Category Archives: Movies

Movies, TV

How “Breaking Bad” and “House of Cards” killed the Oscars…

I guess I wasn’t the only person not all that interested/invested in this year’s Oscars.  This article by Anne Thompson for Salon.com offers great insight into what may well be ailing the theatrical movie industry and why:

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/01/how-breaking-bad-and-house-of-cards-killed-the-oscars/

I agree with much of what Ms. Thompson’s analysis.  We’re entering a new age in so many ways thanks to the digital/computer revolution.  As I’ve mentioned many times before, stores we used to frequent, such as music and book sellers, are fading away when we can simply, easily, and conveniently download said material from the internet…hopefully doing this legally.

The theatrical movie industry is starting to feel the pinch as well.  Yesterday I noted (you can read it here) how few of the films nominated for the Oscars I had actually seen.  In going over that blog post, I didn’t make it as clear as I should how little I cared to see these other films.

These were the nominees for best movie of the year:

12 Years a Slave (the winner), American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

As I stated before, I’ve only seen Gravity.  Of the rest, the only one I’m somewhat interested in seeing is American Hustle.  But I’m hardly “dying” to see it.  It looks like it could be good, but then again so did Argo (last year’s big Oscar winner) and I found that film to be a pleasant enough diversion but, frankly, nothing exceptional.

A weak batch?  For me certainly, though I stress this is just my opinion alone.  For whatever reason, my personal movie interests didn’t coincide all that strongly with what was considered some of the best movies released this past year.

Yet there is another element to this picture, and that is what Ms. Thompson points out in her article.  The fact is that there are some really terrific TV series out there that draw my attention far more than many theatrically released movies.  Why?  Because these TV shows feature some of the best talent in Hollywood today, both in front of and behind the camera.  And instead of a story that is told in an hour and a half to two hours, TV shows have the ability to present viewers a longer, more involved, and deeper story than a single feature film can at times provide.

Sure, I can envision a Justified motion picture, but seeing the adventures of Raylon Givens and the motley crew of lowlifes around him play out is something that works extremely well in an hourly episodic fashion.  I suspect that’s what has drawn so many to Breaking Bad and House of Cards as well.  Again, a movie version could be made of each, but what thrills you is seeing the story play out in a longer format.  These multiple episode features, of course, are perfect for streaming services who have enriched themselves providing these services and therefore have deep enough pockets to pay for top talent in their features.

And this brings us to another element to the equation.  If the money is moving away from the theatrical releases and to the TV series, where do you think the talent will go?

As with many things, this may be a temporary change.  Perhaps in another year or two audiences will bore of long TV series and the theatrical movie making companies will get their mojo back.  It only takes a couple of big successes (witness Jaws and Star Wars) to revitalize and refocus an industry.

Books/Literature, Movies

Jonathan Livingston Seagull…

…and the Rise of Simpleton Wisdom, a fascinating article by Heather Havrilesky for Slate Magazine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/03/jonathan-livingston-seagull-new-edition-with-fourth-section-is-dumb-as-ever.html

If you’re like me and were a child of the 1970’s, Richard Bach’s novel Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was one of those books that seemed to be everywhere.  I remember seeing it in drug stores, libraries, bookstores (where it was very prominently featured), left behind at bus stops or schools, etc. etc.

I tried reading it way back when but found the whole thing rather…silly.  I mean, a book about a seagull that somehow finds its Nirvana?  To this day it fascinates me what people react to and make a big part of their culture, and Ms. Havrilesky astutely points out why this book may have become as popular as it was, a revelation to me (I never cared enough about the book, despite its popularity, to find out the why’s related to the same).

By the way, so popular was the book that they made a movie out of it (it bombed).  The movie featured the music of Neil Diamond.

Oh yeah…

…oh my….

Movies

About the Oscars last night…

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Used to be I was a movie watching fanatic.  Couldn’t wait until the weekend to see whatever new features were out there.  I envied the hell out of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel and their (*smirk*) “job” as movie critics…what in the world could be better than having a job that pays you to watch films?

