You may recall that my analysis of Transformers involved me denouncing it as one of the most “heterosexual” movies that I have ever borne witness to. That was a movie about giant robot/vehicle hybrids. Knocked Up is a film about a one night stand that results in pregnancy, yet I failed to have any of the issues that I did with Transformers. I think that the level of cynicism and obnoxiousness present in a Michael Bay film, and films of his ilk – me being a fellow who cannot watch a film for eye candy (and seriously, who thinks that Shia LeBeouf is attractive?) – is the issue, because clearly I make no objection to heterosexuality in cinema, elseways I’d be screwed.
Fortunately, Knocked Up is brilliant. In the Apatow tradition of The 40 Year Old Virgin, we have been presented with that rarest of Hollywood beasts: a comedy that is funny. To add to that glee, it harkens back to the grand old days when being funny still left you open to emotions. What happened to the days of ciphers who got laughs solely through meanness and venom, with the occasional half-hearted tug at your heartstrings? Why is it that the less money you spend on a movie, the less artificial it seems? Most importantly, how can anyone explain or reconcile Paul Rudd’s obvious love of Everybody Loves Raymond?
Something that has bothered me about The Simpsons is that it has not been very good for years, but critics never really noticed. I suppose that maybe they think that completely nonsensical stories with jokes that don’t make sense and characters that have gradually become watered down caricatures of themselves are better than most of the other stuff on the TV. I don’t know; I don’t watch a lot of TV, or at least not as much as they do. That said, the fact that something is comparatively better than something else doesn’t necessarily make it good.
It was with great trepidation that I stepped into The Simpsons Movie. I knew that I had to see it, and so I did. I went in, giving it the dubious honour of being my first date movie, and was pleasantly surprised to find that, while lame, it is not the worst movie ever unleashed upon the history of humanity (coincidentally, I’ve seen the person since, so it’s safe to say that this movie won’t ruin your chances if you see it).
However, I’m not convinced anyone can justify having made this movie. This is not because, as Homer says, “you’re all suckers, paying to see something you could see on TV for free”, it’s because pointless spectacle that doesn’t even look very good, and fleeting reference to “beloved” characters do not a good movie make. To their credit, with only five guest stars (three of whom are band members, and therefore count as one), the fifteen writers practically restrained themselves.
Ah, trailers. Last night, I had the delight of seeing Knocked Up for a second time (and more of that later, because it was much better this time around). As it was when I saw it at Campbelltown, they kicked off with the more “sensitive” I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry trailer, which I very conveniently had to take a phone call during. (On the note of that cinematic gem, wowing box offices the US over, the movie is a unifying influence: hated by homosexuals and militant religious groups alike – perhaps it’s not so bad after all!)
The rest of the trailers were all new to me, though; it’s either the use of separate prints at separate cinemas or, quite likely, a second wind more than a month into the movie’s run (the same thing happened at Borat, which I saw three times at George Street).
So the first of the new ones is a big dose of what the eff for me.
Brett Ratner is now big enough for his name to appear above a film’s title? IMDB is listing for next year Untitled Brett Ratner Project? I won’t go so far as to say that he’s a vanity plate on the level of Michael Bay, but come on! Looking over his CV, he hasn’t done a lot, and some of his films have been innocuous, but when they weren’t, dear lord they weren’t.
First I’ll go with Jackie Chan, who I’ve got little to say except for this: Shanghai Knights ranks among the worst films I’ve ever seen. Owen Wilson was lucky that he had his work with Wes Anderson to fall back on, or I would punch him so hard in the face that his nose would finally fix itself and he would lose his cinematic trademark. You’re good value, Owen Wilson; don’t bring yourself down to this sort of level again. Despite the lack of Ratner activity, the Shanghai franchise was another Jackie Chan “buddy movie” – so I could bring it up here.
I don’t have much else to say about this trailer, besides the fact that it features an action sequence that looks pretty much directly lifted from the first Rush Hour and it features a lot of hilarious “The French and Americans hate each other!” jokes – Chris Rock thought it was because he’s black, but nooooo! Take that, humourous expectation! What really draws one’s attention is this:
You’re Asian! Stop humiliating yourself!
What the hell is that supposed to mean? This is a movie that has a fairly amusing “Who’s on first?” with Chinese names, but then … seriously, what the hell, Chris Rock? I’m essentially apoplectic with confusion. Are Asian people the new minstrels of Hollywood or something? They’re teaming them up with gays (please note: Asian people can be gay, too, which would make for a movie so funny the world would create a black hole from which no laughter could escape) across the land. We are truly in a new and golden age of cinema.
On the other hand, I saw the trailer for Die Hard 4.0 (strangely not going by its American title, Live Free or Die Hard), and if that’s not going to be the best movie ever, I don’t know what is. I mean, I’d heard that a car gets driven into a helicopter, but … seeing it in action!
