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.

Retro Review: Little Nicky

 Little Nicky is the only Adam Sandler film I've ever seen. While it's true that I have seen Funny People and Punch-drunk Love (and, to a lesser degree, Airheads and Coneheads, part of the unfulfilled "Adam Sandler in Movies with the Word 'Head' Trilogy"), Little Nicky is the only Sandler vehicle that Cap'n ever sat through. I know, it's strange: somehow I missed Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, The Waterboy, Big Daddy, Mr. Deeds, Eight Crazy Nights, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, or Grown Ups.

 Honestly, I was a little surprised that Happy Madison had anything to do with Judd Apatow's Funny People: Sandler's production company is almost always associated with movies that nobody I know ever sees - The Zookeeper, Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Grandma's Boy, and The Hot Chick*. Happy Madison also released Jack & Jill, a movie that recently nominated for twelve Golden Raspberry Awards, which is nearly a record and is odd, because the film is only eligible in ten categories.

 Jack & Jill is actually the reason I thought of Little Nicky, not because I'm going to watch the former (which, if this is in any way true, might not be a movie but instead a scam) , but it reminded me that I HAVE actually seen an "Adam Sandler Joint" and I kind of liked it.

 Little Nicky is, by no means, a good movie. I can remember so little of it after nearly twelve years that I'm surprised recalled the film at all. Basically it has something to do with Lucifer (Rodney Dangerfield), Satan (Harvey Keitel), and Satan's three kids: Cassius (Tiny Lister, Jr.), Adrian (Rhys Ifans), and Nicky (Sandler). Nicky has a speech impediment and the other brothers like to pick on him, but Satan wants him to take over Hell, or something. Then he decides not to, so Adrian and Cassius freeze the entrance to Hell and go to Earth to take over, and Nicky has to save him. That, and something about putting boobs on Kevin Nealon's head.

 There's a talking dog and Patricia Arquette and some flask that collects souls, but mostly what I remember is that Nicky is actually half-demon, half-angel because his mother is Reese Witherspoon (Reese Witherspoon), erm, Holly. She gives him some ultimate weapon of goodness or something, which turns out to be Ozzy Osbourne (you see what they did there? It gets better, because Adrian turns into a bat. I wonder what happens?).

 Little Nicky has lots of shenanigans and jokes about evil, but mostly lots of advertisements for Popeye's Chicken. Seriously. At one point, a demon tries a bucket and says "Popeye's Chicken is the shiznit!" Actually, see it for yourself:

 

  I had no idea that this was a trend in Happy Madison films - arbitrary and shameless product placement, but Popeye's Chicken is hard to miss in Little Nicky. As I haven't seen the film since I watched it for free at the theatre I used to work for, I can't remember why I liked it. Describing it in this review, I'm not sure I did like it, but I do know I spent the better part of the fall of 2000 doing a Little Nicky impersonation for no good reason. It was funny to me, I guess (the impersonation, not the movie).

 Maybe Little Nicky does suck, and I thought that it sucked so much that it stopped sucking and became awesome. It's the sort of thing that hipsters do all the time now: ironically appreciating everything bad. I don't think I was being ironic though: considering some of the shit I'd been watching that year (The In Crowd, Loser, Bless the Child, Blair Witch 2, Hollow Man), it could be that Little Nicky was a breath of fresh air. That the film was vaguely watchable compared to the likes of Lost Souls is enough to push it into "I liked it" territory.

 Would I still like it? Um... well... let's all say it's one of life's unanswered questions. Because that's not going to happen. Happy Madison and I have reached a cease-fire: I don't watch their shitty movies, and accordingly don't report to you how horrible they are. That's the job of literally every other masochistic reviewer out there. I'm plenty busy watching Saw IV, V, and VI in one weekend, but that is another story...



* Strange Wilderness is, I have been reminded by IMDB, a Happy Madison film, but is a Steve Zahn vehicle and does not, to my recollection, feature Adam Sandler in any capacity. And I never finished Joe Dirt.

