After six weeks at the box office, I think enough time has passed that I can safely talk about the ending of "How to Train Your Dragon," the latest Dreamworks Animation film that's been causing so many heart palpitations in its competitors lately. I liked the film an awful lot, but it was a pretty by-the-numbers children's film up until the ending. This isn't to say that "Dragon" wasn't executed flawlessly, or that tremendous effort wasn't put into the production, but the story stuck to a very typical boy-and-his-dog formula, or in this case Viking-and-his-dragon formula. There were all the usual elements we've come to expect from a CGI animated children's film: a underachiever hero who grows in the face of adversity, colorful animal characters that can easily be converted into Happy Meal toys, noisy action sequences, and intergenerational communication issues to add a little tension.
Except that at the end of "How to Train Your Dragon," directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois broke one of the cardinal rules of mainstream children's films. In a very unexpected moment, after the day has been saved and everything seems like we're heading for a typical all-smiles happy ending, it's revealed that our young hero has lost the lower part of one of his legs in the climactic battle, which has to be replaced with a prosthetic. It's subtly built up to throughout the film, with the main dragon character, Toothless, losing a tail fin that leaves him unable to fly early on in the story, and a double-amputee adult Viking also playing a major supporting role. The revelation itself is brief, handled delicately, and adds immeasurably to the film on every level. Suddenly there's added consequence and weight to everything we've seen.
Still, this was a risky decision for the filmmakers. Children in mainstream Western films are usually invincible, especially in the entertainment made specifically for children. Occasionally you'll have a live-action prestige title with a sad ending like Gábor Csupó's 2007 adaptation of "The Bridge to Terabithia," but these are increasingly rare as nervous studio executives become more risk-averse. In Western children's animation, having a main character suffer such a permanent loss is almost unheard of. When I learned that "How to Train Your Dragon" had a bittersweet ending, I was expecting something along the lines of "Old Yeller," where some misfortune would befall the dragon. That's the more traditional ending to the boy-meets-dog scenario, where the loss of a cherished pet becomes a learning experience for the boy, and by proxy the young audience.
Frankly, I wasn't even expecting that much. Dreamworks Animation has always seemed to hold back artistically, content to be the more commercial, more populist competitor to PIXAR. While Disney executives consistently bemoan the lean merchandising potential of such PIXAR classics as "Ratatouille" and "Up," Dreamworks has shamelessly milked all of their film properties with sequels, holiday specials, television spinoffs, and merchandise galore. With the success of "Shrek" back in 2001, they found a successful template to follow, distinguished from other studios' output by the use of lots of contemporary humor and heavy celebrity voice acting presence. The studio had some bumpy years in the beginning, so I understand why they've been reluctant to deviate from what works for them. And there's no shame in putting out blatantly commercial films – all studio films have to be to some extent.
And yet there's always been that underdeveloped potential for better. I don't think Dreamworks should try to be PIXAR, because they've got their own style and verve going on that's a little edgier and a little different. I'd like to see it nurtured and given the chance to grow up a bit beyond the sort of output that Dreamworks has been known for so far. I've been very heartened by their recent breaks from formula, such as the excellent "Kung-Fu Panda," which is being poised as their next big franchise after "Shrek" is retired this year, and now "How to Train Your Dragon." Both were director-driven films, both shied away from pop-culture references, and both had very, very strong visuals. One of my major critiques against the earlier Dreamworks films like "Shark Tale" and "Bee Movie" was that their character designs were often godawful homely looking things. Over the years, they've improved to the point where I don't think I could tell their recent work apart from PIXAR's anymore.
And if they're at the point where their stories are starting to reach the same level, I can't wait to see what Dreamworks Animation will do next.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
We Have Met the Enemy and It is Adorable
As the first weekend of "Iron Man 2" draws to a close and the studios are celebrating the start of the summer blockbuster season, I'd like to consider some of the alternative programming available this week. Specifically, I was struck by the fact that we have two very niche limited releases that have provoked strong reactions from the filmgoers simply because of their central concepts. At first glance, they couldn't be more different. One is a shocking horror film aimed at young men that promises repulsive visuals and a stomach-lurching story. The other is a feel-good documentary aimed at older women that seems determined to charm the audience into submission. The only thing they seem to have in common is that a lot of the action involves crawling. I'm referring to "The Human Centipede" and "Babies," which both opened in various markets on Friday along with "Iron Man 2."
The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that these two movies are really two sides of the same coin. Both play to the audience's most primal instincts, and both have been dismissed as pointless exercises in pandering by those who are not part of each film's intended audience. On the one hand you have "The Human Centipede," which wants only to evoke terror and disgust, and has been taken to task by the usual opponents of the torture-porn genre that this picture shares certain features with. The premise is graphic enough that I won't go into much detail, but involves a mad scientist sewing his poor victims together into unlikely configurations. "Centipede" is selling itself on the extremity of its content, and is unlikely to be sought out by anyone who doesn't know exactly what they're getting into.
Now on the other hand you have "Babies," which follows the lives of four babies from around the world for the first year of their lives. Specifically timed for a Mother's Day release, its marketing has also been under the radar, but surprisingly pervasive. I was alerted to the release of "Babies" by one of my coworkers, a woman who doesn't normally go to many movies but expressed interest in this one. The argument could be made that the French-produced documentary has legitimate ambitions as an educational or informational work, but it's clear that the only reason it got picked up for distribution is because it's subject matter is just so gosh-darned cute. There's nothing in the world that provokes more feelings of giddy joy and elation in a good portion of the female population than babies. For those who are unaffected by their powers, however, the movie has been panned as a bore.
