Blogorium Review: The Campaign

 Now that we've come to the end of the 2012 election cycle, it's as good a time as any to look back at The Campaign, a mostly funny, sometimes amusing, but ultimately toothless critique of our current political system. Don't get me wrong about whether The Campaign is funny: you will laugh, and at times loudly, but it aspires to be more than that, and I'm not convinced it succeeds.

  Democratic Congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is preparing to run for his fifth (unopposed) term for North Carolina's (nonexistent) 14th District when the Motch brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd) decide they need someone to run against him. The Motch brothers want to in-source Chinese labor for sweatshops in NC, so they turn to the man-child son of Raymond Huggins (Brian Cox), Marty (Zach Galifianakis). Marty runs the tourism center in the small town Brady's 14th District represents* and is, at best, as clueless as he is spineless - in other words, the perfect puppet for the Motch brothers.

   From here on out I think you can figure out what happens as the two candidates clash and the dirt stars flying. If you're familiar with any of Ferrell's post-Anchorman films, you have a strong idea of the filthy jokes and strong language to come, juxtaposed with Galifiankis' awkward phrasing and effete Southern accent (in fact, he's basically playing his fictional brother Seth Galifianakis). The Campaign brings together both styles and the middle of the movie is basically a game of one-upsmanship, and is fitfully amusing. I probably don't need to explain why Huggins' nickname in school was "tickleshits," but if that made you chuckle even slightly, I suspect you'll laugh during the film. You've probably seen the part of the trailer when Cam Brady punches a baby, which you'd think director Jay Roach (Austin Powers) would merely suggest, but no - we get a full on, Neo-punching-Agent-Smith, slow motion baby punch shot. And yes, perhaps shamefully, the Cap'n laughed.

 In truth, while I enjoyed both Galifianakis and Ferrell - who is playing more John Edwards than George W. -  The Campaign's best roles go to Huggins and Brady's campaign managers, played by Dylan McDermott and Jason Sudeikis.While Sudeikis, as Mitch, is mostly reacting to Brady systematically dismantling his own election, McDermott rolls in like a tornado and reorganizes every aspect of Huggins life to make him more palatable for voters, down to the dogs he owns. While the familiarity of The Campaign's leads provide appropriate schtick, the supporting roles make more of a lasting impression.

 As to the thinly disguised Koch brother surrogates or the even less veiled political commentary about money corrupting elections to further corporate agendas, well, it's there. Roach and screenwriters Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell never seem to figure out what to do with the "message" of the film, and the ending is basically a mea culpa, a watered down Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moral stand that sends the film out with a whimper. I don't really know that The Campaign needed to explicitly state its message beyond lampooning how ridiculous the current political system is, but it did. The result is a comedy that's fitfully amusing most of the time but that overreaches as it winds down, probably not to its benefit.

 Since the election's done and hopefully most of the vitriol will have faded from your memory by the time you see The Campaign, it might be a little more palatable, and the film would make for a fine rental if you're looking for a comedy where you know basically what to expect. You'll get that, as long as you don't mind a small lecture near the end. There are plenty of dirty jokes along the way, so that has to count for something, right?




* According to IMDB, The Campaign was filmed in New Orleans, so it's hard to say which North Carolina town it's supposed to be subbing for. Since most of the film's audience doesn't live in the state, it doesn't matter, but the Cap'n - and for that matter, Galifianakis - are a little more familiar with the location, so I thought I'd check.

Summer Movies (and What Purpose Do They Serve?)

 As you may have noticed, in my review of The Avengers on Monday, I spent some time comparing the film to other "summer movies" / entertainment / etc. Because I wanted to focus on The Avengers as a film (eventually), I left out a lot of why I think its place in with respect to other "summer" fare is helpful. I compared The Avengers to the 2009 Star Trek reboot by JJ Abrams because both films are heavy on personality, entertainment, and flash while adeptly masking the limitations of their respective plots.

 Star Trek and The Avengers are not the norm for the May-to-August run of movies, when people have the most free time and are more likely to go to a nearby multiplex with the family, plop down $50 on tickets and concessions, and escape from reality (and the heat) for two hours. Movies are, by nature, escapism, and while Marvel super heroes and space adventures as escapist entertainment, I give them a little more credit than what passes for "movies" most summers.

 Let's step back quickly and explain how "summer" movies differ from the rest of the year: generally speaking, studios are looking to make movies that bring in the maximum amount of profit while costing as little as possible. Some directors are more than happy to oblige this, some are more interested in telling captivating stories, and there are a few that are capable of doing both. The group that falls in the middle usually see their films released at the end of the year, somewhere between September and December*, in the lead up to "Awards Season," the period between January and March where critics, guilds, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences determine which film was the "best" of the previous year.

 There's a reason that most of those films all seem to have been released during the same period and rarely the summer beforehand. Even less likely are the films released in January and February, the unofficial "dumping ground" for movies that the studios have no faith in recouping their cost. In March and April, there's a slow build of excitement for the big "blockbuster" films coming in May (now the official kickoff of "summer" movies), and a studio might take a risk and release something early to test the waters (John Carter is a good example, both of Disney testing the waters and also of how it didn't work).

 How far back does this go? While you could argue that "spectacle" movies have been a staple of Hollywood since they started competing with television, it's fair to say that the modern trend began with the success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws in 1975, followed by George Lucas' Star Wars in 1977. From that point on, studios increased their attention on releasing big budgeted "blockbuster" movies during the summer to capitalize on a willing public. After this point, the summer releases become more laden with sequels and we're beginning to get to the point that many film purists complain about where the "product" begins to outweigh the picture, and movies like Jaws 3D, for example, become regular releases.

 That's not to say that all summer movies were dispensable cash-ins: it's fair to point out that Apocalypse Now, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, Aliens, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Do the Right Thing, and Big were all summer releases**, among many others. The increased desire for summer entertainment provided a number of fine releases, along with sequels to horror movies, action films, comedies, and science fiction. Some were successful, some weren't; remember that Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin were all released in the summer.

 Actually, let's take a look at something, because while I don't want to hang it all on Batman Forever, after Jurassic Park in 1993 things get a little shaky with respect to the "big" summer movies.

1994: Speed, The Lion King, True Lies
1995: Batman Forever, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Apollo 13(?) (that or Judge Dredd)
1996: Mission: Impossible, The Rock, Independence Day
1997: Batman & Robin, The Lost World, Men in Black
1998: Godzilla, Armageddon, Saving Private Ryan (or Lethal Weapon 4)
1999: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Wild Wild West***
2000: X-Men, Mission: Impossible 2, Gladiator (or Space Cowboys)

 And now we get to a point where it's a lot harder to pick the top three...


2001: The Mummy Returns, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Fast and the Furious, Planet of the Apes, Moulin Rouge, Shrek, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Jurassic Park III, American Pie 2, and Rush Hour 2.

 Let's leave it at that, because after 2001 it gets much more difficult to narrow down the films vying for your attention. This is not to say that I didn't leave out choices for earlier years - I did - but not nearly as many as I would be doing if I wanted to continue past 2001. Actually, it looks like I don't have to hang it all on Batman Forever necessarily, because of the movies listed in 2001, the only one I even vaguely enjoyed was AI, which is the least "summer" of the releases.

 Bear in mind that I consider The Mummy to be a perfect example of modern "summer" entertainment, in that it has all of the qualities studios check off when making a list of what audiences "like": action, jokes, appealing leads, special effects, stunts, name recognition (title), genre recognition (similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark template), and even some creepy horror for that demographic. The Mummy balances all of this well without taking too many risks and is accordingly a fun movie that doesn't leave much of an impression when it's over. If you prefer, you could substitute Independence Day and generally have the same description.

 Anyway, somewhere along the line, let's say with Godzilla or Armageddon, the need to appeal to as many audiences as humanly possible became more important that if the movie was watchable. Godzilla is generally remembered as a movie of shameless ad placement, gaudy soundtrack, bad acting, dumb action, and a nonsensical plot. That's if people remember it at all. It was heavily advertised as an "event" and didn't live up to it at all. From that point forward, instead of learning the lesson, studios increasingly made movies where the spectacle was more important than the movie itself, to the point that the number of movies that make you groan outnumber the ones you remember being very good.

