which can be picked up used on Amazon for just a couple of bucks.

Next week, expect posts on the history of the fight scene, my views on the tragically-overlooked Robin Hood (2010) director's cut, and my inability to corroborate the oft-quoted film-school folk tale that early filmgoers ran screaming from theaters when that infamous train came barrelling toward the screen.

--Serge

The Contrarian Corner: Worst of the Best of 2010

So the Contrarian Corner is my little way of "periodically reexamin[ing] [my] most deeply held presuppositions," which is something that Alice S. Rossi insists we should do in order to re-assess the value of what we actually believe. Fast-approaching is the end of the year, which will accompany a flurry of "Best Of 2010" lists. Before we compile all of the obvious choices in a pretty lackluster year of film, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and come up with as many bad things I can say about the best films of the year.

Black Swan: When you've seen one lesbian ballerina horror movie, you've seen 'em all. But seriously, it might be hard to root for lead-ballerina Nina, as a protagonist, if she has no real villain to face, which makes her totally-internalized struggle seem a little... idk... self-generated and pretentious? All I know is that the action-junkie crowd did not show up in droves--just the smart people. I mean, if you're going to whine that the film's conflict is all internal, then what were you thinking, going to a film with internalized conflict? That's not the film's fault. It's yours. Woah, that didn't sound like a complaint at all. Maybe I'm bad at this whole Devil's Advocate thing.

Inception: Perhaps it's complicated just for the sake of being complicated. Some plot-points go poorly explained and the world that the filmmakers try to establish feels a little flimsy in the end. Leonardo DiCaprio overcooks his performance like he forgot to set the oven timer and everyone's name is really, really weird (Dom Cobb, Mal/Mol, and my personal least favorite, "Ariadne"). Is it just a gem of the coasts? Why must hipsters and fanboys flock to it? I immediately distrust anything which smokers and vest-wearers can't shut up about.

Ondine: Too "unrealistic?" But then, of course, the film tells its audience that it's going to be immersed in the world of Selkies and mermaids for its entire runtime. The movie ends with a surprisingly happy conclusion, which might not be what some viewers were expecting. But they're jaded, I say. Jaded!

Robin Hood: The biggest complaint I have about this film is its shoddy marketing, which isn't a complaint about the film at all. You see, thanks to the lazy marketing, everybody had already decided to hate this film before the picture debuted in theaters, simply because it wasn't Gladiator (2000). Every five years, Ridley Scott makes a film which is over two and a half hours long and happens to involve a lot of swordplay, and Hollywood only knows how to market such a film one way: with a montage of swinging blades set to rock music. It's nonsense. Each film is its own (brilliant to semi-awesome) beast, but both Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Robin Hood fell by the critical/financial wayside.

The Social Network: In the end, it's still just a movie about Facebook. While some people have pointed out Facebook's user-population in order to compare it to the larger countries on Earth, presumably in terms of influence, let's not kid ourselves: there isn't much to the site which governs law or public opinion. Though it may boast a membership which exceeds the population of almost every country on Earth, it provides nothing that an actual government does, and it holds only one common concern: keeping public records.

Toy Story 3: Ok, so I can't actually think of any complaints. The Devil himself tears up when he watches this one. One critic said that the film was filled with shameless product placement. Um... because one of the characters is a Barbie doll? I don't think they did that because they had a deal with Kenner. I think they did that because it's a movie about toys.

True Grit: Well... I haven't seen it yet. That's about the most negative thing I can think to say about it. But it's got The Dude wearing an eyepatch being directed by the Coen Brothers. I got news. Your argument? Guess what!

The films I haven't seen but am told I really have to include: The Kids are All Right, Winter's Bone, The King's Speech, How to Train your Dragon, Valhalla Rising, The Town, The Ghost Writer, and The American. I hope to have at least half of them viewed come January 1st.

--Serge

Sometimes, this Blog Just Writes Itself

You don't need much of my commentary for this one. The interwebz were bombarded with awesome to semi-cool videos this week, and I've compiled the most exciting ones for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Rango (2011) trailer:



The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) trailer. Knock it all you'd like. It's got mermaids. All I'm sayin.



