Jul
18
“The Dark Knight” Review
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The following review is spoiler-free.
Before the movie even started last night, I was already thinking about my review. How would I make it different from all the other reactions to this, clearly the most talked-about movie of the year? Unless I wound up hating it, I began to fear that I’d just sound like every other overly effusive web-critic. I absolutely wanted my experience seeing the film to be different in some way.
Then, about 30 minutes into the movie, some joker at the ArcLight Hollywood pulled the fire alarm. The screen went dark. Lights began flashing. A klaxon whooped. I cupped my hands over my mouth in horror, like those women in 1950s science-fiction movies about giant insects or aliens with exposed brains. Yeah, I thought, my review’s going to be different — different in that I’ll be talking about just the first act.
Pissed-off Bat-fans began filing out of the auditorium, not to escape a firey death, but to scream at some poor usher who makes $7.50/hour. We were going to watch the remaining two hours of this movie even if the theater burned down around us. Word quickly filtered back into the auditorium that it had been a false alarm, and the movie would start back up again where we’d left off; I believe Morgan Freeman had been in the middle of saying something.
I wasn’t infuriated by what had happened. Some movie-goers take opportunities such as these to play the part of the unhappy customer. But I’ve been an usher during a crisis (once the audio was out-of-synch with the picture during a showing of “Entrapment” at my theater way back when), so I can empathize with all those schmucks in nametags and crappy uniforms, facing down an angry mob with torches, pitchforks and JuJu Bees.
It took about 15 minutes, but the movie started back up again. I guess I should quit hemming and hawing now and review the monster already. So, as the Joker says in the flick, “Here…we…go!”
The movie is set a year after the events of “Batman Begins.” The arrest of mobster Carmine Falcone in movie one has left a power vacuum in Gotham City. Crime bosses are at their wit’s end. A masked vigilante called The Batman (Bruce Wayne) is inspiring honest cops like Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the new D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to put the squeeze on organized criminals, hitting them where it hurts — in their wallets. But there’s this other character on the streets of Gotham — a purple-suited lunatic with crumbling ghost-white facepaint, dark rings around his eyes and a permanent grin carved into his face. He calls himself The Joker. And wait until you see his pencil trick.
Heath Ledger’s Joker warrants a paragraph of his own, I think. Constantly smacking his lips as though he can taste the menace he exudes, and rattling off a different origin story to each of his victims, Ledger reinvents the role completely. His bizarre speech cadence seems specifically designed to keep you off-kilter. The genius of his crimes, particularly the bank heist at the top of the film, suggests a method to his madness and that’s to drive others even madder. What I like most about this take on the Joker is that he’s not about to use some doomsday weapon, like that goofy microwave emitter in “Batman Begins,” on the city. No, the Joker’s carefully constructed plan to bring the city to its knees involves kidnappings, bombings and presenting the film’s heroes — Batman, Gordon and Dent — with some good, old-fashioned comic book moral dilemmas.
If I had one criticism of the film, it’s that “The Dark Knight” is a bit overwhelming. There’s just so much going on. You can’t process it all with a single viewing. It goes so many places superhero movies have avoided. This being the first sequel, of course the titular hero wants to quit, but that’s about the one and only genre convention the script hadn’t massaged out.
Director and co-writer Chrispher Nolan is more confident this time around. His “Batman Begins” feels like a smallish character study when stacked against this film. Here, he brings a larger degree of IMAX-friendly scope, but an even stronger attention to character than the first movie. This film is less about Batman than its predecessor, something I imagine will be a concern among some fans, but the attention is shifted to Harvey Dent. His thread in the film is the most shattering. When he’s ultimately disfigured and transformed into Two-Face, the horror of his predicament externalizes the destruction of the man within. Eckhart’s performance in the film has been undeservedly overlooked as everyone’s busy trying to will a posthumous Oscar nod into existence for Ledger. But Eckhart does some of the best work of his career in this film as well.
