Aug
31
I knew some back issues were expensive, but this is ridiculous. According to AP — and virtually every other site on the Internet — Disney is buying Marvel Comics for $4 billion.
So what does this mean?! Like I know. Bob Iger, the Disney chieftain, prattled on about the comic book publisher’s “strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters” as well as his company’s “unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties.” All that corporate lingo makes my eyes go crossed. In sum, I think what he’s trying to say is that it’s a good fit.
Or…is it?!
Marvel still has a five-picture distribution deal with Paramount. After “Iron Man II,” “Thor,” “Captain America,” “The Avengers” and a TBA Marvel pic are released, only then will Disney begin distributing Marvel Studios properties; Marvel Studios is a production company that doesn’t have its own distribution arm. It gets even weirder, too. The film rights to Spider-Man are still owned by Sony, and Spidey is the most profitable Marvel movie franchise by a country mile. Sony is currently pre-producing “Spider-Man 4″ and is concurrently developing movies five and six in the series. Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox owns the rights to the X-Men characters, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil, all of whom have reboots in the works. And Hulk still lives at Universal.
The deal sort of seems like Disney’s getting engaged to someone who’s still married…to like four other people. That said, it’s only Marvel’s film properties that are scattered all over creation in terms of licensing deals. Disney will immediately be able to capitalize on all of Marvel’s comic book revenues. I’m sure the “Punisher: FrankenCastle” miniseries will bring back countless readers and sales will skyrocket. Yeah, no. The Marvel films are the publisher’s biggest money-makers. They’re what put the publisher on the map as a merchandising giant. Remember, Marvel filed for Chapter 11 in 1996. They came back big-time only after the first “X-Men” movie hit in 2000.
Maybe Disney could break ground on some Marvel superhero theme park attractions? Well, Universal Studios already has a thrill ride park in Orlando called Islands of Adventure, where there’s a Marvel Superhero Island. In the short term, it definitely seems like Marvel’s getting more out of this deal than Disney.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
30
I made a deal with myself that if I got all of my homework done and did a 45-minute jog around [and around, and around] the block, I could go see the “Jaws” triple-bill at the Aero in Santa Monica. I am now a successful fusion of a kid and a parent — responsible, yet still fascinated by people getting eaten by malfunctioning mechanical sharks.
I’d never seen the first “Jaws” in the theater, which is something I’d been intending to rectify for years. I learned in one of my film books, a hundred-dollar doorstop called “Film Art,” that a single frame of film contains 12 million pixels of information. DVD has about half a million pixels per frame, and HD two million. So going to the cinema remains the most ass-kickingest way to see a movie. As such, I needed to see “Jaws” theatrically. I’d been seeing inferior versions on VHS and DVD all along.
Isn’t it good that I did my homework?
“JAWS”
The book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” by Peter Biskind goes into elaborate detail about the punishing shoot for Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster. The movie had every reason to be a colossal failure, and were it directed by perhaps anyone else, it’d probably would’ve been. The shark didn’t work, the budget ballooned, they were shooting an eighth of a page a day, production went way over schedule, and the film was given the unfortunately nickname “Flaws.”
But what Spielberg ended up with was the first film to crack $100 million at the domestic box office. “Jaws” somehow worked in spite of itself. Based on a corny page-turner by Peter Benchley, the film is a rare adaptation that eclipses the source material. I imagine some people don’t even know it’s based on a book.
Watching “Jaws” on the big screen with John Williams’ score booming was a thrill. I only wish I could’ve seen it with an audience back in ‘75, not knowing where all the scares are. The scene where Richard Dreyfuss’ character Matt Hooper finds Ben Gardner — or what’s left of him — poking out of the gaping hole in the hull of his boat is probably the film’s best gag. Spielberg’s original intention was to show more of the shark rather than suggest him. Still, the creeping fear that’s generated by not seeing the shark makes the overall impact more effective. What’s more, when we finally get a good look at the shark, during the scene with Roy Scheider’s Martin Brody chumming the water, it’s actually the film’s funniest moment, not the scariest. And it’s supposed to be. Spielberg expertly balances the humor and the horror.