The entire 2010 filmography in just over six minutes:



I've also hotlinked two not-quite-safe-for-work bits of media. The first is a Black Swan/Showgirls mashup. Nothing will ever come close to that Toy Story/Requiem for a Dream mashup, but it's still a pretty cool idea. The second bit is a poster for a Tron/Big Lebowski mashup, which made me laugh, but it's got a naughty word written on it. You don't like it? Make like Vegas and deal.

Way to go, interwebz! You rock today!

--Serge

PS: In case you were expecting a response to the Golden Globes nominations today, I suppose now is as good a time as any to fit it in. Here it is, in its entirety: Burlesque (2010) got a nomination for Best Musical or Comedy. 'Nuff said.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Most Epic Fight Scenes

The epic fight-scene: effective only when both viscerally-thrilling and the product of a huge build-up between opponents. With any luck, it's actually the first time the protagonist and antagonist have even gone toe-to-toe.

I wish I had more pre-1988 examples on the list, but there's definitely a marked increase in visceral awesomeness in fight scenes beginning with the last two decades of the 20th Century. This is, in large part, due to the improvements in both technology and safety equipment.

10. King Kong vs. V-Rex, King Kong (2005) -- Not one, but three v-rexes does Kong fight off for his love of blondes. By virtue of the scene lasting so long, it trumps nearly any fight from the Jurassic Park franchise, which play out less like fights and more like scrambles for guns.



9. Vader vs. Luke, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) -- Sure, it's not as fast and frenetic as what we're used to today, but emotion, thankfully, steps in to make the fight matter.



8. The skeleton army, Jason and the Argonauts (1963) -- The great-granddaddy of all special-effects-driven fight scenes, though, even as a child, I wondered how skeletons could shout.



7. The rotating zero-g hallway, Inception (2010) -- Just... it's just awesome. Part of the fun is seeing Joseph-Gordon Levitt fight a no-name villain instead of an important enemy, so our brains are entirely devoted to the realities of the fight, and not any emotional baggage. That isn't to say that fight scenes should always be emotion-free. Nolan fixes this lack of emotion by inter-cutting between this fight and more important emotional moments. You betcha embedding of the video has been disabled by "request" (read: court order), but go ahead and click the hotlink for the coolest two-minute fight scene ever put to film.

6. Neo vs. Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999) -- I get it. The hero must eventually defeat the villain with his heart, not his hands, but I'd much rather watch Neo trade blows with Agent Smith than see him inexplicably leap into his chest as a means of defeating him any day.



5. The entire last act of Equilibrium (2002) -- I am still amazed at how much fighting is packed into this film which still manages to somehow further the plot. On those merits alone, this is one of the greatest action movies ever made. If only it wasn't also such an after-school special....



4. Gandalf vs. the Balrog, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -- Less of a fight and more of an epic stare-down, Gandalf's forever-immortalized declaration that the Balrog won't get by him is the epitome of epic line-delivery, and line-writing. Embedding has been disabled, but go ahead and click the hotlink for unbridled awesomeness.

3. Blade swordfights Deacon Frost, Blade (1998) -- And if you've got anything wrong with this fight scene, I don't think we can be friends anymore.



2. Slave Leia strangles Jabba, Return of the Jedi (1983) -- I don't think I'm only responding to Leia's outfit, but also to the huge payoff that is seeing poor slave-Leia finally get the better of that slimy grub Jabba, in a clear quotation of the scene from The Godfather (1972), wherein poor Luca Brasi gets jumped from behind and garroted.



1. Roddy Piper vs. Keith David, FTW!!1! They Live (1988) -- Words fail. Only awesomeness remains.



--Serge

The Second Viewing of "Inception" *BRAAAAAAAAAAHM*

*BRAAAAAHM* being the epic mind-numbing bass which must accompany any mention of Inception--on the interwebs.

So maybe I was the only person who was reserving judgment on Inception until I saw it a second time, but I had a lot of complaints, and a good bit of "meh," when I stepped out of my first screening back in July. Seeing as how, um... heady... the film is, I thought maybe my complaints would disappear once I saw it a second time, having had time to digest the many intricacies of the plot. Most all of them have.

