Jun
30
I’m not musically inclined. I can’t sing or dance or play any instruments. I like music okay. I think my taste is probably questionable at times. I generally dislike people who are really into music because they’re the biggest goddamn snobs in the entire known universe. I don’t go to live shows or concerts because it’s where the goddamn snobs congregate and compare notes on how snobby they’re going to be about some new act that’ll never break out because the music industry hates the goddamn snobs even more than I do. That isn’t to say major record labels take me into account when signing new talent. The popularity of shitty rap-rock bands like Linkin Park and trash television like “American Idol” is irrefutable evidence that major record labels are in fact terrorist organizations operating within the United States.
I’m just simply not as enthusiastic about music as I am about movies. What about movie musicals? Well, I prefer them when they’re cartoons. When some goofball breaks into a song during a live action film, I find that odd. “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” would’ve been a much pacier film had it not stopped dead every five friggin’ minutes so people could do another half-assed musical number. That’s probably not the best example of a movie musical, but it is the last one I saw. I think if I had to pick my favorite musical, it’d have to be “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It’s the only one I own on DVD that isn’t an animated film like “Aladdin” or whatever.
Anyway, what about a movie that’s not a musical but it’s inexplicably turned into a musical? This is a phenomenon that boggles my mind. Recently I’ve heard about “Evil Dead: The Musical,” “The Toxic Avenger: The Musical,” and “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which is opening on Broadway next February. Universal Studios Hollywood is opening a musical “Creature From the Black Lagoon” show in July. For years they tried to make a Batman musical. Who the hell thinks any of the material lends itself to a stage musical? It’s like no idea is too stupid. Or producers simply think the novelty of slapping the words “The Musical” onto some non-musical property is all it takes to breathe new life into it.
Granted, “The Phantom of the Opera” was originally a silent film that was successfully reimagined as a musical. I’m not sure why it wasn’t reimagined as an opera, but that is neither here nor there. At any rate, the musical version of “Phantom” has become a juggernaut and eclipsed the 1925 Lon Chaney film’s popularity. Unfortunately, the damn thing has convinced every joker with an MFA in Theatre that shoehorning a few gimmicky songs into a genre work is all it takes to make a musical. But why? Fans of “The Evil Dead” aren’t necessarily the same crowd that flocks to “Wicked” or “Mama Mia!” I sure as shit wouldn’t be caught dead at either of those two forms of torture.
I think that a musical should begin its life as…a musical. I mean, if stage producers desperately want to bring Spider-Man to the stage — a truly retarded idea to begin with — they should avoid the temptation to tack on some crummy U2 songs and simply retell Spidey’s origins as a theatrical production. I guess the songs are supposed to distract people from the fact that Spider-Man’s amazing adventures are somewhat limited by the venue. But who is the audience? I wouldn’t go to see a Spider-Man musical for the songs, and musical lovers wouldn’t go for Spider-Man. It’s absurd. Besides, Spider-Man should be some sort of Cirque Du Soleil thing.
Did I mention I’m not really a fan of Cirque Du Soleil, either?
-Brad Lohan
Jun
29
“The Hurt Locker” Review
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I’m beginning to think that this is perhaps the biggest and the dumbest summer to date. The writer’s strike has something to do with that. Too many projects went into production without scripts. But that’s been going on for years. In fact it’d be miraculous if a blockbuster movie actually had a locked script before shooting. No, something else is at play. I was dead serious in my review of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” that we’re in the middle of a new film movement, where critic-proof box office behemoths have been aggressively subverting the conventions of the summer film. Unfortunately, that isn’t to say they’re doing so in such a way that’s terribly entertaining. Summer films have become a simulation of entertainment.
The word “entertaining” has seemingly lost its meaning. Audiences don’t quite understand what entertains them or why. The average movie-goer acts as though their daily lives are so harrowing, that they cannot see a film that challenges them in any way. As such, the medium suffers. Millions of dollars are invested in movies that have the emotional pull and intellectual appeal of a game of Ms. Pac-Man. Meanwhile, brilliant and truly entertaining films are unspooling in art houses, largely ignored by the masses except around Oscar season, when dullards try to fake being couth, like when a bimbo wears a pair of glasses in an attempt to “look smart.”