Of course there are female horror fans and plenty of soft-hearted dads out there who would probably enjoy both films, but otherwise you couldn't find two pieces of cinema more diametrically opposite from each other. A recent post on the fanboy film site AICN, which reviewed both films, one after another, provoked a lot of vocal disdain for "Babies" from the comments section, traditionally inhabited by the sort of prurient-minded, shock-loving young male demographic that would be inclined to welcome "The Human Centipede." And no doubt, should anyone bring up the two films in an older female-dominated discussion, you'd probably get the same result inverted. It doesn't bother me so much that we've got such a polarized, segmented audience, or films tailor-made for each group, but I am a little worried at how easily people have dismissed one or the other depending on what side of the coin they're on. Both films say very different things about the human condition, but they both have legitimate points of view.
As for me, I've spent the week's movie money on "Iron Man 2" and don't plant to see either film. But if I had to make a choice, I'd have to go with the cute life-affirming babies end of the continuum. My brother would probably go for the vortex of horrific freakishness end. And I think we're both okay with that.
The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that these two movies are really two sides of the same coin. Both play to the audience's most primal instincts, and both have been dismissed as pointless exercises in pandering by those who are not part of each film's intended audience. On the one hand you have "The Human Centipede," which wants only to evoke terror and disgust, and has been taken to task by the usual opponents of the torture-porn genre that this picture shares certain features with. The premise is graphic enough that I won't go into much detail, but involves a mad scientist sewing his poor victims together into unlikely configurations. "Centipede" is selling itself on the extremity of its content, and is unlikely to be sought out by anyone who doesn't know exactly what they're getting into.
Now on the other hand you have "Babies," which follows the lives of four babies from around the world for the first year of their lives. Specifically timed for a Mother's Day release, its marketing has also been under the radar, but surprisingly pervasive. I was alerted to the release of "Babies" by one of my coworkers, a woman who doesn't normally go to many movies but expressed interest in this one. The argument could be made that the French-produced documentary has legitimate ambitions as an educational or informational work, but it's clear that the only reason it got picked up for distribution is because it's subject matter is just so gosh-darned cute. There's nothing in the world that provokes more feelings of giddy joy and elation in a good portion of the female population than babies. For those who are unaffected by their powers, however, the movie has been panned as a bore.
Of course there are female horror fans and plenty of soft-hearted dads out there who would probably enjoy both films, but otherwise you couldn't find two pieces of cinema more diametrically opposite from each other. A recent post on the fanboy film site AICN, which reviewed both films, one after another, provoked a lot of vocal disdain for "Babies" from the comments section, traditionally inhabited by the sort of prurient-minded, shock-loving young male demographic that would be inclined to welcome "The Human Centipede." And no doubt, should anyone bring up the two films in an older female-dominated discussion, you'd probably get the same result inverted. It doesn't bother me so much that we've got such a polarized, segmented audience, or films tailor-made for each group, but I am a little worried at how easily people have dismissed one or the other depending on what side of the coin they're on. Both films say very different things about the human condition, but they both have legitimate points of view.
As for me, I've spent the week's movie money on "Iron Man 2" and don't plant to see either film. But if I had to make a choice, I'd have to go with the cute life-affirming babies end of the continuum. My brother would probably go for the vortex of horrific freakishness end. And I think we're both okay with that.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Obligatory "Iron Man 2" Review
Let's get the easy part out of the way first. Yes, "Iron Man 2" is not as good as "Iron Man." No, it's not as bad as "Spider-man 3." The movie's passable, but passable isn't really what you want from a superhero film.
First, there was plenty that worked – everything involving the characters of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his best friend Cpl. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrance Howard), and the great badass Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), was excellent. The good guys got plenty of development, lots of good scenes, and made it through the film unsullied but not unchanged either. I really enjoyed Pepper and Rhodey being forced to assume new roles in order to deal with Tony's new wave of self-destructiveness. We could have had a perfectly good movie with just the three of them. Nick Fury's role was a bit of a deus ex machina for my taste, but I like Samuel L. Jackson's performance so much, I don't mind.
As for Tony Stark, the major antagonizing force in the film isn't any of the obvious villains – it's Tony Stark. The arc reactor that replaced his heart and saved his life is also slowly poisoning him. The pressure of dealing with his failing health plus the sudden fame of being Iron Man bring on the stress, resulting in a lot of foolhardy decision-making as Tony tries to sort out his legacy. He appoints Pepper CEO if his company, which ends up distancing and alienating her, thumbs his nose at the government despite Rhodey's attempts to play mediator, and does a very bad job of controlling his worst impulses in the face of mortality. I think director Jon Favreau bungled a few things – we never really get to the core of Tony Stark's fears, and a relationship that proves very important to the plot is barely established before it sudden becomes vital – but for the most part that side of the story works.
Now the real misstep of the film is the villains, namely Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer, played by Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell respectively. (Though she never lacks presence, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow turned out to be a fairly minor character.) I liked Vanko, a brilliant Russian scientist and convict who holds a massive grudge against Tony Stark, and is established early on to be a potentially major threat. The problem is that all of this menace pretty much disappears once he teams up with the film's other villain, Justin Hammer, a second-rate weapons manufacturer who wants to be Tony Stark, but lacks the scientific brilliance to compete. Now I've liked Sam Rockwell in previous roles, particularly his wonderful turn in "Moon" last summer, but Hammer is a weaselly weakling who borders on comedic, and a little of him goes a long way. So it's utterly painful to get scene after scene of Hammer plotting and skulking, setting up a climax that is ultimately very hollow.
Because the major antagonist in "Iron Man 2" is Tony, everyone else is treated as a distraction. Hammer never rises to the level of real villainy, and Vanko's vengeance becomes strangely de-personalized. In the second half of the movie, neither of them share major scenes with Tony Stark or Iron Man that actually advance their characters. Compare this to the wonderful betrayal in the original "Iron Man" where Obadiah Stane ripped Tony's arc reactor out of his chest, leaving him to die. Now that made things personal. In the sequel, Vanko and Hammer get a scene apiece with Tony early on, but neither of them get under his skin in the same way. We're left with big, climactic fight scenes that feel perfunctory and there's a serious lack of resolution for the survivors.