 This isn't going to turn into some polemic about how movies today aren't any good or that summer entertainment is almost always garbage designed to get people in theatres to watch movies based on board games or toys... well, okay, let's look at Battleship as compared to say, The Avengers. Not fair, but so what?

 The Avengers is based on four (or five) movies that preceded it all derived from Marvel comic book characters. It joins together four studios: Universal, Paramount, Disney, and Marvel, stars all of the lead characters from each of the previous films (released in 2008, 2010, and 2011) and is written and directed by Joss Whedon, whose only other feature length motion picture is Serenity, a spin-off of a cult sci-fi-western hybrid cancelled by Fox a decade ago. It's a risky proposition, even if you have the utmost faith that everything can go right. It did go right, massively so, which is a good sign for risk taking moving forward.

 Battleship's trailers proudly proclaim "From Hasbro the Company That Brought You Transformers," is based on a board game that it bears no resemblance to other than the fact there are battleships. Its cast includes a pop star (Rihanna), a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model (Brooklyn Decker), one of the vampires from True Blood (Alexander Skarsgård), the guy Universal is hoping you don't associate with John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), and Liam Neeson (Liam Neeson). That covers most demographics ages 18-30, has name recognition, and has tied itself to Transformers, a series of movies that people don't seem to like but they still go see the new one every time Michael Bay cranks one out. Battleship is from the writers of Whiteout and Red (Jan and Erich Hoeber) and the director of Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, and Hancock (Peter Berg). To be fair, Berg also directed The Rundown and Very Bad Things, two movies I happen to really like. Call me cynical about audiences, but I expect that people will flock to Battleship whether or not it is any good as a movie.

 In the interest of fairness, I must admit that I am excited about a Ridley Scott movie that increasingly looks like a prequel to Alien (Prometheus) and Christopher Nolan's third foray into Batman (The Dark Knight Rises). It's hard to argue that despite the fact that Nolan's Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Inception are surprisingly clever movies disguised as "spectacle" that I am not buying into the hype for the second sequel to a recognizable brand name comic book character that is, in itself, a reboot of Warner Brothers Batman films from 1989-1997. Similarly, despite the fact that I haven't enjoyed but a handful of Ridley Scott films since Gladiator (let's say Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven, and American Gangster) that I'm excited to see Prometheus based on its (denied) connection to the Alien series, which has been MIA since 1997, unless you count those terrible Alien vs Predator films.

 I am also interested in seeing Piranha 3DD (sequel to a remake), Moonrise Kingdom (based entirely on its director, Wes Anderson), To Rome with Love (new Woody Allen), The Bourne Legacy (sequel / reboot), Total Recall (remake), The Expendables 2 (sequel), and a wary curiosity about Dark Shadows (TV remake), Men in Black III (sequel), and while I don't plan on seeing them, The Amazing Spider-Man (reboot), and G.I. Joe - Retaliation (sequel). I never saw the first G.I. Joe, but then again I hadn't wanted to watch a Fast / Furious movie until Dwayne Johnson joined the cast.

 On the other hand, I can't say I have any desire to check out What to Expect when You're Expecting, LOL, The Road, Snow White and the Huntsman, Chernobyl Diaries, Madagascar 3, Rock of Ages, That's My Boy, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Madea's Witness Protection, Savages, Ice Age 4, Ted, Neighborhood Watch, Step Up: Revolution, or The Apparition.

 The Cap'n isn't representative of most moviegoers, so I can totally understand why people will be seeing these movies even if I don't feel the need to. Despite knowing a number of people who are going to see Dark Shadows because Tim Burton directed it, I can't get over the fact that I haven't liked any of his movies since Big Fish. And I've seen all of them. After a certain point, you have to wonder if it's necessary to keep subjecting yourself to disappointment or to just stay away. I have the feeling The Expendables 2 is probably going to disappoint, but I want to give it a shot to see if Stallone and company learned from the mistakes made in first film. I like to risk it sometimes, but a lot of what I'm seeing this summer doesn't feel like it's worth it.

 But that's this summer, and not every summer. Who knows, maybe one year I'll be back every week like in 2008, where the Cap'n and friends saw just about every major release, from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to The Dark Knight to Hellboy II: The Golden Army to The X-Files: I Want to Believe to The Happening, a movie so terrible that it stops being bad, becomes good, stops being good and goes back to bad and then becomes confoundingly hilarious. Actually, looking at that list, The Dark Knight was the only movie that wasn't disappointing, unless you count the stunned silence that followed The Happening. They were the only movies I saw more than once that summer...

 Well, 2010 then! Yes, that's it! Iron Man 2, Inception, Predators, The Expendables, MacGruber, Get Him to the Greek, Dinner for Schmucks, The Other Guys, and Piranha 3D. That's a little bit better. Not great, but I do remember a few of them beyond the initial viewing, which is more than I can say about The X-Files: I Want to Believe or Godzilla. While I consider The Mummy to be a perfect example of "summer entertainment," that doesn't mean I want to watch variations of it, like Van Helsing, and I see a lot more Van Helsings out there than The Avengers and Star Treks...



* There is a second "blockbuster" season that happens between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, although not to the degree that the summer releases have.
 ** Just in case it comes up, I am aware that Blade Runner was not a successful summer release, nor were The Thing and Tron.They still tend to be smarter than most of what passes for "popcorn fare" these days.
*** It's worth pointing out that The Sixth Sense, American Pie, and The Blair Witch Project weren't on as many people's radars at the beginning of the summer.

Too Much of a Good Thing

 I don't know if any of you caught this news today, but Ridley Scott has decided that after Prometheus is finished and ready to show, he's going back to the world of Blade Runner. The initial reaction across the internet seems to be jubilant - not only are we getting Scott's return to the Alien series, but he's following it up with another adventure in the world of Replicants. Whether Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard is involved or not is unclear, but it seems to wed earlier news of a sequel or prequel to Blade Runner being "in the works" and solidifies its status as a "must see." I guess.

 Please don't misinterpret my hesitation - I'd rather have Ridley Scott revisit that universe than someone trying to mimic him or to see a pale imitation. I'm just not sure that I really want or need another Blade Runner movie; especially a Blade Runner movie that follows a new Alien film. It's been made clear by people close to the production and critics who saw the presentation at Comic Con that Prometheus is not simply a "science fiction film with some Alien DNA" but is, in fact, a prequel to Alien. Not maybe, not in an obscure way, but that it simply is, and 20th Century Fox is playing coy with that fact. As an outside observer, I need only look at the costumes, set design, or officially released photo to tell you this isn't just a movie "similar" to Alien. And that's not a bad thing - Ridley Scott and James Cameron often talked about returning to the series, so it's nice to see that one of them did. It's in 3-D too, which might sound studio mandated (and hell, it might have been) but one only need look at Scott's cinematography to see why a sense of depth could be result in something very special.

 I'm looking forward to Prometheus, make no mistake; but following a return to one triumph with the return to another triumph - albeit a long fought, hard to win one - seems unnecessary to me. What I enjoy about Ridley Scott is his willingness to try all sorts of different types of films, successful or not. Despite superficial comparisons, Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator aren't at all alike, and he made Black Hawk Down, Hannibal, and Matchstick Men in between. None of those movies are historical epics or science fiction classics, or even necessary all very good (I'm on the record hating Hannibal). I don't want to speculate too much here, but Scott is wrapping up Prometheus after a string of moderately successful films (Body of Lies, American Gangster) and a few out right flops (A Good Year, Robin Hood). Could it be that working on another Alien film, something well celebrated and hotly anticipated, has given way to wanting to continue working in territory he's lauded for?

 Because I would know. Because any of us would know other than Ridley Scott, but I don't imagine that's actually why he's interested in Blade Runner nearly thirty years later. He hasn't really made anything vaguely sci-fi or fantasy since Legend, so two in a row is a bit surprising. The Alien films have always opened themselves up to other avenues of exploration, but I don't even know where another Blade Runner film would go, or would need to go. I'm satisfied not knowing what happened to Deckard and Rachel, and as much as Battlestar Galactica has moved to give me something else to associate Edward James Olmos, I can imagine how he might figure into a new Replicant hunter's story. Or something.

 Honestly, I can't decide whether I'm less interested than most because there doesn't seem to be a purpose for more Blade Runner or because Ridley Scott is so keen to do it on the heels of making Prometheus. It's like he's reliving his early filmmaking days, but with stories we already know and treasure. One sounds promising, but two might be too much of a good thing...