Over time, work, family life, and general life obligations made it increasingly harder for me to find time to get out to the theaters and see the latest films.  Somewhere along the line I also realized the film critic’s job is not one to envy.  Quite the contrary, being a film critic was something I began to find terrifying.  A lesser known film critic noted that in one year s/he (sorry, don’t recall who it was exactly) watched something like five hundred films that year, both in theaters and in the film fest circuit.  That meant that in a year this individual saw approximately 1.4 films each day…and probably wrote about almost all of them.

Much as I love films -and I absolutely love them- I couldn’t bear the rigors of being a film critic.  Of being forced to see not just the films you want to but taking it upon yourself to see as many films as you can.  And if you’re an honest critic, you have to enter the theaters to see a film like Citizen Kane with the same neutrality as Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.  There are commercials for rom-coms that look absolutely dreadful and I have no desire at all to see.  A movie critic dedicated to his/her job willingly goes to see these films while I can ignore them completely.

So the 2014 Oscars came and went last night and CNN provided a great summary of the films, actors, directors, technicians, musicians, etc. etc. who won the prized statuette:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/02/showbiz/oscars-2014-winners-list/index.html

Looking over the list I’m surprised, yet not terribly shocked, by how few of the film winners and nominees I’ve seen over the past year.

For most of the “big” categories, such as Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, etc., I’ve seen a grand total of…one film: Gravity.

You trek down lower and lower on the list and get to the Visual Effects award and there you’ll find the most number of nominated films I’ve seen.  Of the five listed (including the winner, Gravity), I’ve seen four of them.  The one I have yet to see?  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  And therein lies the reason I’d make a terrible movie critic.

As much as I loved the first two films in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I found myself really burnt out of all things Hobbity by the time the third movie in the series was released.  When I heard director Peter Jackson was working on The Hobbit, and then that it would be two film…then three!…I thought: No mas.  I didn’t catch the first Hobbit film and likewise ignored the second.  Take a wild guess as to whether I’ll catch the third.

So much for my dreams of being a film critic.

Movies

The Lone Ranger (2013) a (mildly) belated review/autopsy

History repeats itself in more ways than one.

Way back in 1981 a big budgeted “new/updated” version of The Lone Ranger, a classic western pulp adventure series which at that point was known mostly for the famous 1949 to 1957 TV series starring Clayton Moore, was set to be released.  Early word wasn’t all that encouraging, and when The Legend of the Lone Ranger finally arrived in theaters, the critics were incredibly harsh.

That film proceeded to flop.  Hard.  How hard?  Newcomer Klinton Spilsbury, the man who played the title role of the Lone Ranger, has not appeared in another movie or TV show since.  The Legend of the Lone Ranger remains his one, and only, movie credit.

In 2012 Walt Disney Studios were set to release another big budgeted would-be summer blockbuster.  Based on a popular early pulp novel series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter took on a life of its own -all negative- even before its release.  Leaked missives hinted at the studio’s displeasure with the product while extensive re-shoots were reportedly made.  By the time the film was finally released, audiences were poisoned against the product.  Sure, there were those who defended it along with the many who knocked it.  In the end, I fell somewhere in the middle and felt that while the film wasn’t as atrocious as others felt it was, it was at best a decent time killer but certainly not something worthy of its incredibly big budget (if you’re curious, my review of John Carter can be found here).

A year later, the very same Walt Disney Studios got director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp, both of whom hit mega-pay-dirt with Pirates of the Caribbean and its sequels, to once again take on The Lone Ranger.  Released in the summer of 2013 this film, like its 1981 predecessor and last year’s John Carter, turned into another embarrassing big budget flop for that studio.

So…what happened?  Was this film also the victim of bad pre-release press?  Was the movie’s failure further proof that the western genre is dead?  Had there developed a backlash against Johnny Depp and his sometimes “out there” characterization/acting?  And perhaps the most important question of all: Was The Long Ranger really as bad as many said it was?

