Classic Film Review: Galaxy Quest

My local theater does these screenings of older movies called "Insomnia Theater" and a few weeks ago they were showing Galaxy Quest. I missed Galaxy Quest the first time it was in theaters, and I can't even remember why. I just don't think I thought it was going to be all that funny, it didn't come out in a time where parody movies were doing all that well. Let's be honest in generally they're pretty terrible unless Mel Brooks is involved. This was definitely my mistake, and when I was finally convinced to watch it (and I can't remember by who or how), and I found out instantly how wrong I was. This movie isn't just funny, it's brilliant. It works on multiple levels, and it's smart in ways that even now most movies don't even attempt.

On it's surface, it's simple. The washed up actors who appeared on a short lived but cult favorite tv show are mistaken for real spaceship commanders and brought into space to save an alien race. Even that's been done before, but usually with something that becomes much more serious. But Galaxy Quest keeps up it's level of humor and intelligence at every moment.

It's no surprise that these actors are fantastic, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shaloub, and Alan Rickman are some of the best actors in the country and so of course they're fantastic. Tim Allen has some hits and misses, but he's perfectly at home here and does what he does best.

Of course this is an almost direct parody of Star Trek and it's fans, and a lot of people (Patrick Stewart himself included) have worried that it was at the expense of those fans. It isn't, at all. One of the hardest things to accomplish in parody is being a loving tribute as well as poking fun at tropes and cliches. Galaxy Quest is one of the best examples of how to do this well. Which is probably why many Star Trek fans talk about it being the best Star Trek movie, because it's the one that comes from the same place they do, and it represents not just the world of Star Trek but also the world AROUND Star Trek. And it clearly understands the universe better than certain other recent writer and director teams I could name.

In general, if you like science fiction or Star Trek on any level, you should have seen Galaxy Quest by now. But you also should check it out if you like humor, or if you want to have some fun with the behind-the-scenes world of movies and television. It's a lot of things for a lot of people, and it does all of them well.

Red

Since Red 2 was coming out in theaters, I thought it might be time for me to finally watch the first film. I had been interested in it because the original trailers were rather funny and it was a movie full of actors that I always enjoy. Just having Bruce Willis usually means I'll at least give it a try. I'm also a pretty big fan of action films, in general, though there are some tropes of the genre that I'm getting more than a bit tired of. Excessive chase sequences being one of them (just wait until I review Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I'll rant about it then). But I was really pleased to see that Red didn't really fall into very many of those cliches. It was pretty refreshing, and made it a really enjoyable evening.

The story gets going quickly, and while some of the action sequences are really not at all believable, at the same time I was willing to let them get away with it because the characters were so much fun and the actors are really into it and giving it their best.

Pretty much everything comes together well, from the direction to the cinematography, and the special effects are especially well done. The plot itself is almost secondary, it's kind of a standard "the secret agents have been betrayed by somebody taking over the government behind the scenes." It's sometimes pretty predictable actually, but there's a great sense of sarcasm and fun to everything that happens. The writing isn't good because of the action things that happen, but the clever dialogue and excellent characters, it makes me wonder how much of that came from the original comic and how much was the screenwriter or even the actors.

I don't have too many specific things to day because so many things worked well. It's a great film, anybody who likes action films should give it a shot. I'll definitely be watching the sequel, though I wonder if it's possible for the next movie to even approach this kind of experience. It seems like the first one was a great contained piece, so I don't know that I even wanted a sequel, but I'm not unhappy that it exists.

Classics: Adam's Rib

I have no idea why, but for some reason I had it in my head that Adam's Rib was actually a screwball comedy. Perhaps it's just because it was made around the same time and featured a married couple as the lead characters. I mention this only because the fact that it actually was a rather earnest drama with quite a bit of comedy mixed in threw me because it wasn't what I was expecting. In fact nothing about the film was what I expected, and I don't know whether that changed my opinion of it or not. I've been hearing about it for decades, but I had only recently gotten around to watching it, and my delay wasn't for any particular reason so my reasons for watching it weren't that strong either.

Part of the issue is that it's a film that's often touted as being very feminist. Some of the scenes in the film are in fact very feminist in nature, and taken completely out of the context of the movie are quite impressive for their time since they are arguments we're still having. When Heburn's character talks to her secretary about the different opinions when a man cheats versus a woman cheating, it's a double standard woman are still struggling against now, over 50 years later.

The basic plot is that a working class woman has shot her husband and injured him. A pair of married lawyers have taken up the opposing sides of the case, Spencer Tracy plays the prosecuting attorney Adam Bonner, and Katharine Hepburn the defense, Amanda Bonner. Throughout the film the case causes them tension both inside the courtroom and at home, as they struggle to reconcile what their differences of opinion mean about their own ability to relate to each other.

On some levels it's a great story and the characters are interesting, their relationships compelling. It's almost redundant to say that Hepburn and Tracy have amazing chemistry. On other levels, it doesn't hold up to the passage of time because it becomes just a little bit more obvious how it's not actually as feminist as you might think. It's more what comfortable rich woman played at for feminism in the 1950's, where they were allowed to be loud and a bit bossy as long as at home they submitted to their husbands and had their quaint dinner parties and were still appropriately feminine.

Getting into why that bothered me is opening a huge can of feminist history worms, and talking about the differences between first wave and intersectional feminism and on and on. But suffice it to say, as the film went on it stopped working for me. Especially considering the character of Kip, a client of Amanda's that is smarmy and in love with her and she thinks the attention is wonderful. Everything about the way Kip interacts with Adam and Amanda is a bit gross and old fashioned, and it starts to really annoy me before the film is over. So much so that by the time we get the traditional romantic comedy reconciliation, I actually didn't care if they got back together because they'd both behaved so poorly in relation to the Kip situation that I didn't know if they deserved a happy ending.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE LAST SCENE IN THE FILM

I also thought that having Adam end the film by claiming that he was fake-crying at the accountant's office to win Amanda back was just a very gross way to end the story, and by having her accept it as a loving gesture means that it negates much of what the film was supposed to be about. The last few scenes actually rub it in that Amanda is actually wrong, that Doris Attinger didn't have the right to shoot her husband because even men shouldn't have the right to kill a cheating spouse. It basically takes the time at the end to put Amanda back in her place, as a proper feminist should always be just non-threatening enough not to upset the status quo and her actions should only be to make her feel better, or within the confines of what society deems acceptable.

I realize I'm probably reading a lot into the movie, and it isn't necessarily fair to a film released in 1949 to be analyzing it in this light. It was a product of it's time, and it was a rather progressive one at that I'm sure. I'm just really tired of the fact that this IS what life was like then and it's what life is STILL like now, and so maybe it was the wrong movie at the wrong time for me.

