Category Archives: Movies

Movies

That's Nice

2 Comments

I sent a DVD to Netflix this weekend and the next shipment was delayed by Monday’s much-publicized outage. Today, I got an e-mail apologizing and offering a 5% rebate on my monthly fee (i.e., for the day that they were down). It’s like a buck, but it placates me.

It’s amazing how much customer goodwill can be generated with such a little bit of effort. I will never understand companies that think infuriating the customer is good business.

Movies

Hatin’ on Film

Queenan via Massie via Drezer via McCardle has this to say on bad movies.

To qualify as one of the worst films of all time, several strict requirements must be met. For starters, a truly awful movie must have started out with some expectation of not being awful. That is why making a horrific, cheapo motion picture that stars Hilton or Jessica Simpson is not really much of an accomplishment. Did anyone seriously expect a film called The Hottie and The Nottie not to suck? Two, an authentically bad movie has to be famous; it can’t simply be an obscure student film about a boy who eats live rodents to impress dead girls. Three, the film cannot be a deliberate attempt to make the worst movie ever, as this is cheating. Four, the film must feature real movie stars, not jocks, bozos, has-beens or fleetingly famous media fabrications like Hilton. Five, the film must generate a negative buzz long before it reaches cinemas; like the Black Plague or the Mongol invasions, it must be an impending disaster of which there has been abundant advance warning; it cannot simply appear out of nowhere. And it must, upon release, answer the question: could it possibly be as bad as everyone says it is? This is what separates Waterworld, a financial disaster but not an uncompromisingly dreadful film, and Ishtar, which has one or two amusing moments, from The Postman, Gigli and Heaven’s Gate, all of which are bona fide nightmares.

Six, to qualify as one of the worst movies ever made, a motion picture must induce a sense of dread in those who have seen it, a fear that they may one day be forced to watch the film again – and again – and again. To pass muster as one of the all-time celluloid disasters, a film must be so bad that when a person is asked, “Which will it be? Waterboarding, invasive cattle prods or Jersey Girl?”, the answer needs no further reflection. This phenomenon resembles Stockholm Syndrome, where a victim ends up befriending his tormentors, so long as they promise not to make him watch any more Kevin Smith movies. The condition is sometimes referred to as Blunted Affleck.

I actually like Kevin Smith movies, but I see his point.

I would add point 7 — a movie must have its defenders. Nothing can make you hate a movie more than someone insisting that some piece of shit is actually a good flick. That’s why the movie I hate most is Jerry Maguire. It meets all seven requirements.

  • I had no expectation that this movie would be awful. It was an oscar nominee and made many critics’ top ten lists.
  • Definitely famous.
  • It thinks it’s a good movie.
  • Not only does it have one of biggest stars in America, it had the misfortune to make two more. The movie’s defenders point to Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Renee Zellwegger as reasons the movie is good. But: (a) Jerry Maguire turned Gooding, a talented actor, into a perpetual joke with the most over-rated performance in movie history; (b) I tired of Zellwegger’s “acting”, which consists of a pout, by about reel three of Maguire. She was great in Bridget Jones, but I have yet to think she was good in anything else.
  • The movie fails on the negative buzz scale, unfortunately. But this requirement doesn’t carry much with me. As one of McCardle’s comments says, a bad movie should be more like a kick in the balls — sudden and unexpected. But eve failing the buzz test, it more makes up for it with-
  • Having its defenders. Maguire rates a 7.2 at IMDB. It was nominated for five oscars, including Best Picture and made a large number of top ten lists. And any time I mention it, people look at me goggle-eyed, as if they can’t believe that someone would hate such a wonderful movie. And their arguments only make me hate the movie more. A primary one is, “It’s got everything! It’s got sports for the guys and romance for the girls!” As if all guys need to watch a romantic movie is sports and all women need to watch a sports movie is kissy-faces.

    • So why do I hate the movie? First, there’s the acting, from Cruise’s somnambulant attempts at enunciation to Gooding’s scenery chewing. There’s the clumsy directing. There’s the soundtrack.

    But mostly it’s the horrid script. Rarely do you see a script that is: (a) completely ignorant of its subject matter — most sports agents have lots of clients because very few of them will make money; (b) riddled with cliched dialogue stolen from other better movies; (c) lacking in any kind of subtlety — no message in the movie can be conveyed without being spoken in short sentences by a character; (d) responsible for the most over-rated and over-used movie quotes in history — which I will not repeat here for the sake of decency.

    It’s Jerry Maguire that makes me sympathize with people who hate Lord of the Rings, a movie I obviously love. No film is worse than the one everyone else loves. And the more they try to argue with you and persuade you that “no really, it’s a great movie! How can you not like it! Don’t you love this line!”, the more you hate it.

    Movies, Religion

    Easter Movies

    It tells you a bit about how I think about religion that on Easter I watched both Life of Brian and Ben-Hur. I’m both awed and amused by faith.