Context.

 So, uh, what's going on with you folks? Anything interesting happen to you today?

 Me? No, nothing. I mean, there was the whole "comment" thing, but that's really no big deal, you know?

 Okay, it is, but not for the reasons some might expect. If you didn't find my X-Men: First Class review from last week via social media today, I received a pointed comment from Jan Niechwiadowicz which read as follows:

 "The film may take place in the Marvel universe not ours BUT it still wasn’t a Polish concentration camp. Please don’t shift the blame for murder of millions onto the Poles. Please correct your review to say it was a German concentration camp."

 At first, I was a little irritated because the commenter had not only misread the intent of the sentence (which has been changed, if you're curious) - it used to say "Things get off to a bit of a shaky start during the opening scene, which retells the prologue to the first X-Men involving a young Erik Lehnsherr manifesting his powers for the first time in a Polish concentration camp..." What I was inferring was not that the concentration camp belonged to Poles, but merely that the camp was in Poland, as the title cards of both X-Men and X-Men: First Class say at the opening of their respective films.

 I learned a lot today before heading to work, especially about Jan Niechwiadowicz; for one, I appreciate any commenter who stakes a strong position and leaves their name. Nothing personal, anonymous commenters, but after the "Roman Polanski" incident, I don't have much patience for people who hide behind anonymity while pursuing their agendas. Anyway, Jan Niechwiadowicz (I'm not trying to be rude, but it's very difficult based on Google to say with any certainty whether Jan is a "he" or a "she," so I'm just going to stick with the name and avoid pronouns) is a member of Support Poland Against the Lies, and you can read why at the link embedded in the organization's name. I'm not going to misspeak because I had no idea how sensitive of an issue it is.

 What I am going to do, even if I agree in principle with the concept of defending one's home against erroneous information (as detailed on another blog here where Jan also left a comment), is take exception to the imprecision and hyperbole found within the comment in my X-Men: First Class review, on two counts. The second one is more important to me, but as another commenter (anonymous, but I have an inkling of who it was) raised a very important point that Jan Niechwiadowicz doesn't get a free pass for.

 1) Yes, I changed the language of the review. I had no idea that Poles felt so strongly that they were being incorrectly tied to the Holocaust, so I opt to remove the imprecision of wording. As I said, it was a reference to location and not ownership. If you have an issue with the title cards of the movie, I suggest you take that up with Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn, but I'll get to that in a minute.

 I'm willing to overlook the fact that you imply I "shift the blame for murder of millions onto the Poles" when that's CLEARLY not the case. That's imprecision on your part, but not by any means the most egregious count. What I am not going to overlook (and neither did the commenter who responded to you) is the fact that you, Jan Niechwiadowicz, are asking me to "correct" my review to say "German" concentration camp. Not Nazi concentration camp, but German. Do you understand the difference there? Just as you make a leap to assume that I'm somehow blaming the Holocaust on the Poles, you are not lumping all of Germany together as Nazis with the same specious logic. How is what you imply I'm doing (and I'm not, and there's nothing anywhere on this blog that would support your leap in judgment) any less mistaken than what you did. All Germans were not Nazis. Period.

 Accordingly, I amended my post to say "Nazi concentration camp in Poland." If you take exception to that, not my problem. That's how the film presents it, and this is a site which reviews films. To take it one step further, the Nazis in Dead Snow are gold coveting zombies. Is that accurate? Well, the zombie part is highly unlikely, but Nazis are used as stock villains to distinguish them from any other zombie movie. They don't even really behave like zombies, since they prefer to punch and stab people, but whatever. I'm not looking for historical accuracy in a movie like Dead Snow or X-Men First Class; I'm looking at how the story is told, which brings us to the more important point...

 2) Based on your comment and the first half of the first sentence (from which I really can't decide if you're being glib or not), you clearly weren't interested in the review itself. Of course, I know this because I've slowly but surely been keeping an eye on people who came to this post with the search words "polish concentration camp." I had no idea what the significance was until you decided to leave a comment, but I was aware that the review was being observed. That's what sitemeter does (the little link at the bottom) - it helps me see who is coming to the page, what for, and how long they stick around. Now this usually is disheartening, because other than students looking to cut and paste my Coen brothers auteur analysis, most of the time it's people looking for "naked chick in Drive Angry" or "Monsturd."

 However, it does help me understand what people find interesting on the blog - I write nearly every day, so there's a lot to sift through. Almost everything I write about is movie related. I would rather not make assumptions about you, Jan Niechwiadowicz, but I somehow doubt you read any part of the X-Men: First Class review based on your comment. I have my doubts you even read the entirety of the paragraph from which your complaint originated, and that's the problem.

 It's fine if you want to correct the language about Nazi concentration camps in Poland, even if you do it badly by leaping to conclusions about the intentions of other people AND you insult Germans who weren't Nazis. I support you in principle, if not execution.

 However, since you made that assumption without reading the review or caring about the SUBSTANCE of the paragraph you want me to correct, then we have a problem. You picked an incidental detail from a debate about whether one director lifted shots wholesale from another in the interest of expediency (which he did, although Vaughn might argue it was for consistency). My analysis was strictly about what shots were reused, what shots were new, and its impact on the quality of the film. I can only surmise that because you didn't mention ANY of this in your comment that you had no interest in the substance of the review of X-Men: First Class but rather three words from a 1704 word review. As long as I made the change you wanted, it didn't matter what I thought of the movie.

 That I have an issue with; it's not often that someone takes something I wrote totally out of context and makes it part of their personal crusade (in fact, the Roman Polanski commenter is the last one I can recall), but I'm going to be very blunt here: it's not welcome. If you don't have something to add about the substance of what I write here, then don't bother dragging me or any of my readers into your causes. Your comment adds nothing to the review of X-Men: First Class, and since you're only interested in having your correction, you have it. No go away. If you aren't interested in reading about movies, and only in pushing your agenda, then we don't need you here. If you'd like to say something about X-Men: First Class or any of the other reviews here, be my guest, but keep it to the merits of the films themselves. As I said to the anonymous commenter who distorted my analysis of the timing of Roman Polanski's arrest last year, this is not a high volume readership blog. What I do here is talk about film and things related to film, and a small group of devoted film fans follow and comment. I didn't intend to demean your or Poland, and for that I apologize. I won't be using your name again on this blog, so if you're planning on coming back, this is it. If not, so be it - I'll continue doing what it is I do tomorrow. If that's not enough for you, then I'm afraid I can't help.

 - Cap'n Howdy

Two Reasons I Don't Always Understand Geek Culture

 The Cap'n is, unavoidably, a geek. While I don't always identify as such, it's hard to write on a blog where you adopt the moniker of a demon from The Exorcist and plaster artwork of Dr. Re-Animator and The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman on the page. I try to mix up the content, but let's be honest here: after devoting a weekend to a "virtual" version of a horror film festival I usually host in person, I bounced back with a documentary about what Conan O'Brien did after NBC dropped him for Jay Leno. While I haven't read many comic books in the last year, I still watch movies about them, and am looking forward to Joss Whedon's The Avengers.

 However, I don't always understand my geek brethren; there are things about the internet in particular - the nesting place of the "geek" - that seem counter-intuitive to what people claim they want. Today I'll take a look at two things that don't really make sense to me, especially in a time when "geek" culture seems to be getting everything they want from major studios and television networks. I'd normally do four, but the first two were so long that I thought I'd cut it in half.

 1. "We want to see it, but we're not going to go see it!" - I call this the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World effect, although you could just as easily replace that with Kick-Ass, Serenity, Your Highness, or a dozen or so other movies designed specifically for a geeky demographic. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone complaining about how Hollywood is constantly recycling, remaking, or re-imagining something from the 1980s. Now, it is true that this happens with increasing regularity, in part because people go see these remakes. I mean, why not? They already know the title, vaguely remember the story, and it beats going to see something else.

