My hopes for the Sweeney Todd movie continue to fall. I mean, Bonham Carter and Depp look downright bored in this clip of "A Little Priest". How the bloody hell can you be bored singing that song? It's the most deliciously crazy set of cannibalism puns ever set to oom pah pah music! *sigh*

Tags: commentary, hype, movies, theatre

I saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe this weekend, and enjoyed it, though it seems to suffer from a couple of strategic missteps: First, trying to make this "the next Lord of the Rings." Second, failing to do some editing to let the female protagonists prove more than props. But at least the Christian underpinnings are understated. (Lots of) details behind the tag:

( Step through to another world's spoilers )

Tags: criticism, movies, reviews

Biases out front: I'm a Joss Whedon fan. I also enjoy Firefly, even if I don't think it's always able to make its ideas work. Dismiss my reactions as you will given those two facts, as I fully admit I was predisposed to enjoy Serenity. And I did. Also Big, Nasty, Will Completely Spoil The Film For You spoilers follow, so if you have any intention of seeing this movie, turn away now.

( I'm not kidding. I'm going to give away the ending of this movie, and large chunks of the middle )

Spoiler free, I think Serenity is definitely a stronger series finale (or big season finale; I've heard there may be a deal for more movies?) for Firefly than it is a stand-alone movie, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it as a good sci-fi action flick. It's not the Best Movie Ever, but it's funny and actiony and has several neat effects sequences / fight scenes, which is largely what I want in a sci-fi action flick, so there you go.

Tags: movies, reviews, sci-fi

I have a more in-depth essay on the methods at play in the recent GLA mini, but for now, quick reactions to stuff I've read or seen lately:

Sir Apropos of Nothing: The opening chapter of Peter David's antihero fantasy series has a great hook. Unfortunately, we then backtrack to the rather literal conception of the title character, and embark on a lengthy history of same. For my money, the book just kind of wanders until it manages to get back to the moment that opened the book, and the whole thing suffers from the first person narrator working way too hard to explain how any seemingly commendable act on his part was either motivated by selfishness or entirely by accident.

Justice League Unlimited: The League members in flashback do and say nothing that requires them specifically as opposed to any number of Bat family members (and some of them are just problematic: why don't Hawkgirl and the other flying characters just fly over the stupid thorn hedge?). Amanda Waller, too, could have just as easily (and possibly more logically) been Batman Beyond's aged Barbara Gordon. This didn't feel like a (series?) finale for JLU so much as a repurposed Batman Beyond finale.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Fun and sadistic, which is what it probably should be. I find it interesting that, when Willy Wonka was in the movie's title, Charlie was the one with a character arc. Now that Charlie's back in the title, Willy Wonka gets the development.

Fantastic Four: As an action comedy I thought it hit most of the right notes. I laughed a lot. I had a couple "hey, that's pretty neat" moments. And I very much enjoyed watching Jessica Alba's Sue Storm have all of her "Look at me, I'm sexy!" clothing choices go right under Reed Richards' radar.

War of the Worlds: Spielberg does an amazing job of making me believe the impending, inescapable death descending from the tripods onto the recurring, packed-in crowds. The problem comes when I'm then asked to believe that the protagonists in the middle of said throngs escape their doom when, in most cases, they do nothing different than their slaughtered co-crowd (and often do stupider things). After the first few escapes, the convenience of it all is just as inescapable as the death seemed to be.

Tags: books, movies, reviews, tv

I saw Madagascar this weekend. In it, there are two monkeys: one who signs, and the other who translates those signs. My ASL is extremely rusty, but due to the wonders of computer animation, the signing monkey uses textbook-clear signs, so I caught bits and pieces (I'm normally lost watching native signers, who aren't nearly as worried about precision as Dreamworks' animators were). I'm such a geek that at one point while the talker was translating, I had to stop myself from pointing out that he was translating words the signing monkey hadn't even used yet.

A movie about black ops penguins and the lasting friendship of a talking lion and zebra, and I get flumoxed by predictive translation of proper nouns. Why yes, I am a geek. ;)

Tags: anecdotes, asl, movies

I loved the Nightmare on Elm Street movies as a kid, even though I'd never seen a single one.

Confused? The missing link here is the magic of a third party. In this case, one of my older cousins. One day while I was hanging around being a general pest, my cousin made mention of one of the Nightmare movies. I made mention that I'd never seen them. Eh voila, my cousin fell into enthusiastically summarizing the highlights of each one. He'd give me the concept for each, then blow-by-blows of his favorite scenes. I'd ask questions, he'd clarify. I knew there was one movie where Freddy was trying to possess a kid, another where the kids got dream powers to fight him (that one was my favorite; guess I just can't escape my super-hero roots). I learned the secret of Freddy's thousand-maniacs birth.

Then, when I was a little older, I actually tried watching one of the flicks. I remembered my cousin's energetic storytelling, remembered how I got caught up in it all. Here it was, all free and on the screen, so let's see the source material. If the book's better than the movie, surely the movie should be better than the summary.

Not so much. I've tried a couple times, but I can never quite make it through a whole installment. I hate most of the kids; the ones who aren't stupid are whiny. I can't quite bring myself to like Freddy, largely because he never met a crappy pun he didn't like, and I know it's probably the point, but I usually cringe at Englund's mugging. When I watch Nightmare movies, they're just the same slasher flick ugh with a few more surreal special effects. Commercial break = I change the channel.

Still, when I think back on those movie-as-campfire-tale afternoons with my cousin, I can't deny there's something to it. There are ideas there that are just, well, cool. Or maybe they're "kewl," I don't know. What I do know is, my cousin loved those flicks, and when he told me about them, I loved them. There's a version of that series that kicks ass. It's just a version no one can rent or buy, because the "Jason and his cousin sitting around the house telling scary stories" edition only saw two prints made, and I'm pretty sure my or my cousin's brain isn't going to work in your DVD player.