When I finally sat down to watch the film, I tried to keep my mind as neutral as possible.  There were far more people, it seemed to me anyway, that had a negative opinion about this film versus John Carter.  And yet, there were also many who staunchly defended it.

During the first few minutes of the film I was rewarded with something that…wasn’t all that bad at all.  In fact, I wound up enjoying the first thirty to forty five minutes of the film quite a bit.  I was certain I’d fall into the “I like it” camp.

And then…

…and then…

Let’s be brutally honest here: The Lone Ranger clocks in at a ridiculous 149 minutes long according to IMDB.

Two and a half hours?!

Seriously?

As good as the movie’s opening segments were, as the film reached its middle, I began to feel restless.  During the course of this mid section of the film we were introduced to strange/ferocious/mutant(?) rabbits, a prolonged and increasingly less amusing bit involving a child in 1933 being told the story we’re seeing by a very old Tonto who may or may not be an apparition in the kid’s head, an Indian tribe about to be massacred, and Helena Bonham Carter as a madam with a prosthetic ivory leg she hides a rifle in.

Seriously?!

Most of what I mentioned above could have been eliminated from the film without seriously impacting it.  The Indian tribe massacre sequence was particularly egregious as we’re supposed to be horrified by it yet immediately afterward (we’re talking seconds after the two main characters realize this noble tribe has been wiped out!) we’re hit with a joke regarding a horse on a tree.  The ferocious/mutant rabbits really had me scratching my head.  I guess whatever the filmmakers were going for must have really worked on the page but was completely lost in the translation to film.  I found the rabbits neither interesting nor humorous nor worthy of being in the film at all.  What I came to realize is that the middle segment of the film featured a lot of ideas presented without any real focus.  I was now thinking I’d fall into the “didn’t like it” camp.

But then, like the Lone Ranger himself, the film heroically rises from that messy middle to deliver a genuinely thrilling ending.

In sum, we have a film with a pretty good start and end jammed between a mediocre and bloated middle.

So, back to the questions at hand:

Was the film a victim of its negative pre-release?  I suppose.  Like John Carter there was early word that the film wasn’t all that good and when the first images of Johnny Depp as Tonto were released, he looked rather ridiculous.  Still, I suspect people found what they saw and heard about The Lone Ranger confusing, and I’m sure that didn’t help to bring ’em to the theater.

Was Johnny Depp guilty of delivering another of his highly stylized characterizations and is it possible audiences had finally had their fill of this?  Absolutely.  The character of Tonto takes up quite a bit of space versus the Lone Ranger.  Having said that, if Mr. Depp’s Tonto wasn’t in the film and wasn’t as humorous and engaging as he was, the film would have been a far, far worse experience.

Is the movie’s failure a further sign that the Western is dead?  I suppose one could make that argument.  However, if there is one genre that was even deader than the western it was the pirate film, and that didn’t stop Pirates of the Caribbean from being a hell of a success.  If the makers of The Lone Ranger could have kept the middle section of the film as good as the beginning and end, I suspect things might have turned out very differently.

In conclusion, I can only give The Lone Ranger a mild recommendation and in this it shares the same impression John Carter gave me a year before.  The Lone Ranger is a decent enough film and, in my opinion, an overall better one than John Carter, but considering its bloated budget one expected something that was overall far, far better.  A shame.

Movies

The Wolverine (2013) Extended Cut, a (mildly) belated review

Back in November of 2012 I wrote the following in the review for the then just released James Bond film Skyfall:

It is a credit to director Sam Mendes, Daniel Craig, and all those in front of and behind the cameras (that they) delivered a movie that moved as well as it did.  In fact…it wasn’t until after the movie was over that I realized the screenwriters delivered a truly underwhelming, ultimately silly story.  (you can read the entire review here)

I might as well have been speaking of last summer’s The Wolverine as well.