The shark may not have worked, but the characters do. They’re not “types,” like you’ll find in a pre-packaged Roland Emmerich blockbuster. Brody, Hooper and Robert Shaw’s Quint come across as actual people. Quint disappears from the movie for quite a lengthy period of time before reemerging for the final third and nearly walks away with the film. His monologue near the end about being on the Indianapolis when it went down is a brilliant piece of acting. Spielberg wisely doesn’t get in the way of his actors. He lets them breathe, and the action beats are that much more exciting. We care who lives and dies. This isn’t “The Final Destination” where we’re there specifically to see everyone get slaughtered.
And that’s what movies two and three lose sight of.
“JAWS 2″
I hadn’t seen “Jaws 2″ in something like eight years. I remembered virtually nothing about it. It’s as though a part of my brain said, “Do You Wish to Save? Yes/No?” and another part said, “No.” Therefore, all my memories of the film had been discarded. Natural Lite may have also played a role in my cinematic amnesia. At any rate, I went into “Jaws 2″ cold. I vaguely recalled something about the shark looking like Two-Face; but he didn’t use a coin to determine whether or not he would eat a swimmer. And I sort of remembered a power line being used for the shark’s comeuppance. Beyond that, the film was a blank.
“Jaws 2″ is about as good as a movie called “Jaws 2″ can be. It’s not bad, but painfully mediocre. I’d rank it among “Psycho 2″ as far as ballsy sequels go. You know it’s not going to hit the mark. Yet the the film does its best under the circumstances. Only Roy Scheider returned for the picture. We’re told that Hooper’s in Antarctica, giving you some idea of how far Richard Dreyfuss wanted to distance himself from a follow-up. Quint died in the first film, and apparently the writers decided against creating some sort of half-assed Quint-like surrogate.
As a result, we’ve hit up the main problem with “Jaws 2:” the characters literally aren’t there. Brody’s on his own, and something feels missing. It’s interesting to watch him become more and more unhinged as he’s convinced there’s another Great White lurking in the water. However, even when he gets his sheriff’s badge yanked by the city council, it doesn’t slow him down all that much. He still hijacks a police boat and sets off to rescue a group of dumb teenagers at the climax.
Still, there are some cool moments in the film, like when a woman on a boat tries to frighten off the shark by dousing herself with gasoline for no discernable reason. This of course results in an explosion that could probably be seen from outer space as well as the shark’s hideously scarred visage. “Jaws 2″ gets point for at least trying.
“JAWS 3D”
Originally, this film was supposed to be a John Hughes-scripted spoof called “Jaws 3, People 0.” I am not making this up. Universal wanted to make a “Jaws” film in the mold of “Airplane!” But, they ultimately decided on doing an unintentional parody in the form of “Jaws 3D.”
The print that was screened at the Aero last night was in 2D. I don’t think I missed much by not seeing it in an added dimension. The effects shots all had matte lines that looked like they’d been drawn in with a black magic marker the size of a toilet paper tube. I’ve never seen a major studio film with SFX that were executed so poorly. And worse, the camera lingers on them for aeons. When the shark eats a grouper fish in the opening moments, and the fish’s severed head floats in the water for approximately the same amount of time I experienced puberty.
Spielberg wisely cut around dodgy special effects in the first film. In “Jaws 3D,” the editing fetishizes them.
No one from the previous two films returned for movie three. Brody’s son Michael (Dennis Quaid) is now the hero. He works at Sea World with his girlfriend Kathryn (Bess Armstrong). Michael’s landlubber of a brother, Sean (John Putch), comes to visit while on break from college and so does a hungry, 35-foot Great White.
Setting a “Jaws” film at Sea World seems like a fantastic idea. I mean, I was hoping to see the shark swim into the middle of one of their shows, leap out of the water and eat one of the trainers in front of thousands of tourists. Sadly, the setting is criminally underused. The shark doesn’t even munch on a dolphin or two. At least in the previous film, the shark takes a couple bites out of an orca.
We do get to see Lea Thompson in a bikini, so the film’s not a total bust.