My former complaints could basically be summed up in this video. The film felt pretentiously convoluted and self-important, leaving just a kernel of emotional depth to chew on while you used the rest of your brain to try and figure out why anybody was doing any particular thing. Why does it matter whose subconscious they're going into, if they're all sharing one, anyway? Must a kick be performed in the real world or the dream world? Is limbo always four levels down? Eames is doing what now? Just how sexy is Joseph-Gordon Levitt when he battles hotel security guards to the death in a rotating zero-g hallway?

Basically, all of the contested details of inception were cleared up for me on my second viewing. They were in fact all explained to the audience, though often times only in a glancing comment shoved into a scene where the audience is paying far more attention to something else. I'm willing to accept this compromise, as giving every rule its own scene would've made the film unbearably long. I think that all my brain could do for the first viewing was accept the conceits of the film, but not the explanations for the conceits. I can do that now.

*Spoiler Alert*

Also, on my first viewing, I thought that the two big emotional moments of the film, when Mal kills herself while Cobb, helpless, watches from across the way, and when Fischer learns what his father actually wanted to say when he whispered "disappointed" to him on his deathbed, were well executed, but on my second viewing, I actually felt them, in a big way. The "catharsis" that Cobb mentioned earlier in the film became very real. It was one of the better movie viewings I've had all year.

Only a few problems remain. I think Leonardo Dicaprio really overcooked his performance. His line about catharsis and "positive emotion trumping negative emotion every time," while being the most important line in the film, sounds horribly ham-fisted--and so does his impassioned speech to Michael Caine in the lecture hall. Even this fault of the film, however, doesn't keep me up at night, as the Strutting Leo meme has gone a long way to restore the universe's equilibrium.

So: how could I have ever doubted Christopher Nolan's efforts, you say? I apologize. Inception continues Nolan's seven-film winning streak (eight, if you count Doodlebug, 2007), as it shoots to the top of my Christmas list.

--Serge

"Transformers 3" Hates Buzz Aldrin

Poor Buzz Aldrin. He has a hard-enough time convincing too many weirdos that he and Neil Armstrong actually landed on the dang moon--and after the Transformers 3 release next summer, he'll have even more rumors to put down. Namely, that he and Armstrong never actually found any Transformers while they were up there, that the Transformers hadn't actually been invented yet, and that Michael Bay is only perpetually forgiven for all of his crap films because he happened to make The Rock back in 1996. No, wait. Maybe that last one is my job.



I can only assume (and laugh hysterically as I do) that this film isn't called The Dark Side of the Moon because that's copyrighted. Way to go, dudes.

With all of that said: Bay got his start in commercials. The dude knows how to make pretty stupid/banal stuff look cool. That's why I don't think Bay is a filmmaker, but rather still an advertiser, and one of the best in the industry. It's like the movies themselves are shoddily assembled by a team of goofy writers, overwrought special-effects men, and two terribly underpaid editors, and then Michael Bay is hired to make the film look cool and get Megan Fox to wash his car.

There's quite a feat in there somewhere, but it doesn't produce a good time at the movies.

I've also hotlinked the trailers for Source Code and Real Steel, because one looks awesome, and the other has got Hugh Jackman training giant robot-boxers to pound each other in the ring.

Happy weekending. My winter break starts today.

--Serge

How Much "Post" is Too "Postmodern?"

So my UChicago film professors tell me that postmodern film began in 1960 with the release of Psycho. Nobody could really define "postmodernism" for me, but I got the general sense that it involves self-awareness and moral ambiguity. Then, after Psycho, they say we got, I kid you not, post-postmodernism, in, about, oh, the Nineties. But nobody is sure exactly when, or with what film. Where are we now? Post-post-postmodernism?

I just saw Kick Ass (2010), see.

If post-post-postmodernism exists, Kick Ass is it. Because there are movies about comic books, and then there are movies about comic books about comic books, which is what Kick Ass is.