In the end what the movie was missing was a lot of fine-tuning. Though the effects were immaculately constructed and you could tell that everyone involved was giving it their best, the production felt very rushed. There were rumors of reshoots and tonal changes being hammered out before the film's release, and at least one major scene that was featured in most of the advertisements didn't make it into the final cut – Pepper and Tony's banter before Tony's entrance at the Expo. The script did a lot of things right, but if Jon Favreau and the rest could have pushed "Iron Man 2" back another year and taken the time to tackle those story problems, it would have made a world of difference. It's frustrating because you have the pieces of a very good film here, but so much is half-formed and incomplete.
Warnings for a minor spoiler ahead – skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to avoid it. One little detail that struck me immediately, was the modified version of the arc reactor that appears late in the film, shaped like a triangle. The Iron Man suit then also changes to incorporate a triangular light in the center of the torso instead of the original circular one. It was an awful design decision, because though the change did distinguish the new suit, it also undercut the iconic look of the character. A triangle is a hard-angled, unwieldy shape reminiscent of older technology, whereas the circle is more organic, visually appealing, and evokes the streamlined look of modern products. If they had to update the arc reactor, there are so many other things they could have done, like adding a concentric circle or a starburst pattern to enhance the original design. The triangle just looks hasty and not well thought out.
And finally, as I feared, too much time was spent setting up the "Avengers" movie. We had the after-credits cameo, the evasive talk from Nick Fury, and a lot of shameless references. It's amazing how much of the goodwill from "Iron Man" is being used to set up this project – I really hope it's worth the effort, and I hope it's finished before we get around to "Iron Man 3." If I have to watch Tony Stark's "Demon in a Bottle" descent into alcoholism intercut with Nick Fury attempting to get him to go out and recruit Captain America, I'm calling shenanigans, Sam Jackson or no.
First, there was plenty that worked – everything involving the characters of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his best friend Cpl. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrance Howard), and the great badass Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), was excellent. The good guys got plenty of development, lots of good scenes, and made it through the film unsullied but not unchanged either. I really enjoyed Pepper and Rhodey being forced to assume new roles in order to deal with Tony's new wave of self-destructiveness. We could have had a perfectly good movie with just the three of them. Nick Fury's role was a bit of a deus ex machina for my taste, but I like Samuel L. Jackson's performance so much, I don't mind.
As for Tony Stark, the major antagonizing force in the film isn't any of the obvious villains – it's Tony Stark. The arc reactor that replaced his heart and saved his life is also slowly poisoning him. The pressure of dealing with his failing health plus the sudden fame of being Iron Man bring on the stress, resulting in a lot of foolhardy decision-making as Tony tries to sort out his legacy. He appoints Pepper CEO if his company, which ends up distancing and alienating her, thumbs his nose at the government despite Rhodey's attempts to play mediator, and does a very bad job of controlling his worst impulses in the face of mortality. I think director Jon Favreau bungled a few things – we never really get to the core of Tony Stark's fears, and a relationship that proves very important to the plot is barely established before it sudden becomes vital – but for the most part that side of the story works.
Now the real misstep of the film is the villains, namely Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer, played by Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell respectively. (Though she never lacks presence, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow turned out to be a fairly minor character.) I liked Vanko, a brilliant Russian scientist and convict who holds a massive grudge against Tony Stark, and is established early on to be a potentially major threat. The problem is that all of this menace pretty much disappears once he teams up with the film's other villain, Justin Hammer, a second-rate weapons manufacturer who wants to be Tony Stark, but lacks the scientific brilliance to compete. Now I've liked Sam Rockwell in previous roles, particularly his wonderful turn in "Moon" last summer, but Hammer is a weaselly weakling who borders on comedic, and a little of him goes a long way. So it's utterly painful to get scene after scene of Hammer plotting and skulking, setting up a climax that is ultimately very hollow.
Because the major antagonist in "Iron Man 2" is Tony, everyone else is treated as a distraction. Hammer never rises to the level of real villainy, and Vanko's vengeance becomes strangely de-personalized. In the second half of the movie, neither of them share major scenes with Tony Stark or Iron Man that actually advance their characters. Compare this to the wonderful betrayal in the original "Iron Man" where Obadiah Stane ripped Tony's arc reactor out of his chest, leaving him to die. Now that made things personal. In the sequel, Vanko and Hammer get a scene apiece with Tony early on, but neither of them get under his skin in the same way. We're left with big, climactic fight scenes that feel perfunctory and there's a serious lack of resolution for the survivors.
In the end what the movie was missing was a lot of fine-tuning. Though the effects were immaculately constructed and you could tell that everyone involved was giving it their best, the production felt very rushed. There were rumors of reshoots and tonal changes being hammered out before the film's release, and at least one major scene that was featured in most of the advertisements didn't make it into the final cut – Pepper and Tony's banter before Tony's entrance at the Expo. The script did a lot of things right, but if Jon Favreau and the rest could have pushed "Iron Man 2" back another year and taken the time to tackle those story problems, it would have made a world of difference. It's frustrating because you have the pieces of a very good film here, but so much is half-formed and incomplete.
Warnings for a minor spoiler ahead – skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to avoid it. One little detail that struck me immediately, was the modified version of the arc reactor that appears late in the film, shaped like a triangle. The Iron Man suit then also changes to incorporate a triangular light in the center of the torso instead of the original circular one. It was an awful design decision, because though the change did distinguish the new suit, it also undercut the iconic look of the character. A triangle is a hard-angled, unwieldy shape reminiscent of older technology, whereas the circle is more organic, visually appealing, and evokes the streamlined look of modern products. If they had to update the arc reactor, there are so many other things they could have done, like adding a concentric circle or a starburst pattern to enhance the original design. The triangle just looks hasty and not well thought out.