    While I’m on the subject, atheist guru Richard Dawkins was in Austin last week. I didn’t seem him speak — partly because the line was around the block an hour before hand.

    Movies

    3:10

    Just watched the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, which is a very good western. One thing that’s nice is the ending. A lesser movie would have been more talky, with the characters either stating their motives openly or some hillbilly in a hat saying to the “what happened?” kid, “Well, son, I reckon he just thought…”

    The movie is well-written and well-acted enough that it can have a dramatic and unexpected ending without any explanations necessary.

    I hope one day to be able to write scenes that subtle.

    Movies

    Quantum of Solace

    1 Comment

    Yes, that’s the official name of the next Bond flick. I like it. It’s the one Ian Fleming title I figured would never be used since, in my crude estimate, 83.6% of the movie-going public has no idea what a “quantum” or a “solace” are. I only know because a) I have a degree in physics and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell my quantum mechanics books were talking about; and b) one of my favorite pianos pieces to play back in the day was Solace by Scott Joplin.

    Yeah, you didn’t see that coming, did you? I used to enjoy playing ragtime music.

    2008 may not be the biggest year in Hollywood history — in fact, many are predicting financial disaster. But with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Prince Caspian, X-files 2, Get Smart, The Dark Knight and Quantum of Solace due to hit the screens between now and next Christmas, I’m expecting to enjoy the year. Some of those titles will stink but some will be great.

    I still predict the Star Trek movie will be an epic catastrophe.

    Movies

    Attack of the Phantom Sith

    4 Comments

    I’ve been rewatching the Star Wars prequel trilogy while working this week. That I own them on DVD tells you I have a better opinion of them than most people my age. I do think the hatred of the movies is, in some sense, a Gen-X thing. They failed to live up to expectations. I’ve noticed older viewers and younger ones tend to think they’re almost as good as the original trilogy.

    I think the thing that frustrates most people — and frustrates me on occasion — is that you occasionally glimpse the great movies buried within just good movies. The prequels were not very far away from being outstanding. The direction — at least the visual direction — is great. The F/X are spectacular and, more importantly, imaginative. John Williams music is up to par. If the movies had just done a few things differently, they might have been great. Specifically:

  • Simplify the narrative. Complex political strife does not work well in the Star Wars universe. Having the droid army simply be the Sith enemy would have made things simpler. Only at the end would it have been revealed that Palpatine was playing both sides.
  • Keep Darth Sidious in the shadows until the last. Darth Maul would have been a better villain if he, and not Sidious, had appeared to be the main villian in Movie 1. And just think how devastating it would have been if Annakin had discovered the truth at the end of Movie 3. The omniscient audience is not always a good thing.
  • Recast and rework Annakin. Having him as a kid in movie 1 was a mistake. Having both Annakin and Padme as teenagers would have started romantic tension right from the first second. By movie 2, they could have been in love but unwilling to act. Having them “fall in love”, if you can call it that, was a big problem. Think about the romantic tension in Empire. It’s clear that almost all of the romantic stuff happened off screen. So it works.

    Accelerating Annakin’s descent into villainy would have done well too. Cast as a teenager in movie 1, he could have shown the ruthlessness and impatience that makes him fall. Movie 2 could have seen him growing more disgusted with Jedi restraint and more convinced that only a firm hand can destroy the Sith, culminating in hims executing a defenseless Dooku on Palpatine’s orders. By movie 3, he would be spinning out of control, unable to harness his own power, paranoid to the point where when Palpatine says, “kill the Jedi”, he does so without thinking.

    Casting someone other than Hayden would have been a good idea as well, although I’m not convinced that was a Hayden-sucks-as-an-actor problem and not a Lucas-can’t-direct-actors problem. His spell as the evil Annakin at the end of Movie 3 was quite good.

    What’s amazing, watching the movies, is how well parts of it work. Obi Wan works. The fights work. Yoda works. What drags things to a screaming halt is the forced arc of Annakin.

  • The problem with Jar-Jar and the Gungans was that they were comic relief. Any movie that has a comic relief character has problems. Humor should flow naturally out of all the characters. It works better. It lightens them up and makes them human. In fact, the biggest problem with the movies, I think, is the lack of humor in certain characters. Moving Jar-Jar from comic relief to “Chewbacca substitute” would have vastly improved Movie 1.

    • Notice I haven’t suggested any radical changes. Just tweaks. Simplify, accelerate, amplify. Star Wars does well with clean story telling. It’s a pity Lucas forgot that. Because instead of three good movies we could have had three great movies.

    Movies

    JoePo Part Toe

    Read this hilarious, meandering, all-encompasing comparison from Joe Posnanski of Steve Guttenberg to Tom Hanks.

    One quibble. I think Steve Guttenberg’s career fell off the table because of the declining influence of the stone-cutters.