Fifteen Minute Movies: Home Alone

We're continuing the Holiday Theme for Fifteen Minute Movies, because that makes sense. Today we'll look at the first fifteen minutes of a movie I watched over and over again from age eleven until age thirteen, when its sequel brought everything to a grinding halt: Home Alone. This film marks the transition from "Teen Director" John Hughes to "Kids Movie Writer" John Hughes, which would continue through Baby Geniuses (yeah, I know). It was directed by Chris Columbus, who you might remember launched this series with Adventures in Babysitting. As per the norm, I am watching Home Alone on VHS, and for the first time all the way through in years. Let's relive some memories, shall we?

 From here on out, whenever possible I will include trailers or commercials included at the beginning of tapes, like the following. The Ferngully trailer isn't really the focus here, but the shameless American Airlines plug is and so is the Pepsi commercial.


 Speaking of shameless, I wonder how much Micro Machines paid John Heard to namedrop their product less than five minutes into the film?

 Two things I did not remember about the opening to Home Alone:

 1. Everybody is an unlikable asshole - No, I mean it. Everybody in the McAllister extended family is a petulant brat, a snobby preteen, or a horrible parent. In the first fifteen minutes, it's actually hard to believe that Joe Pesci's bad guy isn't a good guy based on the miserable examples of humanity he's surrounded by. And this is a thief disguised as a cop trying to scope out houses to rob. He's the most sensible, polite, and well mannered character in the house. I'm amazed that as a child any of us came to root for Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), because he's arguably the worst of all of them. The cast of kids, by the way, included future older Pete Michael C. Maronna (but not younger Pete Danny Tamberelli), Angela Goethals (Behind the Mask, Jerry Maguire), Devin Ratray (Little Monsters, Surrogates), and Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).

 2. For reasons that don't quite make sense, John Hughes decided to include some "magical" chicanery after Kevin wishes his family would "go away." I know this because instead of a normal gust of wind knocking a tree loose and hitting the power lines, a whimsical John Williams score plays and there's a shot of a wreath complete with wooden Santa knocker shaking unnaturally. I mention this because the reason they forget Kevin is entirely practical otherwise - while charged with counting the kids, the oldest sister accidentally includes the boy next door (who is playing around with the luggage and faced away from her) and they move on. No reason for supernatural hijinks, and considering that most of the movie is based on practical (okay, by cartoon logic) solutions to problems, I was surprised at its inclusion.

 So that's the opening of Home Alone. Chances are you'll get another segment before I move on (I'm thinking Fifteen Minute Movies might be a good way to determine which parts of It's A Wonderful Life I already know very well and which ones I don't). Stay tuned!

Hamlet Week: Day Four (So You Won't Have To)

Greetings, readers! Welcome to the fourth day over Cap'n Howdy's investigation into Hamlet on the big screen. Today we come to a very different take on Hamlet, and I'm going to be perfectly honest with you upfront: I must be cruel, but it is not to be kind. As I'll detail below, this particular adaptation of William Shakespeare's play really got under my skin, and I nearly turned it off.

I'm also going to be doing something a little bit different with today's in depth review, because sometimes it's not enough to just tell you about stupid things that happen in a film; sometimes I need to show you.

Cap'n Howdy's Handy Hamlet Handbook:

Date of Release: 2000

Directed By: Michael Almereyda (Deadwood, New Orleans, Mon Amour)

Dramatis Personae: Hamlet (Ethan Hawke), Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan), Gertrude (Diane Venora), Horatio (Karl Geary), Polonius (Bill Murray), Laertes (Liev Schreiber), Ophelia (Julia Stiles)

Other Notable Cast Members: Sam Shepard (Days of Heaven, The Right Stuff) - Ghost, Steve Zahn (Reality Bites, Shattered Glass) - Rosencrantz, Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat, Syriana) - Gravedigger, Casey Affleck (Gone Baby Gone, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) - Fortinbras, Larry Fessenden (Broken Flowers, Bringing Out the Dead) - Kissing Man, Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou, Leaves of Grass) - Flight Captain

Setting: New York City, home of the Denmark Corporation, the year 2000 (as a title card makes clear).