“Jaws: The Revenge,” the rightfully malinged fourth film in the series, was not part of the program, and we are all better for it. If any movie makes “Jaws 3D” look half-decent, it’s “Jaws: The Revenge.” Regardless of the quality of the second and third features, I had a great time at the screening last night. I noticed the audience shrank between the first and second films then again between the second and third. Three movies is, admittedly, a lot to sit through. We got out of there around 2 a.m. I guess the ones who bailed early still had homework to do.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
28
“Breathless” Review
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Yesterday, I watched a screening of Jean Luc Godard’s 1960 French New Wave game-changer, “Breathless.” I’d seen the film before when I was an undergrad at EWU. It took a couple of tries. Ultimately, I had to watch it with the commentary feature turned on. Having a film historian hold my hand the entire time helped me get through the thing. But I was unsophisticated back then, another sanctimonious movie geek rather than a cineaste. I hadn’t even seen the Ozploitation gem “Razorback” yet.
CSUN is doing a film series on Godard’s French New Wave films from the ’60s. The Armer Theater on campus is a far more dope auditorium than the screening room at Eastern. Alas, you can’t bring in food or beverages, but “Breathless” isn’t exactly a popcorn movie. It’s not even in 3D.
As far as film movements go, I’m more of a fan of New German Cinema or Italian Neo-Realism. British Kitchen Sink films also have their moments. French New Wave plays with genre conventions in such a way that the films come across as clunky and uneven and difficult to sit through. I walked out of Godard’s “Week End” when it was screened for a Violence in Film class I took in ‘99. The scene where the two main characters drive for miles upon miles past cars trapped in gridlock is punishing for even the most seasoned viewer.
“Breathless” is slightly more audience-friendly than “Week End.” Godard’s filmmaking sensibilities hadn’t become quite so aggressively political. Rather, “Breathless” is a movie about movies. Godard had made a name for himself as a film critic for “Cashiers du Cinema” and saw filmmaking as another method of film criticism. Contemporary popular culture is so self-reflexive, so self-referential, that “Breathless” seems much less revolutionary today. Nowadays, movies are jam packed with winks and nods to other movies, pointing out the filmmakers’ pop cultural savvy, like I care. Too many modern day filmmakers use their influences as a crutch rather than an inspiration.
Godard, however, isn’t directly referencing a specific film in “Breathless.” Rather, he’s deconstructing the film noir — the gangster film, the detective film. In”Breathless” a two-bit crook named Michel steals a car and goes on a joyride. When he’s pursued by the cops, he pulls off the road and shoots one of them. Then he goes on the run, hiding out in Paris while trying to scrape together enough money to get out of the country. He also tries to convince his American girlfriend Patricia to come with him. Describing the movie makes it sound fairly straightforward. The dramatic beats are all there. The Parisian police are catching up to Michel, Patricia reveals she’s pregnant, and so on and so forth. But Godard’s rejection of classical Hollywood narrative tropes completely changes the look and feel of the film. (I’ve finally used the word “tropes” in a blog.)
Godard couldn’t afford a tripod or lighting equipment, so the film is shot entirely hand-held with natural lighting. It’s rough and unpolished, not at all like the moody film noirs that inspired it. Godard’s editing style uses jump cuts that create a discontinuity in scenes, taking the viewer out of the narrative, not drawing them in as film editing is supposed to. There’s also a hell of a lot of scenes of people not doing much of anything. Michel and Patricia wander around Paris, they drive around Paris, they lounge around Patricia’s apartment in Paris. It’s easy to forget that Michel shot a guy and is a wanted man because the plot is largely disinterested with developing what would traditionally be the film’s A-story. Instead, scenes just go on and on with Michel trying to get Patricia to sleep with him and her rebuffing him. American girls in the early ’60s are virtually the same as those today.
Godard’s enthusiasm for cinema can be felt throughout the film. In analyzing “Breathless,” one gets the sense that he knows what he’s doing, and the film’s not just some overrated happy accident. It does sort of play like a clumsy student film. And yet, I found bits of it inspiring. Now I didn’t leave the theater saying to myself, “Well, if something that shittily made can still be regarded as brilliant 50 years later, wait ’til they get a load of me…” I did, however, come out with new ideas for how to approach some of my script ideas. You could say I learned something.
