Friday, August 06, 2004
Movies
Saw all the movies this summer that I was interested in. Some were better than others. Some were even worse than I expected.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Loved it. Loved. It. Where the first two flicks were overproduced, glitzy amusement parks for those who'd read the books, HP3 seemed almost real. Hogwarts finally looked like a 1,000 year-old university for wizards, not the newest attraction at Disneyworld. The washed-out color palette also added a grittiness that the first two films utterly lacked. And the actors have hit their stride. (And thank the screenwriter and director that they gave Ron something to do besides hold his mouth open in a rictus of terror while pointing at threats and making hooting noises.)
It didn't hurt that HP3 has the most emotional third act of any of the books so far except for Goblet of Fire. I'm very much looking forward to that one.
Chronicles of Riddick
I've never seen Pitch Black, and Vin Diesel, while decent, isn't my favorite actor of all time. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this one. Maybe it was the production design, or maybe it was the way it ended; or maybe it was simply the fact that finally, here is a science fiction movie set in the far future that doesn't involve any creatures sneaking aboard spacecraft and killing off the crew one by one. Honestly, the late-70's SF movie that has had the most imitators over the years isn't Star Wars but Alien. Enough already!
Oh, and the prison-planet sequence, while cool, should have been cut. Riddick should've been in direct conflict with the Necromongers for the entire movie.
Spider-Man 2
I liked this one enough to see it three times, and it got better each time. Still, it had more than its share of flaws -- none of them bad enough to condemn the movie, but enough to irritate me every time.
Good things:
1. Spidey and Doc-Ock falling off buildings and fighting on the way down. Straight from the comics.
2. Doc Ock attacking the surgical team trying to remove his arms at the hospital. (Bad point: his heartfelt "NO!" upon waking up and seeing what his arms have done. A bit too campy.)
3. Character development. Yes, Hollywood, we do like movies with recognizably human protagonists.
Bad things:
1. The pseudo-scientific MacGuffin of the fusion process. Completely unconvincing to anyone who remembers anything from their high-school physics class. And the jargon Octavius and Parker spout to each other is just embarrassingly bad.
2. The destruction of MJ. At the end of Spider-Man, Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man. Watch the cemetery scene again; when her hand goes to her mouth after he denies her... you can't tell me she doesn't know. You can tell me, but I won't believe you.
Yet by S2, MJ has developed a very convenient ignorance of who Peter is. At the beginning of the movie, there's a lot of tantalizing dialogue between the two, which could give the impression that MJ still knows and is trying to tease a confession out of Peter. But this is dropped, because the machinery of the movie requires MJ to spend most of it in utter confusion.
It's like what Return of the Jedi did to Princess Leia, only worse.
But my favorite part of the movie (other than the extended punch-fest on the train) is a scene that started out bad and ended up good. It's the obligatory New-Yorkers-to-the-rescue scene, in which a battered and barely conscious Spider-Man is menaced by Doc Ock on the subway. As Doc Ock boards the train, and begins to move toward Spidey, he's cut off by an overweight Italian guy in a track suit (obviously a man with Cosa Nostra connections):
WISEGUY: You want him, you're gonna hafta go through me.
OLD GUY: And me.
YOUNG GIRL: Me, too.
Doc Ock looks at them, smiling.
DOC OCK: Very well.
King Arthur
There aren't enough bad things to say about this movie. Mix lackluster casting with poor writing and paint-by-numbers direction, and you'd have a better movie than this one. The armor and equipment are all wrong, the peasants look like they were rented from Medieval Movies R Us, the costumes were apparently designed by a gay hairdresser -- they must have been, because the gay hairdresser obviously wasn't working on the actors' hair, which almost uniformly looked like an attempt to consume the world's remaining supply of Jheri Curl.
How bad is this movie? Stellan Skarsgaard couldn't rescue it, that's how bad it is. How bad is this movie? It makes Keira Knightley look bad; that's how bad it is.
And I haven't even touched on the clearly anti-Christian agenda of the screenwriter, David Franzoni, who demonstrates a startling command of ancient history by saying things like "Christians weren't mistreated under Marcus Aurelius" (interview about Gladiator in Creative Screenwriting magazine, July 2000) -- no, Marcus Aurelius merely allowed anyone who ratted out suspected Christians to keep their homes and property for themselves. In King Arthur, Christians are shown as cowardly, corrupt torturers of commoners -- except for the brave Arthur, a follower of Pelagius. According to Franzoni, Pelagius was a good man who preached the liberation of men; in fact, he was a heretic who denied the most basic teachings of the Christian faith. To Franzoni, then, the only good Christian is someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't actually believe any Christian doctrine.