Run time: 111 min

What's Missing: Take your pick. 90% of the speeches have been pared down to change the meaning, either on the part of the person saying it or to insinuate something on the part of the listener. Laertes no longer accepts Hamlet's apology on principle, only to insist his honor is tainted; he just walks away like a jerk.

Yorick is gone, not merely in flashback form (as was the case in Branagh's expanded Hamlet), but in skull form too, unless you count two instances I'll detail below, neither of which improve the film in any fashion. The Players are removed entirely, replaced instead with a student film project of "The Mousetrap", a "film by Hamlet Prince of Denmark" (which is what the title cards say). Osric doesn't really exist in this version of Hamlet either. His lines are either given to Horatio, an unnamed fencing officiant, or are, like all other servants of the Denmark Corporation, handed over to a fax machine.

Don't let the frequency of his name appearing fool you: Fortinbras is nothing more than a glorified cameo, usually Casey Affleck's face appearing on a newspaper or on a TV screen. For example:



Fortinbras is a glorified red herring in the 2000 Hamlet, designed to give you the facade of something going on beyond the main story, because Almereyda desperately needs to justify why this interpretation has to take place in the world of big business.


Other Deviations: It's hard to decide where the deletions end and where the deviations begin, since everything cut out is generally replaced by something that is rarely justified. Changes to Hamlet are made seemingly without rhyme or reason, but happen because a) it would look cool if it happened, or b) it makes the material "edgier" or more contemporary.

To wit: one of Hamlet's many videotaped soliloquies involves him putting a gun to his temple, in his mouth, and under his chin, followed by the line "to be or not to be," which Hamlet, in watching this, feels the need to rewind three times so that we "get it." This is following extended TV footage of Peace Is Every Step: Meditation in Action: The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh, which hammers the term "to be" into the ground, just so we understand why Hamlet is thinking about being and not being when he gets to the video store (where the soliloquy takes place).

The clearest deviation beyond this is moving Hamlet from Denmark to New York, for reasons which are unclear at best. Since the text is only conveniently deleted or moved around, all of the characters still refer to "Denmark" and royalty as though they were synonymous with the operations of corporate structures. Which they might be, but this version of Hamlet does a terrible job of making those connections.

See?

Of course, this Hamlet is pretty bad at making connections too: for some reason, Almereyda decided to remove the Prince of Denmark's ability to quickly surmise why Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have arrived to visit him. Instead, Hamlet finds out that they've been sent for by overhearing a phone call between Claudius and R&G. Why? I really don't know. Maybe because he assumed the audience might not be familiar with Hamlet, so it's better to keep us all in the dark?

Ophelia still sort-of goes crazy, but not in any way that's radically different from where she is earlier in the film, when the angsty, twenty-something daughter of Polonius imagines herself jumping into Claudius' pool while they discuss Hamlet's letter. Considering that each version I've watched to this point deviates as to whether Ophelia actually has the flowers she's giving to Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius, I don't actually take umbrage with photos of rosemary, daisies, or rue being handed out. Her drowning (in the lobby's fountain) kind-of makes sense, depending on whether you think she jumped off of the balcony or not.

There are other, little things, like Marcellus becoming Marcella, Horatio's girlfriend, that are functionally harmless. It means that she appears pretty much every time he does but doesn't say much of anything after the opening scene of the play (which is restructured as a flashback while they recount the tale to Hamlet). I'm not certain you ever hear Bernardo's name, which I felt was a bit rude; instead he's just some security guard.