The summer of 2013 was awash with superhero inspired movies and The Wolverine was a late comer to the party.  Yet there were those who felt that of all the superhero related films released at that time, this was the one that merited better scrutiny and reward.

I can’t agree with that although there most certainly was a great deal of effort put into this film.

The Wolverine is essentially a “stand alone” story that takes place shortly after the last X-Men movie and, in its credits, hints at what’s to come in the next X-Men feature.  The always reliable Hugh Jackman returns for the fifth time in the role of Logan/Wolverine and, at the start of the film, we’re given a window into something he experienced during World War II and as a prisoner of war just outside of Nagasaki (yes, THE Nagasaki and, yes, just before -and after!- the bomb was dropped).

Logan saves a kind Japanese soldier from the devastation of the Atomic Bomb before we move, chronologically, to the present.  That Japanese soldier, it turns out, is named Yashida and after the war he became the head of a very powerful -and rich- company that is at the technological forefront of Japan and the world.  He’s also very old and dying.  He gets Logan to come to Japan to visit him for one last time.  During this visit, he tells Logan he can make him mortal and end what he perceives as the man’s Earthly torment.  This, Yashida states, is done by somehow transferring Logan’s immortality to the aged Yashida himself, effectively giving him the immortality Logan has.

Despite his torment, Logan refuses the deal and, in short order, all hell breaks loose.

Yashida dies, his son and apparent heir is up to no good, and his granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) is in mortal peril.  Logan jumps into action and saves Mariko but quickly realizes that during his visit to Yahida’s estate something has happened to him.  He no longer recovers as quickly from injuries as before.  On the run in Japan and with the forces of evil converging on the two, will Logan have enough gas in his tank to emerge victorious…or will the two fall?

As noted above, I’m reviewing the Extended Cut of The Wolverine.  If you’re interested in the differences between this version of the film and the Theatrical Cut, check out this website as it offers a terrific in depth comparison:

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=274643

Now, moving on to the movie itself and as I noted before, this film experience proved similar to Skyfall.  I found the effort put into The Wolverine truly admirable.  The movie looks great and moves like lightning.  The characters presented are interesting and their motivations arouse your curiosity.  Yet it was also very obvious early on who the “big bad” was.  Just reading my fairly non-spoilery plot synopsis above should clue you into that.

The problem with The Wolverine lies in the fact that, like Skyfall, we have this huge/big/enormous set pieces that ultimately are revealed to be…nothing.  In Skyfall, the villain’s goal was so damn small and petty and all the running around proved to be just that: silly running around.

In The Wolverine, all the running around is also incredibly pointless as (I’m going to try to tiptoe around the story without getting to spoilery) the villain had his hands on his “prize” early in the film and there was absolutely no need for all that extra crap that followed.  Or, to put it another way: All the villain(s) had to do was knock their intended victim out with some kind of tranquilizer (which, by the way, they already did as the villains managed to implant something into their victim without their realizing it!), take what you need on that very first night, and -voila!- you’re done.

Silly, silly, silly.

And yet, like Skyfall, I can’t entirely dismiss The Wolverine despite its ultimately idiotic story line.  Again, there’s some really good stuff on display here and its just a shame that it gets torpedoed with such a silly script.  Perhaps it is a sign of these ADHD times that filmmakers are more focused on the thrills presented to their audiences rather than any logical explanation for why those thrills are occurring.

In the end, I can only offer a tepid recommendation for The Wolverine.  The film is worth seeing but, whatever you do, try not to think too hard about it afterwards.  You’ll only drive yourself crazy.

Movies

8 Movies Everyone Turned Against…

…On A Second Viewing:

http://whatculture.com/film/8-movies-everyone-turned-second-viewing.php

Now this is an interesting list.  I’ve long been fascinated with the way people react to entertainment.

Like everyone else, I am susceptible to what appears new and interesting.  I’ve jumped onto things and felt they were really really good only to have second thoughts about them later.