My relationship with dumb action movies is patchy at best. Most of the time I couldn’t be bothered, but something about a movie of this calibre just gets my blood pumping. I’ve only seen the first Die Hard, starring Severus Snape and Carl Winslow, but I don’t think I need a lot of briefing for this movie. I think that one can pretty much just go and watch any Bruce Willis action movie and know what sort of things they can expect.
Also on offer was The Bourne Ultimatum, which had a trailer that was actually compelling, unlike the teaser that I saw at Breach (coincidentally, that was a great movie with powerhouse performances – vindicating my undying love for Laura Linney). I’m not going to share that here, but it’s still interesting to note that a trailer can either make a movie more appealing or a total turn off.
PS. When I saw The Simpsons Movie (and more on that later, although I’m tempted instead to submit a long, drawn out yawn), I was confronted with a trailer for Ratatouille. Sure, we’re way behind here, but it looks awesome.
Note: I left this one stewing for too long, and some answers are provided at the end. But hey, it’s all a little different to me now considering I came out last weekend. Still, I’m now leaning more towards my “bankrupt” rather than plain “ambiguous” conclusion.
The moment that the trailer for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry came on before I saw Knocked Up, I swore under my breath. Having seen the trailer at Ocean’s Thirteen, I was prepared again for the worst. I was struck by a different trailer, this time, one that didn’t make it seem as if it was the end of days. It’s amazing how the way something is cut can change a tone from exploitative to something semi-emotional.
I never really put the idea of “John Waters” and “Children’s Movies” together, so I was surprised when I saw Hairspray trailers twice in the last week, both of them at movies with younger audiences in mind: first at Bridge to Terabithia (which, coincidentally, was marvellous), and then at Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).
I knew that Hairspray was coming soon, and I knew that John Travolta played the lead’s mother, and I knew that it looked mighty happy, but I had no idea that it would be marketed to children. I suppose this makes sense, because of the whole “Teen Dream” notion of the story. It even has Zac Efron of High School Musical fame in it (on that note, I don’t care how gay you are, High School Musical is in no way qualified to be anyone’s favourite musical).
Something about this trailer does it for me, despite even the typical voice over. I don’t know, I just love a good musical and I like that they’re allowed to be made again:
Just so long as Travolta doesn’t do some of the other things that Divine was known for (oh, Pink Flamingos, I look forward to dying without having seen you), this should be sweet.
Slighty separately, not quite for children, and also starring Michelle Pfeiffer, is Stardust:
I’m not as well read in the works of Neil Gaiman as I probably should be, but this looks both awesome and yet another “fantasy world from beyond the real world” story. What’s this, though? Flying ships?
Why, that’s enough to segue into The Golden Compass, the first in the apparently super blasphemous His Dark Materials series!
Dirigibles! Eff yeah! What I like most about this trailer is the same thing I liked most about Chronicles of Narnia: the total failure to anthropomorphise any of the animals. Fantasy worlds that make the fantastic out of the normal without going all silly are great.
So fantasy is “in” in a big way. My friend Casper said that all of this fantasy is well and good, but he wants to see more SF. It’s a hard sell, because fantasy is more naturalistic and it lends itself very well to the screen. Nobody likes the vacuum of space, but everyone loves flying ships and waterfalls! If I knew how to read, I know that I would be cracking out His Dark Materials and getting them done in time for Christmas. Now that I’ve started going to the movies again after what seems like a drought, I’m getting enthusiastic again. The rest of the year might be good indeed!
Oh, speaking of childrens’ movies: screw Bratz. If you go see that, even ironically, all hope is lost for you. OMG!
If you come to accept the Harry Potter movies less as coherent stories and more as “certain scenes of people you like doing exciting things somewhat similar to what you have read”, then they become much more enjoyable.
This is the case in point with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which boasts the dual honours of being the longest of the Potter books and the shortest of the Potter movies. As such, it’s really a case of the movie not so much lurching as sprinting from one piece of the plot to the next with absolutely no down time. It’s not exactly a collection of set pieces but it makes an effective use of montage and so forth to keep things moving.
Does it make any sense to someone who has not read the books? I have no idea. Some of it doesn’t make much sense regardless, but it’s all pretty swank to look at. This is streamlined, dramatic Potter with little waste. It misses the stuff that makes the books so special, such as Rowling’s expert structuring of drama around a school year, which actually feels as if school work is happening, but as a best bits compilation it’s admirable enough.
Bonus Corner: I noticed, as I often do, that Dudley asked of Harry “Who’s Cedric? Your boyfriend?” It’s hard to be disappointed in such things considering the context of the character saying them being totally vile. But it made me think how cool it would be if Harry were gay. I mean, the romance in the books between Harry and whomever couldn’t be written any more awkwardly than they already are. I’m not talking slash here, people. I’m talking heart-felt exploration of totally unmarketable feelings.
Also, I’m really looking forward to Harry Pottier in You Know Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Now, since I saw Transformers last week, I’ve been thinking that I should have taken my kid gloves off and roughed it up for all of the crap that it subjected me to, and providing the information that Autobots like to watch. However, I also thought about something else, right from the moment it happened in the movie. On Air Force One, there is a president represented only by his feet up in bed, asking politely in a (presumably) Texan drawl for some Ding Dongs.