 The chatter is loud and not necessarily without cause, but then when a project that comes out that ISN'T a remake, re-adaptation, retooling of something we've already seen, or even just not another "reboot" of a series we're invested in, the same geeks crying out suddenly get very quiet about putting their money where their mouths are. I was very, VERY hard on Scott Pilgrim fans in particular because instead of going to see the movie they constantly hyped as "finally, something that isn't like everything else," they instead stayed home and complained about how stupid it was that people went to see The Expendables instead. It's not Sylvester Stallone's fault that you didn't go see you new favorite movie, nor is it Julia Robert's fault with Eat, Pray, Love. I have tried to move away from using Box Office figures as a barometer for anything, but if you read "geek" coverage of Scott Pilgrim vs the World after the first two weeks, you'd think that it was hovering right below the aforementioned films. Nope. Scott Pilgrim vs the World came in behind The Expendables, Eat, Pray, Love, The Other Guys, and Inception. Inception is, by the way, an exception to the rule, although the "it was overrated" chants are getting louder every week.

 Mind you, it's not just Scott Pilgrim: Sucker Punch, a film that caters to geek fetishes, was also widely ignored by its target audience. Serenity, a film based on Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly, apparently had a legion of fans called "Browncoats" who went to the free screenings the summer before the film came out, and then were so enthusiastic that they didn't go see it again. Or tell their friends to see it. Or tell anyone to see it, even though you'll be hard pressed to find a Firefly fan who won't talk about Serenity until they're blue in the face. So if you're this enthusiastic about a film, this excited for an alternative to the "same old thing," something directed to the very vocal internet, why is it you're happy to let the film die a lonely death in theatres, complain about the films people went to see while you stayed home, and then wait for the Blu-Ray? Eventually they'll stop listening to your pleas, stop catering to your whims, and then you're left with the same old thing.

 Don't believe me? Look at Universal: they're smarting from the Scott Pilgrim debacle, coupled with big losses for Your Highness and modest returns for Paul. Now that Comcast bought the company, they've already put Guillermo Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness on indefinite hold, and have delayed further development of Ron Howard's adaptation of The Dark Tower series. These are two highly sought-after geek adaptations, and considering how much muscle they have behind them, the reason they've been put into development hell has a lot to do with the "We want to see it, but we're not going to see it" precedent.

Normally, when Guillermo Del Toro wants to adapt H.P. Lovecraft in a big budget, R rated horror film in 3D with the backing of James Cameron and star Tom Cruise, a studio isn't going to say "no" to that. Del Toro is the only "x" factor there, with his critically popular but financially modest films, including Universal's disappointing Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The argument was that Universal was concerned about the "R" rating, but it's not as though high profile projects with an "R" rating haven't performed well for them. The concern seems to be that the geeks clamoring for this film might not bother showing up (again), so why invest that kind of money when the precedent says there's no good reason to?

 The Dark Tower series is even more ambitious: Howard wants to adapt the entire series, split up between films and a running TV series that would bridge the movies. Javier Bardem is virtually a lock for Roland, and yet Universal is hedging about "the budget." Why? Again, because even with someone as reliable as Ron Howard and his long time producer Brian Glazer, there's concern that the people who claim to want to see this (the geeks) might be so fickle that they just won't show up. It's killed potential series before: just look at The Golden Compass, or Push, or Jumper, or I Am Number Four. Relative quality aside, those were designed to be "first chapters" in longer narratives, and they probably will never be. Even the geekiest of all geek properties, Tron Legacy, was met with derision by geeks and Disney is debating how much of a budget cut a third Tron will get, if they make it at all.

 It turns out that "if they build it," geeks won't come. Even if they love it. That boggles my mind. The negativity surrounding "bad" films is understandable to a point, but if you're just going to blow off genuine olive branches from people who speak your language, what exactly do you expect to be on the big screen next time?

2. TV Wasteland...? - We live in a time where television is littered with "geek" friendly shows: zombies, alien invasions, dinosaurs, time travel, super heroes, galactic battlestars, and even a "monster of the week show" that's really just about monsters. Oh yeah, and Doctor Who is back. So is Futurama. And yet, week after week, I come away enthusiastic from another episode of a show I enjoyed only to find the internet is littered with nit-pickers complaining about how that great episode was actually "underwhelming" or "lame." I was just looking to see if I missed some small detail, but instead have to wallow through criticism of the "revelation" that ended season six of Doctor Who (okay, the first half). How The Walking Dead is "boring" or "not what we wanted," etc.There was a television show about THE TERMINATOR, and all people did was complain about it.

 I'll freely admit that the ending of The X-Files and Lost disappointed me, and I've made it clear why, but one of the reasons I try really hard not to critique individual episodes before the show is over is because I like to give the creators the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are making it up as they go along, maybe not. Thanks to the internet, I now know that by the time I get to the end of Battlestar Galactica, more likely than not I'll feel cheated. I didn't want to know that, but shy of never visiting any "geek" site and totally avoiding my friends, it's almost impossible not to be inundated with negativity during a period where networks are actually catering to the audience that shouts the loudest. It's no surprise that shows don't last long when the feedback they see is negative. I'm already worried about Torchwood: Miracle Day, the return of a series I thought was really finding its footing, because the buzz around the first few episodes is not good. Ugh.

 This is hard for me, because I realize that I am essentially complaining about complaining. I'm throwing my two cents into a bottomless pit of negativity, but I just don't understand what's going on here. This is as good of a time to be a geek as humanly possible, and instead of celebrating it, there's a ceaseless echo chamber of backhanded compliments and outright hostility directed at people like us, who grew up watching the same movies we did, and are now trying to represent that point of view for the rest of the world. Now we're at a point where Patton Oswalt (perhaps with tongue in cheek) is suggesting that geek culture "needs" to die so that we can learn to appreciate our roots. The relative quality of films and shows are no longer important, because they all "suck" to people who can shout the loudest. When asked for an alternative, they ask for something and then blithely ignore the result.

 I don't understand you, geeks. I am trying. I thought I was one of you, and I tried to make my own rules clear: there are movies I am interested in and ones I'm not. I'll try to branch out every now and then, and whenever possible not look at gift horse in the mouth. I know that movies like Machete and Black Dynamite and Hobo with a Shotgun were catered to my demographic, and while I maybe didn't love everything about all of them, I try to be clearer than "it just sucks and you suck if you like it." I genuinely wanted to understand what it was about the Saw films that people gravitated towards - it didn't work for me, but obviously they have a strong following. I will ceaselessly sound the horn for films that I think people would really like; films you might not see or know about otherwise. I didn't ask for Scott Pilgrim, so I didn't see it, but I sure as hell was enthusiastic about Tron Legacy and I sure as hell saw it in 3D on an IMAX screen. I backed that geekdom up, and I need to do the same for The Tree of Life soon.

 To close, I don't want to criticize the internet critics, the home of geekdom in its many forms. I just want to understand what's going on here: it's an almost unprecedented time to enjoy having geeky interests, so why is the target audience ignoring it in droves, flooding message boards, and unleashing on people for not doing it for them? 

Everything Old is New Again, but Newer.

The Cap'n was all set to go off on another rant about remakes (in part because I saw that the Highlander remake is moving forward), where I'd gripe and moan about how the 1980s are being singled out as a decade to be pillaged - mostly because the studios know people know the name and that they can talk a young filmmaker into directing based on nostalgia for their youth.

I was all set to yammer about how while artistic repetition is nothing new, this is an unprecedented era of recycling without even bothering to pass the film off as anything but a copy of the "original" blah blah blah. But, to cover my bases, I decided to do a little experiment - the Cap'n would check out a list of movies remade during the 1980s. Surely that would provide a good balance to our remake heavy 21st century cannibalization of cinema.

And then, during a cursory Wikipedia search, I filled up both sides of an envelope.

Oh sure, I made some excuses here and there - 1984 is a re-adaptation, not a remake. The same argument could be made for The Thing, so that doesn't count. But the honest truth is that doesn't really hold water when the same argument can be made now about True Grit or Let Me In, etc. What I found was a snapshot of a decade filled with remakes - some of films audiences may not have known (films released in another country, obscure titles), but many they would have. I can't help but think that the only difference is that the internet allows for more grousing, more open hostility to the process.

Allow me to demonstrate with a smaller version of the list I made; many of the films didn't bother to change the names, but the ones that did I'll point out.