Moonrise Kingdom

So, here's a confession for you: before this film I had never watched a Wes Anderson movie. I know, I know. I've heard all about why he's amazing and heard plenty of lectures about why I should have picked up The Life Aquatic or The Royal Tennebaums, but to be honest nothing he's done before has really caught my eye and made me go "that, that looks like the kind of movie I'd appreciate spending two hours with." I can't even quite put my finger on why, perhaps because I don't like quirky for the sake of quirky. Is Anderson like that? I don't know, but all the trailers and clips I've seen made his previous films feel that way, and so nothing really was compelling enough to bring me on board.

But the trailers for Moonrise Kingdom had a lot going for them, and I'll admit adding Bruce Willis to anything increases my desire to see it about 300%. Maybe it was that the cast just had too many actors I love, maybe it was that the kid's summer camp story was more interesting. Maybe the jokes were things I found funnier. Maybe the guy cutting the trailer was better at his job than the other guys.

For whatever reason, I decided I wanted to see it. And to be honest, it probably was the best way to get me to watch a movie of this particular subset/genre. While the adult actors whose names I recognized all did amazing jobs, I was actually most impressed by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the young couple who decides to run away together. Their performances might be the type to turn off some people, but there was an unnaturalness to their delivery that actually made them more likeable to me, and I think that they stole the show at every opportunity.

It didn't hurt that the characters had a lot of moments that reminded me of myself, or people I've known, or my own weird childhood running around reading fantasy books and pretending the world was different. It just had so many things that seemed to be out of the books I would read about scout camps (my own experiences with camp were quite different) and it was presented in a way that made me feel nostalgia for something I never actually experienced.

The story is weird, that is certainly true. On paper, you could write a synopsis and it actually would sound rather tame. I read the plot summary on Wikipedia just now and sure, everything it says is true. That is the action of what happened.

But Moonrise Kingdom isn't a movie that's about what happens. That's not really what's memorable about it at all. For one, it's one of those pieces that film students love because it's just so artistic. There's a very distinct feeling and theme to all of the visuals, and it's like every small detail was chosen with care. But also there's a slight absurdity to everything, the dialogue and the situations, that really define what the movie is.

I won't say that it's a film for everyone, I imagine it won't appeal to many mainstream audiences at all, because it is a bit odd, but it's a nice odd. People who want the plot to go from A to B to C and for things to be realistic aren't going to like it. But if you're willing to let it just let it be charming and beautiful and enjoy it for what it is, then it's well worth the time spent with it.

Never Let Me Go

I read the book Never Let me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, many years ago when it was first released. I wasn't really familiar with Ishiguro, this was the first book of his that I had read. The thing that struck me about it was that beyond the plot or the characters, he was very adept at establishing a mood. There was a very distinct feeling that you got throughout the work, a longing and a sort of bittersweet wistfulness. It wasn't long after I read it that it was announced the book was being adapted to the screen, and I had no doubt they could do justice by the story, the action in the film is relatively simple. There's actually not to many events, and so the challenges that filmmakers normally have fitting everything into the allotted time wouldn't be the real problem.

The real problem would be capturing the mood. Especially considering that the novel is told in first person from the point of view of Kathy (Carey Mulligan's character). First person stories are notoriously difficult because you aren't given the same insight into the characters. And it's really Kathy's state of mind that provides the emotions for the reader as they experience her life through her eyes and her memories.

The film uses one well worn technique for this - the voiceover. But Mulligan's performance and her voice are so strong that it works. The cinematography is beautiful, and everything truly does come together to really capture the same longing that you feel when reading the novel. To be honest, the plot of the film is not particularly memorable, and in some ways it's not even really that original. In a lesser filmmaker's hands, it wouldn't have worked. Just like a lesser novelist couldn't have pulled it off either. It's a rather typical love triangle with a science-fiction twist (in the novel it's less obvious until later, the movie spells it out very early on).

But the filmmakers made one very clever choice early on - the film never for a moment looks like science fiction. There is no sense of it being the future, in fact it has the look and feel of a period piece set maybe around the 1940's. That adds an air of nostalgia, a heaviness of history to it, that helps bring the audience right back to the subtlety of Kathy's mind.

It probably isn't a film that will appeal to everyone. The pace is quite slow, there is no real action and the conflict is very understated. It's a very internal film, and that isn't always going to be appealing. But it's a very skilled adaptation of the book, and the only fault I can find with it is that it reveals it's mysteries too early. The novel is one of the few instances where I believe people are better off knowing very little going into it, and that spoilers truly spoil part of the enjoyment. The movie doesn't have that problem, because the reveal is quick and painless and has little impact.

Castle Season Four

Previous Castle Reviews: Season One Season Two Season Three Heat Wave Season three of Castle ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers I've ever seen. The kind of cliffhanger that would have made me intensely upset if I had seen it when it originally aired. Fans of Castle who had to live through that, I salute you.

The writers of Castle never fail to go where most shows might fear to tread, and true to form, Beckett's shooting at the end of season three, and Montgomery's death, are not events that are quickly wrapped up and glossed over. They have far reaching consequences that continue to affect the characters throughout the season. Beckett specifically has to confront her demons when a sniper begins terrorizing the city in "Kill Shot," midway through the season. At the end of the season, they find evidence that leads back to Montgomery and the man who attempted to kill her.

Which is getting ahead of the other thread of the season, the resolution of Castle's confession to Kate that he loves her, which she spends most of the season pretending to have forgotten in the trauma of almost dying. To be honest, a lot of what Castle says and does at this point makes me want to poke him and remind him that she's going through some pretty amazingly difficult situations here and he could maybe think a little less about himself. But as always, when it matters, he's there for her. And he usually doesn't wallow in his wounded feelings for very long, on other shows that stuff would get dragged out over multiple seasons. Castle usually mostly resolves things on his own in an episode or two.

During the mid-season two part episode, "Pandora" and "Linchpin," there is the once-a-season story that's hard to believe and really stretches credibility (an international conspiracy that involves a mole within the CIA and an agent that just happens to be Castle's former muse) but the episodes hint that a story about Castle's father will be on the horizon, now that we've wrapped up more of Beckett's mother's case.

The season also has quite a few top notch stand alone episodes. "The Blue Butterfly" is sort of a standard episode, almost every genre show ends up with a noir themed story sooner or later. But Fillion and Katic are very good at what they do, and as usual the writers don't forget to give Esposito and Ryan something fun as well.

"Heroes & Villains" takes on the homemade super hero movement, and "Eye of the Beholder" actually does a pretty brilliant take on the modern art world, which I love to poke fun at since I studied art history in college. "Cops & Robbers" also treads some familiar ground, as a pretty by the numbers "main characters are taken hostage in a bank robbery" story. It happens to everybody eventually (you would think, from watching American TV that there are a lot more hostage situations in daily life). But again, what this show does best is work with it's characters, and in the end it's about seeing THESE characters in this familiar situation.