-Brad Lohan
Fun fact: “Breathless” was remade in the early ’80s as a Richard Gere movie!
Aug
27
From Script to Screen: “Watchmen”
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I realized the other day that I can repurpose my grad school homework as blog posts, so I won’t miss a beat when it comes to bringing my readership the most towering film analysis with mild profanity you’re likely to find on the Internet.
One of my assignments this week is to read a filmscript — believe it or not! — and compare it to the finished product. Last night, I riffled through my closet and found the 1989 draft of “Watchmen,” written by Sam Hamm and Terry Gilliam, that I’d bought at a comic book convention way back in 2003. This is the unproduced draft that Gilliam wanted to helm before ultimately coming to the conclusion that the project was unfilmable. 20 years later, Zack Snyder proved him wrong, directing Alex Tse’s longer and more slavish adaptation of the graphic novel.
So how does the early draft compare to the final film? Well, the Hamm/Gilliam draft shoehorns the sprawling, 12-volume graphic novel into a tightly-structured whodunnit. All the major story beats from the film are in the ‘89 draft. Where the Snyder film simply translates the GN to the screen, the Hamm/Gilliam script jettisons much of the characters’ backstory. The Watchmen, as they are called in both the script and the film, still retain their emotional baggage, their hang-ups, their eccentricities. But the script is much more economical in its character development. It feels more like a film than the film itself.
The first scene in the script is not in either the GN or the film. Rather, it’s a major action setpiece with the Watchmen taking on a group of terrorists on Liberty Island. The sequence is hampered by the Comedian’s hammy dialogue, but it ends unexpectedly with them completely screwing the pooch and accidentally blowing the Statue of Liberty to bits. Dr Manhattan inexplicably arrives late and even more inexplicably doesn’t reassemble Lady Liberty. At any rate, the Watchmen are forced into retirement by new government legislation that outlaws costumed derring-do.
The script flashes forward approximately ten years to Rorschach’s investigation of the Comedian’s murder; Rorschach decided not to hang up his costume like the others. Unlike the film, the script features the Comedian only in an extended cameo, which I think works better cinematically. Snyder’s film spends way too much time developing a character who dies in the first scene, adding layers to a someone who’s basically a plot device. Again, the movie desperately wants to recreate every scene from the GN, and it’s so incredibly uneven as a result. The script might seem slight by comparison. And yet, I didn’t find myself missing much that got cut.
Rorschach’s the “hero” of the script. “Watchmen” is a multi-protagonist plot, but it’s Rorschach who drives the action in the script and the film to some extent. His allies — Dan Dreiberg (aka Nite-Owl), Laurie Jupiter (aka Silk Spectre) and Dr Manhattan — have had their roles reduced significantly. The central villain, Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias), has only a handful of scenes. The mystery of who the “mask killer” is doesn’t have a satisfactory revelation. The Watchmen discover he’s behind the Comedian’s murder almost by accident, not detective work. I think the script and the film would’ve worked better had they revelead to the audience early on that he was the big bad and allowed the tension to play out as we’d be one step ahead of the heroes.
Veidt’s master plan to prevent WWIII from breaking out departs from the film. I think it’s even goofier.Veidt creates a temporal distortion, so he can try to prevent Jon Osterman from becoming Dr Manhattan. He believes that doing so will stop the escalating hostilities between the U.S. and the Soviets. It works, but the Watchmen are then thrust into an alternate reality — our reality — since Veidt’s changed the past. In the script, Veidt’s plan doesn’t leave millions dead as it does in the film where he stages an attack by Dr Manhattan on the major cities of the world. The script’s climax is more palatable in a commercial sense. However, the softening of Veidt’s grand scheme seems to undercut the overall conceit of the work: a world with costumed crimefighters would in fact be worse off, not better. That both the script and the film revise the ending of the GN speaks to the clumsiness of the source material’s climax. The problem inherent in the script and the film is that neither comes up with something better.