Going back to the issue of guns, I need to get into two BIG deviations; one involves Claudius' "my offense is rank" scene and the other the final duel. Hamlet carries a gun around for most of the movie, and after the "Excellent well, sir. You are a fishmonger." scene with Polonius, he marches into Claudius' office, weapon drawn, ready to shoot. He draws his firearm again on Claudius, only instead of being in a Chapel, it's in the King's limousine, with a drastically altered speech designed to remove any sense of guilt on Kyle MacLachlan's part.

Of course, Hamlet doesn't shoot, which brings us to the really stupid part. Recall that yesterday I gave credit to Kenneth Branagh for visually anticipating the duel by demonstrating that Hamlet was, in fact, practicing constantly. Well, in the 2000 Hamlet, there's no hint at any point that either Hamlet or Laertes has ever fenced in their lives (and considering the choices made about the kind of person Hamlet is, I doubt highly he ever would), and yet here we are, at the end, for a rooftop duel of fencing foils.

Not a poisoned foil, mind you, just fencing foils, because when the time comes for Laertes to "cut" Hamlet, he shoots him. Then Hamlet grabs the gun and shoots Laertes, so that we can have this scene:

To set up this:

Where Hamlet guns down Claudius. The other deviation, and it's a massive one, is that Gertrude somehow figures out that the wine goblet is poisoned by looking at it out of the corner of her eye, and willingly poisons herself, even though Hamlet would still not take a drink. I suppose it's meant to enhance the "tragedy," but all it really does is make the downfall of Claudius that much more pointless, up to and including being shot in the back by Hamlet.

What Works: This is really going out on a limb, because I barely finished watching Almereyda's version of Hamlet, but the use of security camera footage does, in some way, lay the groundwork for the 2009 Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation (which is also a contemporary take on the play). Julia Stiles is okay, and so are Kyle MacLachlan, Ethan Hawke, and Liev Schreiber, or as okay as they can be with the changes imposed on their characters. They do the best they can with reconstructed and depthless versions of Ophelia, Claudius, Hamlet, and Laertes. Diane Venora isn't bad as Gertrude, per se; she just doesn't register for most of the film.

If you liked Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, I guess there's an off-chance you'd enjoy this, although it lacks the kinetic energy (some would say ADHD editing style) of that film.

What Doesn't Work: Where do I begin? The "Generation Y" Hamlet isn't merely a bad take on the play, an adaptation full of needless and lazy alterations, but it's barely a watchable movie.

Since the title card plants us firmly in the year 2000, one might hope that it's just because that was the year the film was released in (possibly made in) and not indicative of the music, fashion, tech fads, and attitudes. Right? We don't really want a Hamlet where the Prince of Denmark is wearing a snow cap and eyeliner, do we?

Oh.

A picture's worth a thousand words, so strap on your "I Love the New Millenium" oversized-Jamiroquai hats and have a gander at this artifact of a bygone era:


This film is so shamelessly linked to the turn of the millennium that Hamlet becomes a time capsule in all the wrong ways. It's hopelessly dated; Hamlet wanders around with a Super-8 camera (how American Beauty of him!) and portable dvd player, alternately filming everything he sees or watching video of himself delivering speeches cut out from the narrative proper:


But not only is Hamlet the worst kind of navel-gazing narcissist, but then Almereyda thinks he'll get clever with it by including clips from Rebel without a Cause, something I'm pretty sure is Days of Heaven (it looks like the locusts scene, timed to coincide with Sam Shepard's arrival of the Ghost. How clever!), and... wait for it... Hamlet. Yes, Hamlet is watching Hamlet! Intertextuality, you guys!

But wait, there's more! I'm going to give Michael Almereyda way more credit than he probably deserves here, but there's some accidental intertextuality in the "to be or not to be" scene that a halfway clever film scholar can extrapolate. The timing of dialogue and background image lends itself to a nice joining of William Shakespeare and Graham Greene:



Well, yes, I suppose that is true. That is exactly what happens to Harry Lime in The Third Man (visible behind Hamlet's right shoulder). Am I giving Almereyda more kudos than he deserves? Probably. After all, he does juxtapose "or take up arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" with Hamlet walking down the "Action" aisle. You know what, I'm going to just hang on to that Third Man thing, just so people don't start handing out intertextual kudos to this Hamlet.