One of my favorites was "Dial M for Mayor," where Castle and Beckett are again pitted against each other in an investigation, this time when Castle's friend - who happens to be the Mayor, is a suspect in the investigation. Beckett and Gates have a lot of great moments where you really get to see what drives them, and as I've said before, I wasn't sure how they could resolve this episode without somebody being wrong but the writer's resolve it beautifully, even though it's very bittersweet.

The season again ends with a cliffhanger, but this one is not the same kind of devastating moment as season three, so you can feel okay about not having season five ready to go afterwards. But you will want to get your hands on it pretty quickly.

Leverage Season One

I imagine I'm like a lot of people, in that I first discovered Leverage when it was in repeats on Ion instead of during it's original runs on TNT. Which is a shame, and says something, I think, about how much TNT must have advertised it. So it's a bit of a shame that I'm only getting into the show now that it's been cancelled after five seasons, but I think it's still worth looking at so that people can check out the DVDs. Which I think is a very good idea, because Leverage is a very good show. I had been watching episodes here and there when they were in repeats, but finally we sat down to start renting the discs in order and watching the show the right way. While it's actually not that hard to catch up and know what's going on in any given episode, the show does benefit from being watched properly.

Which is kind of refreshing actually, American television seems to have gotten itself into this binary where either a show is like a simple sitcom where nothing changes too much and there's no overall continuity between one episode and the next OR it's a Lost-style puzzle where if you miss one episode you've missed out on so much important story that you have no idea what's going on. I miss the in between stuff, and Leverage is perfect for that particular problem of mine.

If you haven't caught the rerunning marathons, the story is basically that a former good guy and insurance investigator has teamed up with a band of professional thieves. He leads them on complicated con jobs and heists, not for money for themselves, but to help people who have no other course of action. His rationalization is he picks up where the law leaves off. How well that rationalization works for him and those around him becomes a pretty good plot point during season one.

Now the one big problem with season one is that the order of the episodes is a mess. I've not seen something this messed up outside of cartoons in a long time. It aired in one order, it was shot in another, it was put on the dvds in a third configuration, and it was intended to be a completely different way. At least that's the best I can glean from Wikipedia, because it becomes glaringly obvious that the episodes on the DVD aren't in the proper order. Character development seems to bounce all over the place, and the relationship between Nate and Sophie especially suffers. In the end, I think the reason I'm not buying into their relationship and their chemistry even as I watch season two is because season one was so messed up on the DVDs. I believed it more when I was watching whatever random episode was on in syndication.

Every episode of the show follows a pretty specific formula, but instead of becoming boring and predictable, this makes the show more fun. You can see some of the plot twists coming, once you know how the story usually goes, but you still enjoy the ride. The con always goes bad, but in a way that the team expected and that was always part of their plan from the beginning, which you find out about in flashbacks at the end when Nate explains to the mark exactly how they got to them.

The first episode, The Nigerian Job, is a great pilot for the series. It sets up the characters, it gives Nate his motivation, it shows you all of their special skills in memorable ways, and it sets up the formula as well. It also sets up something else that's great about Leverage, the talent of the guest stars. It's hard to run a series where every episode has to rely on the talent of the guest stars, and I've seen some really fail on that front, but Leverage doesn't.

Now, one thing you have to do to love this show is let go of a need for realism because there are a few things where you're just going to be too confused to let it go otherwise. Especially The Mile High Job, where the team foils an evil plot while they're all on a plane. Almost nothing about that episode really holds up to much scrutiny (especially the fight in the plane's bathroom, they try to make it look small but yeah right). But you let it go because Hardison is so hilarious that it's okay.

Which is really what the show is about, the characters on the team. To be honest, I find the main protagonist the least interesting of the bunch. His backstory is compelling but the "my fatal flaw is being so depressed I've become an alcoholic" bit doesn't really do anything for me. Parker, Hardison, and Elliot are the stars of the show and their antagonistic friendships and complicated personalities shine from the very beginning. Parker is an especially well done character, because they've managed to take somebody with some large and obvious problems and managed to not just play it for laughs or melodrama, but for a realistic mix of both that fits the tone of the show and still takes her seriously while making you like her.

They play a bit in the first season with an overall bad guy in Nate's former co-worker, Jim Sterling, and he's interesting enough (and played by the always enjoyable Mark Sheppard) but he doesn't really become too strong a plot thread which I'm thankful for. We needed more time to see the team enjoying themselves and getting good at what they do before they're ready for a real nemesis.

The first season obviously ended in a way that shows that the creators weren't sure if they would get picked up for another season, and it's actually pretty touching and a good place to end, if it had to be that way. But I'm glad there's more, because there's too many fun cons for them to pull and too many annoying untouchable bad guys for them too take down.

If you liked the A-Team at all, then you absolutely need to watch Leverage. If you have even a slight interest in heists and complicated con jobs, then it's also your kind of show. But if you just also enjoy shows with good, complicated characters then you really should give it a try. There's five seasons now, so time to get started.

Queen of Versailles

It's been two years now, but when I was in the beginning stages of the documentary I've been working on, I was trying to explain the way it worked to somebody I was pitching the idea to. I told them that basically when you go to make a documentary, you go in with an idea of what you want it to be about. You make outlines, you probably write a script. You have this idea of what the story is going to be. And then that all gets thrown completely out the window by the story of what actually happens. There probably few more perfect examples of this than Queen of Versailles, where director Lauren Greenfield started out making a movie about a couple building the largest private home in America. Then the recession happened.

Greenfield did the best thing she could have done - she kept filming. As real estate mogul David Siegel's financial empire quickly dwindles, Greenfield's camera stays in the house. When they put their unfinished dream home up for sale, Greenfield asks difficult questions and gets realistic and heartfelt answers. There were moments that I began to think might have been staged, but at the same time I don't think that Jackie Siegel was the type of person to go along with staging. When she goes to the Hertz counter to rent a car instead of a limo for the first time, she asks what their driver's name is going to be. The guy at the counter is genuinely confused and doesn't understand what she could possibly mean. A lesser film by a lesser director would have set up things like that, but Greenfield doesn't need to. She just had the good sense to be there and keep the camera rolling.

There are things about Queen of Versailles that are very hard to watch, but not because it's poorly made. It's well structured, and shows a lot of skill from Greenfield and her editor, Victor Livingston. The story becomes this distillation of a typical American story, from rags to riches to rags again. David Siegel has probably never been poor before, but he shows very clearly that he didn't get to be rich by being stupid about money. Though the film doesn't shy away from showing exactly how he got to be rich, which borders on dishonesty in selling time shares to people who probably can't afford them. Part of how his business comes crashing down is that suddenly these couples they've been selling to who couldn't afford the properties in the first place find themselves unable to pay their bills, which leaves Siegel in the same situation.