Against All Odds (Out of the Past)
Always (A Guy Named Joe)
The Bad Seed
The Blob
Body Heat (Double Indemnity)
Breathless
The Burmese Harp
Cat People
Cousins (Cousin Cousine)
D.O.A.
The Defiant Ones
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Boudu Saved from Drowning)
The Fly
The Hand (The Beast with Five Fingers)
Outland (High Noon)
Invaders from Mars
Little Shop of Horrors
The Man with One Red Shoe (Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire)
Mister Roberts
Not of This Earth
Scarface
Stagecoach
Suspicion
The Thing (The Thing from Another World)
Three Men and a Baby (3 hommes et un couffin)
To Be or not to Be
The Toy (Le Jouet)
Unfaithfully Yours
Victor / Victoria
We're No Angels
Where the Boys are '84
The Woman in Red

So maybe that gives us a sense of context; the largest difference between films remade from 1980-1989 and now is a larger cross-section of decades the remakes came from. Still, I think it's not only fair, but appropriate to point out that not only is artistic repetition not new, but the argument that films are simply being remade to capitalize on a recognizable name isn't unique at all, either to the 21st century or the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, an argument I too have made in the past.

Well, so much for that post. Now what am I supposed to write about today?

So You Shouldn't Have To: Blu-Ray Edition

From time to time, I like to mention to readers that new releases on DVD or Blu-Ray are coming out that may be of interest to you. I often include the caveat that no one is paying me to say this, because it's true - no one is paying anything for this blog*. I rarely tell people not to buy something; there are instances of movies where the Cap'n says "So You Won't Have To" but that's more of a "you're curious, I'm curious, but it's better that we all don't spend time and money on this."

That said, I am strongly advocating that people avoid any and all Miramax titles coming to Blu-Ray in the new few months. Most of it isn't going to be high on your list of priorities anyway, but since a few of the titles that people might want (including From Dusk Till Dawn) are already appearing at Best Buy for $10, I can already see people I know picking up a few of them. Don't.

There's something that many people are not aware of that directly impacts what you're seeing and will be seeing over the summer. Part of the Miramax settlement after the company crashed was selling off its catalog - it's why you haven't seen Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient, Jackie Brown, Good Will Hunting, Amelie**, or From Dusk Till Dawn on Blu-Ray to this point (instead, there were a handful of released after they collapsed like Clerks and No Country for Old Men, as well as earlier discs for Kill Bill and Bad Santa). Some of the films went to Lionsgate: the Scream series, and many of the "marquee" titles listed above you've been waiting for.

However, many of the Miramax / Dimension films went elsewhere: specifically, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Ever heard of them? Probably not, unless you're a big fan of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, 2012: Doomsday, War of the Worlds 2, or Mega Piranha. They specialize in releasing dirt cheap DVDs (and recently, Blu-Rays) of movies that straddle the line between Syfy Channel Original and knock-offs designed to capitalize on better known films.

And it turns out they got most of the horror, science fiction, thriller, and action films, including From Dusk Till Dawn, a movie I'd very much like to have on Blu-Ray. Miramax's DVD had a bunch of great extra features, including deleted scenes, a commentary, and even a full-length documentary about the film called Full Tilt Boogie. The problem is that the movie itself isn't enhanced for widescreen TVs, which wasn't an issue when it came out eleven years ago.

So what does the Echo Bridge Blu-Ray, selling at Best Buy for $9.99, have on it? Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. They treated it like any of their other "get 'em out cheap" titles, took the extras away, reframed the image from 1.85:1 to 1.78:1, didn't bother remastering the film for Blu-Ray, and dumped it out there. The early reviews on Amazon are from people who bought it, and aside from the person Echo Bridge is targeting these released to (people who don't really care about extra features, subtitles, or decent picture / sound quality and don't want to pay much), the consensus is a big SKIP IT.

Halloween fans might want to also check out the write-ups on H20 (unless you also plan on buying Halloween 6), because the Echo Bridge Blu-Ray reformats the from the much wider picture 2.35:1 to 1.78:1, and drops the DVD's 5.1 surround sound for a cheaper 2.0 stereo mix. Plus none of the extras or anything listed above. Hellraiser and Children of the Corn completists should also take heed to the warnings about Echo Bridge's cut rate tactics.

Nothing here is new - all Echo Bridge releases are like this, including Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. The company doesn't really care about putting quality titles out, just cheap releases that require the bare minimum of effort before dumping them in a "bargain bin" at your local Big Box Retail Store. Most people won't even care, and I can already hear people saying "Awesome! From Dusk Till Dawn for ten bucks! Who cares that it looks like crap, it's TEN BUCKS! What did you expect?"

What do I expect? Better than that, to be damn sure. If a company doesn't really care about the product they're putting out, they just dump it out there and take your money, then I don't want anything to do with that company. For five dollars more, I can get the same DVD you mastered your Blu-Ray from, and with another disc and actual extras, and it's only going to look marginally worse.

Here's the kicker, and I want cinephiles that are saying "What are you getting so worked up for?" to think about this: after Echo Bridge dumps these out, and their license runs out, someone else will pick up the rights to these movies. Someone who will probably care more than Echo Bridge does. Lionsgate at least put some effort into the Scream Blu-Rays, and you'd better believe there's going to be a world of difference between their BD's and Echo Bridge's.

For once I don't feel like it's a pipe dream to see From Dusk Till Dawn have a Spine Number on it. Why not? If Echo Bridge could afford it, why couldn't Criterion? That's a Blu-Ray I'm willing to wait for.





* Unless you count the cost of internet, power, etc.; in which case, I am paying for it.
** You can, by the way, order Amelie from Canada's Alliance on Blu-Ray, with everything you'd find on the DVD, for a very reasonable price.

The Expendables post-script

I realize that it's very easy to beat up on The Expendables, for reasons mentioned in the review (there's basically no story to speak of, unless you count the Missing in Action by way of Commando story arc) and it's true that expectations are almost impossibly high for people who are going to see this (believe me, I just read a review that essentially argues the exact opposite position of what I wrote), but I still don't necessarily feel like arguing from expectation is necessarily fair. I brought up Snakes on a Plane in the review because Snakes on a Plane DOES NOT deliver on its ludicrous promise at any point in the film. It just doesn't. And I was not kind to Snakes on a Plane, but it wasn't because of the expectations, but rather from the fact that the movie was so uninteresting from beginning to end.

The Expendables has, admittedly, issues: while the car chases and intercut fights between Austin / Stallone and Li / Statham / Daniels are handled well, half of the Jet Li / Dolph Lundgren fight is a blurry mess of legs and foreground objects and Terry Crews is criminally underused (the reasonably bad acting by Randy Couture can be overlooked because of how little of the film he's in). I disagree, however, that Eric Roberts needed to play Munroe as a scenery chewing ham, or that this movie is really intended to be some kind of "send off" for the action films of yonder (or its cast, for that matter).

Since I actually know the person who wrote the aforementioned review (or at least, had a few classes with him), I'm not going to suggest that he's missing the point of the Schwarzenegger scene (which is, in fact, the "wish fulfillment" moment people assumed the running time of The Expendables was to constantly provide), or that Rourke's unfortunate speech is less about providing subtext in a ham-fisted way and more in keeping with Stallone's propensity to have one mopey speech (at least) since Rocky Balboa. Yes, it is a groaner, but I also knew it had to be there in the wake of Rambo, which balances speeches and crowd pleasing gore better. There's at least less proselytizing in The Expendables.

I also know that the reviewer is a big fan of the Crank movies - as the Cap'n is too - but where we differ is that I think they work too hard to undermine the tropes of action films in order to appear "better" than their subject manner. I brought that up in my Expendables review because Stallone isn't making a movie that's trying to be postmodern action; he's simply making an action movie that most people feel like they've outgrown. That being said, this is a theatrical extension of the so-called (and sometimes justifiably called) "inferior" DTV action film movement.

I get that it's not cool to enjoy a movie that relies on recycled tropes and that doesn't always deliver on something the ads promised ("Some movies have one action star. This movie has THEM ALL"), but it's hardly as bad as what passes itself for "action" most of the year. I get that Shoot 'Em Up, The Transporter, Crank, and the Bourne movies are where it's at now, but Rambo was as good as many of them and better than some. The Expendables may not be there, but I'll take a little irony-free action every now and then, warts and all.

Thanks?

So it's Thanksgiving, and I've just wrapped up a fine meal and am feeling pretty stuffed. Soon to be extended family is coming over soon, so we have to get ready for that, and my time is short. I'd hoped to have seen Up at this point (that was why I brought it with me), but that doesn't look like it's in the cards.