An aside: in Franzoni's script, Pelagius is excommunicated and killed as a heretic. In fact, he was excommunicated, but there is no record of his death, and he probably died a natural death sometime after 418; there are reports he was alive as late as 425. This sort of playing fast and loose with the facts was a theme to be continued in the next movie I saw:
Fahrenheit 9/11
Uh... is this a joke? Is there really anyone who takes this hodgepodge of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies as any sort of documentary?
Those distortions, half-truths, and outright lies are too numerous to document here. A few of the most trivial ones:
1. Fox News Channel actually called Florida for Gore (at about 8pm) before they called it for Bush (after 2am). The Bush cousin said to work for FNC's election desk was working with two or three other people, all of whom were Democrats; and their call of Florida for Bush was a unanimous decision.
2. The Secret Service does provide security to any embassy that requests it. Why was Michael Moore harrassed by the guards in the movie? Could it have been because he was videotaping an official building, one of the terrorism warning signs we've been told to watch for?
3. Yes, George H. W. Bush (41) was on the board of directors of the Carlyle Group, which once upon a time owned the defense contractor BDM. But Carlyle sold BDM five months before Bush joined its board.
Oh, forget it. I can't be bothered with this crap. Go read Christopher Hitchens' excellent critique at Slate.com as a brief introduction to the science of tearing this ridiculous movie apart. Then realize that Hitchens barely scratches the surface.
I, Robot
Neither as good as it could have been nor anywhere near as bad as I expected. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
The movie does a good job as a sort of Matrix prequel, one that shows how machines might conceivably gain control over humanity granted:
1. Unregulated, self-aware AI
2. Automated manufacture of robots equipped with or directed by AI
The movie's central image comes directly from Asimov's story "Elvex," about a robot who begins to dream. The final shot in the film is the realization of that robot's dream. Of course, things turned out quite a bit better for the robot in the movie than they did for the one in the story.
And I'm no Will Smith fan, but he did a very decent job.
The Village
I'm torn on this one. Without giving anything away for those who might still want to go see it, I must say that I found the big twist utterly unconvincing on a pyschological level (why would they do that? Aren't there easier ways to achieve the same result?) and the entire thing plays on two or three (very low-key) emotional notes. The dialogue, too, comes across as someone trying too hard -- though this may have been intentional.
Still, it's beautifully photographed, and the scene of the creature's "attack" on the village, with Bryce Dallas Howard standing at the door with her hand out, was wonderful. Still, it's a down note to end the summer on.
I want to see Collateral tonight.
|
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Loved it. Loved. It. Where the first two flicks were overproduced, glitzy amusement parks for those who'd read the books, HP3 seemed almost real. Hogwarts finally looked like a 1,000 year-old university for wizards, not the newest attraction at Disneyworld. The washed-out color palette also added a grittiness that the first two films utterly lacked. And the actors have hit their stride. (And thank the screenwriter and director that they gave Ron something to do besides hold his mouth open in a rictus of terror while pointing at threats and making hooting noises.)
It didn't hurt that HP3 has the most emotional third act of any of the books so far except for Goblet of Fire. I'm very much looking forward to that one.
Chronicles of Riddick
I've never seen Pitch Black, and Vin Diesel, while decent, isn't my favorite actor of all time. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this one. Maybe it was the production design, or maybe it was the way it ended; or maybe it was simply the fact that finally, here is a science fiction movie set in the far future that doesn't involve any creatures sneaking aboard spacecraft and killing off the crew one by one. Honestly, the late-70's SF movie that has had the most imitators over the years isn't Star Wars but Alien. Enough already!
Oh, and the prison-planet sequence, while cool, should have been cut. Riddick should've been in direct conflict with the Necromongers for the entire movie.
Spider-Man 2
I liked this one enough to see it three times, and it got better each time. Still, it had more than its share of flaws -- none of them bad enough to condemn the movie, but enough to irritate me every time.
Good things:
1. Spidey and Doc-Ock falling off buildings and fighting on the way down. Straight from the comics.
2. Doc Ock attacking the surgical team trying to remove his arms at the hospital. (Bad point: his heartfelt "NO!" upon waking up and seeing what his arms have done. A bit too campy.)
3. Character development. Yes, Hollywood, we do like movies with recognizably human protagonists.
Bad things:
1. The pseudo-scientific MacGuffin of the fusion process. Completely unconvincing to anyone who remembers anything from their high-school physics class. And the jargon Octavius and Parker spout to each other is just embarrassingly bad.
2. The destruction of MJ. At the end of Spider-Man, Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man. Watch the cemetery scene again; when her hand goes to her mouth after he denies her... you can't tell me she doesn't know. You can tell me, but I won't believe you.
