I was kind of shocked last week when the bulletin at church (OK, it’s titled “The Navigator” or some such but we all call it the bulletin) contained an ad for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Which, and the Wardrobe. No, not at the length of the movie title which threatens to be longer than the movie itself, but that Disney, you know the company boycotted by the Baptists, was partnering with evangelical Churches to promote their Christian movie. So church members are getting a sneak preview and group rates for the movie — just like for The Passion of the Christ. I guess Disney decided there was money in them there churches, and we evangelicals are a forgiving lot. Yes I do plan on seeing the movie, but then I also look forward to the Harry Potter movies. I’ll be able to tell what side Disney is truly on if the witch’s dying words are “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”.
Archive for category Movies
Suitably Impressed
Dec 5
The Murphy family did something it rarely does – venture out over the Thanksgiving Holidays and see a movie. While I prefer seeing comedies in full houses, I never have liked crowds, or standing in line to see a movie, or rushing to get a good seat. And by good, I mean with the people I came with, and not in the front row off to the side. Yes, we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and I think the Potter movies just keep getting better. I saw it on a chain Imax screen (Ronnies 20 if you must know) which doesn’t compare to a real Imax theater, like at the St. Louis Science Center. But it is still a better movie going experience, especially enhanced because there were no previews – we went from a couple of slideshow adds straight to the main attraction without passing go. There is a scene in the movie about evil and our response to it that I wanted to blog, but sadly the rest of the weekend experience has driven from my mind. But let me say I enjoyed it, and the only negative for me was that there was a stetch that focused on the fact that Harry & Co. were 14 year olds and not on swashbuckling. I want my swash buckled, I don’t want teenage angst at the movies. I get enough of that at home.
Flightplan
Sep 29
I saw Flightplan over the weekend and I can’t figure out what all the fuss is about. Look, it’s a convoluted psychological thriller (that’s the polite way of saying a thriller without a lot of action) that is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. I thought Jodie Foster did a good job of playing a mother driven past the breaking point by the death of her husband and the kidnapping of her daughter, and Sean Bean did his usual good job playing the captain of the plane she was on. Given that the discussion will contain spoilers, I’m hiding it behind the extended entry feature, unless you come here via a link to the post itself, in which case if you don’t want the thrill to be spoiled, read no further.
OK, now we can talk freely. First, Debbie Schlussel savaged the movie (in part) for having a red herring consisting of a group of Muslim men on board the flight who the movie hints are terrorists. The problem with this is as a red herring isn’t Ms. Schlussel’s complaint that it makes you question “your suspicions of Arab Muslims, to think you are unfair and prejudiced” but the impracticality of it — Jodie Foster’s character simply stops as she’s running around the plane looking for her daugher and accuses them of taking her daughter without offering any possible motive. And it does make you think about the central puzzle of the movie – why kidnap someone on an airplane?
But her complaints about the depiction of an air marshal and a stewardess as the evil doers — they aren’t terrorists, they’re old fashioned criminals of the murder, kidnap, and extortionist kind — has stirred up stewardesses and their unions enough that flight attendents and their unions are calling for a boycot of the movie. On the one hand, I do sympathize with flight attendants and air marshals complaints, but it is a movie after all. And in one sense, the movie validates their trustworthyness since you aren’t expected to expect their betrayel. Yes, during the 9-11 hijackings the flight crews were heroes, and I’d love to see more movies about that, but does that mean we can’t ever have movie where any flight attendent is less than perfect? I think the real test is how a particular group is routinely portrayed by the media, not on a one time basis.
How thrilling would a movies be if the only bad people in them were clearly criminals at the beginning of the movie? Frankly, on a moral basis I think The Italian Job is worse because your sympathies are with a criminal gang as opposed to Flightplan where you are rooting for a widow over a seriously evil criminal — you just don’t know who the bad guy is until near the end of the movie. And while I agree with David Ross at Libertas that there are real world consequences to media stereotypes, I don’t think a single film rises to the level of stereotype.