Dave Lizewski is a kid who grew up on superhero stories. He admires them, and feels like a failure in every other area of his life, so he dons a wetsuit, comes up with the persona "Kick Ass," and decides he's gonna fight crime from now on. True to life, he winds up getting his ass kicked by every criminal he comes across for the first half hour of the film. He attracts the attention of not only the media, who seem to love his hopeless optimism, but also a real superhero father/daughter team, who go by Big Daddy and Hit Girl, respectively. They're the real deal--rarely leaving any survivors when they show up to lay down the law. They give him some pointers and eventually team up with him to finally take out New York's biggest crime boss.

So I guess good ol' fashioned postmodernism would be "playing with genre conventions," which Kick Ass certainly does. The little girl swearing like a truck-driver and slaughtering rooms full of gangsters five times her size comes to mind. But anything more "meta" than that and you're in the realm of multiple-posts-postmodernism, and I don't dig.

What does this look like? Well, the movie can't just have Hit Girl defying genre expectations--the film has to scream "LOOK AT HIT GIRL DEFYING GENRE EXPECTATIONS!1!!" while it's doing it. The best that the film gets is during its action sequences, which are exciting, deft, and totally unselfconscious. Once the film stops and goes "Hey! A superhero movie about superheroes!" I get really bored. And that's what it's doing every time its main character saunters in front of the camera.

It got to the point where I hated watching Dave do anything in front of the camera. Not good, seeing as how he's supposed to be the principle protagonist.

I've never watched a movie like this before, but, halfway through the film, I just started fast-forwarding until Hit Girl's purple wig flashed across the screen. I'd then watch until she left, whereupon I would fast-forward to the next scene.

I don't think all of these "meta" genre pictures are a natural progression of cinema. Personally, I think too many film majors have infiltrated Hollywood. You don't analyze films by making films. That just yields boring films. I think Kick Ass had an awesome idea that it just didn't trust enough. The whole "regular joe decides to fight crime" is an awesome story--that's why it's been told so many damn times. Dressing it up in post-postmodern self-awareness is a dissertation, not a blockbuster.

That being said... when can we expect the Hit Girl spinoff?

--Serge

Yay, More "Inception" Stuff

So I saw Inception, as did most everyone, earlier this year, and I really liked it, but I don't think it is the unrivaled genius-work that most-everyone has been claiming it to be for the past few months. With that said, I am really eager to see if the film gets better or worse with subsequent viewings. Until I can schlep together enough money to buy it, I suppose more cool Inception quasi-memes will have to tie me over.



These are the various dream-levels of the film in real-time. I get it, it's cool. In fact, that's kinda my whole reaction to the film itself, too. I get it, it's cool, we can all stop pretending that it's totally incomprehensible. I'd still let The Dark Knight be the subject of my dissertation any day.

Speaking of dissertations, I've got three more pages left to write before I'm done with finals.

--Serge

Famous Dead CGI Stars, Coming Soon to a Theater Near You?

Ok, I know I said yesterday that finals have struck and I'm too busy finishing three papers and two screenplays to blog much this week, but this was just too fascinating to ignore. Apparently, George Lucas has reportedly been buying the rights of the voices and likenesses of famous dead stars, presumably to put CGI versions of them into upcoming films.

George Lucas would be the guy to do that.

So I've heard this idea before, but never with the King of Unnecessary CGI's name attached to it. I had previously heard that a company was formed a few years back in California with the sole purpose of creating a photoreal CGI version of Marlon Brando. I heard that about three years ago, and three years may not sound like a long time chronologically, but that's an eternity in computer-time. Consider: in less than three years, we've gone from Beowulf (2007) to Avatar (2009). Only five years separate James Cameron's sc-fi magnum opus from The Polar Express (2004), or as I like to call it, Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Clause, and He is Creepy as Hell.

The upcoming Tron Legacy (2010) has got some impressive CGI Jeff Bridges going on, and while it's no proper recreation of The Dude, it's definitely one big step closer to a full real-world CGI likeness.

So maybe it can be done. But is it a good idea?