Is the script better than the film? From a cinematic standpoint, I would have to say yes. It’s not a perfect script. I think it could use a polish and a different ending. The script is much more commercial than the film. It’s much less plodding for one thing. Had it been produced, the script seems like it would’ve been a much easier sell on mainstream audiences with its narrower focus and significantly shorter running time. Some of the heavier elements of the film — the identity of Laurie’s father, the gratuitious violence, the mass deaths — are lost. It’d still be an R-rated film with its profanity, sex and violence, but it’s all much less exploitive in the script. The Hamm/Gilliam draft, in condensing the GN, is a stronger adaptation than the Snyder film.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
26
In the era of rebootquels, I try to be original when it comes to my writing. I don’t want to rip anybody off, intentionally or not. I take pride in knowing that whatever I’m working on is something that hasn’t been done to death. It makes it all the more devastating when a project that’s similar to mine is realized in one format or another. I started writing this script in 2005 called “Dead Superheroes” about a trio of recently deceased meta-humans who return from the grave as zombies. When I found out that some obscure British comic book also featured zombified super-types, I abandoned the project altogether. A year or so later, the “Marvel Zombies” miniseries came down the pike and was a mega-hit. I guess the lesson here is to not worry so much about stealing. I mean, nobody took Marvel to task for aping “Marshall Law.”
Still, it bothers me. So I try to avoid any samey-ness in my work. That makes it all the more aggravating when some goofball accuses me of being a ripoff artist when I try to explain one of my ideas to him or her.
There are two types of people: those who are genuinely supportive of your ideas and the other 99% of the human race. I’ve gotten used to the idea that folks by and large don’t give two shits about my creative endeavors. They’ll ask what I’m working on to make conversation, but they’re fairly incapable of providing any worthwhile feedback. I often try to avoid describing any of my scripts or ideas in detail. Being incredibly vague — and I mean incredibly – helps steer the conversation away from a hopeless debate about what some dorkus thinks I’m borrowing heavily from. When someone asks what my current script is about, I say, “People.”
Non-writers are almost always antagonistic when you tell them about what you’re doing. I don’t know why this is. You can almost hear their brain synapses firing as they deconstruct your 25-word logline, trying to select the stupidest or most mediocre title they can compare it to.
I can never gauge just what in the hell people quantify as worthwhile entertainment. Surely the billboards I see around Los Angeles speak to a sub-culture of easily-amused Cro-Magnons. “Melrose Place?” Really?! Wasn’t that show a pile during its original run? We’re revisiting this property for what reason exactly?
And so in my neverending crusade to be fresh and different, I find myself surrounded by knobs whose tastes are highly questionable, people who are highly cynical about the originality of my ideas and at the same time are jazzed about the upcoming “Halloween II,” a movie that’s a sequel to a remake.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
25
“Archie” #600
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I stopped reading weekly comics earlier this summer, but I’ll still occasionally pick up a milestone issue, like “Archie” #600. Although I collected comics for 18 years, I think the only other Archie book I ever bought was “Archie Meets the Punisher” way back in ‘93. Archie comics simply never appealed to me. Had he been bitten by a radioactive spider or adopted by a billionaire crimefighter, I probably would’ve added his titles to my pull list. But a teenager who doesn’t sling webs or ride shotgun in the Batmobile is hardly a comic book character that warrants my interest.
That being said, I was still had to check out the 600th issue of “Archie,” where he finally pops the question to Veronica and breaks poor Betty’s heart.
The issue — written by “Batman” film producer Michael Uslan! — begins with Archie and the gang as they graduate from high school. Not having applied for college yet, Archie’s feeling pressured to experience what we writers like to call “character development.” He goes for a walk to contemplate his future. The story then miraculously flashes forward four years after he finds a street called “Memory Lane,” which he chooses to walk up rather than down; no, it doesn’t make sense on the page, either. At any rate, Archie’s now a college grad, yet still uncertain about his what he should do with his life. So he does what any listless young person in his position would do: he decides to get married. In a colossally boneheaded move, he blows his graduation money on an engagement ring for Veronica, who accepts before going on a three-month cruise without him.
Betty, meanwhile, is shattered by the news that now Jughead’s the only eligible bachelor in Riverdale. The issue ends on a cliffhanger when Veronica calls Betty and asks her to be her maid of honor. “Gossip Girl” wishes it had this much drama!