Proper Villains
Sep 19
The funWife and I watched Sahara over the weekend. I enjoyed the breezy buddy action part, but it had a big problem. No, not the part where the helicopter had a limitless supply of ammo, but the the McGuffin in Hitchcockese. As Dirty Harry at the Liberty Film festival notes in a post about how Hollywood wouldn’t be able to make Jaws again:
I don’t think so because the straight-forwardness of the script would be lost in today’s agenda-driven Hollywood.I think a woman would be put on the boat. Probably in the Dreyfus role. Not because she would be better — who could possibly be better than Dreyfus? — but for politically correct reasons. And she’d of course be a liberal environmentalist feminist who would remind us ad nauseum sharks don’t normally do this. And finally we’d learn the shark attack is “our” fault. That man, specifically America – specifically corporate America – had committed some environmental crime that affected the shark’s natural habitat, and with no choice the shark came to Amity to feed. In other words, poetic justice liberal style.
So in Sahara we have Penelope Cruz as a WHO doctor who’s character could have been male and it would have changed nothing. And the McGuffan is toxic waste that not only is poisoning the groundwater in the desert(!), but is about to reach the ocean, react with salt water, and destroy all marine life worldwide. The bad guy is a businessman who is incinerating hazardous waste but when there’s a snag in the process carelessly stores the leaking drums in a cave. Miles and miles of concrete and steel, lavish spare no expense set up, high tech computer controled facility, but they store leaking toxic waste in a cave that apparently is just above an underground river. Why o why couldn’t they have just had an evil African dictator who was trying to cover up an actual plague as the bad guy – or even a bunch of long lost Confederates (as in American Civil War) who were running the show in Mali and trying to cover up a plague so that nobody would investigate and discover their secret existance? Because then it wouldn’t be about the evils of businessmen and pollution.
As Forrest Gump would say, stupid is as stupid does.
Failure
Sep 14
There are a lot of people who distrust markets, and who are pretty quick to invoke the concept of market failure. While I typically trust markets more than politicians, there are times when I do think markets fail. I’m not thinking the energy business because the biggest market failures I see are in the press and movie business.
Newspapers and network newscasts are shedding customers at a rate that a straight line extrapolation will put them out of business sooner rather than later. Their main asset, credibility, is eroding just as quickly. Bernard Goldberg was only partly right with his book “Bias” — as “Lousy” would have been a better description. The bias has become so bad mainly because the whole system is rotten. Rather than listen to the market, i.e their customers, the press is in full defense mode and consumers continue to leave. The message from the press has become the only thing wrong with the news media is that people are stupid, don’t like being told the truth, and just don’t appreciate the news. My local paper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is somewhere between awful and terrible – with a few notable exceptions. They got rid of their ombudsman a few years ago, someone I came to respect, and now you have to contact people direct with any problems. And that’s when you run into just how smug and arrogant journalists have become. We only get the paper for the coupons anymore – the overall news value is less than zero. But they were bought out by another chain and the look “updated” — while my older eyes appreciate the increase in readability and whitespace (which I wonder is just a way to cut down on content), the rest of the changes are generally poor and seem to be driven not by usability but some designers color palate – where the colors used to provide information (like on the weather page or in the financial section) now they are just accents with no information content. Two aphorisms come to mind – they just put lipstick on a pig, and you can’t polish a turd. But hey, why do the hard work of putting out a quality newspaper when you can do a redesign of the look instead. Fox News is killing the opposition because they put out a better (which doesn’t necessarily mean good) product.
And the movie business seems to be run not based on making money but on making films some good leftists think you ought to see and making films that only teenagers would watch to pay the bills. I like movies. I like going to movie theaters, I like renting them, I like buying really good ones because just owning a great movie makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. I am denied these simple pleasures because Hollywood insists on making crap unfit for human consumption. The hottest properties in Hollywood are either extensions of old work like LOTR and Star Wars or comic books. Comic Books! I happen to enjoy comic books, and still own quite a few (make me an offer and they can be yours) but I don’t want a steady diet of comic book based movies. I want epics, I want small movies, I want family movies, I want grown up movies, I want movies with intellegent dialogue, and I would really like to see comedies that don’t insult you. Is that really too much to ask for? Why did a movie like My Big Fat Greek Wedding have such difficulty in being made? Why are there so few movies like Sideways — aimed at the above 35 crowd? Why, after the huge success of The Passion of the Christ were there no copycats. C’mon, copycatting successful movies has been a staple of Hollywood since D.W Griffith. Here’s a movie that made like $400 million dollars and brought people to the theater who hadn’t been in years, and what’s the followup? Kingdom of Heaven. That thud was the sound of a turd hitting the screen, and by a great director too. How could they have botched Troy and Alexander so badly when the source material was so good? If you can make Les Miserables into a musical, how can you fail at making the Illiad into an epic?