That was my first exposure to entertainment by proxy. I still do it from time to time. I'll see a preview for a movie that looks not-great but that I know a friend will see. I'll hear about a comics mini that isn't for me but I can guarantee you someone in my circle of friends will pick up. So I wait, and when I know they've experienced it, I ask, "so, how was it?" And if they really liked it, why, I pull up a seat and grill them. I know I'll probably never see the movie, but I don't have to. In most cases, the version I get is better, because it's getting a filter of enthusiasm I would never bring to the work.

Recently, I've even taken to doing this online. For all that everyone talked up the show, my one exposure to Desperate Housewives left me yawning and groaning. Was I supposed to be surprised that Teri Hatcher's character managed to mangle her super-wonderful-everyone-loves-it dress just in time to have to walk out on stage? Enh. I can't really bring myself to tune in much, but I also can't shake the energetic vibe I get hearing people recommend the show.

Enter Television Without Pity. Ostensibly, this is a review site. In reality, it's my online entertainment by proxy. In the case of Desperate Housewives, at least, I get the impression the summarizers actually see potential in the show. They care more than I ever will. So I "watch" via them, getting a summary tinged by enthusiasm or disgust at various aspects of the plot.

And you know what? Even with that not-exciting episode bobbling around in my head, I find I've developed an addiction for it all. I have favorites. I root for crazy-anal-retentive Bree, groan and smack my forehead at Susan's latest pratfall, feel a rising ire for the crap parenting of Lynette, and flip-flop over whether I want Gabby to get her comeuppance or I'm reveling in her managing to side-step responsibility yet again.

There's not a similar site for comics, but despite the fact that I don't read much of any X books, I find myself dropping by The X Axis every week. Paul O'Brien largely doesn't spoil things, but he gives me enough of the plot to have a basic idea of the story. And if the spoilers have any lasting impact--or, for that matter, if they're subsequently ignored even though it makes no sense for them to be--O'Brien's likely to mention them in a few month's time, anyway.

Like with TWP*, O'Brien brings a core interest in the characters and concepts that I'm not sure I fully possess. I certainly don't have the continuity background. Whether he likes all the series or not, he has an inherent interest in X books in general, and seeing that applied, I tend to understand what it is that would draw a person to the line.

In the end, I suppose it's just another level of my entertainment hierarchy. There are things I'll pay to see / read. There are things I'll borrow from friends (I want to see them or read them, but can't quite bring myself to shell out the cash). Then there's the "by proxy" level: things that intrigue me in a less essential way, such that I want to know more about them than I do, but not enough that I feel I need to experience them first hand.


*I should point out that I've glanced at some of the other series "showing" at TWP, and the reviewers don't all like their shows. The Charmed reviewer detests that series. I know he gets paid for it, but I think it can't be enough to justify the horror he seems to experience in summarizing the show.

Tags: comics, commentary, movies, tv

Saw Gods and Monsters this weekend. There were lots of scenes and moments in it I liked, though overall I thought it was a pretty uneven film. Spoiler, cut tag, blah:

( meet the Father of Frankenstein )

So, then: watch it for the Ian McKellan and Lynn Redgrave (and, if he's to your tastes, the often shirtless and sometimes pantsless Brendan Fraser). Enjoy the great character moments sprinkled throughout. Then feel free to tune out at the end.

Tags: movies, reviews

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's MirrorMask came to the Sarasota Film Festival. Like I was going to pass up the opportunity to check it out?

There may or may not have been a projector problem; apparently folks who had seen the shorts preceding MM thought those looked dark, which may explain why it was hard to make out a lot of things in the opening segments at the circus, at least in the showing I attended. Still, well worth the ticket and the time. Some spoilers follow, so your standard cut tag and warning:

( Check out the flipside )

Hopefully Gaiman and McKean will get wide distribution with the film, as it deserves it. If they do, don't wait for the DVD. See this thing in the theater and soak it all in.

Tags: movies, reviews

I saw Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events this weekend, and found it quite an enjoyable experience. The transparent mystery plot was nicely downplayed in favor of a whole lot of wonderfully atmospheric eye candy and performances both subtle and outlandish. What follows should be spoiler-light, but just in case, a cut tag:

( Click to view the Baudelaire secrets )

Tags: movies, reviews

I went to hang out at John M's place last night, and as we vegged, we watched the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I'd already seen it before, and quite enjoyed it (I think it was Jeremy who noted that the original trailers for the movie did a hell of a job of making a good movie look like crap).

Possibly because I'd seen it a few times before, this time I started to notice all sorts of interesting structural elements to the film. Recurring elements, to be sure, but also what seemed to me to be well done and fairly subtle parallel structures.

I especially took note of the way the movie juxtaposes Barbosa / Elizabeth scenes with Sparrow / Will versions. Two that stuck out particularly:

Elizabeth negotiates with Barbosa for the goodwill of others, and though she has something he greatly covets, she only really gets her way after giving her name. Then day breaks, and Will negotiates with Sparrow for the goodwill of another, and though he has a way to give Sparrow something he covets, it's only the revelation of the same name that wins him the negotiation.

Elizabeth and Barbosa dine in a mockery of civilization as she learns the truth of the curse and her true worth (though she doesn't know it's due to her assumed parentage). Will and Sparrow dine in Tortuga, as Sparrow revels in what he truly is. During the course of the evening, Will learns he's worth something to Barbosa because of his name, but he doesn't know the whys or wherefores.

Better still, neither of the above is something the movie beats you over the head with. While there are plenty of winking at the audience moments, I'm realizing there are also a fair few pieces that help make this a good film without having to wave their arms and shout "look at me!"

Tags: criticism, movies