Yet by S2, MJ has developed a very convenient ignorance of who Peter is. At the beginning of the movie, there's a lot of tantalizing dialogue between the two, which could give the impression that MJ still knows and is trying to tease a confession out of Peter. But this is dropped, because the machinery of the movie requires MJ to spend most of it in utter confusion.
It's like what Return of the Jedi did to Princess Leia, only worse.
But my favorite part of the movie (other than the extended punch-fest on the train) is a scene that started out bad and ended up good. It's the obligatory New-Yorkers-to-the-rescue scene, in which a battered and barely conscious Spider-Man is menaced by Doc Ock on the subway. As Doc Ock boards the train, and begins to move toward Spidey, he's cut off by an overweight Italian guy in a track suit (obviously a man with Cosa Nostra connections):
WISEGUY: You want him, you're gonna hafta go through me.
OLD GUY: And me.
YOUNG GIRL: Me, too.
Doc Ock looks at them, smiling.
DOC OCK: Very well.
King Arthur
There aren't enough bad things to say about this movie. Mix lackluster casting with poor writing and paint-by-numbers direction, and you'd have a better movie than this one. The armor and equipment are all wrong, the peasants look like they were rented from Medieval Movies R Us, the costumes were apparently designed by a gay hairdresser -- they must have been, because the gay hairdresser obviously wasn't working on the actors' hair, which almost uniformly looked like an attempt to consume the world's remaining supply of Jheri Curl.
How bad is this movie? Stellan Skarsgaard couldn't rescue it, that's how bad it is. How bad is this movie? It makes Keira Knightley look bad; that's how bad it is.
And I haven't even touched on the clearly anti-Christian agenda of the screenwriter, David Franzoni, who demonstrates a startling command of ancient history by saying things like "Christians weren't mistreated under Marcus Aurelius" (interview about Gladiator in Creative Screenwriting magazine, July 2000) -- no, Marcus Aurelius merely allowed anyone who ratted out suspected Christians to keep their homes and property for themselves. In King Arthur, Christians are shown as cowardly, corrupt torturers of commoners -- except for the brave Arthur, a follower of Pelagius. According to Franzoni, Pelagius was a good man who preached the liberation of men; in fact, he was a heretic who denied the most basic teachings of the Christian faith. To Franzoni, then, the only good Christian is someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't actually believe any Christian doctrine.
An aside: in Franzoni's script, Pelagius is excommunicated and killed as a heretic. In fact, he was excommunicated, but there is no record of his death, and he probably died a natural death sometime after 418; there are reports he was alive as late as 425. This sort of playing fast and loose with the facts was a theme to be continued in the next movie I saw:
Fahrenheit 9/11
Uh... is this a joke? Is there really anyone who takes this hodgepodge of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies as any sort of documentary?
Those distortions, half-truths, and outright lies are too numerous to document here. A few of the most trivial ones:
1. Fox News Channel actually called Florida for Gore (at about 8pm) before they called it for Bush (after 2am). The Bush cousin said to work for FNC's election desk was working with two or three other people, all of whom were Democrats; and their call of Florida for Bush was a unanimous decision.
2. The Secret Service does provide security to any embassy that requests it. Why was Michael Moore harrassed by the guards in the movie? Could it have been because he was videotaping an official building, one of the terrorism warning signs we've been told to watch for?
3. Yes, George H. W. Bush (41) was on the board of directors of the Carlyle Group, which once upon a time owned the defense contractor BDM. But Carlyle sold BDM five months before Bush joined its board.
Oh, forget it. I can't be bothered with this crap. Go read Christopher Hitchens' excellent critique at Slate.com as a brief introduction to the science of tearing this ridiculous movie apart. Then realize that Hitchens barely scratches the surface.
I, Robot
Neither as good as it could have been nor anywhere near as bad as I expected. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
The movie does a good job as a sort of Matrix prequel, one that shows how machines might conceivably gain control over humanity granted:
1. Unregulated, self-aware AI
2. Automated manufacture of robots equipped with or directed by AI
The movie's central image comes directly from Asimov's story "Elvex," about a robot who begins to dream. The final shot in the film is the realization of that robot's dream. Of course, things turned out quite a bit better for the robot in the movie than they did for the one in the story.
And I'm no Will Smith fan, but he did a very decent job.
The Village
I'm torn on this one. Without giving anything away for those who might still want to go see it, I must say that I found the big twist utterly unconvincing on a pyschological level (why would they do that? Aren't there easier ways to achieve the same result?) and the entire thing plays on two or three (very low-key) emotional notes. The dialogue, too, comes across as someone trying too hard -- though this may have been intentional.
Still, it's beautifully photographed, and the scene of the creature's "attack" on the village, with Bryce Dallas Howard standing at the door with her hand out, was wonderful. Still, it's a down note to end the summer on.
I want to see Collateral tonight.
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