For example, there was a time in the very late 1970’s and entering the early 1980’s that I enjoyed Billy Joel’s music.  When the 1980 release “Glass Houses” came out, I was impressed.  I listed to that album quite a bit but, a few months later, I suddenly found myself not liking his music at all.  To this day, hearing a couple of notes of any of his songs sends me racing to change the station.

And that’s music!

Going by this list, there are a few films listed that people “turned” on that I find fascinating.

Take for instance the very first film on this list, the 2012 mega-blockbuster The Avengers.  The culmination of several Marvel Comics related works, this film roared into theaters and appeared to take the country by storm yet, according to this article, there are those who now look back at the film in far less glowing fashion.

I don’t believe I wrote a formal review to the film, though I did see it in theaters way back when (and in 3D!).  Not to sound too forward thinking, but the film didn’t “blow my socks off.”  I enjoyed it well enough, but afterwards I felt the plot was a complete mess.  Mind you, at that very same time there were people making those very same complaints against The Dark Knight Rises, the third of director Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and a box office rival to The Avengers that summer.  I felt/feel that The Dark Knight Rises (by the way, it is another entry into this list) was far from a “perfect” work but at that at least there was an effort made to make something “big”, storywise, in it.  With The Avengers, however, the villains’ motivations and plan were always, at best, silly.  Why engage The Avengers at all?  The plan seemed to have been to confuse and bewilder them until the alien menace can make its way to Earth, but wouldn’t a more prudent plan be to stay in the shadows and bide your time until you have your alien forces already orbiting Earth (hidden, of course), and then attack without warning?

At the very least, their numbers would then be overwhelming enough to wipe out The Avengers, right?

Anyway, there’s the list.  Their #1 film is (SPOILERS!) the James Cameron mega-hit Avatar.  Funny thing about that film.  I was really eager to see it when I first heard about it.  Especially the idea of James Cameron returning to science fiction.

Then the film was released and everyone went crazy about it.  It made a zillion dollars and, I believe, remains the single highest grossing film of all time (perhaps not factoring in inflation…I keep hearing Gone With The Wind would be tops if that were the case).  As blown away as audiences were with it, the more I read about the movie’s story (this from before and after the release) the less interested I was in seeing it.

To this day I haven’t seen Avatar.  Perhaps one day I will.  Perhaps…

Still, a fun little list to consider.  Bear in mind, all the mentioned films are of fairly recent vintage.

Movies

Riddick (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Back in the year 2000, many critics and fans expressed enthusiasm over the just released sci-fi action suspense film Pitch Black.  Starring the then pretty much unknown Vin Diesel (his two biggest roles up to that point were Private Carpazo in Saving Private Ryan and the voice of the Iron Giant in that animated movie), the movie was relatively low budget and, admittedly, felt like it owed a great debt, story-wise, to both Alien and Aliens.  Nonetheless, the film delivered an entertaining tale with characters who weren’t easy to pin down.

The movie was so successful it spawned video games, an animated feature, and an ambitious 2004 sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick.  Unfortunately, that movie may well have been a little too ambitious for its own good.  While Pitch Black was a more small scale and “intimate” monster movie, The Chronicles of Riddick attempted to create a HUGE space opera on the level of Dune, complete with a large cast of characters, political intrigue, back-stabbing, etc. etc.

After that film’s release and the subsequent critical drubbing and disappointing box office it received, it appeared the character of Riddick would grace the screen no more.

But Vin Diesel’s star was on the rise and I suspect the incredible success of the last few Fast and Furious movies gave investors enough confidence to allow Mr. Diesel and director/writer David Twohy another go around with Riddick.

Released in 2013, Riddick, the third film in the series, wisely chooses to draw the space opera stuff so prevalent in The Chronicles of Riddick waaay down, though there is no attempt to ignore the events of that film.  In fact, after Riddick’s start, we find via flashbacks that our favorite anti-hero’s current predicament (he’s heavily injured and stranded on a desert planet with considerable hostile wildlife) were a direct result of things that happened to him after/because of The Chronicles of Riddick.  By the end of that film, Riddick was the king of a group of dark mages.  At the start of Riddick, he was unceremoniously dumped and abandoned by the same group on this planet and must now survive.