Onto the most egregious error in casting: Bill Murray is woefully miscast as Polonius. I'm on the record as being about as big of a Bill Murray fan as a normal person can possibly be (and as I'm far from normal, just work out the implication yourself), and I know for a fact he can be serious. I've seen Broken Flowers and Lost in Translation. Hey, he's even okay in the unwatchable Limits of Control, but not here. Every line reading lands like horse dung on hot pavement. It's embarrassing.

Not that Steve Zahn or Dechen Thurman fare much better as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; they're reduced to leather jacket wearing, grunge hair and facial messes, yelling, beer drinking buffoonery. Because Hamlet (and by proxy, the audience) is too stupid to figure out that they're spying for Claudius and Gertrude, we're repeatedly exposed to scenes where Claudius is talking to a phone with R&G's disembodied voices on the other side. Kind of like when Ophelia dials MovieFone for no apparent reason and we listen to the recorded intro.

This brings me to the Product Placement. See, it's not enough for Hamlet to deliver his "to be or not to be" soliloquy in a video store (or after it's so painfully and obviously teased out in two different places earlier in the film); no, it has to be in a Blockbuster. How do I know? Because of this:


and this, which is somehow even more dull than the still suggests, possibly because it holds for fifteen seconds:

By the way, if you're wondering, The Crow: City of Angels is playing in the background.

And yet, that's somehow tame compared to this:


That's Sam Shepard, as The Ghost of Hamlet, standing in front of a Pepsi One drink machine. He materializes in front of it, then dematerializes walking into it, so that we get two good looks at what we should be drinking when our dead father returns to task us with vengeance for murder most foul.

I save my favorite "why bother?" for the last one. When I saw Jeffrey Wright's name attached to Gravedigger, I was excited. That's a great pairing of actor and role, so imagine my disappointment when Wright is in the film for thereabouts five seconds. The Gravedigger is singing "All Along the Watchtower" for a quick cutaway shot prior to Hamlet and Horatio inexplicably pulling up to a graveyard (there's no reason they'd just wander by since they're on a motorcycle riding from the airport into town) and finding Ophelia's funeral almost done with. Why even hire Jeffrey Wright if that's what you're going to use him for? A cheap music cue that doesn't actually serve the film in any way or add depth (and don't give me the "joker to the thief" line being some arcane reference to Yorick.)

Final Thoughts: It wouldn't matter if the Cap'n hadn't watched three other versions of Hamlet prior to this adaptation; it's a bad movie, no matter how you take it in. Decisions are made that have no logic to them, characters are badly sketched out stereotypes, and Michael Almereyda continually hits us over the head with references that are (at best) tangentially connected to the narrative. This isn't just something I recommend you skip, but it's best you just forget that I ever mentioned it and move along. It's not even worth your time as a "trainwreck" movie. In fact, I'm going to slap a SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO tag on this bad boy...

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.

"When this baby hits 88 miles per hour..."

The Cap'n spent most of the weekend getting writing of the other sort done, so there's not a lot of movie talk to do. I did watch Back to the Future, which has become the equivalent of "comfort food" along with movies like Murder By Death, Dazed and Confused, Tron, and The Goonies; movies I can put on any time and watch all the way through. I realize that's a motley crew of a line up, and I'm forgetting other movies that make "regular" rotation (like A New Hope or Escape from New York), but there are things I go back to all of the time for whatever reason.

Anyway, to focus on Back to the Future: watching this movie after ragging on Mac and Me's shameless product placement made me feel a little bad for going so hard on that shitty movie. True, it wears its sponsorship on its sleeve, but Back to the Future is just as guilty.