As I have a little time, I thought I might begin discussing something I hope to give considerable attention to in the next few weeks. I've been thinking a lot about the future of film theory and criticism. Much of the material we study in classes comes from the literature of the sixties and seventies, of the Cahiers du Cinema French Criticism or the Film School Movement in the U.S. (like Paul Schrader's Notes on Film Noir), with a dash of more recent work from the eighties and periodically the nineties.

In twenty years, though, the critical market it going to be flooded with mostly disregarded but nevertheless occasionally insightful work from web sites, forums, and blogs. The irony does not escape me that Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium will no doubt be one of these casualties of the critical community, but what are we to make of the democratization of film criticism.


Simply because more voices are allowed to speak at equal volume with broader reach does not necessarily negate all of them, does it? Are we to throw the baby out with the bath water for no reason better than "well, most of them have nothing to say or do it very badly"? I cannot argue with that point, because let's be honest - most of online criticism is handled with the maturity of a playground spat, but that doesn't mean all internet writing is inherently worthless.

On the other hand, I don't know how much of the work being done by people in their basements or attics or bedrooms would be welcome in institutions of higher learning, since the ivory tower perception is that "if they can't be published by someone with credentials, they have no valid point". Sometimes that's true. I'd like to think that much of what I do here, whether influenced by what I read or did not read, has merit and is insightful.

Even that it adds to the discourse about cinema, but I recognize that I have neither the authority nor the credentials to back it up. Does that mean writing a blog about film is a fool's errand? I'd certainly like to believe not, otherwise the last five years have been a waste of my time, and yours.

At any rate, I'll return to this at some other time. Happy Thanksgiving, folks. Don't get up early and go into murderous rages for the latest do-hickey or shiny thing. It's not worth it.

Digression: Digital Media re-Revisited

While preparing to hit the road, the thought occurred to me: "Why don't you throw a movie onto the iPod, just in case there's nothing to do?"

My initial reaction - which, incidentally, is why I'm writing this - was to say "Nah. Do I really need to watch another movie on my iPod? It's a bit silly, this whole digital media business."

The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that the whole "digital revolution" is really going to kill out dvds and (as some are already proclaiming) Blu-Rays. It's not an illogical position; digital media doesn't eat up physical space, you can take it anywhere on a drive of varying sizes, and they look pretty good. The problem is that it lacks tangibility.

Maybe the Cap'n is a Luddite - folks have accused me of being far worse - but even when transferring my music over to digital files, I still kept most of the cds. I bring the along from time to time, but for the most part I don't mind having the digital equivalent.

Movies, on the other hand, I'm far more inclined to carry the dvd, Blu-Ray, or occasionally VHS copy with me. Rather than saying "hey, I've got _____ movie(s) on my portable drive", I can bring one or two movies and say "look what I brought!" Sometimes, careful selection of just the right movie for just the right group of people can be more important than bringing everything over and asking them to choose.

I don't know about the rest of you, but there are innumerable hours wasted in this apartment trying to find a movie to watch. There is such a thing as "too many good options", and I'll waste the equivalent of one or two films just trying to pick the one I want to watch. Then I don't watch any of them. It's silly. It's why I'm glad Netflix has a queue limit, and why I imposed a much tighter one for myself. Otherwise, the amount of fine material would be debilitating.

That, in many ways, is how I feel about the "hard drive full of movies" that digital media represents. Try getting a room full of people to decide on one movie and see how long it takes, particularly if the options increase dramatically. Sometimes it's a good thing to just bring one along with you, to pop open the case, and let the disc do its magic.

Other, minor, quibbles like the lack of extra material or compatibility issues with certain players also hampers the experience, but I think my big reason for choosing the disc format over the intangible format is simply that I like holding dvds, like I like holding books. Perhaps one day the Cap'n will come around to seeing things like you "normals", but in the meantime I'll stick with my shelves of flicks, even if it is hard to narrow down that "perfect" movie.

Pass

I propose an experiment for the Cap'n. I will never watch Twilight or any of its sequels.

This experiment shouldn't be that hard, since I've gone twelve years (almost) without ever having seen Titanic, and there's no sign of breaking that embargo on the horizon. Lest ye think these are merely knee-jerk reactions, I will openly admit that I had little to no interest in seeing any of the above films / films-to-be in the first place. There was a push, some time after the early reviews of Twilight the first to get me to watch something that was, by all accounts, woefully inept. I do make concessions for the woefully inept in something I call "Bad Movie Night", but Twilight rings hollow from my high and mighty perch of Trash Savant snobbery.

To prove to you that this isn't simply wasting buckshot, fired repeatedly into a barrel of rotting mackerel, allow me to add one more movie coming out this year. One that many of you are certain to haul me in the general direction of:

Avatar

Just as I so deftly avoided the exploits of Twilight the "vampire" last year, and so too the werewolf equivalent this year, I will likewise opt to ignore the James Cameron equivalent, plus or minus a decade. It isn't that I have no desire to have my "eyes fucked", as sundry corners of the internet would have you believe, nor is it some lingering disinterest in Cameron's filmography, a topic I breached on more than one occasion in this very blogorium.

No, my decision to not watch Avatar (in all likelihood ever) stems from an overwhelming sense of ennui when I watch the trailer. Nothing about the film strikes me as interesting or marvelous, and the "awe" I understand I am to have just isn't there. It's as though I'm in the presence of a woman voted "most beautiful" by consensus of the world, but my immediate response is "thanks for coming over, but I have something better I could be doing right now."

Many of you, no doubt, will be revisiting this particular piece and patiently waiting for me to eat crow, or to elicit a response from me by promising said "eyeball fucking" is a true and everlasting promise from Cameron the Mediator. Justification of Cinematic Faith by 3-D Grace, if you will. But I'm not buying it. Intuition rarely steers me off course when movies are concerned. My initial hesitance to watch the Watchmen turned out to be quite justified one-and-a-half times later. The concerns over Juno's hyper-precocious dialogue and paper thin characters were, alas, not unfounded.

Avatar looks like a very expensive, very expansive, very loud, very digital movie. It also looks like a chore to sit through, whiz bang advances in computer technology aside. Your Cap'n is also quite fond of his eyeballs, for what it's worth.

If I can avoid getting sparkle on me, I think I can sit out another blockbuster for the holiday season. Curmudgeons like me are scarcely missed as it is.

Three-fer

Wherein the Cap'n briefly touches upon three movies that don't need another full write-up, but bear some revisiting.

Movie The First - Lens Flare: The Motion Picture, er Star Trek (2009)

I'm going to say this again, because despite standing by my earlier review, I am astonished how well Star Trek works without having a plot. It doesn't have a plot! At all! The movie is a greatest hits of Trek novels and ephemera strung together by a GIGANTIC PLOT MECHANISM that exists solely to set the "Reset" button on the series.

Don't get me wrong, Star Trek does two things very well (and neither is Lens Flares):

1. It's one of the few remake-ish movies in the last three years or so that doesn't really abandon canon or tell the old fans to go buzz off ("This isn't your father's Star Trek" aside). It really does embrace the best things about the original series, puts a cast together that somehow manages to evoke the original actors but also put their own stamp on things, and it's trying very hard not to say "we're better and here's why". Putting Leonard Nimoy in the film and setting him up as a recurring character down the line is a good sign that JJ Abrams and company do, in fact, want this to be like your "father's Star Trek". Just with more goddamned lens flares.

2. Like many other Abrams-related projects, Star Trek effortlessly draws you in and sets the stakes up quickly. Despite knowing exactly what happens to the Kelvin the second time I watched the film, I'll be damned if Star Trek didn't suck me in AGAIN! Part of it is the breathless pacing of the film, part of it is that Abrams is really trying to avoid the self-parodic nature of later Original Series movies and anything having to do with Data in the Next Generation movies. It's funny, but not at its own expense. The Red Shirt death is spot on, for example. You laugh, but you also say "holy shit", because no Red Shirt ever got it that bad before. For two hours the movie manages to breeze by and I was still on board.

But there IS NO PLOT! Any movie where it's a requirement to read the prequel graphic novel in order to actually understand why the main villain does anything he's doing or to fill in any of the unanswered questions (many of which are raised in my old review) is fundamentally problematic. If you bother to stop and think about things like "why doesn't Nero say anything to the Captain of the Kelvin?", and there is actually an answer, as long as you listen to the commentary on the deleted scenes, then there's something funky about the movie.