And finally, as I feared, too much time was spent setting up the "Avengers" movie. We had the after-credits cameo, the evasive talk from Nick Fury, and a lot of shameless references. It's amazing how much of the goodwill from "Iron Man" is being used to set up this project – I really hope it's worth the effort, and I hope it's finished before we get around to "Iron Man 3." If I have to watch Tony Stark's "Demon in a Bottle" descent into alcoholism intercut with Nick Fury attempting to get him to go out and recruit Captain America, I'm calling shenanigans, Sam Jackson or no.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Blessed are the Geek; For They Shall Inherit the Earth
A half-hour CBS sitcom about the travails of a cute twenty-something blonde who befriends a group of socially awkward geeks and gets romantically involved with one of them, is a premise tailor-made for today's detail-driven, tech-savvy world. Which is probably why it bombed so spectacularly back in 1995 when the show was called "Dweebs" and starred Farrah Forke as the cute blonde and Peter Scolari as the lead geek, with the likes of Corey Feldman and Stephen Tobolowsky filling out the cast. And it was my unpleasant memories of that show, and other similar media portrayals of the geek experience, that kept me away from CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" for the first two seasons, only to become a rabid fan in the third.
But back to "Dweebs." Back in '95 I actually sought out the sitcom because of its premise, catching the premier and a couple of subsequent episodes in the hope that I was going to see a show about people who were a little more like me, AP student and science-fiction fangirl with a special disdain for the mall. No such luck. The "dweebs" were the employees of a tech start-up who were moving out of their previous headquarters in someone's garage, and into an office environment. All hobbled by serious social impairments, they were horrible caricatures who often resembled sanitarium extras from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" more than supposedly brilliant computer programmers. It was no wonder that pack of spazzing schlumpers had to rely on a newly hired secretary to help them confront the real world for the first time. Only six episodes of "Dweebs" were aired before it was mercifully put out of its misery. Good riddance.
As much as I bemoan the rise of the fanboy age of media, I like the fact that geek heroes are being embraced in Hollywood now. I get a kick out of seeing action movies headlined by the likes of Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg, and crime dramas where Matthew Gray Gubler and David Krumholtz are chasing serial killers. We even had a few girl geek heroines, like Wendy from the short-lived "The Middleman," and of course the irrepressible "Ugly Betty." And is there anyone out there who isn't giddy with "Glee"? More importantly, the days of all geeks being portrayed as bespectacled, bow-tie wearing, unpleasant freaks are well behind us. Yes, we still get geeks with improbable characteristics like "The Big Bang Theory's" Rajesh being unable to speak in the presence of an attractive woman without the aid of alcohol, but these are handled more thoughtfully than they were in the past. The audience is invited to sympathize, rather than gape.
Looking at "The Big Bang Theory" specifically, the four geeks are all of above-average intelligence and socially awkward, but have very different personalities that help them register as genuine people rather than obvious comic relief tropes. Sure, their topics of conversation might revolve around comic book superheroes and quantum physics, but they maintain the same group dynamics of any set of close-knit friends. Moreover, it helps that they're young, affable, appealing, and easily relatable. The social handicaps are subtler, and not immediately obvious. Only Leonard wears glasses and he's the one that gets the girl. And on the other side of the equation, the sitcom world that the "Big Bang" guys inhabit has also changed from the days of "Dweebs." Geeky interests like computers and superheroes have gone mainstream, so it's no longer assumed that the audience will be unable to decipher conversations about them. And there are none of the formerly common sitcom constructs that required stereotypical geeks to face off against bully and jock characters. Here, Shedon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj generate plenty of conflict by themselves, and we deal with them on their own terms.
I think what I love most about the show is that it takes the time to get the details right. I remember an episode of "Will & Grace" where Dave Foley was guest-starring as a purported "Lord of the Rings" super-fan. Much was made of the fact that this character was an obsessive, but within two lines of dialogue, he incorrectly identified Lady Eowyn as "the king's daughter" when any non-fan who paid attention during a viewing of the movie trilogy would know that she was King Theoden's niece. Little things like that always get to me because being a geek is all about the little things. "The Big Bang Theory" gets the technobabble wrong on occasion, but at least it's paying attention. Loads of geeky pop-culture and scientific details are not only included in each episode, but often become integral to the plots. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to have entire episodes devoted to solving math problems and fights over movie paraphernalia - and now it's par for the course. One of the consulting scientists for the show even blogs about each episode's scientific content here.
From what I've gathered from online articles about the show, "The Big Bang Theory" didn't start out with quite such an enlightened attitude toward geeks. The first season had more stereotypes, the characters had some kinks to work out, and there was more time spent poking fun at the guys' nerdy quirks. I take comfort in the fact that there's not much evidence of this attitude three years on, and the show has been steadily gaining viewers over the course of its run. Considering the amount of geek-friendly cameos, Easter-egg in-jokes, and sly intellectual references that have cropped up in this season, it's clear that the creators are now not only taking the geek audience into consideration, but are actively courting us. Perhaps the best indicator of the show's success have been the murmurs that other networks have been looking into developing their own geek-centric projects.
The proliferation of the geeks continues. To which I say, Bazinga!