“Archie” #600 is the first issue in a six-part storyarc. I don’t know if I’m curious enough to pick up the next chapter. Again, weekly comics have lost their appeal and very few multi-part comic book sagas ever stick the landing. However, marriages in comic books tend to last. Superman and Lois Lane are still married and so are Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. But Spider-Man and MJ divorced in the most fantastical way I’ve ever seen by making a contract with the devil Mephisto who retconned their entire marriage. I guess that helped them avoid having to decide who gets the flatscreen.
Will Archie and Veronica live happily ever after? As long as the Punisher doesn’t crash the wedding, I think anything’s possible.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
21
“Inglourious Basterds” Review
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At the 12:01 am screening of “Inglourious Basterds” I attended last night, Quentin Tarantino introduced the film. He was greeted with a standing ovation from the sold-out audience. His intro was brief, yet gleefully profane. He capped it off by throwing his microphone on the floor and heading for the exit. I think he was stewed to the gills. That would explain his collared shirt and track pants. The introduction wasn’t quite what I’d expected from Tarantino, but with QT, you really never know what to expect.
If anything, that probably sums up his latest film, “Inglourious Basterds,” a spaghetti western/revenge flick dressed up as a WWII movie. Tarantino’s films are always curious genre blends, synergistically freshening up long dead filmmaking styles with a true cineaste’s understanding of the medium. Yes, they’re overindulgent, self-congratuatory and at times maddenly esoteric to casual filmgoers. But, they’re also incredibly entertaining inconclastic cinema.
All that being said, “Basterds” is bloated, and the marketing has mislead you into thinking that it’s 2 hours of Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine and his platoon of Jewish-American soldiers carving up Nazis by the hundreds. Rather, the film is a talky ensemble piece. It’s broken up into five intersecting chapters, which follow the oily Nazi Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), revenge-seeking theater owner Shosanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), soldier-turned-propaganda tool Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), German film actress Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), as well as Raine and his titular Basterds. Tarantino takes his time — perhaps a bit too much — developing the characters and the story. There are a few too many scenes of people seated around a table having lengthy, subtitled conversations. Even I found the subtitles a bit troublesome, particularly when they weren’t on the screen long enough for me to read them!
Tarantino revisits his favorite trademarks: a Mexican standoff and his fetish for women’s feet are both major story beats in the film. Since the movie’s set in the ’40s, the popular culture references will doubtless fly over the heads of people whose knowledge of WWII-era German cinema are extremely limited; I’m fairly convinced I ain’t missing much. Part of me thinks Tarantino has begun to move away from making movies for audiences and instead chosen to make them for himself. Whether or not the audience gets it is beside the point.
The movie could easily stand to lose 20-30 minutes. I usually don’t mind when a film runs over 2 hours, but with “Basterds,” you feel every second of its 150-minute runtime. I noticed a few people in the audience getting up to take a leak during the film. And I was in the front row with a midnight crowd. When the hardcore Tarantino fans heed the call of nature on opening night, the film’s not working as well as it should. I’d've pissed myself before getting up to go to the bathroom during any point in “Pulp Fiction.” But I can name several sections of the movie where folks with weak bladders can excuse themselves for a quick tinkle and not miss anything.
I would imagine that “Basterds” plays better upon a second viewing. I was quoting it all morning before I left for work, replaying my favorite beats in my head. There are lots of great lines and brilliantly executed payoffs. It’s just too bad it takes so long to get to where it’s going.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
20
Avatrailer
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Finally. I’ve been following “Avatar” since I first read about it in “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made,” a book that’s pretty anachronistic, considering that most of the abandoned projects it covers have since been produced. It may have taken fifteen years of hemming and hawing, but James Cameron’s “Avatar” will be hitting screens this Christmas. Why 20th Century Fox has been so cagey when it comes to teaser trailers for the film is anybody’s guess. But this morning the studio released the first actual trailer for “Avatar” at long last. You can watch it on Apple.com here.
I liked the trailer. And yet, I think it plays better the second time you watch it. On a computer monitor the money shots aren’t quite as dazzling, so there’s an overwhelming sense of “meh” that washes over you. The second time around your expectations aren’t quite so high. Watching it with a less critical eye allows all the neat-o effects to really come through.