But the real star of the story is the queen herself, Jackie Siegel. She's oddly likable even as she continues to be so completely clueless about money that you wonder how she's survived so far. Even after they've lost all their money, she continues to overspend and insist on buying extravagant things, getting plastic surgery procedures, buying herself $2,000 worth of caviar for Christmas, and refusing to sell off items that could help them pay for everything. She stands in her living room talking to her son, wearing an expensive fur coat, and he asks the time. She makes a joke about being unable to afford a watch.

The story becomes a strange cautionary tale, without actually being degrading or making fun of the Siegel's it gives a perfect example of some of the worst excesses of American culture. Jackie says that if she knew she wouldn't be able to have as many nannies as she wanted, she wouldn't have had so many kids because they're too much work. On the brink of bankruptcy, David gets upset that Jackie didn't hire a bartender or a server for a Christmas party. Jackie rides around the neighborhood in the back of her limo, discussing the number of foreclosures in her neighborhood with her driver. After they have to let go of most of their household staff, the family quickly finds themselves unable to care for their own home, which Greenfield illustrates with a few too many close-ups of dog feces and a really tragic shot of a dead pet lizard.

It's a movie that at the same time angered me and made me feel sympathetic. The children in the house really do seem just victims of their circumstances, and like they have better heads on their shoulders than the adults. So it's upsetting when Jackie points out that she's had to tell her kids to prepare to go to college and earn their own way and David admits in a separate interview that he hasn't' saved any money for their college tuition and they'll have to go straight to work. Even David's son from a previous marriage, who works for him, points out that except for one year of living with his dad when he was in high school, he hardly got anything from him and was poor most of his life. These people wanted to build a palace, the largest single family home in the country, and neither of them has ever had their own children's interests at heart.

That's probably the biggest tragedy of them all, and the film does a great job at capturing it, even when that wasn't what they set out to do.

Castle: Season Three

Read my other reviews from Castle! -Season One -Season Two -Heat Wave Castle very quickly climbed to the top of my list of favorite shows. But even as I was watching season two, and seeing how much the show could make me laugh right before making me cry, my friends warned me about season three. No warning they could have given would have really been enough. There are a few episodes that really aren't up to snuff, but for the most part it's just a very long, very good ride.

When I left off talking about season two, I said that I didn't like the way the show handled the "we must separate them for a little while" plot line. I still don't like the way that season ended, but I do like the way season three picked up that thread and ran with it. Especially because it gave us not just Beckett's reaction to Castle forgetting to call, but also the rest of the team. The show always makes sure to give Esposito, Ryan, and Montgomery plenty of time to flesh out the story, and I love them for it.

Season three also makes sure to give Stana Katic enough to work with so that we can see what a phenomenal actress she is. Her performance in "Under the Gun" is nothing short of amazing. Somebody start giving her some awards already. Nathan Fillion gets to have fun too, and of course his interactions with Alexis and Martha are always wonderful. But this season really belongs to Beckett.

I could have done without the episode "Close Encounters of the Murderous Kind" really, even though it was funny it just didn't feel like it was keeping the pace the rest of the season was setting. I was pleasantly surprised though to see how the show handled Beckett and Castle's alternate romances. Despite Castle being obviously a bit jealous of the new guy in Beckett's life, he handles it in a really mature way, and it was really nice to see after how much I disliked the Demming storyline.

I also have to say, the first half of the episode "Nikki Heat" where we meat the actress playing a character based on Beckett started out kind of embarrassing and hard to watch, but quickly became one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for behind-the-scenes type stuff and the jokes in this one were pretty spot on. The same goes for "One Life To Lose," which had a crazed fan character that I'm pretty sure I've bet at some point in my life.

I did like parts of the episode "To Love and Die in L.A." for the same reasons, but the fact that it was almost entirely built on the old trope of "I'm not really investigating this thing you told me not to do and now I'm working against law enforcement even though we have the same goals because nobody can just communicate" really killed it for me. It was good, but it wasn't great.

But the writing really shines with "The Final Nail," an episode where Beckett and Castle have opposing opinions about a murder suspect, who happens to be one of Castle's old friends. When I was watching it, I was convinced there was no good way for the episode to end, because they had set up the conflict far too well. If the man was guilty and Beckett is right, then Castle's faith and humor take a hit, making him less like the character we love. If Castle is right and the man is innocent, Beckett's instincts and dedication to policework and doing her job at all costs is seen in a bad light. Neither is good, because it was each character's best qualities that were making them disagree. The fact that the writers managed to resolve the conflict without knocking down either one, and still make it heartfelt and upsetting is a testament to how good they are.

The thing is, this all leads up to the season finale, "Knockout" which does not let up and does not let you go. Even when you think the episode has destroyed your emotions enough for one hour of television, there's more. The character development, the plot development, everything about it is astonishingly good. If I had watched this when it aired and had to wait through an actual hiatus for it to start up again, I would have wanted to throttle the writers.

And I mean that as a compliment.

Being Elmo

I really, really wish I had watched this movie ages ago when it first came out. But I didn't, so oh well. I put it off even further because I was convinced that recent events would color my opinion, but I actually don't think that was what happened. Let's pretend I managed to write this review a year ago. I would have opened by saying that I really admire Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Elmo on Sesame Street. I would have pointed out that while I never really warmed to Elmo, I never really hated him either. He was a well done character, I just prefer Oscar or Grover, because that's what I grew up with. I also would have said that I saw Kevin Clash once, at a book festival, and watched the way he and Elmo interacted with the kids that came for him to sign copies of his then-new book, My Life as a Furry Red Monster. There was something great about it, the way the kids reacted, the way he talked to them.

I probably would have mentioned how I thought that Kevin Clash was a great example of the sheer amount of inspiration there was in Jim Henson, and how great a mentor and creator Henson was. Clash has always talked with great respect about Henson, and that made me respect him, no matter what I thought of Elmo.

Then, of course, Clash recently turned out to be a little less respectable than everybody thought (no matter how the court cases shake out, what truths he's admitted to are still disconcerting). Which makes me sad, and I thought would make me view Being Elmo in an unfair light.

But the thing is, Being Elmo is a good documentary, but I wouldn't say it's a great one. To me a great documentary is one that reveals things you never knew, or where it could be about a person no one has heard of but still be fascinating. A great documentary could take your neighbor and make them fascinating. Being Elmo was handed it's topic on a silver platter, and it did well, of course. Technically, there's nothing to complain about. It's an interesting film and I'm glad I watched it.