All that being said, is “The Dark Knight” worthy of the Oscar buzz? Well, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of awards shows, and a pile of Oscars won’t bring back Heath Ledger. We’re so much the poorer for his passing. This film is a testament to his talents as an actor. It honors him just as any golden statuette would.
“The Dark Knight” sets a new standard for the superhero genre, coming at the tail end of a summer loaded with game-changing movies about masked men. It’s satisfying, it’s unsettling, it’s a movie you’ll be talking about long after you leave the theater. To paraphrase the Joker (he’s got all the best lines), it’ll put a smile on that face.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
12
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” Review
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It’s difficult for me to write a review of a movie I really, really liked. I find it much easier to tear down a piece of flotsam than to write some valentine. I dunno. When I get overly praiseworthy, I feel that I sound too hyperbolic and even somewhat insincere. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll note my overall tone’s more than a little sarcastic. It’s hard to switch gears. At any rate, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is going to be a challenge for me to critique because it’s just a great time at the movies. What’s there to criticize?
I watched the first film again the other day. It’s something I’ve seen quite a few times. I like it, but it feels a bit restrained — as restrained as director Guillermo del Toro can get. The man can wring a lot of production value out of a limited budget. Still, Revolution Studios was not completely sold on the concept (”Does he have to be called ‘Hellboy?’”), nor character actor Ron Perlman in the titular role. So the movie’s a bit of a compromise, one that did break-even business at the domestic box office.
The film found a second life on DVD, and after del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” picked up some Academy Awards in ‘07, there was finally some talk about a Hellboy sequel; the first one had opened in the Spring of ‘04. Revolution ultimately put the property into turnaround, allowing Universal — a more monster movie-friendly studio — to pick up the rights. Del Toro was given a meatier budget and some creative freedom this time around. The end product is the best summer movie since last May’s “Iron Man.”
For all the movies that try to suck every ounce of fantasy out of the proceedings (Hello, Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman!), “Hellboy II” is unabashedly fantastic. People always talk about how they go to the movies to escape from the mundane, but their pickings are slim these days. Everything is so stripped down, so gritty, so “realistic,” it’s hardly worth the bother. Movies seem to have given up on trying to transport you to another world. I’m not sure if it’s because the filmmakers lack imagination or if it’s the audience; I guess it could be both.
“Hellboy II” is most certainly not lacking in imagination. This time, the red-skinned demon-from-hell/government spook is pitted against Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), an elf who’s had it up to here with the human race and wants to wage a bit of preemptive war against us with the invincible Golden Army. We humans, it seems, have been infringing upon the elven fantasy world for some time now — ever since a shaky truce was formed between our race and theirs long ago.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see the fantasy world win. Del Toro’s created such a brilliantly realized universe — so textured and alive is the Troll Market sequence — that it’s easy to be cynical about the boring old human race. Watching characters like Hellboy as well as his fellow BPRD agents Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) betray their very nature to save our skins means they must see some potential in us that I don’t…or they’re the biggest chumps in this or any plane of reality.
Speaking of the supporting cast, fish-man Abe Sapien and Johann Krauss — a cloud of ectoplasm housed in a diving suit — aren’t simply visual gags, but full-bodied characters, like Hellboy. One criticism I have of the first film is that Sapien sits out the final act. This time around, he’s given much more to do and even a love interest in Princess Nuala. Setting aside my dislike for “Family Guy,” I found Seth MacFarlane’s vocal work on Krauss to be a revelation. Del Toro’s design of Krauss’ helmet also allows for the character to emote, by twittering his little mandibles and exhaling clouds of ectoplasmic breath when he’s frustrated.
I knew that the characters in this movie were brilliantly realized when a major action sequence — Hellboy vs. the Elemental — takes place immediately after Hellboy’s punch-up with the iron-fisted Mr. Wink. I’d hoped for a bit of a break, a few minutes of interplay among these weirdos before the next big setpiece. But del Toro still packs in several excellent character moments throughout the film. He loves living in this universe, too.