Heres a case where there is a market clamoring for one thing, but suppliers not providing it, and leaving money on the table doing so. That to me is one huge market failure.
Worse Than Ed Wood?
Aug 10
David Weinberger at Joho The Blog wrote a post entitled “Worst (Major) Director in History about Oliver Stone in a review of Alexander. James Wolcott took exception in his blog so Mr. Weinberger pretty much levels both Stone and Wolcott in his updated post. To use an unnecessary cliche, it’s a tour de force. I guess I won’t be renting Alexander.
Well, surprise surprise surprise, the new Dukes of Hazzard movie isn’t getting good reviews. And the review is fairly typical – mindless action coupled with hot bodies. Who is the picture aimed at? Teenagers, of course. While the debate rages about the whys of Hollywoods decline — Is it poor product quality or is it competition from other entertainment, let me agree with both of those positions and throw in the observation that Hollywood shouldn’t be surprised that fewer people watch their movies because they go out of their way to make movies that fewer people want to see, since a large fraction seems to be aimed directly at teenagers. And frankly, not too many of us adults are going to plunk down 8 bucks and spend 90 minutes to look at Jessica Simpson’s cleavage (delightful as it is) and other things blow up real good. This might make sense if teenage was an expanding demographic, but it isn’t. It’s not like if you get people hooked on movies as a teenager they’ll keep watching the rest of their lives, either.
I’m not blaming teenagers — I’m blaming an industry that keeps sawing away at its own jugular. Mel Gibson proved that people who don’t ordinarily see movies will plunk down their 8 bucks and sit for a couple of hours to see a movie that is aimed at them. Did Hollywood notice and ask themselves what demographics (not just devout Christians) they are they leaving on the table? Are you kidding? Heck, they haven’t even bothered with a follow up for Christians.
A Couple of Movies
Jun 24
Two nights ago we watched Finding Neverland. The pacing was leisurely, which suits the period and subject. The acting was first rate – I’ve never seen Johnny Depp as restrained yet still smoldering behind the eyes. I have to admit, I wasn’t wild about it when the funWife picked this one out, but I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable, excellent family movie.
Last night it was The Aviator, which wasn’t as good. Oh, it was a lavish production, but it’s an odd movie. If Howard Hughes had any genius, it wasn’t on display beyond his ability to spend all his money. The pacing in the beginning was especially off, with a very rushed feel yet later it settled down into a more sustainable pace. And the colors appeared to have been applied later and poorly – a fault I can’t quite figure out (I’m hoping it’s not my TV!). The best part was his confrontation with Senator Brewster, the kind you wish more such witnesses had. Overall, it was all surface and no depth, and made no emotional connection other than pity (and not much of that) as he descended into madness.
Now We’re Alone At Last
Jun 21
The funWife and I went to Hollywood Video, rented 3 movies and bought Raiders of the Lost Ark (AKA Indiana Jones I) for $8.50 last night. Yes, that’s the cost of one person seeing one movie, but there were coupons involved. Still, it does help explain why fewer people are seeing movies at the theater these days.
When we saw Revenge of the Sith, it was at a new theater which touts the largest screen in the midwest. And it was a large screen by today’s standards, but as I informed the Fruit of the Murphy Loins, it would have been an average screen when I was even a teenager. Thankfully the shoe-box theaters that were built during my 20’s and 30’s are disappearing, replaced by the stadium seating theaters. I guess the owners realized that people weren’t willing to pay a lot of money to see a movie on a screen only marginally larger than their TV at home and in the company of strangers. I’m also noticing that people are talking less during movies, maybe because they don’t feel like they’re in their living room anymore.
