Igor (2008)

Read this review @ Helium.com

Script: 5
Cinematography: 7
Acting: 7
Special Effects: 9

Rating: 7/10

In my ongoing effort to fill my head with a variety of material that I will hopefully find useful for my own writing projects, I watched Anthony Leondis’s Igor.

I arrived at the decision to watch it in a very roundabout sort of way. I’d heard very little about the movie – vaguely recalled some of the trailers – and actually found myself expecting a musical when I sat down to watch. That could have a lot to do with my only previous animated hunchback experience being a certain Disney treatment of a Victor Hugo novel. I watched Igor on a whim. Mostly because the other stuff I had on the “to be watched” shelf bored me. I follow my mood when I select my entertainment, as I’m sure many do.

What I wasn’t prepared for from such a littled-hyped movie, was the quality. It was good. Very good. I was surprised. I shouldn’t have been surprised – or rather, I wouldn’t have been surprised – if I’d taken the time to look at the cast before watching. Many voices were instantly recognizable, from Steve Buscemi to John Cleese to Stifler’s Mom (Jennifer Coolidge). They even threw Jay Leno in there for good measure. A great bunch of dinstictive voices. And most of them decent actors.

From scene one, the visual tone was set. I found myself thinking that this would be what might happen if Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss built a world together (that’s the dark Seuss, not the light-hearted Seuss of Horton Hears a Who). I happen to adore animation that mixes very shiny, illustrative characters with soft, painterly sets and backgrounds. I like that kind of contrast – when it works. In this case, it works.

Igor is Leondis’s directorial debut, for all intents and purposes. He directed the Lilo & Stitch sequel, but since that went straight to DVD it doesn’t count as a fully public “outing” as a director. I hope he does more. And I hope he follows in this same path. He won’t ever be a Tim Burton, but it’s possible he’ll be on the shelf you go to when you feel like something Burtony but just can’t watch Corpse Bride three times in a week.

The script, penned by Chris McKenna (who until Igor, has only worked as a writer on American Dad), was OK. Never was I jumping from my seat in praise for the writing, as I sometimes do. On the other hand, only once did McKenna make me notice that the script had been written. There was one awkward bit, near the end, that just didn’t seem to flow properly, and really made an unfounded leap in plot logic. Luckily, it didn’t ruin the whole movie – it just reminded me that I was watching a movie that was created by someone. I don’t like when that happens.

All in all, it’s a funny adventure, which is somewhat predictable in a safe-feeling sort of way. You might say that Igor stole my heart, then stuck it in a jar to use later.

Did the Joker Kill Heath Legder?

This taken from the IMDB entry for The Dark Knight:

The Joker’s character is based on his first two appearances in the comic books, as well as his portrayal in the graphic novel “The Killing Joke.” To prepare for the role, Heath Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month researching the character and developing his performance, which he claims is based upon Sid Vicious and the character of Alex in A Clockwork Orange (1971). Ledger found the role extremely difficult, and suffered insomnia as a result. [emphasis added]

Apparently, the autopsy was inconclusive. I wonder if there will be a more thorough investigation.

One of the Worst Jokes I’ve Ever Made Up

Q: What did the 16th century dim-witted, edgy corporate spokesperson say to the thoughtful bidder at the French harem-girl auction?

A: Dude, you’re gettin’ Adelle.

A Look Back, and Ahead, at LOST

As I gear up to PVR the upcoming (and late-coming) fourth season of ABC’s LOST, I find myself reflecting on the history of the show and the trouble it’s faced.

LOST began, as so many good shows do these days, as a sort of grass roots geek-culture offering. It made its debut, after all, at Comic-Con 2004, to fan-boys’n'girls, sci-fi/fantasy enthusiasts and furries alike. From that core of excited (and admittedly excitable) people, a fan-base was born. And by the time the pilot aired in September, we turned out in droves to watch brave Jack run around on a beach, his mourning suit flapping heroically in the wind.

We were bombarded with jolt after jolt of action and we barely had time to wonder where the show was headed. Then things quieted down, and we heard a sound from the jungle, and we saw trees being torn down, and we watched Charlie go white as a scag junkie (oh wait, he was a scag junkie), and we said, “Oh, that’s where it’s headed.” And we rejoiced. Because everybody likes a good secret monster. (Don’t believe me? Check the opening weekend box office yield for JJ’s Cloverfield on Monday.)

And then it was off on a 3-year romp of unanswered questions and teases from the evil (yet revered) writers.

But the people became frustrated and unsettled. They began to want answers, and not just answers that begot ten more questions, but real, definitive answers. The enormous hiatus of season three hit the series hard. I heard a lot of people saying things like, “It’s been too long,” and “I just don’t care anymore”.