But back to "Dweebs." Back in '95 I actually sought out the sitcom because of its premise, catching the premier and a couple of subsequent episodes in the hope that I was going to see a show about people who were a little more like me, AP student and science-fiction fangirl with a special disdain for the mall. No such luck. The "dweebs" were the employees of a tech start-up who were moving out of their previous headquarters in someone's garage, and into an office environment. All hobbled by serious social impairments, they were horrible caricatures who often resembled sanitarium extras from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" more than supposedly brilliant computer programmers. It was no wonder that pack of spazzing schlumpers had to rely on a newly hired secretary to help them confront the real world for the first time. Only six episodes of "Dweebs" were aired before it was mercifully put out of its misery. Good riddance.
As much as I bemoan the rise of the fanboy age of media, I like the fact that geek heroes are being embraced in Hollywood now. I get a kick out of seeing action movies headlined by the likes of Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg, and crime dramas where Matthew Gray Gubler and David Krumholtz are chasing serial killers. We even had a few girl geek heroines, like Wendy from the short-lived "The Middleman," and of course the irrepressible "Ugly Betty." And is there anyone out there who isn't giddy with "Glee"? More importantly, the days of all geeks being portrayed as bespectacled, bow-tie wearing, unpleasant freaks are well behind us. Yes, we still get geeks with improbable characteristics like "The Big Bang Theory's" Rajesh being unable to speak in the presence of an attractive woman without the aid of alcohol, but these are handled more thoughtfully than they were in the past. The audience is invited to sympathize, rather than gape.
Looking at "The Big Bang Theory" specifically, the four geeks are all of above-average intelligence and socially awkward, but have very different personalities that help them register as genuine people rather than obvious comic relief tropes. Sure, their topics of conversation might revolve around comic book superheroes and quantum physics, but they maintain the same group dynamics of any set of close-knit friends. Moreover, it helps that they're young, affable, appealing, and easily relatable. The social handicaps are subtler, and not immediately obvious. Only Leonard wears glasses and he's the one that gets the girl. And on the other side of the equation, the sitcom world that the "Big Bang" guys inhabit has also changed from the days of "Dweebs." Geeky interests like computers and superheroes have gone mainstream, so it's no longer assumed that the audience will be unable to decipher conversations about them. And there are none of the formerly common sitcom constructs that required stereotypical geeks to face off against bully and jock characters. Here, Shedon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj generate plenty of conflict by themselves, and we deal with them on their own terms.
I think what I love most about the show is that it takes the time to get the details right. I remember an episode of "Will & Grace" where Dave Foley was guest-starring as a purported "Lord of the Rings" super-fan. Much was made of the fact that this character was an obsessive, but within two lines of dialogue, he incorrectly identified Lady Eowyn as "the king's daughter" when any non-fan who paid attention during a viewing of the movie trilogy would know that she was King Theoden's niece. Little things like that always get to me because being a geek is all about the little things. "The Big Bang Theory" gets the technobabble wrong on occasion, but at least it's paying attention. Loads of geeky pop-culture and scientific details are not only included in each episode, but often become integral to the plots. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to have entire episodes devoted to solving math problems and fights over movie paraphernalia - and now it's par for the course. One of the consulting scientists for the show even blogs about each episode's scientific content here.
From what I've gathered from online articles about the show, "The Big Bang Theory" didn't start out with quite such an enlightened attitude toward geeks. The first season had more stereotypes, the characters had some kinks to work out, and there was more time spent poking fun at the guys' nerdy quirks. I take comfort in the fact that there's not much evidence of this attitude three years on, and the show has been steadily gaining viewers over the course of its run. Considering the amount of geek-friendly cameos, Easter-egg in-jokes, and sly intellectual references that have cropped up in this season, it's clear that the creators are now not only taking the geek audience into consideration, but are actively courting us. Perhaps the best indicator of the show's success have been the murmurs that other networks have been looking into developing their own geek-centric projects.
The proliferation of the geeks continues. To which I say, Bazinga!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A Decade in the Blink of a Digital Eye (of Sauron)
I'm a little late, but I wanted to mark the occasion.
Ten years ago, on April 27, 2000, the first preview trailer for "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was released online and promptly broke all download records for the time. It was only a quick peek, a minute forty-four consisting mostly of behind-the-scenes footage of practical and CGI effects being created, makeup, concept art, models, and quick interview clips from director Peter Jackson and our newly minted Frodo, Elijah Wood. There were only a few finished shots, almost all from the Weathertop scenes from "The Fellowship of the Rings," but there's no way to convey how amazing they were to see. After months of speculation, it was our first look at the cast in costume, the first proof that the long-anticipated project was actually going to happen. That one quick preview set out the scope of Peter Jackson's ambitions - at the end of it, the titles of the three films of the trilogy were flashed on screen, one after another, along with their projected release dates.
I think of that moment as the beginning of the modern age of mainstream blockbusters, the point at which the Internet truly became a marketing tool for the movie studios and online fandom took off. There were earlier cases like "The Blair Witch Project" in 1999, where online marketing campaigns helped to spur interest in smaller films that had otherwise limited avenues for promotion, but never anything on the level of "Lord of the Rings." For the first time we were getting extensive set reports from sites like AintitCool News, and even whole websites devoted to covering the film's ongoing production like TheOneRing.net, all months and years in advance of the films' theatrical releases. The technology had caught up to the point where it was feasible to consume a lot of information in an online setting, though only up to a point - a medium-sized two-minute trailer in the pre-broadband era could easily take an hour to stream.
From a cultural standpoint, the idea of faithfully, respectfully adapting such hopelessly geeky source material was still a novel one. This was back when the fanboy film milieu was still in the nascent stages of its ascendancy. To put it into cinematic historical context, this was before the first "Harry Potter" film, before the first "Spider-man" or "X-Men," before the Wachowski brothers broke our hearts with the "Matrix" sequels and "Star Wars" fanboys were still holding out hope that "Attack of the Clones" could salvage the prequels. At the time, the idea of New Line Cinema putting up money for a largely unknown New Zealand director to mount a fantasy film trilogy with no major stars was viewed as a risky, potentially disastrous proposition. The conventional wisdom was that fantasy didn't sell, and one only has to look at the typically campy fantasy projects of the era like "Dungeons and Dragons" and "Kull the Conqueror" to understand why. I'd love to say that "The Lord of the Rings" changed all that, but it didn't. The stigma still persists to this day - though now at least we know what's possible.