All that being said, “The Hurt Locker” is the best film of the summer, perhaps the year. It’s one you probably haven’t heard of because Summit Entertainment can’t sell a movie unless it’s “Twilight,” and the fans do all the heavy lifting for them. But “The Hurt Locker” entertains. Seeing it in the theater is an experience. The look, the sound design, the performances — the movie is a confluence of cinema at its most engaging. You can sit through “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and be indifferent to the action. You cannot watch “The Hurt Locker” without becoming deeply involved with everything that’s going on.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the film is set in Iraq in 2004. It’s about a three-man bomb disposal unit that’s tasked with disarming IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that are buried in the sand or locked in the trunk of a car. Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner) is new to the team, a wild card who appears to have a death wish or believes himself to be indestructable. The team is short. They only have 38 days left in their tour, and James’ hot-dogging could very well get them killed. But he’s damn good at what he does.
Movies about the Iraq war have been universally ignored by the average filmgoer. I don’t think culturally we have a real sense of perspective of the war, since it’s not even over yet. Some of the documentaries that have come out in recent years — “Taxi to the Dark Side” in particular — are great. But I haven’t seen many of the fiction films about Iraq, not have I wanted to. They seem mopey and political. “The Hurt Locker” doesn’t ask you to form an opinion about what we’re doing in Iraq. There’s no mention of Bush, 9/11 or WMDs. The film’s focus is on the three men at Camp Victory and the razor’s edge upon which they live.
I want this film to become a sleeper, to find an audience and become the hit it deserves to be. It’s Bigelow’s best film to date, and Renner’s performance should not go unnoticed by the Academy when awards season begins to ramp up. This is a film I went into cold, not having spoiled every inch of it because I wanted to be transported. “The Hurt Locker” delivers all the action and the thrills and the entertainment audiences should be demanding from summer movies. You won’t forget about this movie after you’ve seen it, and better yet, you won’t want to.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
26
RIP Michael Jackson
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I haven’t really seen any satisfactory obits on the Internet for Michael Jackson, so I figured I might take a crack at writing one myself. Growing up in the 1980s, I remember Jackson being something of an omnipresent force. The “Thriller” short film/music video — directed by John Landis! — scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid. But how many videos transcended the medium as effectively as that one? Everyone remembers the zombie dance from that video. “Thriller” was the gatecrasher, the music video of the 1980s. It’s a tribute to Jackson’s showmanship. He never crossed over into films like Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley, but he made music videos that were movies in their own right.
My personal favorite work by Michael Jackson is “Captain EO,” the 3-D spectacular that ran at Disneyland for ages. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola(!) and produced by George Lucas(!!!), the film stars Jackson as the titular hero, zipping across the galaxy to save a dystopian world from this creepy cyber-witch; anyone who knows me would completely understand why I think this film is great. It’s dark and spooky and a little intense for kids. I remember it giving me the heebie jeebies when I first saw it as an adolescent. Jackson’s probably the only starship captain who can get away with wearing a t-shirt that has a giant rainbow on it. And only Michael Jackson could save a planet overrun with Borg-like beasties with his gift for music. “Captain EO” was something else. I’ve always felt it’s a damn shame that Disney replaced it with the boring and forgettable “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.”
Yes, Jackson lost his way in the ’90s. His personal life began to overshadow his body of work, and he was never able to strike the right balance between eccentric and showman. I think it’s important, though, not to remember Jackson for the attention-grabbing headlines in his later life, but for his artistic contributions. Celebrities often have a knack for courting scandal. It’s one thing to take them to task for their bad behavior in life. But I believe in death, they should be exonerated for their sins. Jackson’s influence on the medium of music was so great, it’s what we should recognize and pay tribute to.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
24
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Review
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As a small boy, I was retarded for “The Transformers.” I remember the first Transformers action figure I ever owned was the Decepticon Starscream, who’s still my favorite character in the series. The first comic book I ever read was a “Transformers” #4. The first time I ever held back tears at a film was when Optimus Prime died in the 1986 version of “Transformers: The Movie.” Over a decade later, I even tried writing a “Transformers” fan script, desperately hoping that I could somehow will a live-action “Transformers” blockbuster into existence.
Well, I got my wish in 2007 when Michael Bay’s “Transformers” hit screens. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the character designs and at one point considered passing on the film altogether. But deep down I knew I’d ultimately fold and see the movie as soon as it came out, which I did. I liked it okay, but never felt I needed to revisit it. The animated film from 21 years earlier, though unfairly criticized for its hair metal soundtrack, is as perfect a big-screen adaptation of the series as one could ask for. It’s also Orson Welles’ final movie. That in and of itself is historically significant.
So what did I think of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” the hastily put together strike picture that I caught last night at the ArcLight Dome? The reviews have been largely negative. I certainly didn’t go in expecting “The Dark Knight” of “Transformers” movies. The man himself, Michael Bay, briefly introduced the film, telling the audience that he’d made the movie for them. I would someday like to tell an audience of fans that I actually made the film they’re about to see for a race of highly evolved apes that will one day take over the planet Earth and enslave mankind. But that’s just me.