What's funky is that there's no "there" there. The movie has less of a plot than The Phantom Menace, and much larger gaps in logic and credibility. So much of Star Trek happens by sheer coincidence that I can't understand why I liked it as much the second time as the first. This is a testament to the ability of JJ Abrams to overcome basic moviemaking techniques and still craft an entertaining film. Kudos, sir.

But for God's sakes, man: can we lose the lens flares? I mean in every single shot of a starship, there's at least one, and once we're on the Enterprise, yeesh! It's distracting, for crying out loud, and not in the good way that the rest of the movie is.

Movie the Second - Clerks

Sometimes, you raise the right movie at just the right time. Just as I mentioned last night, Clerks is now the same age I was when I first saw the movie. Back when it was the MOST VULGAR COMEDY EVER, or something ridiculous like that. I think John Waters would disagree, and there's been much, much worse since, but in 1994 the big stink was that Clerks almost had an NC17. For talking. That's it.

I watched a vhs copy of the movie, and it began the long on-again / off-again odyssey of my interest in Kevin Smith films, which I've covered so many times that it's not worth getting into again. What's funny is that the day after I mentioned the 15th Anniversary of Clerks, the Blu Ray arrived in my mailbox from Netflix.

Ready for a shocker? It doesn't look any different than it did 15 years ago. Smith makes a joke about it on a new introduction (where he apologizes for making fans buy Clerks yet again and suggests its very existence on Blu Ray is an insult to the medium), but I honestly couldn't tell you Clerks looked any better or worse in High Definition. It looked like it always looks: grainy, kinda soft picture - in essence, an independent movie made for next to nothing in 1994.

That's not damning the film in any way. Clerks is still a funny slice of mid-nineties slacker comedy, and I think it holds up better than any of the other movies he made between 94 and 99. You're just not buying the movie because it's going to knock your socks off or anything. Because tech junkies will be pissing and moaning about this for a while. I get it; you hear "Blu Ray", you expect top of the line, and the price tag is pretty steep ($30).

On top of that, the only really new material you get on the disc is the apology from Smith and an 87 minute making of documentary - for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back*. That's right. All they could find for this new edition of the movie is a standard definition doc for another movie. Is it pretty good? Yeah, I guess so. It's comprehensive and has lots of interview footage with the cast and crew, along with more-interesting-than-you'd-expect behind the scenes stuff.

But I must stress, it's the making of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Not Clerks. So will I buy a copy of Clerks on Blu Ray? Eh. I'm glad I rented it from Netflix, because there's almost no reason to sell the 3-Disc 10th Anniversary set. Aside from putting the First Cut and the Theatrical Cut on one disc, I couldn't tell much of a difference between them. So unless I find it used, probably not, but it is out there for you fanatics with $30 burning a hole in your pocket.


Movie the Third - That Remake of The Third Man with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio that may or may not happen.

I don't know, you guys. I just don't even know.



* the great irony is that Miramax is using the Clerks and Chasing Amy Blu Rays as an excuse to repackage Jay and Silent Bob in a boxed set, and the J&SBSB BD still has none of the original dvd extras.

Near Duped

I know that I've mentioned this before, but I really hate the new artwork for Near Dark. Kathryn Bigelow's vampire western deserves better than to be photoshopped into a Twilight clone, especially when the movie is about as far as you could get from the Sparkly world of Robert Pattinson.

But, because mopey blues and dopey looking romantic longing is suddenly what "vampire" movies mean, when I went to pick up the Blu Ray of one of my favorite genre entries, it was disheartening to see this:

That's the new cover slapped together to dupe Twilight fans into thinking that Near Dark is anything like those books. It's not.

If you've ever seen Near Dark, you know that. Here, for comparison's sake, are the trailers for Near Dark and Twilight.





I mean, I can see the superficial similarities, but the major difference is that instead of being solemn loners who wine about "she doesn't belong", the vampires in Near Dark are actually dangerous and pose a real threat to just about everyone they meet. Go all the way back to Nosferatu if you need to; vampires in cinema are not supposed to be safe. Alluring, sure, but always dangerous. If you pine for a vampire, things end badly.

Now, I haven't (and don't plan on) reading / watching Twilight, so if I'm missing some critical insight, fill me in. In the meantime, allow me to share the old dvd artwork for Near Dark, which while a bit spoileriffic, is much more appropriate to the tone of the film (which is essentially a western):

I suppose it's fair to say "so what? it's just a dvd cover!", and more adventurous readers might even suggest this is a great development for Near Dark, which has for a long time hovered in the fringes of vampire films (along with Martin). Maybe a wildly misleading dvd cover will bring a new audience to the film that never would have discovered it before. Maybe, but when they realize that this is not the film they've been promised, then what?

Oh well, I can always print a new cover out for the Blu Ray and enjoy the film for what it is. But I'm not going to pretend it's not terrible artwork in the meantime...

Heads or Tails...

I'm not normally one to turn away attention from the Blogorium, but if anonymous commenters are going to take me to task for things I didn't say about Roman Polanski yesterday, then by all means find somewhere else to make your point. Just because I find the timing of the arrest very odd doesn't mean I don't think he is guilty of something he plead guilty to or that he should be given a free pass or whatever else it is you're conflating with what I actually wrote. Sorry, this is a limited readership blog for the moment and you're not going to make a splash here.

If the extradition happens and Polanski returns to the U.S., of course I expect him to go to trial for skipping out on his sentencing. It was a shitty, stupid, cowardly thing to do. I stand by my point that this could have happened any time in the last 32 years by any number of means, so it's not like this is a "sudden break" that allowed the Los Angeles DA's office to arrest him. So yeah, I find that odd that so much ado is being made of "finally" catching Roman Polanski.

But I'm not in the mood to keep dragging this out, so I'm going to let the quarter decide what the Cap'n is talking about tonight.

Heads, I talk about The Wizard of Oz on Blu Ray.

Tails, I talk about the new A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer.

Toss that coin!

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Dammit. Tails. Okay, we'll talk about The Wizard of Oz tomorrow. Despite all intentions just to check the BD out, I ended up watching the entire movie. Again. It happens to me just about every time I start watching The Wizard of Oz, but with added incentive this time.

BUT we're not talking about that. I left it up to chance, stuck to my word, so we're talking about a different child molester tonight: Freddy Krueger.

That's right, the "Bastard Son of a Hundred Maniacs" is back, this time with a great big "FROM PRODUCER MICHAEL BAY" slapped in front of the title. You know how I feel about Platinum Dunes, but in the interest of covering what's current and because of A Nightmare on Elm Street's place among my horror favorites, let's take a look at the trailer, shall we?

(please forgive the embedding that pushes into the poll, links, and other info. I don't know how to keep it from doing that)




Okay, so let's start with positives, since I'm not on record as being a Platinum Dunes "Fan":

- I really like some of the dream imagery here. The snow (or is it ash?) and boiler room footage looks really good, and I like that the dreams seem to be more practical effects than cgi. Despite the wild possibilities afforded by digital effects, what makes the dreams so disturbing in the first film is that they seem real (at first) and the reality becomes perverted and frightening. So good on that, assuming that's the trend of the movie (and not simply because no FX work was done in time for the SDCC trailer).

- There's not a ton of Freddy in the trailer, but Jackie Earle Haley seems sufficiently creepy in that final moment. I'll take creepy Freddy over jokester Freddy, at least if this is a remake / reboot. The burn makeup is... interesting. I don't know how I feel about that yet.

- I'm very intrigued by this suggestion that maybe Freddy was innocent when the families burned him alive. It's certainly a different take than the sociopath version of Freddy that was always guilty and continued punishing in the afterlife. This sort of take gives a different kind of credence to Krueger taking revenge, even if it is a little obvious in the "generic plot type" department.

- The production design and cinematography in the opening shots looked great. I'd forgotten, partly because of how it changed in the sequels (particularly Freddy's Dead and Freddy vs Jason), about the abandoned factory that plays such a huge role in Nightmare 2 and, I guess 3. It's still a little slick and Texas Chainsaw Massacre-y, but I'm at least interested in seeing what director Samuel Bayer brings to the visual palette.

- Clancy Brown! Always a plus. Am I hoping too much that he plays the John Saxon role of Nancy's father in this iteration?

Alas, there are negatives, and kinda substantial ones.