Maybe I just know too much about Sesame Street and Elmo. Maybe I know too much about Henson from being a lifelong fan. Maybe it's because I have at least skimmed Clash's book. But the only revelation in the film is the very brief discussion of his relationship with his ex-wife and his daughter, which the film touches on quickly and runs away from like they were afraid of saying something unkind about their subject.

Which is another aspect I didn't think worked with the film, because everything in it was glowing adoration of Clash, it came across like he had produced the film himself. Everything was just so nice that the film became so very even that it stopped being emotional very quickly. You don't get excited when he gets to start working in New York because everything was already so good, you weren't worried that it wouldn't turn out great. Where were the trials? Where were the struggles? Well, apparently still to come, but that's not the point.

I suppose that is the one thing that colored my viewing of the film, because now we know that Clash's life is not, and probably never has been, perfect. So having this very pleasing portrait of him isn't just a little bit boring like it would be if I didn't know, but it feels more like a lie.

So in the end, the film is interesting, especially if you don't know too much about Sesame Street or Henson so that the information would be a little more new and fresh to you. If you want to learn more about Clash, perhaps this will give you a different viewpoint. If you just like biographies and learning about different people's lives, it does a fairly good job of that.

But if you're looking for something in depth, hard hitting, or with a good bit of conflict, this isn't a good place to go.

DVD Review: Cane Toads: An Unnatural History

I realize that of the audience I have attracted with this blog, most people wouldn't even realize that there was a movie about cane toads, let alone have been tempted to watch it. But I saw the first few minutes of this in film school years ago and I've been meaning to finish it ever since. The trick was that it was actually a really hard movie to find there for a little while. I had to wait for Netflix to finally get a copy of it, which actually took years. But it is available now, especially because now there's a sequel, Cane Toads: The Conquest. The basic story is one you may have heard of before: in an effort to control the can grub that has been destroying sugar cane crops in Australia, scientists introduced the cane toad. Except, spoiler alert, the cane toad doesn't actually eat the cane grub, and they're very good at reproducing and harming native wildlife.

Basically, the introduction of the cane toad to Australia was an unmitigated disaster for everybody except the cane toad. And apparently the handful of people that love them, because the film actually manages to present multiple sides of the issue by introducing people who keep the toads as pets and consider them friends.

The documentary is actually quite short, only 47 minutes. Which is as it should be, I actually can't imagine the film keeping it's interest up for longer than that. The topic is interesting but only so much. The filmmakers do a great job with making the topic visual, especially by using low angles and shots that personify the toads. It would have been easy to make the film entirely about how the cane toads are a menace and a threat, but they do manage to make you wonder if the toads themselves are to blame and deserve to be punished and killed.

I'm certain many of the people seen in the film would have a problem with that takeaway. Because the filmmakers also make sure to talk to a number of scientists who easily prove what a destructive problem they are ecologically. The only problem that I have in the end is that nobody seems to be proposing any usable solutions. Running over every toad you see with your car isn't really going to get you anywhere in the long run.

The subject matter is interesting, and the interviews are well done. The film suffers a bit from feeling very dated, with low quality technology of the time being used to make it. Even the cover you see for it at the top of this post makes it seem older than it is. It feels very much like a nature film from the 1980's, like something that most of us would have watched in school at some point. I can only imagine that people who are genuinely interested in the topic or who really enjoy nature documentaries would want to take the time to watch it.

It is a good film, for where and when it was made. It has some inventive techniques and while it's no surprise it was the director's first film, it does show a lot of promise and make me want to check out more things that he has made. But it isn't something that I think the average American will really be invested in or want to seek out.

DVD Review: Dreamgirls

I don't know why it took me so long to finally watch Dreamgirls. Possibly because I'm not really the biggest fan of musicals. I don't hate them. I wouldn't even say I dislike them, they're just not typically my thing. But what is my thing is girl groups from the 50's and 60's. So I really wanted to see this movie when they first started advertising it, but somewhere along the line when I realized what the plot was, I just got a little disenchanted and set it aside until it made it to the top of my Netflix queue last week. Even then, I let it sit on my desk for a week after it came in. I wanted to hear the music and see the awesome vintage outfits, but I just wasn't sold on the story.

Really, that's pretty much the only problem I can find with Dreamgirls, and it's something that you have to really understand the history to get why you can't let that get in your way. If you look to this as only a film, as only a musical, the story is a bit cliche and the characters are well worn stereotypes. The music is amazing, but the arc everyone goes through is predictable.

But that's the problem, is that you can't look at this as just a movie. It's practically a historical film, but with songs. The reason we know these characters and this story so well is because we already know it really happened. Maybe not exactly like this, maybe Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) is a much more sleezy character than Brrry Gordy ever was. But at the end of the day, the interpersonal relationships are ones that you see play out in the music business year after year after year.

So how do you settle that as a viewer? The costumes, the acting, the songs, they're all amazing. Granted I wasn't alive during the time period the movie shows, but it seems very accurate and represents the era(s) well. A musical is above all about the music, and not only are the songs themselves top notch but the singing and performances are as well.

But there isn't a single new revelation in the movie. It's very, very good but it isn't fresh or new. Plus many people have pointed out that because it's not at all shy about the fact that it's a fictionalization of the history of Motown Records that the film actually could be considered insulting to it's source material.

So where do you go with that as a viewer? My opinion, you buy the soundtrack and get a hold of as many of the songs as you can, and then read up on the history of Motown on your own. Unless you really love one of the actors, or musicals in general. In which case, there are much worse ways to spend a couple hours.

DVD Review: Murderball

Murderball is an older documentary, I almost labeled this with "classics" but then decided it wasn't quite that old. It came out in 2005, and I have been meaning to watch it every since it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. One thing about watching older documentaries is that there is no better way to really understand how far and how fast the technology has changed. Murderball is only seven years old, but it has that very distinctive video feel of the time. Since I've been making a documentary, I know what micro-budget docs are filming with these days and how they look, and we've definitely moved on to a slicker look.

But at the end of the day, that grainy look is part of what helps Murderball work. It's definitely a film that holds up years later because the topic is more or less timeless. It's an easy film to sum up: it's a film about the stars of wheelchair rugby and the rivalry between the US and Canadian teams.

It has all the hallmarks of a good sports film, fiction or non. The rivalry has a long history, there's a coach with a history of playing on the U.S. team who left to coach Canada after he didn't make it on the team one year. You've got the expected personalities, and even a "new kid" who is interested in the sport and wants to play. There are even groupies.

From the look of things, the filmmakers were probably filming for a little over a year on the project. So many things happen over that span, and that helps it to follow more narrative ideas as the "characters" grow and change. They reconcile with people from their past, one faces a health crisis, another deals with recovering from the accident that paralyzed him and learns about the sport for the first time.