    Update: If I were a full time writer — a distinct possibility come June — I’d probably write a lot like Joe does. Meandering and crashing into all kinds of (hopefully) interesting asides. The name of the blog comes from the way I think — non-linear.

    Movies

    Bucket of Excrement

    Apparently, The Bucket List is a dreadful movie. Joe Posnanski talks about the collapse of Rob Reiner’s career here.

    I got a break in the blogosphere by attacking Roger Ebert’s review of Sicko, but I attacked it because I like him as a critic, especially when he says things like this.

    ‘ve never had chemo, as Edward and Carter must endure, but I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya. Your list is more likely to be topped by keeping down a full meal, having a triumphant bowel movement, keeping your energy up in the afternoon, letting your loved ones know you love them, and convincing the doc your reports of pain are real and not merely disguising your desire to become a drug addict. To be sure, the movie includes plenty of details about discomfort in the toilet, but they’re put on hold once the trots are replaced by the globe-trotting.

    I hate the cliche of movie cancer.

    Movies

    A Final Review of 2006

    Well, I’ve finally rounded out my 2006 movie viewing. Since it is the first day of the second half of 2007, I can now officially review 2006. Ah, home theater.

    I list my ratings at IMDB, which are out of ten points. I’m marked a few as provisional as I almost never give 9’s or 10’s on an initial viewing. I need time to grok a great movie. Anything marked with an asterix may be up-rated in the future.

    Here are the critics’ top choices, along with my commentary. Metacritic’s best-rated movies includes obscure films and rel-releases, so I’m going with their list of movies receiving the most #1 rankings and awards, which is closer to the apparently defunct criticstop10.net.

  • United 93. I wrote about this earlier. Absolutely devastating without ever feeling exploitive. The scene of the passengers calling their loved ones is one of the most heart-rending I’ve ever seen. This would also be my choice for the best movie of the year. My IMDB rating: 9*.
  • The Departed. Over-rated, like most Scorcese movies. It was good, but it wasn’t a classic. It was also amazingly violent and depressing, with the only significant female character being a possession. My IMDB rating: 8
  • Pan’s Labyrinth. I blogged on this before. It’s definitely not for kids — the movie is frightening and violent. But it is also beautiful, tragic, uplifting and touching — and the most imaginative film of the year. It’s closing image can bring tears. My IMDB rating: 8*. I might raise it to 9 once I buy and watch the DVD again.
  • Letters from Iwo Jima. Very good, but also over-rated, mostly from the novelty of being an American-made move sympathetic to the Japanese. My IMDB rating: 8
  • Children of Men. Another great film that was downbeat but with a lining of hope. The scene in which they carry the baby past the warring soldiers was incredible. As usual, Cuaron’s camarework is unmatched. My IMDB rating: 8*
    • Babel. Good, if a bit over-rated. I’m losing interest in hyperlink movies these days. My IMDB rating: 7*
  • The Queen. The movie is OK. What makes the film is Hellen Mirren’s outstanding performance. Critics have a tendency to over-rate movies because of great acting performances. My IMDB rating: 7.
  • Flag of Our Fathers. What the hell is this doing here? Is it because of Iraq? I found this film unfocused with no clear indication of what really happened at the Battle of Iwo Jima. It bounces around in perspective so much it makes no lasting impression. My IMDB rating: 7
  • Borat. I’ve blogged on this, too. It’s funny but not ha-ha funny. Probably the most over-rated movie of the year. IMDB rating: 6.

    • Looking at IMDB and restricting the list to movies with more than 25k votes, we see the top ten with viewers were The Departed, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Prestige, Children of Men, Little Miss Sunshine, Casino Royale, Blood Diamond, Apocalypto, Stranger than Fiction, United 93. I enjoyed little Little Miss Sunshine, have not seen Blood Diamond, Apocalypto or Stranger than Fiction. I’m not terribly interested in latest ultra-violence from the modern Sam Peckinpah, but I will see the other two.

    Expanding the list to films with 10k or more votes brings in The Lives of Others, An Inconvenient Truth, Little Children and The last King of Scotland. I have not seen any of these, but will see three of them shortly.

    The surprises on the viewers’ list are The Prestige, a movie that got strangely little love from the critics, possibly because it overlapped The Illiusionist, and Casino Royale, which the critics liked as well. But you can’t put a Bond film on your top ten list and still get ballots from the AFI. I enjoyed both films.

    As for the other films from the critics list, Borat was ranked 13th and Babel 15th. Cue critic scrailing about the uneducated provincial public.

    All in all, 2006 was better than 2005. This wasn’t terribly hard since 2005 was one of the worst years in modern movie history. Of the top movies of 2005, I have one on DVD and even that one (King Kong) I wasn’t too sure about. With 2006’s movies, I’ll get at least two and probably four on DVD.