We are talking about a film that responds to the question "Are you telling me you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean???" with "The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? "

This along with shilling for Pepsi, JVC, California Raisins, Burger King, Chevy, Lexus, and yes, Huey Lewis and the News (check out that Sports poster on Marty's wall!). Oh, and Van Halen and several other I'm forgetting. The hover board in part 2 is a plug for Hasbro, for crying out loud!

Anway, I rescind some of the disdain for Mac and Me, but still I can't give a film with Ronald McDonald in the trailer a free pass. The 80s may be loaded with shameless product placement; I contend Mac and Me takes it to a whole new level.

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What remake of Videodrome? That's like the prequel to The Thing that nobody is making, right? Or that remake of They Live Cranpire is excited isn't happening, right?

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Speaking of Cranpire, we've been having quite a back and forth about whether Jason Vorhees died as a young'un in Friday the 13th (hence being a zombie in every movie since part 2) or if Jason actually didn't drown and was a living dude until part 4 when he died big time. Then was revived as Zombie Jason in part 6. I'm standing by my argument (the latter) while Cranpire has some interesting points for his side.

What do you folks think? Cranpire I already know what you think and will be happy to excerpt it in a followup blog but if others would throw in their two cents we can get a full fledged conversation going on here.

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Gotta go. Still some school junk to deal with. Eegah!

Bad Movie Weekend Recap: Photographic Evidence

To demonstrate the madness that is Bad Movie Weekend, I thought I'd share some pictures from Saturday night.

Adam made this face every time he had to drink Wild Irish Rose.
Mind you, he bought it and chose to drink during every instance of product placement in Mac and Me. That's a lot of Wild Irish Rose.


Speaking of product placement...


And the rest of the room (minus The Cap'n)

It's kind of hard to tell what this is but Adam is getting himself a piece of Robin's gratuitous butt shot in Batman & Robin. The neon really made taking this picture difficult.

Everybody had to share what they "won" from the Grab Bag of Badness. Everybody was a winner!

The next batch is from The Story of Ricky, so you have some idea of a) how bizarre this movie is and b) the hot mess we call "subtitles" could be in the film.

Ricky


The Warden, who looks like a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and Ronald Lacey in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Ass't Warden (according to the subtitles, which periodically drop the ' ) This is a more understandable subtitle gaffe.


I wish I could explain this in context, but I can't. Context really means nothing in this movie.



I can tell you it's being said to Ricky. Otherwise I'm at a loss.

You should never trade juice with human blood. This has virtually nothing to do with the poppy field he's burning in the background.

Bad Movie Weekend Recap: Night Two

Oh goodness how do I even begin to explain what happened here?

For starters, the Quadruple Feature was a success; we watched (in this order) Batman & Robin, Mac and Me, Troll 2, and Riki Oh: The Story of Ricky. Plus I snuck my "surprise" in, the Star Wars Holiday Special (on VHS). Let it be known that The Cap'n does not mess around in planning a Bad Movie Night.

In the kitchen I had Robot Monster playing on a loop and in my room (which was the way out to the roof for smokers) Sorority Babes at the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama was on a loop. No matter where you went, something incredibad was waiting for you.

As you can tell, it's nearly five in the morning and everyone headed out but we had a number of attendees and a few first timers to boot. I'm really itching to sleep since we didn't exactly take breaks, so I'll try to keep the movie portions short.

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First note: between movies we attended to more trailers, including Cop and A Half, Suburban Commando, Moonwalker, Bloodrayne, The Vampires Night Orgy, Shocker, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Teen Wolf Too, Knock Off, Stunt Rock, Scream Blacula Scream, Cyborg, Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood, Ticks, and Young Guns 2.

We also watched Teenage Mother another FOUR times and "Move Your Dead Bones" by Doctor Re-Animator. Nicely played.

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Batman & Robin was (conveniently) suffering from some Blu-Ray related issues (or PS3 related issues... I'm not sure) which caused the film to skip during the middle. No loss there.