The trick that makes this all work is that they must have had an amazing editor. The film could have been very scattered, or even very boring. But they don't spend a lot of time on the things that bog down a typical sports documentary and instead focus on the actual people, which is the part everybody cares about anyway. You get the gist of the rules, you learn a bit about the chairs themselves. But anything that you could easily learn with an internet search is left to the wayside unless it's needed to understand the people.

Overall, it was an excellent film and I think any sports fans would enjoy it. Those who like documentary will like it as well, and I think the pace and storytelling skills are good enough that even those who don't like documentaries as much should give it a try.

Pink Ribbons, Inc.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. As a filmmaker, one of the things you end up asking yourself all the time is "how long is this movie?" And it's also one of the questions other people ask YOU all the time. I've been working on a documentary for a while now, and it's probably in the top five of questions I get asked. Number one, incidentally, is "when will the movie be finished." The answer to both is similar. It'll be done when it's done. And it'll be as long as it should be.

Stories have a length, and a rhythm. And almost always, films are too long. Especially documentaries. There are a lot of reasons, and I've fallen victim to them all. I'm probably still doing some of these things, so I'm not saying this out of some sort of "I'm better than this" impulse. I'm saying it as somebody who struggles with the exact same things.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. is too long. Which is a hard thing to say, because there's nothing in it that isn't important. The pacing isn't even all that slow, though it is a nice leisurely pace. The problem is that at 98 minutes, absolutely no one is going to see this movie that doesn't already know the contents of it. The message they are trying to get across and who they seem to be trying to speak to aren't the audience for the film.

The audience for a feature length documentary on this subject are people who are already upset about pinkwashing, who already understand the hypocrisy in most Breast Cancer foundations and marketing. And that's the heart of the problem here. I'm not even that involved in the subject or that invested, and there wasn't a single piece of new information in the film for me.

It was packaged well, shot well, and edited well. The graphics were consistent and done nicely. The film used a great device to divide up the different topics covered, by repeatedly going back to visit various charity "walks" and fundraisers and talk with participants about why they were walking and what challenges they were facing.

But I couldn't figure out what it's purpose was. I had a bit of the same problem with the book, which I had thought I would enjoy reading. But it was obviously a thesis paper that was expanded into a book, and the writing was a little dry and a bit hard to crack into for me. And for this kind of topic, that's just not going to make the impact. The reason breast cancer charities can do so many immoral things is because they're so very, very good at speaking in a simple, common language that encourages people of all ages and education levels to get involved and support them. If you want to expose their problems, you have to speak to the same audience just as well, or better, than the charity themselves. The book didn't accomplish that.

I feel like the movie was an attempt to do it, and like I said, there's no one place where they fail. They actually do manage to explore the difficult topics in ways that are accessible. But who is going to watch it, in the end? People who walk in the fundraisers aren't going to seek this film out, and if they come across it the first thing they'll think is "why would I spend 90 minutes of my life being told I'm wrong and part of the problem?"

The trailer for the film actually was extremely well done. It touched on the various topics quickly, and was this great little snippet to really make people think and possible make them want to research the topic more. If you pulled out any one segment of the finished documentary, I think it could do the same thing. There were several graphic moments about the marketing of breast cancer themed products that I think should be made into PSAs immediately.

In the end, the film is fine. It's even good. But since it offered nothing really new to people who are already even vaguely on their side, I can only assume the intended audience was people who don't know any of this information. And I don't think that those people are going to watch a feature length documentary, I don't think they'll even get through the first thirty minutes. If the filmmakers are planning an action campaign, or if this was intended as part of an action campaign, I think the best thing to do would be to start breaking out portions of the film and making shorter sections that are available online through YouTube or Vimeo, something embeddable. Then start encouraging different websites to blog about them, and at the end of each video you can say, "if you want to see everything, then watch the film."

Because it is all important, and it is well presented if you're wanting to reach a new audience with these facts. But how do you get that new audience? That's the question. I'm hoping the filmmakers have already thought about this and are working on it. Or that those who participated in the film are. Because in the end, we as filmmakers have to remember not to preach to the choir.

Supernatural "Rewatch" end of Season One!

I'm trying something a little new with my product ads. Not sure how much I'll like it or if I'll switch back to the Amazon Associates thing. Not that either is bringing in money for me. I would love it so much if I could get at least the money I spend on domain registration through ads, anybody got ideas for that? Anyway, nobody cares about that, it's time for the SEASON ONE FINALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL REWATCH POSTS!

Salvation: Part One - So the big thing I have to say about this episode is "thank goodness, we're finally here!" And also "thank you for having some pay off for all of that set-up!" Finally, Meg has a larger purpose. Finally, Sam's visions mean something and matter to the plot more than just being a convenient device (though honestly they're still a bit of a convenient device here, but hey, progress!). Finally, the complicated relationship between the Winchesters is going somewhere! It might even be somewhere that makes a season of yo-yo emotions worth it somehow, but I was holding out judgement at this point.

Everything about this episode was well done, and when I was starting to feel a bit lukewarm about the whole show, it's a good thing this came around. I wasn't entirely sure I'd keep going after the end of season one, at the least I was going to call up people who had seen further and ask them if it was worth it or if I should just skip ahead or something. But thankfully it didn't come to that.

John Winchester's laying the groundwork for his meeting with Meg, I loved. The brother's and how they dealt with each other, their dad, and their own emotions. It was all good. It almost (almost) makes me forgive the show for not letting them grow a bit more, because this was a good emotional place for them to be for this story. I have my arguments on what they should have done instead, but whatever, I enjoyed it and I'll let it all go. Even my two favorite shows had uneven first seasons (though you can't accuse B5 of not having plot and character development).

Though I expected this episode to actually be the cliffhanger season finale. Though I had an idea what I was in for in the next episode, this was where most people would have ended it. But instead Supernatural ups the stakes EVEN MORE.

Devil's Trap: Part Two - I maybe should have done this as just one long review of the two episodes together, because everything I have to say about this one I've kind of already said. But I love the fact that the show revealed aspects of John Winchester's character not by having him do something, but because of Dean and Sam knowing their father so well.

Plus, I have to say - Bobby instantly became my favorite character pretty much the second he stepped on screen. I like the idea of the show branching out into having a few more recurring characters, because having to have the emotional arc of every episode dependent on the brothers was getting worn. With another family-type figure in their life, they can start to really do something new or explore the same ideas from new angles. And plus, Bobby just seems really freakin' awesome.

The episode succeeds because it takes a physical confrontation and makes it an emotional one instead, which is what all good television should do. I really liked it, and though I think the last thirty seconds were a bit of a cop-out, it proved that the boys aren't safe and that their journey is just going to continue. And it was probably the best way in the world to make sure that I put in the next disc to start season two because there was no WAY I wasn't going to find out what happened next.

Now that I'm done with season one, I'm going to review a few other shows for a little bit before moving on to season two! But I am going to keep watching, I'm really getting into this show.