Anyway, in short, I liked the film all right, I guess. In all seriousness, I think it’s the latest installment in an as-yet-unnamed approach to filmmaking, a sort of popcorn movie version of the French New Wave, one that critiques the big-budget action film model by piling on more explosions, more exposition and more edits than every movie ever made up to that point. Step aside, Jean Luc Godard. Michael Bay has — perhaps inadvertently — made the “Breathless” of big, dumb action movies, a 2.5 hour critique of the summer blockbuster.
I could try to explain the plot, but that would suggest that I understood it myself. In this new model of cinema that Bay and his contemporaries have embraced, the plot isn’t supposed to be simple and straightforward. Rather, it must by so Byzantine, it’s impenetrable. Pages of expository dialogue are shouted at full volume over a cacophony of crashing metal. You aren’t meant to understand the story, nor should you be able to follow the action. Elaborate fights scenes are slapped together in a chaotic editing style, rejecting the theory of linkage that was floated by Russian filmmaker Pudovkin back in the silent era.
The film goes against everything we understand about cinematic language and visual storytelling. And it has Megan Fox. Megan Fox is impossibly hot, so much so that it’s pointless to be attracted to her. She’s too hot. As such, she’s the quintessential heroine for a Michael Bay film. She deconstructs what we commonly know as female beauty, like Bay deconstructs the filmic medium.
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” elevates cinematic bloat to a bold new art form. But what else would you expect from a franchise that once boasted Orson Welles’ involvement?
-Brad Lohan
Jun
23
Making a Movie Without a Script
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I’m reading reviews of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and getting a pretty clear idea that the WGA strike really bolloxed up the summer of ‘09. Leading up to the strike, films were greenlit willy-nilly by studios before they had scripts that were polished and ready to go before cameras. In May we saw “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” “Star Trek” and “Terminator Salvation” — the opening salvo of “strike pictures.” All three of those films had scripts that desperately needed to be rewritten or junked altogether. “Star Trek” manages to overcome its crummy writing, but just barely.
So why do studios invest piles of money in projects that don’t have completed scripts? Well, the short answer is studio executives are incurably insane. The longer answer has more to do with making a predetermined release date than marginalizing the writer, whose contribution to the project is measured against the star power of the lead, the A-list director’s vision and the marketing department’s ability to put asses in seats. I mean, people don’t often go to see a movie because Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci wrote it.
One thing that’s important to note is that major summer tentpoles are, for the most part, the most uninspired bits of filmmaking short of being shot-for-shot remakes of previous hits. Most summer movies are either sequels, adaptations, remakes or cheapie comedies. It’s much easier to sell “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” — a sequel to an adaptation! — on the summer crowd than Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War film, “The Hurt Locker.” Never mind that “The Hurt Locker,” which I desperately want to see, is getting better critical notices than ROTF. People want to watch robots engaged in an endless war.
At any rate, Paramount wanted to get ROTF in theaters for the summer of ‘09. So they greenlit the film immediately after the first “Transformers” opened to massive numbers. A satisfactory script for the sequel couldn’t be completed before the strike, but director Michael Bay went ahead and shot the bulk of the movie while the writers were on the picket lines. What I’ve read about the film suggests that Bay figured he’d “fix it in post,” which is another way of saying, “I need to make sure I land another gig before this film hits screens and lands me in director’s jail.”
Now I’m not an apologist for on-set rewrites. I think a script should be locked well before cameras roll. Micromanaging a script during filming isn’t going to solve any gaping plot holes. It’s just going to create more problems, as literally no one will be on the same page. I’m sure it’s heresy for me to poo-poo the methods to Hollywood’s madness. But there it is. Name me one truly great film, not a compromised work or one of those “flawed masterpieces,” that came from having no script. Maybe the importance of the writer is tragically undervalued, huh?
-Brad Lohan
Jun
22
My Favorite “Star Trek” Plot Contrivances
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I’ve got about 5 episodes of “Star Trek” left to watch before I will be finished with TOS. That said, the third season is a total slog. I used to power through 5 eps in one evening. Now if I can get through a single episode, I feel like I’ve achieved something. The budgets were slashed by the network for season three, and it shows. Most of the episodes are entirely ship-bound, which really takes away from the whole “explore strange new worlds” bit. Limiting the action to the Enterprise narrows the scope of the storylines. So there are a lot of scenes of people sitting around bullshitting. Bullshitting and bulkheads — that’s the third season in a nutsheel.