At the screening I attended last night, del Toro introduced the movie and then gave a brief Q&A afterwards. He’s every bit as humble and gleefully profane in person as he is on DVD commentaries. The vibe that geeks like me get off him is that he’s one of us, albeit infinitely more talented. He simply wants to play in Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s sandbox and brings so much of his own magic to the material as well. He’s turned down a crack at the Harry Potter franchise, “I Am Legend” and other big studio projects to make both Hellboy movies. Good on him. In a summer jammed with one cynical franchise installment after another, it’s refreshing to see one hell of an entertaing movie by one hell of a filmmaker.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
11
Playing With Legos…on Your Nintendo
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I’m old enough to remember playing Atari. The graphics were blocky, like everything was built from Lego bricks. But there weren’t any Lego-themed games on Atari. No, when I was a kid, I played with Legos the old-fashioned way: I had my parents build a pirate ship or whatever, then I dismantled it and cried. Point is, Legos were something real. They were little, interlocking rectangular bricks you could hold in your hand, unlike the squarish characters in an Atari game that were just a jumble of pixels mashed together on your TV screen.
Technology has greatly improved since I was a kid. Video games now are uber-sophisticated. Ask any one of the 400-pound unwashed apes that are hardcore gamers and work as testers for one of the myriad software companies in my office park. Nintendo, Playstation and XBox have come a long way since Donkey Kong first lobbed barrels at some dwarfish plumber with a mustache.
In fact, video games have come so far, they’ve engulfed other activities for youngish shut-ins, such as playing with Legos. Why spend all that time waiting for you folks to finish putting together that Medieval castle when you can just buy a Lego-themed video game and have it already built and part of the backdrop of your sprawling Lego-verse? Actually, it goes deeper than that.
Toy licensing has also improved significantly since I was a kid. I came onto the scene right before regulations were relaxed on cartoons in the early-’80s, and suddenly, you could own action figures based on characters in your favorite animated series. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Whenever older folks lament that they didn’t have this or that as a child, it’s not because they think they were better off without it. No, they’re just jealous as all get out. I liked having legions of He-Man and Transformer and Ninja Turtle action figures. Toys certainly challenged my imagination more than swinging a baseball bat or tossing a football.
At any rate, Legos were extremely late to the party when it came to licensing characters from other media, be it cartoons or children’s films. I believe their first big licensing deal was with the “Star Wars” franchise — big surprise there — but that wasn’t even until the late-’90s. They’ve since branched out to the Harry Potter, Batman and Indiana Jones franchises. Even more recently, they’ve licensed themselves out to all the video game platforms. So not only can you play a Lego video game, but you can play a Lego video game about Batman or Indiana Jones or Star Wars.
This is very weird to me. I’ll admit that I’ve been tempted to pick up the”Lego: Indiana Jones” game — everything’s just so gosh-darn cute about it — but isn’t the experience of playing a game about Legos sort of less rewarding than actually playing with Legos? No, you can’t play professional sports or steal cars or shoot zombies in real life. I understand why there are games for that. But you can play with Legos. Of course, the worlds are more elaborate in a Lego video game than in reality, but that’s sort of where your imagination kicks in. Hell, I’m old school enough to remember the rather spare environments that served as backdrops in Atari games; yes, kids, there was a time when you had to use your imagination to play a video game.
If this trend continues — and why wouldn’t it? — I hope they start putting out more mature Lego-themed titles. I want “Lego: Resident Evil” or “Lego: God of War.” I want to see what blood and gore look like in Legoland. “Lego: Mortal Kombat” would be something else.