DVD Review: Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

When I talk to people about how much I love J. Michael Stracyzinski, one thing I frequently mention is that I don't know that he knows how to end things. The perfect case in point is The Lost Tales. I understand completely what he was trying to do, and what limitations he had put on him. But when everybody was excited that he might do more B5 projects, secretly I've always cringed at the thought. "After" isn't always his strongest suite, as evidenced by some of the official epilogue short stories he's written. Babylon 5 was an amazing thing, and as I've said many times, one of my favorite pieces of television ever. But the thing about B5 is that it's an epic story, meant to be contained to a specific piece of that epic. It's brilliant, interesting, and well told. But there are parts of it that don't always hold up under scrutiny, and the easiest way to create scrutiny is to expand the universe. Ask George Lucas or the Wachowskis, the more you tell about your universe, the more inconsistencies the audience will find.

Babylon 5 is no different, and The Lost Tales is one of the worst offenders. The first half, which focuses on Lochley, is convoluted and confusing. The show was always one that frequently talked about religion and spirituality but never came down on any one side or another. In fact, it frequently found a science-fiction explanation for religious miracles (time travel creates a deity, angels are actually aliens, etc). The show was never scornful of religion, but it never really made a stance that religion was fact just that sometimes faith is important and fanaticism is bad.

Which is why the first story about a demon possession on B5 is just too much. There is no part of this story that works for me, but especially the "twist" of the end which was no twist at all. It doesn't really explore any characters, it doesn't do anything for anybody, and it creates a mythology that was never there before.

The second story, which features President Sheridan and a Centauri prince, is much better and fits with the universe so much more. For one thing, it gives us a glimpse at another Centauri perspective outside of Londo or Vir. We see far reaching consequences to the actions we saw them take in the series, and we see the possibility of far reaching consequences to the actions taken in this episode. The first half ends up affecting nothing. The second half changes everything.

There used to be rumors about a feature film about the Telepath War, and I still would like to see that because I feel like it's the part of the expanded universe that JMS knows best, and set up the most. I wish that he had done that instead of River of Souls, Thirdspace, Crusade, Legend of the Rangers, or The Lost Tales. Because with each extra project, the legacy and the power of Babylon 5 was chipped away a little more. Now it would be extremely difficult to put together the money and the cast to do the story of the Telepath War, and it probably has the most chance of being something that brings the show together and creates an ending that we would all love. If all we'd had after the show was In The Beginning and The Telepath War, it would be hard for any franchise to challenge it's place. But like every other franchise I can think of, epilogue after epilogue took more away than it could have added.

"DVD" Review: Jurassic Park

I can't even tell you how happy I was to find out that my local theater was going to be playing Jurassic Park on the big screen a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen it in theaters since it came out in 1993. I was very, very in love with this movie when it was first released. Like almost every kid, I went through a dinosaur phase, though it had passed by that age. But that little thrill of being a kid and seeing dinosaurs come to life never really goes away, does it? The other amazing thing about Jurassic Park is that this is the movie that made me love Stephen Spielberg. You see, before this point, I had loved a lot of his movies and E.T. was still this very important memory to me.

But this was the first time that I was old enough and aware enough that I finally made a connection between all of those movies and realized that one man was really responsible for them. This was my awakening to directing and what it really meant.

Plus, come one, it had a LOT of awesome dinosaurs.

So when I was in middle school and this movie came out, I had the student planner, I had t-shirts, I probably had a lunch box. Trading cards, I went for the whole merchandising thing. I still have some of that stuff.

Like a lot of kids and geeky movie buffs of the time, I was really impressed with the CGI in the film. But over the years, I grew more than a little disenchanted with computer generated imagery. It never felt real like it did then, it didn't blend, it felt like a way to cut corners rather than a way to tell a better story. So after a while, I was much more impressed with the T-Rex than anything else. The puppetry was the real star.

Which is why Jurassic Park still holds up today. There were very few things in the film where it felt particularly dated, mostly the things to do with the computer system (which was never accurate to begin with, ah well). The dinosaurs themselves still looked and felt real. They had presence and somehow they had emotion, even if that emotion was just "raging killing machine wants to eat you." The entire movie hinges on believing that these extinct animals are real and it manages, largely because Spielberg had the presence of mind to mix CGI and practical effects. I wish more filmmakers would do that today, because watching Jurassic Park again really made me feel like we've slid backwards.

There are things that don't hold up as an adult watching the movie. Lex is obnoxious and the entire movie could have been done without her, but Tim is somehow even more interesting. When Ray goes to the shed to reboot the system, it's obvious that it's just a plot point to get him killed, it's not set up well enough, and there's no reason for him to have gone alone. Everyone being gone for the weekend doesn't really make a ton of sense either, when you think about it.

And there's the fact that large chunks of the science in the movie are now completely wrong.

But it's not worth thinking about because the point of the movie is simple: are there dinosaurs? Yes. Do they want to eat people? Yes. Do you care if the people do or don't get eaten? Absolutely. Do you still care almost twenty years later? A resounding yes.

Jurassic Park is, quite frankly, one of the best movies of it's kind. A sci-fi action thriller that will remain a classic until we stop being fascinated with dinosaurs, which is probably never.

DVD Review: Battle Royale

When everybody was talking about The Hunger Games, inevitably there'd be one person somewhere in the crowd that would say "Ugh, it's such a rip-off of Battle Royale." To be honest, those people were pretty annoying. But they had good reason to bring it up. For people who aren't familiar with it, Battle Royale was a book first, published in Japan in 1999. It was adapted into a feature film in 2000. It was also turned into a manga around the same time. The three versions have some big differences in the plot and the mechanics of the world, but the premise is generally the same. In it, a totalitarian government suppresses teenage rebellion by selecting one middle school class every year to compete in the Battle Royale. Which is, as you may have guessed, a fight to the death with only one student left standing.

I have known about Battle Royale for years, since 2001 or so. At the time I was working on a documentary about cosplay, and the school uniform from the film was one of the most popular costumes. Of course I read what I could about the story at the time, because I wanted to know what it was. A few years later, the manga was translated into English. It was gruesome, violent, disturbing, and yet compelling at the same time. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but not because it was bad. Just because I'd have to know someone really well before I said "Yeah, you should read this comic where they illustrate people's heads exploding in detail."

People like to say that the similarities between the two works (Battle Royale and The Hunger Games) are just superficial. And I'll be clear, I don't think that Suzanne Collins plagiarized anything. But for me the thing is that The Hunger Games could never be that great a book to me because I had already read the manga of Battle Royale. The themes were extremely similar, and more than just superficial. The authors were making similar conclusions about where our society is heading, and where it is now. They seem to draw on a lot of the same sort of cultural influences.