Having sat through over 70 episodes of “Star Trek” in less than two months, I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed about two-thirds of TOS. Even some of the weaker entries in seasons one and two still have some moments of greatness. Some of these moments are fantastic plot contrivances that the writers repurpose when all else fails. Of course the biggie is that the Enterprise crew encounters some God-like life form that has the mind of a child or a crazy-person. There’s also the convention that the red-shirted crew members bite it on a fairly regular basis. But there are some other ones that crop up every now and again which I find amusing.
One of the main characters dies. I don’t know why they made such a big deal out of Spock’s death in “Wrath of Khan.” Pretty much every member of the Enterprise crew has croaked during TOS: Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov. They’re all resurrected one way or another. Chekov’s actually died twice, IIRC.
The villains disable the landing party’s phasers. I don’t know why the crew members don’t simply carry guns, since their phasers are almost always neutralized by whatever nogoodnik sentient life form they encounter on the planet surface.
The Enterprise is crippled and unable to be repaired. The ship often sustains some sort of damage that makes it seemingly impossible to maintain its life support systems and/or achieve warp speed. Its state of disrepair is unfixable until of course they think of some way to fix it.
The land party’s communicators are taken away. Whenever the crew sets down on a planet and encounters trouble, their communicators (and useless phasers!) are confiscated, so they can’t call for help. They also can’t be beamed back aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk encounters an old mentor or colleague who’s gone berserk. Captaining a starship is a high-pressure job. Apparently James T. Kirk is the only man who’s been able to do it without losing his mind. All his friends from his Academy days or captains he once served under are now nutzoid.
All life forms are fluent in English. It doesn’t matter if they’re Federation-hating types like the Klingons or the Romulans or a race of beings that have never encountered another civilization before, everybody in the galaxy speaks colloquial English. (This is perhaps my favorite convention in all of science fiction.)
There are a shit-ton of planets just like ours. “Class M” planets have similar atmospheric and gravitational conditions to Earth. And the galaxy is filled with them!
I think those 7 are a good snapshot of my favorite contrivances. I’m sure I must be forgetting a couple. I’ll see if any more emerge as I knock out the remaining episodes.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
19
The final trailer for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” sold me on the flick. I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of the 2007 film, which I think is grossly inferior to the 1986 animated movie in every way. Going in with lowered expectations — “I just wanna see giant robots blow shit up! LOLZ!!!” — is not how a viewer should prepare oneself for a night out at the movies. Yes, even a movie based on a toy line should at least try to be the BEST goddamn movie about a toy line. Nobody thought a movie based on a theme park ride would land Johnny Depp an Oscar nomination. But that’s just what “Pirates of the Caribbean” did. Unfortunately when filmmakers (particularly shoddy ones like Michael Bay) start thinking they’re miles better than the for-hire crap they’re knocking out, well, that’s the death of popcorn entertainment right there.
At any rate, I already have my 12:01 am ticket for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” next Tuesday. I was even thinking about popping in some old episodes from the cartoon this weekend to get in the right mood for the film. Now, I’m reading the dribs and drabs of early reviews that are appearing online. The overall concensus is ungood. Fart. Why does this keep happening to me? I’ve passed on a couple summer movies that looked like weak sauce — “Angels & Demons,” “Land of the Lost” and “Year One” spring to mind — but I’ve nonetheless sat through duds like “Wolverine” and “Terminator Salvation.” I’d hoped the worst was behind me. I guess not.
My problem is I don’t like to wait until the movie’s released before I buy my ticket. I like going to the very first showing of a film because that’s when all the hardcores turn out, the folks who aren’t going to talk or text. There’s also a buzz in the theater when a big film opens. It isn’t something you can re-create even a day or two later. I saw “Star Trek” twice the weekend it opened, and the Friday night screening was wildly different than the Sunday evening show.
Of course, seeing a turd at midnight doesn’t change the fact it’s still a turd.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
18
There’s Going to Be an Indy 5?
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I read the other day that Shia Labeouf had hinted at there being an “Indy 5,” and I chalked it up to the usual sort of prattle that comes out of press junkets for films. Rarely do actors and filmmakers actually talk about the movie they’re supposed to be promoting. Rather, they talk up whatever project they’re circling or vapor-films that will never come to pass. I find it quite boring because the press will take every little scrap of information and run with it. Then they’ll act all butt-hurt when the studio nixes their “exclusive” a few days later. If they’d all quit trying to scoop each other and just report actual news, culled from multiple source, none of this would happen. As such, I would have exactly one less thing to pitch a bitch about.