Video games started out looking like a stack of Lego bricks. Now the technology has come full-circle. Today’s Lego-themed games are just hyper-detailed squares and rectangles. But for all the graphical advancements, the magic of playing with Legos — literally, not on some machine — has been lost.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
11
I Don’t Know About You, But I’m Sort of Over Star Wars Parodies
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A long time ago, in an industry far, far away…filmmakers made films that had absolutely zero to do with “Star Wars.” I know, right. It’s kinda hard to believe. But yes, there was a time before I was born that young filmmakers weren’t inspired by George Lucas’s saga to crank out movies about George Lucas’s saga.
I’m embarrased to say that even I made a short film that’s a send-up of “Star Wars.” It’s about “Star Wars” characters entering the world of online dating. I also had the ingenious idea to cast my then-girlfriend in it, and post-breakup, it’s been banished to the bottom of a drawer, never again to be seen by man. Still, I made the thing in 2005, prior to the release of “Revenge of the Sith.” At least it was somewhat relevant. Now it’s been three years since the prequel trilogy finishing slapping fans in the face. I simply refuse to believe that this “Clone Wars” video game cutscreen montage that’s due in August is actually a movie.
The series is dead. Let’s move on with our lives now, shall we? No…? You’re saying we need to keep parodying “Star Wars?” Why’s that exactly? “Spaceballs” wasn’t enough, you say?
There have been two(!) DTV “Star Wars” parodies within the past year: “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” and “Family Guy: Blue Harvest.” Now I find neither Seth Green nor Seth MacFarlane, creators of “Robot Chicken” and “Family Guy” respectively, to be terribly funny human beings. Their parodying a movie that’s over 30 years old just goes to show how cutting edge their comedy is, and why their dumb little shows will never sully my Netflix queue.
But there’s actually something more offensive to my sensibilities than dopey, little-seen “Star Wars” parodies. Someone made a movie — a feature-length movie — about people going to steal a print of “The Phantom Menace” before its release in ‘99. Yes, “Fanboys” is a movie about people who want to watch a movie, a movie that’s not very good. That’s not meta, that’s motarded. The film has been in the can for a couple of years now. It’s almost amazing that a movie can be deemed “unreleasable” by today’s standards, but that’ll soon no longer be the case with “Fanboys.” According to Ain’t It Cool News, the film is finally going to be distributed by the Weinstein Company.
What’s most disturbing about this news is that there’s an audience for this poodoo. People actually campaigned for the damn movie to see the light of day. Can’t we just let “Star Wars” go? Is there anything about the films that’s still unsaid? If you think so, if you’ve still got to poke fun at them, well, you’d best watch yourself…’cause I’m going to make fun of you!
-Brad Lohan
Jul
10
The Incredible Superman?
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Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” was not the movie that fans had been waiting 19 years for. After Cannon Films — the studio that brought you the bulk of Chuck Norris’ oeuvre — released “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” in 1987 and encheapened the franchise, the Man of Steel was banished to the Hollywood equivalent of the Phantom Zone, a little place I call Development Hell.
In 1993, Supes got a bit of a shot in the arm in other media when he was killed off in the comics, and that same year, played by a miscast Dean Cain on the television series “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” Around this time, mega-producer Jon Peters, coming off the success of the first two “Batman” films, decided it was time to cash in on another popular comic book character he didn’t — or refused to — understand. So he spent the better part of the ’90s, and a lot of Warner Bros.’s money, trying to bring a darker, flightless Superman to the screen. Writer-director Kevin Smith has spoken at length on the college circuit about his experiences working with troublesome Peters. Jake Rossen also recently wrote a book, “Superman vs. Hollywood,” with a robust section devoted to Peters and his odd choices for director and lead actor, those being Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage, respectively.
The long-in-development film remained grounded for the remainder of the decade. Tim Burton finally departed from the project to derail another dormant franchise (”Planet of the Apes”), and Nicolas Cage ultimately brought his bag of quirks to a different comic book character, the jelly bean-popping Ghost Rider. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. continued throwing good money after bad, courting craptacular directors like Brett Ratner and McG, until “X-Men” director and “Usual Suspects” wunderkind Bryan Singer offered up his pitch to the studio. It sounded like such a good idea at the time. Of course, at the time, the current script being developed was J.J. Abrams’ draft — the one that pitted a kung-fu fighting Superman against Kryptonian CIA agent Lex Luthor.