And personally, "The Lord of the Rings" was my first online film fandom, as I'm sure it was for many others, and the first time I really got consumed by the online hype. I remember that first internet preview in particular, not only because of its impact, but also because it became almost completely inaccessible in later years. The original website stopped streaming content correctly after a few Quicktime player upgrades, and the preview never showed up in any of the DVD sets. I suspect this was because of the neat little trick of the aspect ratio changing from full-screen to wide-screen midway through, which was probably too much for the DVD technology of the time to handle. Or equally likely, the creative types simply forgot about it or thought it was too dated to bother with. I had a copy of a converted file saved on my hard drive for a while, but lost it in a crash. It was only after periodically sifting through Youtube that I stumbled across a working version again a few months ago.
Watching it now, there's no question that this was a very, very preliminary preview where the direction of the marketing strategy hadn't quite been worked out yet. This was the only promo to use the lines of the One Ring inscription - the "One Ring to Rule Them All" bit Gandalf recites for Frodo. It also featured a CGI-heavy visual scheme that incorporated the forging of the One Ring and a stylized Eye of Sauron, never seen again in later promotional materials. A year after the preview's release, New Line's more broadly-aimed marketing of "The Fellowship of the Rings" shied away from such geeky touches, preferring a more horror-tinged approach that downplayed the fantasy elements. You can even spot glimpses of special effects that were later abandoned for other methods, including the giant legs that were supposed to stand in for regular-sized humans when the smaller-scale hobbits were onscreen. Yet the promise was there, in every shot. It wasn't the effects that caught me, but the style and approach to the material that was already evident from those few seconds of finished footage.
And it still makes me excited to watch the movies after all this time.
Ten years ago, on April 27, 2000, the first preview trailer for "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was released online and promptly broke all download records for the time. It was only a quick peek, a minute forty-four consisting mostly of behind-the-scenes footage of practical and CGI effects being created, makeup, concept art, models, and quick interview clips from director Peter Jackson and our newly minted Frodo, Elijah Wood. There were only a few finished shots, almost all from the Weathertop scenes from "The Fellowship of the Rings," but there's no way to convey how amazing they were to see. After months of speculation, it was our first look at the cast in costume, the first proof that the long-anticipated project was actually going to happen. That one quick preview set out the scope of Peter Jackson's ambitions - at the end of it, the titles of the three films of the trilogy were flashed on screen, one after another, along with their projected release dates.
I think of that moment as the beginning of the modern age of mainstream blockbusters, the point at which the Internet truly became a marketing tool for the movie studios and online fandom took off. There were earlier cases like "The Blair Witch Project" in 1999, where online marketing campaigns helped to spur interest in smaller films that had otherwise limited avenues for promotion, but never anything on the level of "Lord of the Rings." For the first time we were getting extensive set reports from sites like AintitCool News, and even whole websites devoted to covering the film's ongoing production like TheOneRing.net, all months and years in advance of the films' theatrical releases. The technology had caught up to the point where it was feasible to consume a lot of information in an online setting, though only up to a point - a medium-sized two-minute trailer in the pre-broadband era could easily take an hour to stream.
From a cultural standpoint, the idea of faithfully, respectfully adapting such hopelessly geeky source material was still a novel one. This was back when the fanboy film milieu was still in the nascent stages of its ascendancy. To put it into cinematic historical context, this was before the first "Harry Potter" film, before the first "Spider-man" or "X-Men," before the Wachowski brothers broke our hearts with the "Matrix" sequels and "Star Wars" fanboys were still holding out hope that "Attack of the Clones" could salvage the prequels. At the time, the idea of New Line Cinema putting up money for a largely unknown New Zealand director to mount a fantasy film trilogy with no major stars was viewed as a risky, potentially disastrous proposition. The conventional wisdom was that fantasy didn't sell, and one only has to look at the typically campy fantasy projects of the era like "Dungeons and Dragons" and "Kull the Conqueror" to understand why. I'd love to say that "The Lord of the Rings" changed all that, but it didn't. The stigma still persists to this day - though now at least we know what's possible.
And personally, "The Lord of the Rings" was my first online film fandom, as I'm sure it was for many others, and the first time I really got consumed by the online hype. I remember that first internet preview in particular, not only because of its impact, but also because it became almost completely inaccessible in later years. The original website stopped streaming content correctly after a few Quicktime player upgrades, and the preview never showed up in any of the DVD sets. I suspect this was because of the neat little trick of the aspect ratio changing from full-screen to wide-screen midway through, which was probably too much for the DVD technology of the time to handle. Or equally likely, the creative types simply forgot about it or thought it was too dated to bother with. I had a copy of a converted file saved on my hard drive for a while, but lost it in a crash. It was only after periodically sifting through Youtube that I stumbled across a working version again a few months ago.
Watching it now, there's no question that this was a very, very preliminary preview where the direction of the marketing strategy hadn't quite been worked out yet. This was the only promo to use the lines of the One Ring inscription - the "One Ring to Rule Them All" bit Gandalf recites for Frodo. It also featured a CGI-heavy visual scheme that incorporated the forging of the One Ring and a stylized Eye of Sauron, never seen again in later promotional materials. A year after the preview's release, New Line's more broadly-aimed marketing of "The Fellowship of the Rings" shied away from such geeky touches, preferring a more horror-tinged approach that downplayed the fantasy elements. You can even spot glimpses of special effects that were later abandoned for other methods, including the giant legs that were supposed to stand in for regular-sized humans when the smaller-scale hobbits were onscreen. Yet the promise was there, in every shot. It wasn't the effects that caught me, but the style and approach to the material that was already evident from those few seconds of finished footage.