Anyway, producer Frank Marshall has revealed that maybe Lebeouf wasn’t just bullshitting when he said that Spielberg had “cracked” a story for the fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, according to Aint-It-Cool. Unfortunately, 99% of all movie geeks hated “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” I count myself as the lone apologist for the film. I’ll even further tarnish my useless reputation as an Internet blogger by suggesting that Indy 4 is better than any of the “Star Wars” prequels. J’accuse!
All that being said, KOTCS is easily the weakest entry in the Indy series, and I can understand why people don’t like it. But goddamn, it’s Indiana Jones. Neither of the middle two sequels quite live up to “Raiders” yet they’re endlessly watchable. I personally prefer “Temple of Doom,” but every scene with Sean Connery in “The Last Crusade” is fried gold.
Despite nearly driving Internet geeks to commit seppuku, KOTCS grossed north of $700 million worldwide. There’s still an audience for Indy even if Harrison Ford’s a little long in the tooth. I know I wouldn’t mind seeing another installment. Hell, I even blogged about how I’d like to see Spielberg and Lucas take the franchise in another direction. The series was originally intended to be a five-film cycle. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and keep my fingers crossed that they’ll cap off the franchise with the strong final entry.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
17
Who Will Direct “Batman 3?”
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The latest word on “Batman 3″ is that Christopher Nolan more than likely won’t be returning as the director, according to Batman-on-Film. This sort of thing happens fairly often with franchise filmmakers. They hem and haw about the prospects of their directing a sequel. Fan outcry and the success of the previous installment[s] ultimately convinces the studio to either throw more money at them or select a wildly inappropriate helmer for the follow-up. It’s difficult to say how “Batman 3″ will shake out. The success of “The Dark Knight” was unprecedented for the Bat-franchise, and I think Maggie Gyllenhaal deserves all the credit for her triumphant performance as Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes.
As someone who’s never made a feature film before, I have absolutely no idea why Nolan wouldn’t want to direct 100 Batman movies. I know I would. If my career consisted solely of making Batman movies, I would be happier than a pig in shit. But I guess that speaks more to my Batmania than it does to my artistic integrity, of which I have nil. That said, most of the filmmakers who call the shots on comic book movies aren’t even comic book fans, something that’s always boggled my mind. I’ve heard Nolan say he likes Batman as a character but doesn’t read the comics. That’s just plain weird if you ask me.
So who’ll take over for Nolan if he vacates the director’s chair? Of course the fans are already suggesting A-listers who’d have no interest in signing on to a threequel. Michael Mann? Are you people kidding me? I think the studio would go with a choice that’s less than obvious, an up-and-comer with a few solid credits but no blockbuster hits, someone like — uh — Christopher Nolan before he signed on to direct “Batman Begins.” David friggin’ Fincher ain’t going to make a Batman movie, kids. For people who read every scrap of industry info that leaks out, a large portion of movie geeks seem to have a pretty tenuous grasp of showbiz.
I can tell you that I’ve fielded no offers to direct “Batman 3,” not yet anyway.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
16
Captain America Lives! Wait…He Was Dead?
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Issue #600 of “Captain America” came out yesterday. I haven’t picked it up yet. New comics usually drop on Wednesdays, and I’m not driving all the way to Hi-De-Ho Comics for one book. Finding a parking space in Santa Monica is a bitch kitty. I’ll wait until tomorrow.
I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I believe that #600 kicks off the “Reborn” storyline that brings Steve Rogers back from the grave. For those of you who don’t read Cap’s book regularly, Steve Rogers — the original Captain America — was killed about 25 issues ago after surrendering at the end of the “Civil War” storyline. His former sidekick Bucky has since taken up Cap’s mantle. Interestingly enough, Bucky was killed way, way back in the ’40s. His death was believed to be one of the rare few that actually stuck…until they brought him back.
I don’t know about you, but I find all this terrifically boring. Death is virtually meaningless in comic books. I’m surprised it’s still used as a dramatic device or that it has an emotional impact on the readership. It’s a gimmick, a cheap cynical gimmick. When will readers catch on?
That said, it is kind of funny that Steve Rogers is returning from the dead to take back his mantle from another guy who returned from the dead. But at the very same time, it’s living proof — zing! — that the industry is completely out of ideas. A shit-ton of heroes and villains have returned from the back issue bin in the sky lately. It’s as though creators are completely incapable of coming up with new characters. Even worse, it undermines classic storylines by robbing them of lasting repercussions!
Please note that I don’t lose sleep over this. It’s just mildly irritating.
So who else has died and come back in recent years, you ask? Here’s a quickie list off the top of my head:
Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin
Harry Osborn/The Green Goblin II
Jason Todd/Robin
Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Thor
And now Steve Rogers is the latest Marvel Zombie. Yawn.
-Brad Lohan