I still don’t buy that just within the past couple of years the technology became available for Cameron to realize his vision, not when Jar Jar Binks was stinking up movie theaters a decade ago. The photo-real characters in this film — the lanky, blue-skinned cat people called Na’vi — have the same CGI sheen as the galaxy’s most notorious Gungan. I’m not being dismissive of the effects work. I think it’s considerably well done here. I’m simply not convinced that computer graphics have made some sort of quantum leap in the past ten years. It wasn’t the SFX we’ve been waiting on; it’s been Cameron.
Tomorrow is “Avatar Day.” It’s a strange event in which 15 minutes of footage from the film will be screened in IMAX (read: “Fake IMAX”) theaters across the globe. “Avatar Day” is absolutely free for all the nerds who were able to get tickets before the servers crashed on the film’s official site. I’m not going to go. I think Fake IMAX is a gyp, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to watch a 15-minute movie preview. Where Fox initially held back on promoting this film, now they’re going way overboard with this business. I don’t get it.
I think the “Avatar” trailer is more than enough to sell me on this film.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
19
The Films of Quentin Tarantino
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“Inglourious Basterds” opens Friday, and I’ve already bought my ticket for the 12:01 am screening at the ArcLight Hollywood. I haven’t seen a Tarantino film in the Dome. I have seen the man himself at the Dome; he sat a couple rows behind me during “Zodiac” back in ‘07. At any rate, Tarantino’s latest should be a hoot.
Like many film nerds who came of age in the ’90s, I lived and breathed Tarantino’s first two films. It’s difficult for me to say how many times I’ve watched “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” but I can assure you it’s approximately one million apiece. I even sat through “Four Rooms” in the theater just to see Tarantino’s shitty vignette at the end.
Tarantino is practically a subgenre unto himself. His influence is difficult to fathom. Even during the period where he fell off the map between “Jackie Brown” and “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” him imitators — Guy Richie, Troy Duffy, etc. — quickly burst onto the scene(left it just as quickly), aping the Tarantino style but not the substance.
I’ve done a lot of reading about independent cinema, and Tarantino’s name comes up frequently. He’s more or less the face of the movement. He’s a bit of a polarizing figure, and why wouldn’t he be? He’s a genius to be sure, but he’s also a credit hog and owes more than a little of his success to his former collaborator, Roger Avary. That being said, my respect for Tarantino’s body of work exceeds my reservations about his egomania.
So how do I rate his films? Well, first we should decide what makes a Tarantino film? For the sake of brevity, I’m omitting “True Romance,” “Natural Born Killers” and “From Dusk Til Dawn” from this list, as they’re films that were written by QT, but not directed by him. No, this list will only focus on films written and directed by Tarantino, films that represent his uncompromised vision.
Reservoir Dogs
I think I might actually be my favorite Quentin Tarantino film. It’s not quite as polished as “Pulp Fiction,” nor as soulful as “Jackie Brown,” but it remains the quintessential Tarantino film. The fractured narrative, the dialogue, the music, the ultraviolence — all the Tarantino trademarks are present and accounted for. This is the one I revisit the most, the one that continues to inspire me to continue chasing the dream of becoming a filmmaker myself.
Pulp Fiction
What would the cinematic landscape of the ’90s have been like if this film hadn’t reshaped the latter half of the decade? “Pulp Fiction” is Tarantino’s most accomplished film, made when he was still hungry, still trying to prove himself. And every bit of it is eager to entertain the hell out of you. It simultaneously reinvigorated the careers of John Travolta and Bruce Willis while launching Samuel L. Jackson into the stratosphere. It is the movie of the 1990s. I could watch it endlessly.
Jackie Brown
Tarantino’s follow-up to “Pulp” was quickly labeled as a disappointment. Where audiences were looking for a spiritual sequel, “Brown” was something else entirely. It’s a solid film to be sure — more mature, more thoughtful. But it has its own pulse. I think it plays much better now that it’s out of the shadow of “Pulp.” That it hasn’t been parodied to death also makes repeat viewings feel fresher.