I'll admit, the idea of recreating Marlon Brando or Orson Welles in a computer and putting either of their fat asses into a movie for the benefit of George Lucas' pocketbook doesn't exactly light my world on fire, but the latest report/industry gossip that I read dropped a name which appears to be my only weakness on this issue: Barbara Stanwyck.

All it took was that name, and suddenly I'm a convert. I think it's a fabulous idea. Bring her back!

That is all. I've really got to get back to finals now.

--Serge

Finals Have Struck!

Yes, it seems like only yesterday I was wallowing in midterm-inspired self-pity and spirit-crushing self-doubt, and this week, it's finals-inspired self-confidence from which I suffer! I am really liking the three papers I am busily assembling for my Rom Com class, my Senior Colloquium class, and my Horror Film class, but it leaves precious little time for blogging.

So instead of a proper post, I bring you What I Found on Youtube Today:



And in the same vein:



Wot's dat? Yoo dun like dags? Well you can get out.

--Serge

Darren Aronofsky is the American Chris Nolan

Just what does that title mean? It means: I don't think Christopher Nolan has made a single bad film in his entire career. After seeing Darren Aronofsky's latest, I'm forced to conclude that I don't think he's made a single bad film, either. In honor of his latest lesbian-ballerina-thriller masterpiece, Black Swan (2010), I'm here to inventory his exemplary filmography.

Pi (1998) -- A young Jewish mathematician who suffers from crippling migraines and chronic paranoia invents a supercomputer which spits out a long string of numbers which he believes to be an important code of some sort. He blabs to the wrong people, and suddenly his work is attracting the malevolent attention of both a Wall Street firm that believes he has discovered a code for predicting the stock market, and a Hasidic cult that believes his computer has received a message from God. An awesome little film (made on a reported budget of $60,000), not only for its way-cool plot but also for its heartfelt performances and claustrophobic camera-work. I went and locked my door twice after I saw this film.

Requiem for a Dream (2000) -- Aronofsky's breakthrough film about four drug-addicted losers who all dream of bigger and better things. Nobody is in on the joke that is their lives, save the audience. Shot with frenetic energy which I can only assume mimics the highs and lows of drug-abuse, this film is a show-stopping downer which became a cult hit on home video. That's good, because it took six years for Aronofsky's next project to hit theaters.

The Fountain (2006) -- Ok, so three films in and already I can see perhaps I bit off more than I can blog about. I could have a whole week of postings on The Fountain. As clearly as I can put it, The Fountain presents three parallel stories, all intertwining and overlapping at various points. The first story is about a conquistador, Thomas, in 1500 AD who travels to the New World to find the Tree of Life for his Queen Isabel. He must've found it, because we then transition to 2500 AD, where he travels in a floating bubble through space to ressurect his dead wife, whose soul is contained inside a tree (yes, really). Then we get to the middle part of the story: in 2000 AD, "Izzy" and "Tommy" are happily married, until Izzy develops a brain tumor and gets put into the hospital with little hope of recovery.

How much of The Fountain is literal? Probably not much. Just when you think you've got the plot all worked out, a shining full-lotus Hugh Jackman appears floating in a Mayan temple. But the plot isn't really the point. The emotions are. With so little to be taken literally, it's the feelings of the film which really break through. I'd call the film surreal except that the people are played so straight. If nothing else, a viewing of this film reminds me that, even more important than plot, films are really just about the human heart.

The Wrestler (2008) -- If Christopher Nolan likes making movies about dead wives, Aronofsky likes making movies about obsessive losers, who are good at what they do for a living but leave their personal lives in shambles. The titular wrestler of this film cannot catch a break at any turn, until he does, which he then always fouls. He lives in a trailer park and desperately lives from gig to gig, re-living his old glory days as a professional wrestler. Aronofsky is good at being mean to his characters--he always winds up being just shy of downright gross. Then, just when you think you can't take anymore, the film's third act ends bittersweetly, my definition of "bittersweet" being sad, but very, very cathartic.