And it still makes me excited to watch the movies after all this time.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Feliz Cinco de Mayo from Robert Rodriguez
You've got to love Robert Rodriguez. Today, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, a sort of de facto Mexican pride day in the U.S. that's pretty much used as an excuse to drink margaritas, he debuted the new red-band trailer for his upcoming action film "Machete" with a special holiday message for the state of Arizona. The hero, a Mexican-American badass who shares the same name as his favorite weapon, has learned about the new immigration law and he's not happy. Cue over-the-top violence, choice profanity, and machismo by the metric ton, as we're treated to a glimpse of the coming retaliation. The message couldn't be clearer, but Rodriguez lays it out for us anyway: "We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!"
Before we go any further, I fully appreciate that the immigration issue is difficult and complicated, and both sides have valid concerns. The implications of the new law's effects are no laughing matter, and I understand why some audience members might be sensitive to the portrayals of the various players in "Machete." But at the same time, who could resist such a shameless exploitation movie where a man of dubious immigration status has been pushed to the edge, and is ready to unleash his machete-wielding fury upon those who have wronged him, including a couple of casually racist anti-immigration extremists? I imagine anyone who's had to endure dirty looks and extra scrutiny at a border checkpoint or airport screening should get a lot of catharsis out of this one. And it puts me a rare state of glee to see Rodriguez, really our only major Latino filmmaker, tackle the issue head-on with all the subtlety of, well, a machete.
The film has actually been finished for a while, and wasn't picked up for distribution by FOX until January, when Rodriguez also clinched a production deal with them. It's purely lucky timing that the controversy over the Arizona immigration law should have erupted now. The first "Machete" trailer, you may remember, was the fake one that played with the "Grindhouse" double-feature that Rodriguez did with Quentin Tarantino a few years back. Thus, we may consider "Machete" a semi-sequel of sorts, with the same gritty B-movie sensibility and taste for wild extremes. The cast includes Danny Trejo as Machete, Cheech Marin as a shotgun-wielding Catholic priest, Steven Seagal as a sneering drug lord, Robert DeNiro as a political fat cat, Don Johnson and Jessica Alba as immigration agents, and Lindsay Lohan in a nun's habit.
I have no doubt that this movie will clean up at the box office and spark plenty of controversy in the process. One should keep in mind that Latinos are by far the most underrepresented ethnic group in the American media. According to the statistics on Latino Review, a Latino-run film website, despite having 12% of the United States population (and growing rapidly), Latinos make up only 2% of all the characters that appear in films and on television. Yet they also disproportionately account for 15% of theater admissions. I think Hollywood could use a little reminder of this more often.
The new Arizona law is due to go into effect in August. "Machete" sees general release in September.
Before we go any further, I fully appreciate that the immigration issue is difficult and complicated, and both sides have valid concerns. The implications of the new law's effects are no laughing matter, and I understand why some audience members might be sensitive to the portrayals of the various players in "Machete." But at the same time, who could resist such a shameless exploitation movie where a man of dubious immigration status has been pushed to the edge, and is ready to unleash his machete-wielding fury upon those who have wronged him, including a couple of casually racist anti-immigration extremists? I imagine anyone who's had to endure dirty looks and extra scrutiny at a border checkpoint or airport screening should get a lot of catharsis out of this one. And it puts me a rare state of glee to see Rodriguez, really our only major Latino filmmaker, tackle the issue head-on with all the subtlety of, well, a machete.
The film has actually been finished for a while, and wasn't picked up for distribution by FOX until January, when Rodriguez also clinched a production deal with them. It's purely lucky timing that the controversy over the Arizona immigration law should have erupted now. The first "Machete" trailer, you may remember, was the fake one that played with the "Grindhouse" double-feature that Rodriguez did with Quentin Tarantino a few years back. Thus, we may consider "Machete" a semi-sequel of sorts, with the same gritty B-movie sensibility and taste for wild extremes. The cast includes Danny Trejo as Machete, Cheech Marin as a shotgun-wielding Catholic priest, Steven Seagal as a sneering drug lord, Robert DeNiro as a political fat cat, Don Johnson and Jessica Alba as immigration agents, and Lindsay Lohan in a nun's habit.
I have no doubt that this movie will clean up at the box office and spark plenty of controversy in the process. One should keep in mind that Latinos are by far the most underrepresented ethnic group in the American media. According to the statistics on Latino Review, a Latino-run film website, despite having 12% of the United States population (and growing rapidly), Latinos make up only 2% of all the characters that appear in films and on television. Yet they also disproportionately account for 15% of theater admissions. I think Hollywood could use a little reminder of this more often.
The new Arizona law is due to go into effect in August. "Machete" sees general release in September.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
"Nine" is no "8 & ½"
"Nine" is being released on DVD today, the film adaptation of the musical "Nine," that was in turn based on Federico Fellini's monumental "8 & ½." It was one of the films that I was most looking forward to at the beginning of last year - and I think it's clear why. The assembled cast reads like a dream: double Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead as film director Guido Contini, surrounded by acclaimed actresses Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Dame Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard, and Kate Hudson. Add director Rob Marshall, who turned "Chicago" into a big-screen smash, and a script co-written by the late Anthony Minghella, and it looked like a surefire bet. Sadly, the actual result is a mediocre film at best.