Without getting too SPOILERY, the first part of the film involves Riddick doing just that: Recovering from his injuries while figuring out how to move from the more dangerous zone he’s in to another within the planet.  However, he soon realizes a massive danger is about to be unleashed and uses a distress beacon he finds in an abandoned trapper’s shelter to summon two groups of Mercs to the planet.  Both are hunting for Riddick yet each group has their own unique reasons why.  Meanwhile, the danger Riddick knows is coming arrives, and soon everyone is fighting for their survival.

In reading the reviews of the film, I found there are those who were very positive about the first third or so of Riddick -the lone survivor section- and critical of the later part of the film.  Many felt this part of the film was little more than a re-tread of Pitch Black.  I can’t argue the point.  However, to me Riddick worked in spite of the less than original second half and that was because Mr. Twohy knows how to carefully build suspense.  Unlike others recent action films, Riddick is almost old fashioned in its presentation.  Other than one ludicrous scene involving a balanced machete, it doesn’t feature the more ridiculous ADHD “action” effects that I found so hard to swallow in movies like, yes, Fast and Furious 6.  Further, Riddick keeps the characters interesting throughout.

For example, I found the character of Lockspur (Raoul Trujillo), the leader of the second group of Mercs to be very intriguing.  Until the movie’s end, we weren’t quite sure which way he would go.  Similarly, the character of Dahl (fan favorite Katee Sackhoff) was a two-fisted delight.  I especially enjoyed the way she treated the leader of the first Merc squad.  Finally, Diaz (WWE star Dave Bautista) was yet another intriguing character who showed several shades of gray…as well as a black deviousness.

Please note, though, that I saw the “unrated director’s cut” and not the theatrical version of the film.  I’m not sure what the differences are or even if they make much of a difference at all.

Regardless, I enjoyed Riddick and I’m pleased to hear that because of the success of the home video release there may be a fourth film in the works.  Hopefully, Mr. Diesel and Twohy has some interesting ideas for this upcoming film and, even more hopefully, they’ll be allowed a bigger budget to show it.  Only, please don’t go the route of Chronicles of Riddick, ok?

Recommended.

Movies

You’re Next (2011) a (mildly) belated review

While not necessarily a big fan of all her many literary works, I’m very much impressed with Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None.  Originally published in 1939 under the far more politically incorrect title Ten Little Niggers and subsequently re-titled Ten Little Indians before finally being called And Then There Were None, this is the late Ms. Christie’s all time best selling novel.  It involves a group of people brought together on a remote island under various guises, all of which were tailored for them.

Once on this remote island, they realize that the stories they were offered to get them to the place were in fact lies, and that they must now stay on that island and await the return in a couple of days of a boat to pick them up.  In time they find a nursery rhyme and ten Indian figurines.  When the first of them die, they realize the person’s death matched the first death described in the rhyme…and they also find the figurine that matched this death broken.

So a countdown begins…who is the murderer among them and who is the next to die?  And, in the end, who, if anyone, will survive?

As good as the book is, I felt the first theatrical version of it, made in 1945, made some great improvements to what was a pretty grim novel.  In the movie, we had a genuine heroine and hero, something that was absent from Ms. Christie’s book.  I also thought the resolution played out a little better in the film.

Having said that, both the novel and film are terrific and, I believe, have been the source of inspiration to many, many works that followed.  Certainly the concept of a group of people gathering together at an isolated place and then getting picked off one after the other has been used in many works.  It certainly was somewhere in the back of my mind when I wrote Chameleon.

Which brings us to the 2011 film You’re Next.  The story involves the wealthy husband/wife patriarchs of a large family arranging a get together of themselves, their sons and daughters and their lovers for the weekend in a remote mansion…and the hell that breaks loose when a group of mask wearing individuals attack and start killing them off.