Singer, however, wanted the franchise to go back to basics and pick up where “Superman II” had left off; movies three and four would be apocryphal. This sort of made sense at the time. The first two Superman films are almost universally adored by fans. Even the silliness at the climax of the second film, when Supes shows off an ass-load of new powers we’ve never seen before (my favorite is his ability to create an “S”-shield cellophane net), doesn’t remain anywhere near as controversial as the final reels of “Batman Begins.” And who wouldn’t want to hear John Williams’ fantabulous score again as the opening credits hurl themselves at viewers against the backdrop of outer space?
Still, “Superman Returns” didn’t do it for me when it was released in ‘06, nor was it the hit Warner Bros. had been anticipating. It broke even at the box office, making back its official production budget, but it’s a fairly open secret in Hollywood that the movie cost significantly more. As a sequel, it’s wildly inconsistent with the continuity of the first two films; Superman didn’t sleep with Lois until after he’d lost his powers in part 2, but he nevertheless managed to sire a moppet with superhuman strength. And as a standalone film, it’s too complicated to kick off a new franchise. Singer tried to split the difference between making a sequel and a reboot but he was working at cross-purposes. The end result is a watchable movie. But I wouldn’t want to watch another one made just like it.
Two years have passed since “Superman Returns” dropped, and there’s been little to no movement on a sequel, at least in Singer’s camp. He’s talked about doing a second film but is currently weathering the bad buzz surrounding the very, very doomed Tom Cruise-as-a-Nazi-good-guy movie, “Valkyrie.” His relationship with Warner Bros. has obviously cooled, and they’ve decided to start seeing other people, people like “Incredible Hulk” director, Louis Leterrier. Ain’t It Cool is reporting that a cagey Leterrier may have been approached by the studio to direct a Superman follow-up.
What’s interesting about Leterrier as a potential director is that he’s just come off a sequel that more or less retcons the previous installment. Is that the approach Warner Bros. is looking for? I definitely wouldn’t mind if they jettisoned Superman’s illegitimate son, recast Lois Lane with an actress who isn’t a shrinking violet and threw in a villain or two that could knock Supes for a loop. Trouble is, Leterrier’s take on the Hulk doesn’t have much going for it beyond not being as heady and dull as Ang Lee’s version. Simply removing the pain points from Bryan Singer’s overly complicated take on Superman won’t automatically make the finished product better. They’re going to have to try a little harder to make Superman smash.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
9
Comic Book Movies vs. Superhero Movies
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What’s the difference between a comic book movie and a superhero movie? Well, last week’s “Hancock” is a superhero movie that wasn’t adapted from a comic book. “Art School Confidential,” “A History of Violence,” “American Splendor,” “Road to Perdition” and “Ghost World” all started out as comic books before they became films, but there’s nary a superhero to be found in any of them. So what does that make this Friday’s Hellboy sequel and next week’s Batman magnum opus? They’re both about superheroes who appear in monthly comics. They straddle the line, right? “Hellboy II” and “The Dark Knight” can be described as “comic book movies” and/or “superhero movies,” no?
Well, sort of. Think of “comic book movie” as a catch-all term. Most people believe that comic books are a purely superhero-driven medium, “Sin City,” “300″ and “30 Days of Night” notwithstanding. Those folks are either too young or too uninitiated to know that superhero books nearly went into extinction after WWII when cowboy, war and horror comics ruled the racks. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman managed to survive the lean years of the ’50s and the machinations of the hateful Dr. Frederic Wertham. Then the introduction of the Comics Code Authority, a means of self-regulation within the industry, killed the horror comics. Meanwhile, the dawn of the Golden Age of television brought the Old West and the WWII battlefield to black-and-white picture tubes across America, demolishing young collectors’ interest in western and war comics. So who was left standing? Superheroes. And they’ve dominated the medium ever since. As such, it’s easy for some to conflate the term “comic book movie” with “superhero movie.”