Kill Bill
I keep waiting for the rumored “Whole Blood Affair” version of this film to hit DVD, so I don’t have to buy Volumes I and II separately. I want to see the two halves spliced back together the way Tarantino had originally envisioned his revenge flick. Of all his films, I probably rank the two “Bill” volumes at the bottom. I don’t think they’re bad films per se. I just found that they don’t hold up upon repeat viewings as well. They’re too long, too meditative for what they ultimately amounts to. Again, that might speak to they’re being split in half and released separately. Something feels missing from each. Perhaps recut as one giant revenge epic, I’d find the viewing experience more satisfying.
Death Proof
I enjoyed Tarantino’s half of “Grindhouse” more than most. Yes, it comes across as a crashing bore when stacked against Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror.” It also feels hollow when measured against his earlier efforts. But as an tribute to the schlocky productions that Tarantino counts among his various influences, I can’t help but enjoy how lovingly Tarantino put together a b-movie. It’s talky, slow-moving and bloated with only flashes of ultra-violence. Yet it still manages to be an exhilarating piece of filmmaking, particularly in its final act.
I hope that I’m blown away by “Inglourious Basterds” and that Tarantino delivers another genre-busting, trailblazing blast that at once embraces cinema while redefining it.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
18
Anybody who knows me is keenly aware of the fact that I prefer seeing movies in the theater over watching them on DVD. As far as I’m concerned, home video exists soley for me to catch up on movies that I would’ve otherwise seen theatrically, but I wasn’t born yet or I wasn’t old enough. I don’t wait for something to come out on video, thinking that it’s not worth seeing on the big screen yet may be an interesting diversion at home. No, that’s weird to me.
The theatrical experience is critical to my enjoyment of a film. Inasmuch as I’d like to have my own auditorium — not a home theater mind you, but an actual movie theater auditorium — that’s not in the offing at the moment. And so, I have to watch movies with the rest of the unwashed. It’s not always a living nightmare. In fact, the communal aspect of movie-going is often why I attend midnight screenings. That’s where you’ll generally find the best audiences.
But what are the best theaters? Well, that typically depends on the movie. Certain movies play better than others in one venue versus another. For reasons beyond my understanding, I’ve seen all five “Saw” movies and plan on seeing part six this October. I’m not going to see it at the ArcLight or the Landmark or some classy theater with assigned seating and usher/greeters who fumble through their pre-show spiels and all that pomp and circumstance. No, I want to see it in one of the shabby theaters, like the Cinemark in North Hollywood. That’s a terrific venue for horror and low-budget actioners. It’s a little run-down, a little sketchy, which adds so much to the experience of watching cheapie genre flicks.
Time of day is also a consideration when catching a movie. I used to like seeing horror films at night or in the early evening, so when I came out of the theater, it’d be dark in the parking lot. It’s jarring and dislocating and unsettling. It seems like the perfect capper for a disturbing horror romp. You’re just waiting for someone to pop out and stab you repeatedly. Lately, however, I’ve found that Saturday afternoon matinees are actually better times of day to watch horror movies. Yes, it’s still light out when you go outside, but when you’re in a dark and sparsely populated theater watching the carnage on the screen, you’re not thinking about what a nice day it is. You’re thinking about someone killing you right there in the auditorium.
It’s cheaper to see a matinee, too, so if the movie’s shit, you’re only out six or seven bucks, not $13.
The higher end theaters, like the aforementioned ArcLight and Landmark, are best for the big-budget blockbusters. You’re virtually guaranteed top-notch picture and sound, though the ArcLight has bolloxed things up a time or two. The two venues sometimes run art films and docos, which I think play better in art houses. It’s just strange to sit through a quiet melodrama while you can hear thunderous explosions coming from the auditorium next door.
Art houses, as you may have guessed, are the best venues for art films. I’ve yet to visit a Laemmle Theater I haven’t liked. Ginormous posters adorn the walls of older art films and modern classics. They’re theaters that are rich with cinematic history. Sure, the seats might be a little stiff and the tangy scent of urinal cakes might hang in the air, but it still beats sitting at home, staring at the boob tube, watching some movie I wish I could’ve seen in the theater.
-Brad Lohan