The series was (at least mostly) rescued when the writers began to pull together the world of the island with the rest of the world. Then promises were made about the future of the show. Three more seasons of 16 episodes each, to run non-stop winter to spring starting in 2008. Now that there is a definite end in sight, two of the lead writers, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, claim that they will finally be able to start giving us some serious answers. Because they know exactly how many episodes they have in which to finish the story, they won’t have to hold back anything anymore. Which should mean no more annoying filler (another element that plagued the show from time to time, though who didn’t like Hurley careening down a mountain in a VW Dharma bus?).

Even though at the time I was frustrated that I’d have to wait eight months for a new episode, they had me convinced that everything forthcoming was going to be great. Great like first season great. I still believe that, but now I’m worried. All this time, an enemy was lurking in the shadows. Dissension in the ranks!

Now that the writers are on strike, it seems ABC only has eight episodes in the bag, and at this point, even if the writers reached a settlement and came back to work very soon, it’s doubtful they could churn out another eight in time for there to be no break, which was the promise.

And if the strike ends in, oh, April, let’s say, will the networks carry their shows into the summer? Network executives have been heard to say that the 07/08 season is a bust. Will they bother with the investment when they already believe they’ve lost?

A show like LOST needs its audience. Especially the gripey fan-boys’n'girls who criticize each and every little flaw. A show like LOST thrives on such and audience. But will the interest of the people have the tenacity to survive another (shorter) season that breaks on another annoying cliff-hanger, and only God knows when it will come back?

I hope so. I really hope so.

Wead … (no, not weed)

Punch: 8

Taste: 9

Drinkability: 9 

Rating:  8.6/10

There is a place up in the Stouffville, ON-ish area called Applewood Farm Winery. It’s the only place in the area I know of that you can get authentic mead, you know, like the vikings drank. The beer store sells something they call mead, but it’s not at all what the history books describe. The stuff at Applewood is.

I usually have a bottle on hand, and the last time I stopped in to pick one up, the gent who runs the place (I think he makes all the wine as well) told me to mix it with whisky. Any brand of whisky will do.

I happened to have a bottle of Jack Daniels at home, so I thought I’d give it a try.

I was a little wary at first, afraid I was wasting good mead and good whisky. I was foolish to have any concern. Mead on its own is sweet, sharp and nectar-like. Whisky is hard, packs a fiery punch and (good stuff) is smooth going down. Together, they create a hard, sweet, almost buttery beverage. One tester described the combination to be “What I thought liquor should taste like before I ever tried it.”

I dubbed the new cocktail “Wead” mostly for the comedic value.

The Holy Mother?

This article on Boing Boing makes me laugh.

A family in New Mexico saw this:

on their wall.

I say, that could just as easily be the Spectre of Death as the Virgin Mary. Time will tell.

I Am Legend

Script: 4

Cinematography: 7

Acting: 7

Special Effects: 8
Rating: 6.5/10

I went in to see this movie with higher expectations than I should have, so I suppose in a sense I deserved the disappointment that my $10 bought me.

I Am Legend is, of course, a remake/adaptation of The Omega Man (1971) and the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. The fact is, so many movies have followed the thread Matheson first wove that by the time this movie was shown, almost every original element has become a tired cliché.

Put simply, I Am Legend is a loose cross between 28 Days Later and Cast Away. And unfortunately, and not at all surprisingly, it fails to measure up to either of them.

It had its moments, to be sure. I laughed – I even cried at one point. Unfortunately, those moments were all too predictable. Along with the decidedly un-modest American-Nationalist propaganda (3 years after Manhattan has been over-run by wilderness and lies in tatters at the hands of wild animals and the even more vicious and barbaric “Darkseekers”, ever star-spangled banner hanging in the streets is whole and still waving proudly in the breeze), the clichés were a touch more than I could stomach. Even in the face of the total destruction of American civilization, Americanness lives on. Even the climax of the film, I am told, was changed from the original to be much more brash and typically “American”.

All that being said, hunting for deer with a high powered rifle and a red Ford Mustang in the empty streets of Manhattan has to count for something. There were some really cool scenes. I recommend skipping the theatre on this one and renting it to watch on your big screen TV.

The Mist

Warning: Spoilers

I suppose I’ll start with The Mist as it’s the most recent film that I’ve watched. If I had one word for this film, it might be “formulaic” – I mean the plot involves monsters from another dimension terrorizing a small American town. I won’t say too much about the ending other than that whoever wrote it couldn’t resist a bad one. Thematically the film is one that fits well with post-911, post-Iraq paranoia – odd given that the novella is the better part of a quarter-century old. Nonetheless, the parallels are irresistible. The monsters in the mist are difficult to spot and there is some question as to whether some of the protagonists somehow brought them into being.