But don’t let some sanctimonious fanboy hear you call “The Dark Knight” a comic book movie. Holy cats! He’ll just go off on you, and you’ll never get rid of the smell he’ll leave on your clothes. Yes, “TDK” is technically a comic book movie, but it falls squarely into a sub-genre, the superhero movie, not unlike this summer’s “The Incredible Hulk” and “Iron Man.” Now “Wanted” on the other hand does not fall into that same sub-genre, despite being based on a comic book. It goes into another category, “the non-superhero comic book movie.” Confusingly, the comic book is about supervillains, but the movie isn’t.
I’m not of the opinion that everything needs to be labeled as one thing or another. All this categorization and sub-categorization simply takes away from the fact that the comic book and superhero genres have come into their own in the past decade. Funnybooks are a viable well that Hollywood keeps going back to, and fortunately, there’s enough variety beyond just the capes and cowls to get non-readers excited about the next adaptation, whether or not they know precisely what to call it.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
7
Not Coming in 2011: “The Boy Wonder”
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In the mid-’90s, then-unknown actor Christian Bale auditioned for the role of Robin in “Batman Forever.” He lost out to Chris O’Donnell, a casting decision that’s clearly left him embittered to this very day. Bale’s since gone on to play Batman twice now — once ten years after the release of “Forever” and again in this month’s “The Dark Knight.” With two Bat-films under his utility belt, Bale has stated in recent interviews that he’ll be damned before playing opposite some 12-year-old kid in a green sequined codpiece and wing-tipped boots. Bale’s logged as much time in the Bat-suit as Michael Keaton, another actor who departed from the role before the introduction of Robin in earlier film franchise. It begs the question, What’s so wrong with Robin?
Robin’s been part of the Batman mythos since 1940 with the publication of “Batman” #1, the same issue that introduced the Joker and Catwoman (nee “The Cat); Batty himself had made his debut the previous year in issue #27 of “Detective Comics.” In the late-’60s, Burt Ward played the character opposite Adam West’s Batman on the wrongly vilified TV series. Robin was also on the animated series in the ’90s, the two aforementioned Joel Schumacher Bat-films and currently stars in his own self-titled comic book that’s been running for 15 years now.
Robin’s so prolific a character, more than one precocious kid has donned the Errol Flynn-inspired costume. Three young men (Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake) and even two young women (Carrie Kelley in “The Dark Knight Returns” and Stephanie Brown) have been the Boy/Girl Wonder at one point or another in comics’ continuity. Dick Grayson remains the character who’s most identified as Batman’s sidekick. Though he’s gone on to adopt the mantle of Nightwing in the comics, it’s always Dick Grayson behind the domino mask in the various television shows and films. The ill-fated Jason Todd adopted the Robin persona in the comics for a brief stint in the ’80s before his overwhelming unpopularity led to his death — literally — at the hands of the fanbase; readers were given the choice of determining Robin’s fate by calling a 900-number to vote whether the Boy Wonder lived or died. It wasn’t long before Tim Drake became the third Robin, outfitted in a more ’90s-style Neil Adams-designed suit, for a more sophisticated readership.
I’m sort of over the “darker is better” mentality that’s run funnybooks into the ground for the past 20-odd years. That goes for comic book films, too. Grim and gritty does not guarantee quality. Many people point to “Spider-Man 3″ as the worst film in the series to date. I think it’s a great, subversive send-up of the comic book genre during the post-”Watchmen” era, when everyone was trying to be all black-clad and moody. Peter Parker obviously couldn’t pull that off, but that’s the whole point.