- None of the kids made any impression at all. In fact, were it not for something I'm going to mention next, I couldn't tell you who was supposed to be Nancy and who was supposed to be Tina. Or which one was the Johnny Depp character or Tina's boyfriend. That's not a good thing when setting up this trailer.

- Instead, the trailer focuses on iconography, and unfortunately that includes some direct lifts of shots from the original Nightmare. While I dug most of the new dream imagery, all of a sudden you'd get "oh! it's the bathtub shot!" or "hey! it's the scene where Tina dies!", and it took me out of the trailer.

Suddenly I wasn't watching a new take on the story; I was watching shots that immediately drew comparisons to A Nightmare on Elm Street. There's the suggestion of the jail "hanging" scene, but with the jump rope girls inserted into the dream, and a really worrisome shot that reminded me of the worst part of Nightmare 2: the pool scene.

The "references" didn't really work in Shit Coffin, er, Friday the 13th, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre for that matter. In some ways, I wish they'd just drop trying to remind audiences "hey! you've seen this and remember it! we invite you to compare our version to the one you love before you've even seen it!" and work on successfully adapting the iconography of Freddy and the dreams into a newer context.

In all honesty, I'd say that I would be willing to watch a new Nightmare on Elm Street film, as long as it wasn't trying to BE A Nightmare on Elm Street. There's plenty of territory you can still explore with Freddy, the dreams, the parents, and the children without making implicit claims that this version is superior - and simultaneously beholden - to a film we're already familiar with.

But then again, that's been my fundamental problem with most of these remakes. If they aren't trying to be slavishly loyal to the source material, they're being slapdash and lazy with the references (see Friday the 13th). Even when the remake is different enough that it can almost exist on its own (Texas Chainsaw, for example), they have to throw in the "saw dance" to remind us that we're not watching a different take on the same story.

It's going to strike you as strange to hear me say I kinda liked the trailer. Given the track record of Platinum Dunes, I doubt I'll like the movie, but this was a promising first impression.

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Tomorrow: The Wizard of Oz, proving once again that the guy who told me "they shouldn't bother making 'old movies' on Blu Ray" was out of his mind.

Wanted and Desired indeed.

I have to say that this sudden arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland strikes me as odd. I'm not trying to diminish the fact that Polanski committed a crime in 1977 and then bailed to France, but why now? It's not as though he's been hiding out somewhere; Roman Polanski has been living in plain sight for the last 32 years, and everyone knew exactly where he was. It's highly doubtful to me that this is the first time the director left France in three decades, so what prompted this?

Are they looking to drag Polanski into court and create another Phil Spector-like criminal flogging? After thirty years, the article indicates that even Polanski's thirteen-year-old victim wants this to be over and done with, and not necessarily by means of extraditing him and dragging him back to America. It makes a person wonder if Hollywood was really welcoming Polanski back with the Oscar for The Pianist, or if that was a botched "sting" operation.

The timing of this confuses me, as does the desire to perpetuate "celebrity justice". Polanski pled guilty, skipped town, and I don't see a huge trial coming out of this. This is not Robert Blake, Phil Spector, OJ Simpson, or Michael Jackson caliber. There's an entire generation of cinephiles who don't know the details of why the director of Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, A Knife in the Water, Death and the Maiden, and Frantic lives in self-imposed exile. I'd be surprised if they even remember the Sharon Tate murders.

I was already planning on showing Repulsion at Horror Fest this year, but maybe I'll throw in The Fearless Vampire Killers and Rosemary's Baby while I'm at it. Let justice be served, but maybe we can hope for a good explanation why now and not any time prior to this.

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Well, that had me in a bit of a tizzy, so that's most of what I've got for today. Your thoughts would be welcome.

My Favorite DVD Misnomer: "UNRATED!"

Today, while feeling wonky and woozy, the Cap'n got to thinking about one of my favorite lies perpetrated by marketing departments: that any movie slapped with an "UNRATED" automatically means that a normally lackluster film is suddenly scandalous.

The lie is hidden in plain sight on almost every dvd cover. If you look at the bottom of every "special features" box, you'll notice a disclaimer that says "special features have not been rated." And the reason why is that the studios don't have to; MPAA submission is only required for films entering theatrical distribution. Because they're counting on you not knowing that, it's easy to trick people into thinking that releasing an "unrated" version of the film is something totally forbidden.

And sometimes they aren't totally lying. Frequently horror movies released in "unrated" cuts (say Land of the Dead) do restore some violence and gore. This is not always the norm, of course. Sometimes, the horror films pull a fast one on you too: the "unrated" director's cuts of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, 1408, and A Haunting in Connecticut don't actually add any scares to the movies. 1408 changes the film to a much darker ending, but the first 80 minutes are exactly the same.

On the other hand, the studios got a little too excited about this and would slap the "unrated" tag on movies that don't make sense, like Remember the Titans. Worse still, they'll wildly mislead people with movies like Coyote Ugly, which are "unrated" because two or three minutes of character development were re-inserted. Of course, marketing is counting on people assuming (not unreasonably) that "unrated" = nudity.

Running time can often cue you into just how "unrated" these cuts are. Judd Apatow and Apatow-related comedies tend to reincorporate significant footage into the film, although it's questionable how risque the extra fifteen minutes are. For the most part, "unrated" cuts of movies are usually two to five minutes longer and impact the story in no way.

My favorite, however, are the Saw films. If you've looked at the "unrated" versions of Saw, Saw II, and I believe Saw III, all of the cuts are actually shorter than the theatrical versions. Whether they just removed some cut-aways from gore or wisely cut some of the terrible acting out, I don't know.

At any rate, many of you are wise to this already, but it frequently drives me crazy to see movies marketed as "unrated" when you could make that argument about ANY film on dvd (studios usually just keep the rating on there out of courtesy). If "unrated" meant what studio marketing wanted us to think it did, I'm willing to bet more retail outlets would refuse to carry those discs. That's why NC-17 and "UNRATED" have the reputation they do theatrically: most of the time, no theatre will play those movies. Don't get duped into believing just any old movie in an "Extended, Unrated" cut is anything more than technically accurate. What it actually means and what you think it means are two very different things.

Midnight Movie Breakdown

The Cap'n is feeling a lot under the weather this evening, so I'm going to keep this short. Of course, if I nod off in the middle of writing this, the only way you'd know is that it won't appear for a few more hours. Anyway...

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One of the things I forgot to mention in my Haunted World of El Superbeasto write-up was that using it as a good example for my anthropology project collapsed as soon as we sat down. I deliberately chose the midnight showing over the 10 o'clock because midnight audiences have a different vibe about them, as anyone who attends "early" showings or The Rocky Horror Picture Show can attest. I thought this would be no different, but what I discovered instead surprised me.

Other than the people I dragged with me to see El Superbeasto, there were two people in the theatre. That's actually less of a turnout than when I saw Last Action Hero on opening day. In that case, it was maybe ten people. Five people for a late night showing of an animated Rob Zombie joint tells me one of two things were going on:

1. Everyone who would have seen it stayed home because the dvd is coming out next week. Maybe it wasn't worth paying for the ticket and popcorn and everything else for an 80-something minute movie when you can get it for $15 on the 22nd. It was also on a Saturday night, was really only advertised on the internet, and there were no signs in the theatre.

2. This is just speculation, but maybe the poor box office showings for Halloween 2 signal a backlash against Mr. Zombie. I haven't seen Halloween 2, but the impression I got from reviews is that people are pretty evenly split between loving it and hating it. I didn't get much in-between, although I hear what people hated was exactly why I wanted to see it (ghost mom). It's possible that people who saw Halloween 2 were pissed off and didn't want to see an animated enactment of all of Zombie's exploitation fetishes. This might work out in his favor though, since I could see a crowd turning against El Superbeasto upon first viewing. I really do think this is the kind of toon you need to let sink in before you render judgment.

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Either way, I doubt the Carousel made much money off of 5 people by staying open an extra two hours or so. Then again, those geniuses are showing The Room soon, and that's just a waste of time and money for anyone willing to pay for it. I saw it for free (or parts of it, until most of us got bored and Cranpire skipped around), and can honestly say I'll never pay for that experience.

Not to pick a fight with the programmer of these movies, but I couldn't help but notice Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is in the Carousel's horror festival. Had we not already seen it during Horror Fest two years ago and weren't planning on watching it again this year, I might think about seeing it. Maybe you can show Blood Car next...