Uma Thurman aside, there's nothing to recommend about the craptastic fourth Batman film unless you're in the mood for woefully unfunny jokes and the most unoriginal Arnold puns in his filmography.

Things we learned: Adam does not like Alicia Silverstone, Alfred is a lousy butler, you can direct pure sunlight onto Gotham City without vaporizing everyone.

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Mac and Me... oh lordy. While McDonalds and Coca-Cola paid for big chunks of this movie, that's not to say a number of other corporate sponsors didn't get in on the action. Skittles, Valvoline, Sears, He-Man, Voltron, Power Wheels, and yes, Dos Equis all shill their products flagrantly in Mac and Me.

The movie is still entertaining in a "they really did that in a children's movie?" way, and we laughed our way past the shameless product placement and illogical plot machinations.

Adam made the poor decision of taking a swig of Old Irish Rose every time product placement appeared. Tomorrow I'll share a picture of the face he made every time he tried to drink it. I only wish I'd snapped a photo when he tried using a straw...

Things we learned: Mac and Me uses footage from a non-existent The Hills Have Eyes 3, including the mine scene*, Even children in wheelchairs are fair game, Wild Irish Rose is vile, Paul Rudd is a genius.

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Now that I've seen Troll 2 as an adult, I bow down to its reputation. That movie makes the cast of The Giant Claw look like polished professionals and the story makes even less sense than it did 20 years ago. Holy cow is this movie funny for all the wrong reasons.

My favorite subplot has to do with the guys who follow the Waits family to Nilbog and stay in an RV outside of town. They seem to think there's plenty of girls to score with if they just hang out in the RV. Somehow they just end up naked in bed together or in similarly compromising positions. Finally one of them gets lucky with the Goblin Queen (?) and has the greatest scene involving popcorn ever**.

It is totally fair to call Troll 2 the "Best Worst Movie" and show it at midnight. I only wish a nearby theatre offered such an experience.

Things we learned: Italians hate vegetarians, Part of Stonehenge is in Nilbog, Kicking a guy in the nuts will in fact turn him "into a homo", the Biscuitville in Nilbog is open past 2:30 pm.

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There's no reason to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special. People who tell you the Boba Fett cartoon is awesome are lying. The only reason to ever watch it is for the commercials, which are hilarious.

No less than four ads deal specifically with Unions (my favorite being the International Ladies Garment Workers Union) and children's toy commercials are inexplicably juxtaposed with ads for Colonial wine or some of the strangest pantyhose commercials I've ever seen. Also of note is the CBS News bulletins indicating that people didn't have sex during the Blizzard of '78 because "men were outside shoveling", and the Neutron bomb which "wipes out humans but leaves cities intact".

CBS Evening News is also responsible for the following phrase: "Tonight at 11: Fighting Frizzies", which at one point sounds like "Fucking Frizzies" and then simply "Frizzies". There's also a CBS program called Flying High that looks and sounds as dirty as anything on tv today.

Things we learned: Carrie Fisher and Bea Arthur shouldn't sing, Mark Hamill can look a LOT like Julie Andrews, Jefferson Starship went down on Dr. Manhattan, More than one wookie talking at a time sounds stupid, and Life Day is a stupid holiday.

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I already wrote about The Story of Ricky. The only new thing I have to add is just how much better it is to watch it with others. I let a lot of the subtitle non sequiturs slide the first time through, but when others try to make sense of the story based on a very bad translation of Mandarin the movie grows exponentially funnier.

Things we learned: Ricky's jacket is magical, The main warden had a good time in Hawii, There's really no reason why every prisoner didn't leave the prison whenever they wanted to, It's really easy to repair torn sinews.

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In addition to trailers from the incredible nights of Bad Movies, I'll include some photos from tonight, including the "grab bag" recipients and their prizes. Everyone went home happy!



* Adam may have made this up.
** Even better than Real Genius.