I do like movies, and the movies today are able to do things technically and thus make movies that are beyond what once could be done. Compare Master and Commander to Horatio Hornblower, and you’ll see what I mean — although I do have a soft spot in my heart for the scene in HH where the two ships are bearing down on each other with every sail unfurled and filled with the wind. Physically impossible, but it sure looks good as long as you don’t think. But along the way Hollywood seems to have replaced dialogue and plot with action and CGI. Can’t we have all four? Dialogue written today doesn’t come close to what was routinely written well into the seventies.
And that brings us to Hitch, the movie we watched last night. It’s a very pleasant movie, and Will Smith is quite believable as a smooth talking charmer and he does have some funny bits. The problem is not enough Kevin James. Kevin lights up the screen and provides lots of laughs, but Will Smith is the star, so we have to see lots of him and Eva Mendes even though we pretty much now how that story line is going to go. And there’s your economics in a nutshell – I got a bargain at 99 cents for the funWife and I to rent the movie, and I’d have been unhappy to pay $17 for us to see it in a theater.
Not the Last ‘Star Wars’!
May 18
I have news for everybody else on the planet: “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” is not supposed to be the last movie in the “Star Wars” collection. There are supposed to be three more!
Yes, I know that everybody is saying this is the last “Star Wars” movie. That’s even what director George Lucas is saying:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/17/star.wars.overview/index.html
But here’s how I figure it. Take out your Bullfinch, and look up the great epic poems by Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. If you don’t have Bullfinch or can’t find it up in your attic somewhere, just look on-line instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey
The great epics of classic literature are supposed to:
1. start in the middle of the action,
2. have someone recap the earlier events,
3. drive toward the final gripping conclusion.
Okay, well the Iliad doesn’t exactly work like this, but the Odyssey does pretty well:
1. starts in the middle (Books 1-7). Imagine all this in dactylic hexameter:
Sing, oh Muse, of brave Odysseus,
Beloved of Calypso, she who keeps him in chains of love,
Whilst Penelope, at home on Ithaca, tries her best
To fend off a bajillion suitors and pay the mortgage,
etc.
2. someone recounts earlier events (Books 8-13)
So tell me, mighty but forlorn Odysseus,
How came you to this benighted shore?, quoth some literary flunky,
And why backwards do your sentences run?
I’m glad you asked that question, replied the great mariner.
Achilles and I did upon the Trojan shore leap out,
And smote with all our strength the Achaean walls,
etc.
3. the gripping conclusion (Books 14-24)
At last! cried Odysseus, and drove with his mighty bow
the arrow through five suitors’ bodies at once!
Nice shot, remarked Telemachus,
Can I have my turn now?
etc.
You get the idea. I figure that George Lucas, being fully aware of the great Homeric epics, back in 1977 decided to model his great “Star Wars” epic on the poems of Homer. I swear I thought of this in 1980, when “The Empire Strikes Back” came out and we all learned that it was episode V! Why else would George Lucas just make a set of movies backwards? He didn’t – of course he was emulating the great sagas of ancient Greece. “Star Wars (4)” starts the action in the middle of the tale, “The Phantom Menace (1)” recounts earlier action, and future Episodes 7-9 are supposed to pick up where “Return of the Jedi (6)” left off.
Of course, we have an obvious problem: George Lucas was 32 when he made the first “Star Wars” movie, and he is 61 years old now. From various interviews I gather that Lucas does not have three more “Star Wars” movies left in him. He also doesn’t have a story, having tied things up all-too-neatly at the end of Episode 6. Drat. No, make that, Double drat!
But that little difficulty should not stop some ambitious young movie director from picking up where George Lucas is leaving off. Come on, somebody out there! Get the gleam in your eye!!! Think great thoughts! Dream fantastic dreams! Finish the greatest epic story of the 20th century! I would do it myself, but I’m still face down in meteorology graduate school.
You can do it!