When this movie was originally released to the film festival circuit, it received positive word of mouth and I was curious to see it.  Eventually it was picked up and released to theaters, though to a limited run.  It wasn’t until yesterday that I finally got a chance to see it.

Was it worth the wait?

Unfortunately, the answer to me was a resounding “no.”

You’re Next is an at times clever, at times very gory (in fact, a little too gory for my taste) experience.  It also attempts to be a mystery before turning into a black comedy.  Unfortunately, all those shifts in tone hurt rather than helped.  The opening bit with the family meal and first attack on them are probably the film’s highlight, though one can also find a bit of pleasure in the butt-kicking and very resourceful heroine (played by Sharni Vinson) who isn’t about to let these masked killers get her.

Unfortunately, the film is too often gory and sadistic.  Considering the ultimate revelation of what it was all about, very much unnecessarily so.  I don’t want to get into spoilers, but given the plot behind the whole thing, there had to be a far easier way of accomplishing what was needed to accomplish, right?  Stealthy attacks would have accomplished what was needed instead of a big frontal attack that insured everyone was scurrying around from the word go.

Really, really silly if you think about it.

The bottom line is this: if you’re in the mood for a mystery featuring characters getting picked off one after the other, read Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None or watch the 1945 film version.  It’s far better than spending the same amount of time with You’re Next.

Movies

Movie lists!!!

First up, 10 Great Movies That Flopped:

http://www.moviestalk.com/10-great-movies-that-flopped/

This list involves movies that when they were originally released were box office flops yet over time became known as great films.  Some might surprise you (Citizen Kane, It’s A Wonderful Life) while you may recall others which had not such great box office results.

The inclusion of Joe Versus The Volcano, however, is a real head-scratcher for me.  I know the film didn’t do all that well at the box office, but is it considered a great film today?  Is it even remembered today?

Of the films listed, the one I find most curious is Blade Runner.  I was around when the film was initially released and recall the less than sterling box office results…along with (if memory serves) muted and unenthusiastic reviews.  The big, BIG box-office champ that summer of 1982 season was Steven Spielberg’s E. T. the Extra Terrestrial.  That movie essentially was the king of that summer season, yet I can’t help but think that today the film doesn’t hold up quiet as well as some other classic Spielberg films (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc).  As one critic said in looking back, perhaps that year people wanted to see something bright and cheerful rather than dark and dour.

The second list involves Good (or Great) Movies with Terrible Endings:

http://www.chacha.com/gallery/2943/which-movies-have-the-most-terrible-endings

I agree with some of their choices while a few others were films that couldn’t be saved, IMHO, almost from the get-go.

Their choice of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, however, was a curious one.  I’ve stated before that The Birds was one of those films I didn’t like all that much until I finally realized what exactly Mr. Hitchcock was doing: Making his version of those then very popular “mutated monsters on the loose” films.  In his case, he took all the cliches in those films, which often involved the scariest looking creatures -usually insects- that grow to superhuman size and terrorize the populace only to be stopped by either the intrepid scientist, the rock hard military/adventure type, and the romantic interest (or a combination of all three), and invert the cliches completely.

Instead of a mutated extra large scary looking creature/insect, he took a creature NO ONE thinks is terrifying and is present almost everywhere: The common bird.  No mutations, no extra size, just your common bird.  In swarms.  There is no scientist to explain the bizarre behavior.  The rock hard military/adventure type cannot stop their rampage.  And the romantic interest ultimately is shocked into a near coma-state.

And then, most sinister of all, (SPOILERS!!!) the birds simply let the leads go at the end.  Why?  Because they won.  The birds had conquered all (certainly the small city and, implied in this, the world itself), and they viewed the few survivors as no longer a threat to them.

The ending was incredibly appropriate and made total sense.