Black Swan (2010) -- An emotionally-frail ballerina, Nina, gets chosen to play the lead in Swan Lake at the New York City Ballet. Pressured on all fronts to embody the evil "black" swan just as much as the demure "white" swan, Nina begins to lose her mind. Aronofsky seems to have pulled out all the stops for this one. A sort of cross between The Machinist (2004), The Lady Eve (1950), and Aronofsky's own The Wrestler, this is a film which presents a clear allegory for, I believe, those in professions who sacrifice their confidence and their well-being for some vaguely-defined shot at "perfection" and prestige. I'd better watch myself, as screenwriting isn't too far off from that.

Aronofsky's next project is The Wolverine (2011), another stand-alone X-Men spin-off, with Hugh Jackman returning as everyone's favorite mutant, and I for one couldn't be more excited. Look at what happened the last time we took a brilliant art-house director and gave him the reigns to a comic-book franchise!

--Serge

The Weekend Meme

Simply the greatest celebrity endorsement of all time. Also note the heavy concentration of Tremors (1990) references, which is to say, there's more than one.



--Serge

Life, the Universe, "Byrd Land," and Everything

Byrd Land has proven incredibly difficult to write over the last four months. I'm hoping this difficulty has nothing to do with any deficiencies in my talents as a screenwriter and that it only means that the script is trying to tackle very difficult issues (while making them as entertaining as possible).

The issue of the script, since it's genesis, has been an oldie but a goodie: what is love? Hard enough simply to answer, but then how does one dramatise the answer so that it might sustain a two-hour action-movie? Put another way: how does one write that?

Love is important to me. I don't assume it isn't important to you, but the way I feel about love is something which I feel invades most every aspect of my behavior. Getting "love" right in my scripts might be the most important artistic goal I could set for myself, as everything worth writing is always, in the end, about the human heart. My view of the human heart has been a little complicated, a little squashed, in the past few months, but that's no reason to keep sussing out answers.

Byrd Land's hard-and-fast logline: Alfred Lyre must go to Antarctica and infiltrate a top-secret genetics laboratory filled with ruthless security guards and rampaging dinosaurs so that he might find his wife, who is stricken with an incurable disease, and administer "final treatment" for her illness, which is something her doctors, who are responsible for her being sick, refuse to do.

Reduced to a logline, the story sounds oh-so-very simple, and--don't get me wrong, it is simple. If it were any more complicated, it would be impossible to write. And yet, it's always the simplest ideas which are the hardest to communicate through a script.

How do we establish that Alfred Lyre and his wife, Justine, are in love? My first drafts of the script included all kinds of romantic gestures: "I love you"s thrown around with deep gravitas, moments of tough love, moments of blind, "unconditional" love, the hint at a steamy sexual relationship, and all the other hallmarks of "love" which society might readily recognize. And you know what? I read the script back to myself and it sounded like a g-ddamn Hallmark card. For good reason: I was treating love like it's an idea, when of course it's not an idea, but a set of actions. That's good, because all I can ever write is one action proceeding after the other. That's really all that a script is. It's a list of chronologically-ordered actions which tell a story. If Alfred really is going to rescue his wife because he loves her, it must/will be seen in action.

So, how do we know Alfred loves his wife? How do we get that through what he does? For one thing, he enjoys talking to her. Their conversations are always either pleasant or illuminating or both. They do better together than they do apart. The reason Alfred wants to recover his wife and administer "final treatment," which is indeed a euphemism for euthanasia, is because he wants mercy for her. Mercy, happiness, engagement, freedom, sensuality, health, and all the other best things that the world has to offer. His quest to restore these things to his wife will be demonstrative of his love. Nothing else will do.

Maybe that's not something that will look like Love to today's (jaded) world. Perhaps I'll get a lot of angry studio notes. "They just talk, and enjoy each other's company," some might be inclined to say. "Where are the steamy sex-scenes? Where are all of the weighty 'I Love You's? Where is the second-act betrayal? Their relationship is so boring, so anticlimactic, so devoid of the Hallmarks of romantic love!"

If anybody is going to say that in my script, though, it's going to be one of the villains.

Thanks for reading. This project, as with all of my projects, are very close to my heart.

--Serge