Batman’s obviously an easier character to darken up than Spidey. But hasn’t that been done to death? Absolutely I’m looking forward to “The Dark Knight.” But I’m also convinced that Bats should be none more black. He needs to lighten up a bit. I think the inclusion of Robin in an upcoming Bat-film isn’t just obligatory, but essential. Batman’s going to lose his sanity going it alone for another sequel or two. He needs that bizarre father-son dynamic he shares with the Boy Wonder to ground him. Robin hasn’t endured all these years because he’s just a sales gimmick. He’s an important part of the Batman mythology, whether Christian Bale wants to admit it or not. I mean, he must’ve thought so when he read for the role in ‘94.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
2
The Echh-Files
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David Duchovny wants to believe. He wants to believe that there’s still an “X-Files” audience out there, one that has forgiven — or forgotten — that the series went out with a whimper in 2002. In fact, he’s been trying to will a second “X-Files” movie into existence for years and years; the first film dropped in ‘98. Let’s not forget this is the same guy who had his presence on the show peeled back significantly in the later seasons.
I’ve never been a ginormous fan of “The X-Files.” The show seems like something that’d be up my alley — I’m quite a fan of aliens and chupacabras and redheads, after all — but I never got into it. Now, “M.A.N.T.I.S.” — there’s a Fox Network show I watched religiously. At any rate, I’ve probably seen a half-dozen episodes of the series. I caught the first movie in theaters and liked it okay.
That said, the upcoming sequel “X-Files: I Want to Believe” looks like ass. I saw a thoroughly underwhelming trailer for it before the moderately underwhelming “Incredible Hulk” a couple weeks ago. I’ve read that it’s a self-contained film, one that doesn’t rely on gobs of backstory from the series to drive the plot. It’s a wise approach. Even hardcore fans (”X”-philes?) probably don’t remember all the esoteric story points from a show that’s been off the air for more than a half-decade. But I’m not convinced the film has enough going for it — at least from what I saw in the snow-capped trailer — to lure in folks like me.
For one thing, where the hell are the aliens? I know that the show was about more than just UFO conspiracies. But, non-fans need more of a hook than Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet and Xzibit (man alive, I hate rappers with grotesquely misspelled names) as special guest stars. Early rumors about the plot suggested that it involved werewolves, not my favorite supernatural beasties, but maybe their alien werewolves. The trailer, however, does nothing to confirm this. Either the filmmakers are embarrassed by their creepy crawlies, or they’re more confident than I am in Xzibit’s box office appeal.
Call me a non-believer, but I’m unconvinced that the new “X-Files” movie is going to have a monster opening. It’s coming out in the long shadow of “The Dark Knight,” a film I predict will have an unusually strong second weekend, and opposite Will Ferrell’s “Step Brothers.” I think the only person who’s genuinely excited about the movie is David Duchovny, believe it or not.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
1
Momma, My Eyes!
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They made a movie about a friggin’ ABBA song?! Is this the very best Hollywood can do? And what the stink is James Bond doing in this mess?
Evidently, this film is based on a stage musical of the same name. When writing a musical now, you don’t even need to write original music, rather a bunch of loosely-connected scenes you can shoehorn insipid ABBA songs into. Then, some producer will come along and make your uninspired monstrosity of a stage show into an equally uninspired monstrosity of a movie.
This horrorshow is opening the same day as “The Dark Knight” in a sneaky little bit of counter-programming on the part of Universal Pictures. Now you might say that the new Batman movie is just another cynical product of franchising, not unlike “Mamma Mia.” I would have to disagree. Early reviews I’m reading of “The Dark Knight” are calling it a “masterpiece” that elevates the comic book genre in the same way that “Godfather II” elevated gangster pictures and “Empire Strikes Back” elevated sci-fi. In short, it takes the source material to another level. I’m not seeing any indication that “Mamma Mia” is such a game-changer.
Some people might say that I’m being unfair, that “Mamma Mia” is just harmless entertainment. Those people are weenises. “Mamma Mia” is piffle and doesn’t even want to be original. It’s an adaptation of an adaptation. It’s not nearly as ill-conceived as that useless “Producers” movie that came out a couple years ago — a film that’s based on a stage musical that’s based on another film. But that still doesn’t justify its existence.