Switching gears a little here: Mission: Impossible, the first of the Tom Cruise MI films, had a golden opportunity to create an ending that didn’t crap on the original TV series.  As those who saw the film may recall, Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt, an MI agent who survives a catastrophic mission wherein all his teammates were betrayed and killed.  The betrayer, it turns out, is none other than (SPOILERS!!!!) Jim Phelps, the character who was the lead in the TV show that spawned the movie.  This is not unlike doing a Star Trek film where it is revealed after a while that Jim Kirk or Spock were, in reality, “bad guys”.

But at the very end of the film, when Phelps is dispatched and Ethan is on a flight and receives his first briefing as the leader of the MI task force, I thought the tape recording he was listening to would refer to him as “Mister Phelps”, revealing that name is in actuality a code name for any leader of the IMF group.  Thus, the TV show’s Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) and the movie’s evil Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) could be revealed as separate people…and the Ethan Hunt character is, in the end, renamed “Jim Phelps” and continues from there.

I’m not the first person to think this, and there have been others who noted that maybe the whole “James Bond” ID should/could also be viewed as a “code name”, thus allowing for so many difference actors to play the character.

Not a bad idea, either.  At least in my humble opinion!

Books/Literature, Computers/Electronics, Movies

Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”

If you haven’t heard/read about it, director/writer Quentin Tarantino’s next film was supposed to be The Hateful Eight.  I heard it was going to be a western with a cast that features more mature/elderly actors and there were those that speculated this might be a film on par, thematically, with The Wild Bunch.

Whether this was the case or not, the film’s first draft script was leaked and Mr. Tarantino’s reaction was, to me, quite understandable: He was pissed.

He released a stinging statement to the media noting The Hateful Eight movie was shelved and the script might be released as a novel.  He went further, stating the first draft script was in the hands of only three actors…and he suspected one of their agents/agencies were the source of the leak.

Today, news comes that Mr. Tarantino is suing Gawker for posting links to the leaked script:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/quentin-tarantino-suing-gawker-leaked-674424

I can’t blame him.

I’ve talked before about my curiosity about the effects of the internet and the changes it has made to the economy, whether for good or bad.

There was a time when there were Music stores.  At first, they sold record albums.  Then 8-track and cassettes.  Then came CDs.  With the advent of the MP3 file, however, the entire music selling industry was uprooted.  Suddenly, it was easy to download -legally or illegally- music online.  So easy, in fact, that if you were interested in, say, the music of Artist X, in a matter of minutes you could have every one of their albums (legally or illegally) along with as many bootlegs (illegally) as you wanted/cared for.

In one moment, music stores were a thing of the past.

I recall many years ago (1986 or 1987) going to see a movie and noting a life sized cardboard cutout promoting the upcoming Robocop movie.  Back in those pre-internet days, I had no idea such a film was in the works, much less on the verge of being released.

The cutout, frankly, looked absolutely ridiculous to my eyes.  “A cop that’s a robot?” I said in disbelief.  “How stupid!”

And yet, when the film was released a month or so later (again, I had NO IDEA AT ALL what the film was about other than this poster/cutout) there were some very good reviews for it and I was curious.

I went to see the film and, again, without knowing all that much about it, was blown away.

Today and thanks to the internet, we already know just about everything we need to about the Robocop remake.  Who stars in it, an idea of what the tone of the film is, even how it differs from the original.  I suspect there are many who have already made up their minds about whether they care to see this remake.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I suppose on the one hand its good to have an idea of what you’re in for should you choose to go see the film.  On the other hand…where is the surprise?

And what happens if you’re someone like Mr. Tarantino, and you’re working hard on something only to see it prematurely released to the public without your consent?

Currently, I’m working very hard on finishing up the fifth novel in my Corrosive Knights series.  The work has been grueling but I’m getting close to the end.  Frankly, I don’t know how I’d react if the current draft of the book were somehow released to the public.

Would I give up on the book and move on to another project?

I suppose so.

But the heartbreak of what would amount to wasting all that time working on something only to have it stripped from you…that would be a very hard thing to get over.