And in the end, Battle Royale made me think more, made me care more, and was more willing to push limits to make it's point. It's not that The Hunger Games is a rip-off, it's just that somebody else did the same story in a way that worked much better for me.

So after I saw The Hunger Games movie, I really wanted to watch Battle Royale. As much as I knew about the film, it was very hard to find in the U.S. for many years. It suffered from unfortunate timing because it was released not long after the Columbine Massacre, which colored it with a very different lens than it is seen with today.

To be honest, much of the film's lauded violence feels tame by today's standards, and it's only 12 years old. The story isn't as subversive, and it really doesn't live up to it's hype. But that isn't a bad thing, because the hype was obscuring the fact that it's just a really solid film. It is a Japanese film, and so some American audiences will just be generally confused by the pacing, structure, and some of the acting (which is a little different than what we're used to, not bad, just different). But the characters have some real depth, and even though I knew everything that happened I still cared about everyone.

It's major flaw is the same problem I had with the book of The Hunger Games-we don't know enough about who is making the children fight, and we need to. This isn't some macguffin that can get swept under the rug. It's no longer revolutionary to have children fighting to the death (sadly) but what is still relevant is the social commentary, which can only be made by revealing more of the machine.

I can't hold that against Battle Royale because in 1999, it was a different world and a different place to be telling this kind of story but it still affected my reaction to it. What amazes me is that it doesn't hold back. While the movie is far less violent and graphic than the manga, it still doesn't hesitate to have heads cut off and axes go through skulls. American movies are violent, and everyone talked about how violent the Hunger Games was. But those stories feel bloodless in a way, even if they aren't literally. Part of this is because in Battle Royale, the students aren't strangers to each other. They're classmates and friends. Boyfriends and girlfriends, cliques with mean girls and victims of their bullying. The characters come in with baggage, not just their own, but with each other. And that matters, it makes it feel more personal and more terrible.

Overall, I actually wouldn't recommend this movie to fans of The Hunger Games, unless you already thought the book could have gone further and you wonder what it would be like if it wasn't YA. But if you like Japanese action movies, horror movies, or you want to think about how messed up our society can get, then it's worth a watch.

Classic Film: Jaws

I don't know who decided it should be the Summer of Spielberg, but they have my thanks. After going to see E.T. at AFI two weeks ago, last weekend my best friend let me know that my local theater was showing Jaws. Apparently over the rest of the summer they'll be showing several more of his films (I'm leaving to see Jurassic Park in an hour or so). The interesting thing about Jaws though was realize that I'd never actually sat down and seen the film from start to finish. I had assumed that even if I hadn't watched it all at once, I had at least seen the whole thing in pieces. But as the movie progressed and there were so many parts I was unfamiliar with I realized that wasn't true.

Now, I knew almost everything that happens. I had seen the ending a million times, and a lot of the more iconic scenes too. Between seven years of film school, watching a million specials about Spielberg, and just generally being alive and in love with movies I'd seen clips of all the major scenes. But there were things there to be discovered in the quiet moments, and that was a real joy for me. I knew all the big shark attacks, sure. But I hadn't realized how layered and interesting the characters were. I hadn't been able to appreciate just how good a job Roy Scheider did as Chief Martin Brody. I hadn't realized how fascinating Quint really was. I didn't really know about the tension between Quint and Hooper.

The great thing about Jaws is that I don't think it's particularly dated at all. The fashion is, but the effects actually largely stand the test of time. Which is famously due to the fact that the effects didn't work at the time and they had to improvise. Filmmaking is problem solving, and solving this problem created a film classic that may never be matched, and that audiences today can appreciate just as much as they did then.

This isn't just a creature feature, even though it is the ancestor of all of those giant shark movies on SyFy. It has real characters, depth, story, and structure. It's actually fascinating to read about how the film was made because it starts to feel like the entire thing was an accident. The script being rewritten on set, the weather changing their plans, the shark not working, etc. All of the great decisions and things that make the movie work weren't the first instinct of anybody who was there.

Which just goes to show that if you have time in pre-production to reconsider things, and not fall in love with stuff before you're sure it will work, then you can make a better film, but I digress.

The other great thing about Jaws for film buffs is that while you're watching it, you'll probably start to wonder about the shoot, how they did one scene or another. Well, there's more than enough information out there about the first blockbuster, from how it was made to how it changed film marketing forever. I've added about five books to my to read list already.

Universal is releasing a Blu-Ray version this summer. I think it's well worth picking up, especially because there's a documentary feature included called "The Shark Is Still Working" that sounds excellent. If you're like me and you think you've seen Jaws, it's worth making sure you've sat down and watched it start to finish.

If you've seen it, then watch it again. You won't regret it.

Real Steel

Since I talked about one movie I watched on a plane, I thought I'd do another. The first film I actually watched when I settled in for my first eleven hour flight was Real Steel because I'm a sucker for Hugh Jackman. I think everybody thought that Real Steel was just a movie version of Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Even I made that joke, and I had no idea that it was actually based on a Richard Matheson story. Richard Matheson is a bit like Philip K. Dick, you probably have no idea how influential he's been over genre film and television. His stories are everywhere, including The Twilight Zone (where Steel was originally adapted). With that surprisingly pedigree for the story, it's becomes unsurprising that the movie itself is so much better than expected. Yes, there is robot boxing. That is totally a thing, and sometimes it is as ridiculous as it sounds. But at it's heart, it's a sports movie and a father/son bonding movie. It's more about family than it is about robots.

In fact, the biggest fault with the film is that it follows the tropes of the underdog sports movie a little too closely. Sure, having the underdog be a robot was different but it wasn't different enough to forgive how predictable the plot can be. Everything moves forward exactly as expected, and they're not even brave enough to go for the one plot twist I expected.*

Which makes it sound like I didn't like the movie. I actually did, I thought it was a good action story. It seemed like a good movie for kids to watch with their parents (not sure what age is appropriate for robotic carnage, but whatever). I thought the acting was well done, for the most part. The visuals were fantastic, and the special effects were a relief. I was expecting really wretched CG robots that didn't look real, but they had the sense to make everything a little grimy so that it would be realistic.

I don't know that it's a movie I'll go out and buy, but it's definitely one that I'll end up stopping on and watching every time it comes on TV.


*
SPOILERFUL FOOTNOTE


The twist I expected: that Atom was actually designed by Mashido and that he was an early design that was scrapped because he couldn't make it work quite right but the kid had figured out the way to make it perfect. Or maybe he was forced to scrap it by his sponsors at the time because it wasn't what they wanted, and he always wished he had kept this robot and wanted him back. Actually, the fact that Atom's origins weren't delved into or explored and yet he was a one of a kind robot that could learn? HUGE misstep, and the biggest glaring problem with the whole film.