The performance in this film that actually stands out is Marcia Gay Harden as the psychotic church lady – you know the kind, even ardent churchgoers take pains to avoid them. I haven’t been to many movies where the crowd cheers when a villain is killed, but there was a round of applause when her character was offed. If you push the 9/11 parallel (something that I might rather avoid) she stands in for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson trying to establish a causal relationship between terrorism and gays.

That said, no one performance can save this film from its formula and its nearly cartoonish monsters (big spiders! big moths! tentacles!) I rate this film a “meh.”

Beowulf (2007)

Read this review @ Helium.com

Script: 8
Cinematography: 8
Acting: 7
Special Effects: 10
Swing: 7

Rating: 8/10

Truly great stories never die, and when it comes to the English language the story of Beowulf is among the greatest and most enduring stories we have. In fact, Beowulf is arguably an English heritage equivalent to The Odyssey. It is tale of mythic beasts and a legendary hero. And, like the myths of ancient Greece, it has been adapted many times, changed, re-imagined, butchered, and sewn up like new.

The latest cinematic treatment of Beowulf, penned by Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Mirrormask) and Roger Avary (Silent Hill) and directed by Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express, Cast Away), takes no small number of liberties with the age old tale. However, where previous incarnations of Beowulf have attempted to politicize the plot, even make the monster Grendel into a sympathetic poster boy for society’s outcasts, this rendition stays close to the spirit of the original. That spirit, of course, being a really cool story about some really scary monsters and a bad-ass viking who sails in and gives them the proverbial “what for”.

The CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) of Beowulf is, in my opinion, unmatched by any previous film, including the groundbreaking Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Of course, as with The Polar Express, Zemeckis cheated a bit by mapping the faces and bodies of real live actors, but the achievement is still a remarkable one. However, there is still room for improvement. Certain characters’ faces, perhaps because the actors they are based on are so recognizable or because the animators tried too hard to match the face perfectly, slipped into the uncanny valley. When we finally see the face of Grendel’s mother, played by Angelina Jolie, it seems eerily plastic.

If you live within driving distance of a cinema that is showing Beowulf in 3D, make the trip. It’s worth it. The quality of the 3D is the best I’ve seen, and the movie was shot specifically with 3D presentation in mind. If you’re not able to see it in 3D, that might prove to be an annoyance to you. 3D is in its second infancy. It’s the brand new thing all over again, and directors can get away with gimmicky shots like spear-heads pointing out of the screen right between your eyes, and shots from ground level that exist only to show the plane of the ground receding into the distance. I’m not sure how that kind of camera work will translate in a 2D presentation.

The acting, while nothing to shout from the rooftops about, manages to be good enough to compliment a technically amazing film. I have no complaints about any of the performances, but similarly, none stood out as being especially good – not even Sir Anthony Hopkins managed to really impress.

Much ado has been made by concerned citizens about the amount of nudity in this “cartoon” film. First off, it’s not really a cartoon. It a live-action film that was skinned inCGI so as to eliminate the need for complicated makeup and even more complicated stunt shots. Better that the whole thing is CGI than have those embarrassing suspension-of-disbelief-shattering moments where live action switches to CGI while the hero does something humanly impossible. Secondly, there is no real nudity. Oh sure, there are a couple of bum shots, and a lot of Austin Powers style penis-covering, but never are any genitalia on display. Even Jolie’s much ballyhooed “nude scene” is a reasonably tasteful shot of her character’s body covered in a golden filmy substance. Only vague shapes are visible, no pornographic detail.

In fact, besides the story having a no-holds-barred, heroic strong-man plot, there are very important lessons concerning pride and lust, and the shame that is their ultimate reward. In short,Zemeckis’ Beowulf gets back to the core of the hero story: an outsider swooping in to the rescue, and a firm moral underpinning.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Cory Doctorow has recently made a few waves in the blogging and podcasting world by generally being EVERYWHERE. So I decided that in addition to listening to him talk about copyright law and how ridiculous it has become, I would read one of his books. I picked Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom for two reasons. 1) I liked Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and 2) I like Disney World.

Turns out that Cory’s book is very well named. The entire book, apart from the odd flashback, takes place at Disney World, and the similarity of theme to Orwell’s book is admirable. Cory didn’t just rip Orwell off and change the setting, he took the concept of being desperately poor, and then removed money from the equation.

Huh?

Right. That’s what I said. Somewhere around 3/4 in I realized that DOMK is both a tribute to and a send-up of DOPL. In a post-scarcity society, even the utterly wretched will live, but they’ll probably hate it.