It made me wonder: there’s going to be a new President of the United States next year. How is he (or even she) going be represented in films? I’m not talking about a hero president like Bill Pullman, a romantic president like Michael Douglas, a fisticuffular president like Harrison Ford, or a fantasy president like Martin Sheen. I’m talking about a not very subtle cipher president, representing whoever is in office, like the lothario, imperialist bully Billy Bob Thornton played in Love Actually:
I would also be talking about Dennis Quaid in American Dreamz (coincidentally also starring Hugh Grant) but seriously, screw that movie.
I can imagine that the new president might take some sorting; there could be a few problems, like the one that I’ve imagined here, playing on conservative fears about a certain potential president’s “dangerous” name, at a test screening for a movie that otherwise has precisely nothing to do with politics, flying or the state of the nation:
INTERIOR: Air Force One, Cockpit. Pilots JACKSON and CRUISE are attending to the controls.
SFX: Knock at door.
JACKSON: Enter.
President SADDAM BIN BLACKMAN enters the cockpit.
CRUISE: Mister President! What can we do for you, sir?
BLACKMAN: Hi boys, where are we going?
JACKSON: We’re enroute to Boston, Mister President.
BLACKMAN: You think we can take a detour into the Empire State Building?
At this point, the audience boos. “Too soon!” says one. “NEVER FORGET!” shouts another. The rabble rises, and they look as if they’re about to start a full fledged riot. The director, seeing the situation, runs out in front of the screen and extends his arms. He quells the audience with a mere two words:
“… The Aristocrats!”
Okay, that example is just silly, but I am curious to see what analogous presidents we’ll be gifted with over the next few years. Will any of them be as ripe for parody as George W. Bush turned out to be?
“Bahaha … Transformers … beheheh … More Than Meets the Eye … BWAHAHA”
Straight from your childhood, it’s Adventures in Product Placementâ„¢, starring Shia LaBeouf! Now, we all know that Transformers is more my brother’s vintage than my own, but robots is robots. By the time that I realised Transformers had hit a cinema near me, I was almost excited to be seeing such a mystical beast, flown to me on the wings of other people’s nostalgia. This morning, I read a friend’s report: that it was the best movie ever (in terms of “pure distilled awesome”).
I’m not of this opinion, myself: it’s hard not to laugh at a movie that opens with “Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Present … in association with HASBRO”. Contrary to my beliefs that it would be a terrible film, it turned out to be not terrible. It falls mainly in my “not exactly worth it” pile, and in a dead zone where I’m not entirely certain of its demographic: children of the internets, liable to pick the movie apart? Children of today?
I think that the answer may lie in the later scenes of the movie: Transformers is made for people who want to see Jon Voight fighting robots with a shotgun. If you want to see that you’re in for a wild ride, mister.
I bought The Queen on DVD yesterday. It was an easy choice, in that the DVD was cheap and the film is, for all intents and purposes, fantastic. My Grandmother has frequently lamented that she had missed her chance to see it at the movies, and so I was going to share the love.
I looked at the back of the case when I got home, and saw that the DVD boasts no subtitles. What is wrong with some films that we can’t get freaking subtitles on them? It seems that this problem falls largely on the side of British films. Gosford Park, for instance, held no subtitles and, despite being an Altman project, was at least honorarily British.
I can lend this movie to my Grandparents but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to fully appreciate it simply because they might not catch everything – although, given that the cast speak the Queen’s English, it would be less difficult than several other films.
I will not lie to you, though, my motives are not entirely altruistic. In my house, we watch everything with subtitles. The moment we got a TV with teletext, I turned those suckers on. My parents complained at first, but then they realised that the subtitles were useful and so they stayed. If I’m watching a DVD with my parents, then I’ll turn on the subs. A lot of the time, I’ll watch stuff by myself with subtitles. It helps me focus, and they’re just something that you’ll always expect to be there.
It angers me, therefore, when I do not see them on a DVD. Especially on something as high profile as The Queen. You won an Academy Award for Best Actress, damnit! You aren’t going to win any awards for subtitling, The Queen, and you could have had them in the bag!
In the new world order, DVDs without subtitles will be punished. The Queen will be first against the wall.
I don’t care much for Transformers, myself, and have only vague memories of an incursion into a Autobot melting plant that survives from my youth. I was more of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, always.
That said, this fellow is awesome:
Optimash Prime
Artoo-Potatoo is also pretty cool, and this is infinitely better than the fairly lame “Spider-Spud” that they’ve also got going on. “Peter Parker Potato”? Please! Only if it can brush its hair over its eyes and punch its red headed potato blackmailed ex-girlfriend in one of the most embarrassing scenes ever committed to celluloid!
I’m going to see Transformers for masochism value (and out of curiosity to see if Optimus Prime dies – everyone wants him to), and I almost bought this toy today. Key word is almost: I decided that I couldn’t really justify spending $25 on a novelty potato. The fact that such pointless artistry exists in this world warms my heart.