From the start, "Nine" struggles under the shadow of "8 & ½." It wants to be an homage to the great age of Italian cinema, going so far as to declare its intentions through song in the upbeat "Cinema Italiano" number. But aside from recreating some of the most famous shots from the Fellini original, Marshall doesn't ever quite capture the essence of his subject matter. There are shots of beautiful Italian vistas, period fashions, and lots of heavy accents of varying credibility, but it all feels rather empty and unenlivened. The plot is taken directly from the original film, wherein the famed director is suffering an acute case of director's block on the eve of his newest film's production. At the same time his relationships with all the women in his life, including his wife, mistress, muse, confidante, and a charming American reporter, are getting increasingly complicated and threatening to collide. Guido seeks to escape, both physically, to a seaside spa, and mentally, into flights of fantasy.
Rob Marshall takes the same approach to "Nine" as he did with "Chicago," staging most of the song numbers as fantastical musical sequences that reflect the characters' inner emotional reality, intercut with the traditional linear narrative. This allows for elaborate fantasy settings like bawdy Parisian cabarets and smoky nightclubs, as well as black-and-white sequences for Guido's memories. The trouble is, the connecting scenes between the numbers are weak, pretty much just shuttling us from one beautiful set piece to the next. Daniel Day-Lewis does his best, but our evasive hero is never given enough substance to really ground Guido Contini as a sympathetic figure. And since he's the central character of the film around which the others revolve, the entire story often feels adrift. Most of the women around him are fleeting presences, hardly around long enough to connect with Guido, much less the audience.
Still, there are elements of the film that work. I've never seen the stage musical of "Nine," but the songs are decent enough to make me temporarily forget Nino Rota's "8 & ½" score, with a few standout numbers that linger pleasantly in the ear. Likewise, the performances vary from adequate to exceptional, with Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, and The Black-Eyed Peas' singer Fergie - in her first major screen role - coming off the best. It's always a little dicey when untrained singers are cast in a film musical, as Joel Schumacher's dubious "Phantom of the Opera" proved, but most of the cast acquit themselves decently. If nothing else, Marshall ensures that everything looks fabulous, with the lavish sets, ornate costumes, and dazzling cinematography. As awards season Oscar bait, they certainly spared no expense.
Ultimately, I think it's difficult to consider the film separately from its progenitors, because it feels so derivative. "Nine" purposefully evokes Italian neorealism and Fellini, but doesn't seem to take anything from them except the most superficial details. I was surprised that the fantasy sequences were so limited - the most memorable ones from "8 & ½," that allowed all of Guido's female influences to meet and interact, were completely missing. Considering the cast of "Nine," that's a huge opportunity lost. "Nine" does give us a lot - a lot of big actors, a lot of frenetic pageantry, and a a lot of unfettered emotions. At times it's fun to watch and I even got a bit of a thrill from Fergie's number.
But it not "8 & ½" or even "Chicago." At best it's a well-meaning effort to combine the two. At worst, it's just not a very good one.
From the start, "Nine" struggles under the shadow of "8 & ½." It wants to be an homage to the great age of Italian cinema, going so far as to declare its intentions through song in the upbeat "Cinema Italiano" number. But aside from recreating some of the most famous shots from the Fellini original, Marshall doesn't ever quite capture the essence of his subject matter. There are shots of beautiful Italian vistas, period fashions, and lots of heavy accents of varying credibility, but it all feels rather empty and unenlivened. The plot is taken directly from the original film, wherein the famed director is suffering an acute case of director's block on the eve of his newest film's production. At the same time his relationships with all the women in his life, including his wife, mistress, muse, confidante, and a charming American reporter, are getting increasingly complicated and threatening to collide. Guido seeks to escape, both physically, to a seaside spa, and mentally, into flights of fantasy.
Rob Marshall takes the same approach to "Nine" as he did with "Chicago," staging most of the song numbers as fantastical musical sequences that reflect the characters' inner emotional reality, intercut with the traditional linear narrative. This allows for elaborate fantasy settings like bawdy Parisian cabarets and smoky nightclubs, as well as black-and-white sequences for Guido's memories. The trouble is, the connecting scenes between the numbers are weak, pretty much just shuttling us from one beautiful set piece to the next. Daniel Day-Lewis does his best, but our evasive hero is never given enough substance to really ground Guido Contini as a sympathetic figure. And since he's the central character of the film around which the others revolve, the entire story often feels adrift. Most of the women around him are fleeting presences, hardly around long enough to connect with Guido, much less the audience.
Still, there are elements of the film that work. I've never seen the stage musical of "Nine," but the songs are decent enough to make me temporarily forget Nino Rota's "8 & ½" score, with a few standout numbers that linger pleasantly in the ear. Likewise, the performances vary from adequate to exceptional, with Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, and The Black-Eyed Peas' singer Fergie - in her first major screen role - coming off the best. It's always a little dicey when untrained singers are cast in a film musical, as Joel Schumacher's dubious "Phantom of the Opera" proved, but most of the cast acquit themselves decently. If nothing else, Marshall ensures that everything looks fabulous, with the lavish sets, ornate costumes, and dazzling cinematography. As awards season Oscar bait, they certainly spared no expense.
Ultimately, I think it's difficult to consider the film separately from its progenitors, because it feels so derivative. "Nine" purposefully evokes Italian neorealism and Fellini, but doesn't seem to take anything from them except the most superficial details. I was surprised that the fantasy sequences were so limited - the most memorable ones from "8 & ½," that allowed all of Guido's female influences to meet and interact, were completely missing. Considering the cast of "Nine," that's a huge opportunity lost. "Nine" does give us a lot - a lot of big actors, a lot of frenetic pageantry, and a a lot of unfettered emotions. At times it's fun to watch and I even got a bit of a thrill from Fergie's number.
But it not "8 & ½" or even "Chicago." At best it's a well-meaning effort to combine the two. At worst, it's just not a very good one.
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