Studios are run by yellow-bellied bean counters, too timid to greenlight anything new or different. They like brand names, things that are familiar to the mainstream audience. Even non-adaptations stink of sameness, like tomorrow’s “Hancock.” What’s key to successfully cashing in on a brand name and maintaining some modicum of artistic integrity is bringing something fresh to the proceedings, an original approach. Now if Pierce Brosnan were blowing away criminal masterminds with a Walther PPK, bedding that bug-eyed blonde girl on all the “Mamma Mia” posters, and singing “Dancing Queen,” that’d be something different. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of that business in the trailers. So I’m absolutely not going to take a chance on “Mia.”
-Brad Lohan
Jun
27
“We are Tonight’s Entertainment!”
Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Movies | 2 Comments
I’ve fallen a little behind on my blogging this week, mostly because there’s not a whole hell of a lot going on the world of entertainment worth talking about.
There’s the pre-release confusion fanboys seem to be having about this weekend’s “Wall-E,” a film with a pro-environmental message that’s completely unintentional — at least, according to the film’s oblivious director, Andrew Stanton; it’s hard to get behind a movie that the filmmaker doesn’t seem to understand himself. But I’m not going to see “Wall-E,” so I couldn’t care less about uncertain fanboys who give Pixar too much credit anyway.
“Wanted” is also dropping today. The reviews seem to be generally more kind than I’d anticipated. But this film’s jettisoned its core in favor of something more commercial. And frankly, I’m sort of over Angelina Jolie. I’d rather she take a long break from acting and instead pursue her endless campaign of adopting children from third world countries while continuously hatching a couple of her own every year or so. Seeing her play another stone-faced and excessively tattooed action goddess is not on my priorities list. She’s simply horrible in these kinds of roles, like a female Dwayne Johnson. Invincible movie action heroes haven’t been popular since parachute pants.
The only movie I got a ticket for this weekend is a movie that won’t be out for another three weeks — “The Dark Knight.” You may be somewhat familiar with this movie already. I’m not going to suggest that if you are unaware of the film, you’ve been living in a cave because that’s one of my all time least favorite cliches bandied about by sanctimonious entertainment writers. What’s more, with our current foreclosure crisis, living in caves might actually become more commonplace, and as a result, people are going to miss out on some industry buzz. But I digress.
For over a month, I’ve been on the ArcLight Cinemas website like ugly on an ape. I knew that advance tickets for “The Dark Knight” would become available sooner or later. It was just a question of when. Advance tickets became available last week at the Century Theaters, the best place to go in Los Angeles if you like annoying audiences. The midnight screening in IMAX at CityWalk is already sold out. So what took the ArcLight so long to start selling tickets? That I don’t know. But this morning, they were, they finally were.
The Dome was almost completely sold out for the 12:01 a.m. show. I like the Dome. It has a concave screen, so when you sit in the front row, it fills your peripheral vision. But the ArcLight, like at a ball game or rock concert, has reserved seating, and all the good seats were already taken. Reserved seating is the number one reason why I go to the ArcLight for mega-movie openings. I’m sick of waiting in line for an hour outside a theater to get a mediocre seat in the auditorium before being asked to move over to a slightly more mediocre seat so a couple can sit together — aww. I like knowing exactly where I’m going to sit when I get my ticket. And I know I’m going to have a reserved seat — front row, center — for the 12:15 a.m. screening in one of the ArcLight’s “black box” auditoriums; I imagine that if a plane crashes into the ArcLight and you’re in one of their black box auditoriums, you will survive.
So while most people are buying tickets for the two crummy movies opening this weekend, I’m looking ahead — three interminable weeks ahead — to watch the most anticipated movie of the summer…about a guy who lives in a cave.
-Brad Lohan